The Baltimore Triathlon - Sprint Relay - Triathlon

I didn't watch it, but she came out of the water like 8th about two minutes behind The Kid. Decent swim for her and only like 5 women beat her either in the relay or the women's race so I guess we'll keep her.

She said she should have warmed up a bit. I'm not going to say I told her to, but....

She run up the hill a little slow, but we nailed the chip transition. This is kinda fun standing around waiting for someone to put your chip on and you can take as long as you like getting ready for the bike. I was a little slower than I would have liked getting rolling on the bike, but fine.

"Ride Like You Stole It"

Was eager to see what I could do all-out on a bike...haven't raced a TT in almost ten years. The Plan was to hold 220 watts on the flats in aero, hammer the one hill, then kick hard the last two miles after the turnaround.

Went out with a quick cadence to get warmed up..it's still a little chilly out so I know it's going to take a couple of miles. About mile 2 we roll through a neighborhood and a kid holds up the same sign as last year "You Just Peed in Your Swim Course". I giggled again, then was distracted I made a wrong turn despite a volunteer kinda sorta waving me forward. Dammit - idiot. There's always something in a race for me. Probably cost me 20 seconds or so turning around and getting back up to speed, and probably wasted a couple of matches accelerating. Oh, well.

Next five or so miles is pretty flat and I do a nice job of staying in aero in more or less on gear. Pass the five mile mark at 15:04 - good show considering my idiocy. Now we're approaching The Hill, which starts with a sharp climb over a railroad. I stand and push up here, holding high 300s, get to the top, spin up to speed and recover, then start pushing up the next half mile or so of the hill in the high 200s. I'm sucking wind now when I hit the top, but now we get two miles of more or less downhill in aero to recover.

I get in aero, and there's no wind, so I'm holding like 200 watts and 26 mph-ish. Perfectly executed as my HR slowly dropped back down into zone 3. More more climb over the railroad, pushed hard, recovered on descent. Now we get to the technical part of the course, sort of rolling with a bunch of turns and a turnaround. I'm starting to feel it now but pushing as hard as I can. Got a quick break at the turnaround, which I butchered handling-wise but at least I didn't fall.

I'm pushing hard now, and after a turn someone passes me and doesn't overtake properly and damn near clips my front wheel. Idiot. Now I'm mad, which is OK with only a mile or so to go. I pass him back and now it's a mess of cyclists all kinda together so trying not to draft I just keep passing people. I'm in the Pain Cave now with a couple of hundred yards left and I basically sprint to the turn-in, coast up to the dismount line, stop, unclip, then the same dude that almost ran me off the road runs into me with his flying dismount. Glancing blow so nothing bad, but jeez dude. This ain't Nationals...chill.

Jogged into transition where Steph was ready to run, and thankfully got the chip off my ankle as I tried not to fall over or puke.

I biked that HARD.

3/16 in the relay, would have been about 20/158 in men's. Shaved about a minute off last year's time, and it took 20 more average watts plus i added race wheels this year. Those incremental gains in sprints sure take a lot.

avg power = 226, NP = 239, IF = 0.9, VI = 1.06
as we know, I"m delusional of my current FTP settings so I'd say that NP is probably pretty close to my current real FTP

not lose 20 seconds going off course while laughing at a kid's sign. It's always something.

Once again, it's great having someone take off your timing chip.

Steph killed it - she's not a 5K racer but beat her expected time by probably a minute. She was SO happy.
9/16 in the relay, would have been about 35th out of 138 women. Good show, Steph!!

I jogged around a little and stretched while we watched Steph run.


My off-course jaunt, but we were like 7 minutes behind second place so we weren't sniffing that. Dude ran a 15:09 5K FFS.

3rd out of 22 total relay teams - we beat all the men's ones too!!


Well, unfortunately they never recorded our chip times, so it's all based on Strava and when we crossed the line. Still trying to get that sorted out with REV3. We also picked up our race packets the day before, but still had to check in again on race morning to get a bike sticker and our chip. Just seemed disorganized. I know REV3 can do better...they've been at this for a gajillion years.

Kinda disappointed in the race...there weren't many volunteers on the bike course, and the post-race food didn't show up until most racers had finished and were starting to roll out. They didn't even have water that we could find.