Lake in the Hills Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

Warm day to start. 65 when I got up and went up from there. Water was listed at 82. I went for the wetsuit because I'd been training in one, and it's just a sprint. I won't overheat in that.

Watched the first few waves go off. Wondered how to get into wave 1, which was the elite AG. Don't remember seeing anything about that. Think it's new this year. Picked an inside line and planned to start just off the front. Trotted/walked it in until even with those who dove in early. Then I dove and just started swimming. I pulled in front of the main pack pretty quickly (though by no means am I a FOP swimmer). Will have to remember this in the future. Go for the run in the local stuff, I'm good enough to break ahead there.

Kept swimming at a solid pace around the first buoy. Some guy came up at the turn and was about the same speed. He began to pull ahead, so I slipped in behind him. Was able to draft off him for a couple hundred meters, most of the back stretch, actually. He pulled away eventually, I couldn't hang on. Still way better than I've ever done before.

Reached the end after the last turn, got up and ran to transition.

Age group 2nd in the swim? Come on guys, have to better than that!

Besides the run-out, not much. Not a big deal either.

After looking at results, wonder how consistent the course is from year to year. Top swim is the same guy, but he's a full minute faster than last year. He's also exceptionally good, so is unlikely to vary his pace so much.

Had thought of using the sleeveless wetsuit since the run-up is very short and I've had trouble with the full-sleeve. Decided on full because it's been coming off more easily. No issues here. Came right off. Changed to bike stuff and took off.

Got on the bike and took off. I planned to hit this about very hard, as I needed to remember how to do that. Trying to go just under falling over or stumbling when I got off. Actually ended up short of that. Power and cadence were working this time, but HR was still way off. At least I had something.

Powered out of the first few hills and just flew. Power was ~350 for the first few minutes. Wasn't sure if I could hold that the entire time and ended up trying to keep it in the 330-350 range. Kept cadence up a few rpm higher as this is a shorter event. Power tends to come better that way.

Amazingly, I was able to get around people very easily in spite of starting in one of the later waves (5/8). I don't remember being held up hardly at all. Zipped by lots of people who had no idea someone was coming, giving as much space as I could. Power slightly up on the uphills and did what felt right to build speed on the downhills. Also worked on powering through the wind while staying long and low. I think of staying "long" more to keep myself stretched out. By doing that, I have to get low and small from the front view. Then I don't bunch up my midsection, constricting my breathing.

Flew up the far part of the L, and saw the turn-around was different from the map. They actually had a short loop going into a subdivision. No big deal, and it worked out nice as I could keep my speed up better. Had to work a bit more coming back into the wind. Listed at 10 mph or so, so not too bad. Just enough to notice it. Didn't notice any cross-wind effect on the base of the L either out or back. Kept power away all the way up to transition. Made sure to push on the downhills here as they carried well up into the uphills. So many people kept coasting on them.

Seemed to startle some people and volunteers who didn't realize a bike was coming, or that some people do know how to handle a bike. I don't coast in, but keep moving fast up until I have to brake to stop. Got off the bike and ran to transition.

Power values per Garmin Connect
5 sec: 521 watts
1 min: 386 watts
5 min: 351 watts
20 min: 330 watts
Average: 327 watts
Normalized: 332 watts
VI: 1.015

Happy with how steady I kept things, especially with the up and down terrain. Also happy with the power output. Have not tried to sustain this much power with the lowered position for anywhere near this long before. And it's good to see that my estimate of how far under I was for Galena was right on. And in this one it felt like I could have finished off an hour at that effort level.

Not really anything.

Fastest split on this course I could find over the past few years of the race too.

Got in, changed to run stuff, went out. Took it easy, but efficiently.

Time was a little faster than expected. Seems to be a timing error run split was 40 sec higher than watch. And how the heck can some people get through in under 10 seconds? I can't run straight through the transition in that time.

Felt sluggish from the start. Really need to work on the transition runs. Pace was way off where I wanted. Got to the hill half a mile in and things weren't much better. Just ran up it, but didn't have to back off pace much. The downhill after helped some, but still well behind. Just kept going until I got to the end. I was in the middle of a huge gap. At least several hundred yards in front and behind me had no one there.

In looking at the data after, it seems that pace did pick up as I went from 7:14 down to 6:21 somewhat evenly considering terrain, but I wanted to beat that 6:21 for everything. That last mile was still short of threshold pace and effort. Though it is good to see that things opened up quite a bit throughout the race.

Another "problem" is that I'm just not used to pushing as hard as needed for a sprint. HR did start to work on the run, but I was only at 170 or so. I should be 180+ for a sprint. Even though I'm more HIM focused, I should be able to push up there for a sprint. With more practice to reacquire the run off the bike, this should get much faster pretty quick. I feel pretty good today, far better than I should if I had been running as hard as RPE was telling me. So have to readjust how I feel again for tri-running.

Work on transition runs. Work on being able to push on the run.

Run time is 40 sec higher than watch time, and I know I hit them right after the mat. T2 times across the board are very fast, some aren't realistic.

Just hung around trying to catch up to as many people as I could. One guy I knew ended up proposing a few minutes after he finished (she said yes). Of course I had no idea, so was facing the wrong way at the time.


Nice race that would be fun to do again if it fits in the schedule.