New Jersey Devilman Sprint Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

Water was, to say the least, bracing. Thank goodness for wetsuits. But the physiological reactions were there in force: elevated HR, constricted breathing apparatus, and water cold enough that sticking my face in it was psychologically very difficult. Made exhaling underwater difficult too. And then there were the involuntary but audible gasps whenever I rolled to breathe. I heard a lot of those out there, along with a lot of burping and belching (a result of gasping for breath) so I assume many experienced similar struggles in the water.

I would not describe this as a good swim simply because the temperature made it difficult to focus and stick to it. So I was absolutely flabbergasted when I got out of the water, looked down at the Garmin, and saw 18-something minutes. Couldn't believe it, and still have trouble with it. My natural reaction is that the course length was measured short, just as I wonder if last year's was measured long. My method consisted generally of swimming 9-12 strokes slowly, getting what breath I could, then coming up to see where I was and dog-paddling or breast stroking for a bit, before getting back to it. On the backside the sun was low over the lake's horizon, so we were all swimming directly into its shimmering reflection on the water; bet I was halfway down that side before I actually saw the buoy. I must've done a heckuva job for those portions when I was actually swimming to finish as quickly as I did. I didn't spend much time kicking on my side or backstroking, though (no backstroking at all), so maybe I did better than I give myself credit for. But not six minutes worth (how much I improved over last year's swim).

Spend more time actually swimming. But the temperature probably precluded that. I needed some of those rest breaks to get my breathing under control.

Surprised at this transition; I'd anticipated it'd be at least a minute slower given the time it took to get off the wetsuit. Didn't feel like I was moving very efficiently.

Practice with the dog-gone wetsuit!

Nice tailwind on the outbound leg, which I didn't realize until I made the turnaround. On the way out, I probably averaged 21-23mph once I got out of Cedarville. On the way back that dropped to 16-18 and it got uncomfortable fast; I couldn't wait to get off the bike...my ass was screaming at me. Wasn't near as hard as last year, though, when winds seemed to be coming from every direction and made it difficult to stay upright on the bike.

Easy answer would be to push harder, but I'm not sure that wouldn't have made it worse on the run. My plan was to push at 170-190 watts for the race, based on what training has told me my max is. But on the outbound leg, since I was averaging over 20mph at just 150, I didn't make an effort to push harder than that. On the return, because of the wind, maintaining that same effort was more difficult, and I think pushing even harder would've had negative effects later. Normalized power for the ride was only 158 (that's over the power meter's reading of 21.38 miles), so it seems like I could've pushed harder. But, in the end, I don't know that I'd have done anything different.

I would've thought this was faster since I already had my shoes off and ran in barefoot. But I did kind of walk out of transition.

Move a little faster is all.

Despite all my efforts, and knowing I wasn't pushing too hard on the bike, I still began the run with some discomfort in my gut; I felt it creep up on me at the end of bike leg. Reached its peak at about halfway through the run but, fortunately, didn't get much worse. Nowhere near as bad as last year; I was able to keep up a slow pace with only a couple of relatively short walk breaks. But I lost a lot of time as a result. Finished decently. Thanks go out to to the guy (another Clyde) who caught up with me in Cedarville after I decided to walk for another bit, and urged me to keep running, offered to take it in together. I wasn't able to stick with him, he probably finished a couple hundred yards in front of me, but I was able to keep it going and pick it up a little at the end.

I guess it's a mark of my progress that completing a four mile run after a 20-some odd mile bike ride at a pace slightly above 11 minutes is now deemed a "bad run". I'm only calling it that because I expected better after the way I've run recently, certainly no more than 42 minutes in this case. But the gastric discomfort got to me yet again - not real bad but lurking in the gut like an omen of ill tidings - and slowed me down the last half of the run. So figuring out how that issue germinates and working to fix it would make a big difference.

Came across the finish with nothing left, had to just stand there with me hands on my knees. Good to finish that way, I guess, with the tank empty.


More training at higher power levels on the bike for longer periods. Isolating and fixing fueling/gastric issues to make the run better. All in all, though, it's hard to complain when I took 18 minutes off my time (although I suspect that's due to better conditions than last year).


Piranha definitely has this process down to a science. The TV screens they had up rotating the results pages and updating them real time were very cool. Lots easier than trying to crowd around printouts taped to a wall.