Mountain Man Triathlon - Half Iron Course - Triathlon

My best swim, All the work in the pool for the last 8 weeks worked. I got a new PR, and improved the time by 2 minutes over last year. I was 7th out of the water, but several minutes behind the faster swimmers with one super swimmer out in 25 minutes.

I put my swim time at gun start to the point of exiting water. Time was 31:38 officialy but includes a 100m distance to timing mat at top of boat ramp.

Nothing

It took a few extra seconds to get the wetsuit off of my ankles, and getting my helment on, The helmet is tight around the ears, so it doesn't go on too easily.

I would have to practice things to get more efficient and shave off about 15 seconds or more.

If I can't be the fastest swimmer or runner, I'm going to try to be the fastest biker.

My data has the course at 56.61 miles with 2300ft of gain. My moving time was 2hr 24min 50sec.... fastest bike split.

I had super hard difficulties dealing with my new S-works triathlon shoes... the shoes were clipped in but I just couldn't get my feet into them. I almost fell over a couple of times, and this allowed 2 other guy from T1 to get the leap frog on me right from the shoot. It seemed a little bit tougher this year than last year. The course was the same, but maybe the slightly cooler temps and wind was greater but a small amount.

Once I got on the bike, I had my work cut out for me to chase down everyone. This ended up being harder than I thought, I got 3 bikers out of the way in the first 12 miles, but the rest took time... I finally got on the last cyclist at about mile 50. It was the super fast swimmer, so I passed and stayed up there but backed down on the effort coming in as to give some respite to my body. I came and stopped at the dismount line and right there about 10 seconds later was the other athlete.

My FTP at the 1700ft above sea level (my home) is about 335-340 watts on my TT bike, and about 30 watts more on my road bike.

NOTE: I would be expected to lose about 7.5% in oxygen and thus affect the performance overall. An power meter website shows that an non-acclimatized athlete would lose about 45-50 watts from the FTP. This race was held in Flagstaff and avg. elevation was 7300ft. This would convert to about a 2hr 14 minute time over the 56.61 miles at my normal elevations, or at Tempe Town Lake area. This would be a new PR by 5 minutes.

Data from power meter adjusted to 7300ft elevation:

Avg watts: 244
NP: 261
IF: .87 (this was the highest, not proud of it, too high, but got the job done)
VI: 1.09

In comparison to previous years:

2012 - avg. 199w - 22mph
2013 - avg. 211w - 22.2mph
2014 - avg. 244w - 23.3mph

Not much, maybe tone it down a notch. I think for the first time, I could say that my effort affected my run, but by how much would be the question?

After the ride, it always takes a while for my back to recover, so I'm not the fastest through T2, nor the fastest off the bike.

It's not a failure, but giving up 30 seconds is a lot with intense competition.

I felt pretty good off the bat, dialed in around 8min/mi, which is exactly what I wanted. I did the hill at a moderate pace so as to not blow out the lungs and legs. It slowed me down to a 8:30 avg.... then was pretty solid got my pace down to about 8:10 over the next 5 miles, but after about mile 7-8 is where the euphoria left and it was a evil grind.... further exacerbated by false flat uphills and into the wind for the last 4-5 miles.

I was in 2nd place overall after T2, since the other AG guy got the edge on me out of T2. In the first mile, a youngin passed me on his way to a 1:31 run...I used an AG athlete ahead of me as my pacing rabbit.... I kept him about 30 meters ahead the whole way. At mile 7, right when I was beginning to slow and grind, as well as the guy ahead of me... another Masters AG looked strong and was gain some ground... I started to pick up the pace and of course put myself one more step in the grave, to stay ahead and at the same time close the gap on the guy ahead of me... We were all slowing down, but it was a race for whom could slow down the least. In the end... I ended up with the win and a 4th place overall by about 1 minute

NOTE: everyone got 13.6 miles for the run, so normalized it was a 1:47:53 run... about 3-4 minutes slower than what I would have liked.

Elevation adjusted, this was about a 4hr 26-27minute race, a new PR

This win, I had to work. Congrats to the rest of the field, it was a tighter field than last year.

2 x Masters 40 and over Overall Champion

Limping, talking, some snacks


I just really suck at running and can't figure out how to get faster. I get faster in swimming and biking, but running just is going nowhere.

I would also say that I need to look into nutrition: I did this race on 30oz of performance drink total... about 20oz on the bike and another 10oz on the run at the aid stations, maybe a total estimated calories of 250... I got me to the end, but perhaps a little more during the bike, could have staved off crashing at miles 7-8.


A fun, little race that is very well organized. Unfortunately, the owner announced that this may be the last year for all of his races in the SW US, about 8 per year. He has been running them for over 30 years. The Mountain Man at Flagstaff celebrated its 30th anniversay.