Sado Astroman - A Type - Triathlon

I can go the distance - that is clear. I now need to focus on building my swim strength back up.

not much with my current swim fitness and confidence level. I may have been able to pull a little harder the whole way through, but I stuck with what felt comfortable so that I could put the effort in on the bike and run.

In the past I have taken the bottom half of the wetsuit off on the beach after coming out of the water. I have to go back to that - it works. This time I wore it all the way back to the bike and I struggled just a little getting it off past my feet. The right leg did get hung up on the timing chip. I did dry my feet a little, add some sun screen to my face and then headed out. My time can be faster, but 3:57 is probably about the best I have done in T1 at Sado.

see comments above about the wetsuit bottom. I also struggled a little with the top which got hung up on my garmin, but no time impact.

Plan: Try to average 150 watts, but with an average heart rate of 114-115. Allow the HR to go up on the climbs - there is no way around it. Try to drink 1.5 liters in each of the first two hours and then at least a liter per hour after that. Eat 1/3 youkan per hour to top off required calories.

Actual: I ended up averaging 129 watts and my average heart rate for the whole ride was 112. My HR was in the 120-130 range for the first half hour, but came down after that. My focus was on keeping current power at about 150. I think last year, I got hung up on keeping my average power at 150 and that caused me spend a lot of time at power levels 160-165. I am sure a lot of the variance is coming from all the small (and large) hills.

I did my best to stick to the hydration plan, but it is tough to keep track of once you get to a certain point. Aquarius gets old after a while.

I was a little disappointed to see the average power at 129 watts, but my power graphs show that I spent more time in the 145-155 watt range (graph attached for my future reference). In retrospect, I think I was riding close to the right power. If I had pushed it harder, I would have suffered more on the run. It is a tough balance.

I ended up making two bathroom stops. I lost a minute for the first one (good), but 6.5 for the second - waiting.

All in all, I still did quite well on the bike. I came out of the water in 829th place. My bike time, which included T1 and T2 times plus the bathroom breaks, was still 283 overall. That moved me up to 387 overall.



Tough call as I said earlier - perhaps I could have ridden a little harder in a few places on the course, but I think I would have paid the price on the run. In the long term, I need to spend more time on the bike and get increase my FTP if I want to go faster.

I purposely took my time through T2 which included another bathroom break. I walked the bike in and I walked out again. The bathroom break is at least half of the time. This can be shorter.

Nothing - this felt right.

Plan: Use Heart Rate as my primary monitor with a 119-121 bpm target and try not to run any faster than 6:10 per km. Alternate between Aquarius and Coke at the aid stations. Walk through all aid stations - 30-45 seconds ideally, but more if it feels right.

Actual: This worked well. I ended up with total walking time of about 10.5 minutes. I kept pushing myself to hit the heart rate target. Without focusing on that, I would have gradually drifted back to a slower pace. The pace still drops off as the race progresses it would drop off even more.

Drinking was tough. I just felt kind of full, but I still took a cup at each aid station. I am sure that I should have been drinking a little more because I needed no bathroom stops the whole run. I did keep checking to make sure that I was still sweating and had no problems with overheating.

With about 4 km left to go in the race, my left calf cramped. I ended up walking some in order to get through that and one of my kilometers ended up being 9 minutes long. I was able to resume running again after what must have been a 3 minute walk only period. I took it a little easier at first and then picked up the pace again for the last km of the race.

I was at 387 overall after the swim/bike. My run time was 370th overall. That, combined with my bike, put me at 346 overall for the race.

Try to drink more. To make the run faster, I need to up my running time. I did quite well considering my run mileage. I still think that if my weekly run totals can reach 60-70km peak, I can run 4-4:15.

Grabbed my bag and put on a jacket. As after previous races, I ended up with some chills and I was better prepared this time. I did not feel like eating anything and the last thing I wanted was another class of coke or sports drink. I had a little tea and ramped up my fluid intake once I got back to my hotel.


I think my performance matched up fairly well with my training. If I want to get faster, I have to bump up my training, especially the swim and the run.


I really like the course and the way it is organized. The volunteers and the folks on Sado that come out and sit by the course to cheer you on are great. I will be back.