Topeka Tinman Triathlon - Short Course - Triathlon

Lined up on the left and went at a moderated hard effort from the whistle. Got separation from the pack pretty quickly and saw Trevor coming in from the right side. As we were approaching the first turn bouy I was about shoulder to hip with Trevor so decided to drop back before the turn and draft rather than try and go through two wide. This worked well, i could feel the draft and had to be careful to not get up into his feet, after the turn I got back on his tail but drifted off into some breast strokers from the heat ahead. With everybody wearing the same silver swim cap it was impossible to tell the difference at a glance between heats and who might be slower vs way slower vs stationary. Anyway, after navigating around a couple slower swimmers while trying to disrupt them as little as possible I sighted up ahead a couple times to try and find my fish and he was about 10 yards up already, not much chance of catching him anymore. Continued swimming well, kept my form up well even as the fatigue and breathlessness caught up to me. Took a very strong kick to the face shortly after the last turn bouy from another breast stroker and then got out of the water at 6:09 on my watch, 27s behind Trevor but 4 seconds ahead of an "evenly" paced race.

Only negative in this swim was getting kick alot, single color swim caps were a big part of it as you couldn't just avoid certain colors. At the KC Tri I was 1 minute behind 2 particular swimmers, at the Tinman only 30s behind them, big improvement mostly due to swimming hard instead of comfortably.

13 OA/ 4 AG. A long run from the lake and around transition, kept the pace moderate and prepped mentally for the switch to biking. Lost 17s relative to an evenly paced race.

Nothing much, I guess just hurry more putting on helmet and unracking bike.

The first and last mile or two is difficult to keep power and speed up with traffic, turns, and hills. I was aiming for a 260W average, got out of the park at about 255W and slowly crept it up to 262W, lost a few Watts in the park heading back to transition in, finish at 257W, close enough.

I think it was a well executed bike, mixed up my cadence a bit, high RPM to let the leg muscles relax until my HR and breathing are limiters then lower cadence until the legs start burning enough that I worry about the run. Gained back 2s on Trevor and was 25s ahead of an even pace. Definitely executed the plan to hammer the bike. Note the measured distance was 13.3 miles vs 13 miles in race results so average speed was nearly 23.5 mph vs 22.9 mph, I'm good with that given where I'm at today. I know my bike work has been slacking so there is room to improve.

4 OA / 2 AG.

Went with no socks for the run, I could probably use some powder or something to get the shoes on faster but overall still a good transition, probably 20s faster than wearing socks. Lost 3s back to Trevor but was even with an evenly paced race.

Nothing.

Got to work and settled into a good pace, identified Trevor, who I expected to be the race leader (unless there were some unknown youngsters tearing it up out of sight) about 20-30s ahead along with a couple other guys. I felt real good until about a half mile in when I got a side stitch, I was closing the gap to the guys up ahead but that thing hurt so bad I had to slow down a bit. Started seeing the leaders from the first waves about the 1 mile mark and by the turnaround I was pretty sure the old guys were going to take this race. I also noticed that the guys ahead of me were now increasing the gap, a little over 30s but I felt like crap, actually walked about 3 steps around the turnaround cone while I continued trying to get the side stitch to relive. Finally either felt better or managed to ignore it for the last mile and pickup up the pace significantly for the last half mile, closed the gap down to 10s.

Splits were:
mile 1: 6:31
mile 2: 6:46
mile 3: 6:19

Very frustrating to not be able to take care of business on the run when they are so close, but also somewhat expected as the reason they were so close was due to hammering on the bike and swim.

Gained 16s on the run in the standings but lost 23s relative to an evenly paced race. I think this reflects an influx of young running talent who haven't yet developed their bike speed.

The frickin' side stitch is still with me 4 days later as a cramp under my ribcage.

I'm going to call this run good as the plan was to hang on through the run and that's what happened.

BS'd then hit the lake to cool off and change followed by more BSing. Ate some warm pizza, walked around looking for some mountain dew or similar, nothing to be found. Grabbed my sweet beer stein and headed home.


Side stitch, about 1 week before the race my calves were pretty cramped up due to a couple workouts that pounded on them pretty good, I was worried they would be cramp prone but that wasn't an issue.


This race was missing some vibe, it has been better in the past and hopefully will be in the future.