Big Fish - Practice and Race

I wanted to run the Warrior Dash at Boyne on the 11th, but I just took a weekend off for Hawk Island and am taking a week at the end of the month for some camping so no Warrior for me.

I am doing a Summer Solstice 5K on the 18th sponserd by GOTR, should be good. A little leary of the course though, a mix of sand, gravel, cement, and pavement.

Are you doing the sprint or the oly?

Oly Route

Sprint Route

The bike course is fairly straight forward, out and back for either distance.  The roads are open to traffic, and last time I rode them, they were in slightly better than average MI conditions.  For the sprint there is a nice downhill early in the course, then just a few smaller rollers before you come back to the initial hill.  The oly covers all of the same ground, but gets into larger rollers, but they are not anything very big.  Many first timers see the main hill as giant, myself included at the time.  The reality is that its a mainly downhill out, and uphill return with about 240 feet of climbing from the sprint turn around to the highest point.  Most of that is in a four mile stretch.  Once past the hill, its a simple cruise back into the park and it gives you a chance to get your HR in check before transition.

Thanks for some good detailed info.  I'm doing the Sprint there with Olympics for the rest of the season.  I finished last year with an Olympic and am training for those, but wanted to start this year with a sprint to kind of measure my progress at that distance compared to last year.

I'd like to do Saturday, but no dice.  I'm doing the OLY.  Am I the only one doing the OLY?  

This will be 3rd time racing Big Fish.  I agree, with what Matt said about the bike course.  I would add the OLY run course is much more difficult than the sprint. 

Also, there is a rather long run from the lake to the transistion area. 

I went out there with jgrindle and one more this morning.  Roads are same as previous years, but still have a lot of debris on them.  Lots of small stones, sticks, pollen thingies.  The sprint course doesn't have any potholes to speak of, but there are sections of the olympic course that are nasty.  Old patches, broken asphalt, etc.  This is the worst about a mile past the sprint turnaround, but it is contained to a one or two mile stretch.  Once you get onto Lippincott, its smooth sailing.

I only scoped the sprint run course, but its the same as usual.  Fairly smooth dirt roads and roadkill, lots of roadkill all around.

The water is pretty warm, not sure but I'd guess mid-60's.  It would be comfortable without a wetsuit.  However, its kind of murky, with an active algae bloom.  I didn't swim out very far, so I don't know if there are weeds in the course, but they weren't obvious from my perspective.  The water is very high though.  Far higher than I've ever seen it.  Make sure you check out the exit area and don't trip over the "ledge" that leads into the water.  

Otherwise, its the same old story out there.  Watch out for intolerance trucks.

See everyone next weekend.

Good report, Matt.

Does anyone know what the water temps need to be to make the race non wetsuit legal?  Or do you think we are far off from that?  

So who is showing up tomorrow?!  I can recognize Matt... but everyone else, notsomuch.  

Be nice to chat with friends prior to the race!  

I was onsite... beautiful day.  I think they are down to 20 open slots left?  Hope you got in!

So how did everyone do?  I finished 25/150 (42 swim, 25 bike, 17 run) in the male sprint, 7th out of 28 in the 35-39 AG. 

I was really happy with the swim time.  I had problems running into people all over the place.  I took as a positive meaning I was somewhere solidly in the MOP (a little better as it turned out).  In the past I'd be lagging back on the swim and have no problems running into people .  The swim times seemed awfully low in the sprint.  Not sure if it was a weak field or maybe the distance was a bit longer than 500M.  There wasn't much current to speak of.

My buddy and I drove the bike course yesterday after packet pickup so I knew what to expect there.  Those 2 climbs late in the bike were tiring but not overwhelming.  I thought I handled them well but the last climb got my heart rate up pretty good and kept me from starting out as quickly on the run as I wanted.  Considering that, I was happy with the 7:16 pace on the run.  Still chasing that elusive goal of averaging under 7:00 on a 5K in a tri.  Do it all time in open 5K's but haven't gotten over the hump yet running off the bike. 

All in all I'm happy with the performance the venue was excellent.  This was my first time racing there.  That bike course was fun despite the tough climbing at the end. Hit 39mph going out on the hill.

Nice work, Matt.  I was part of the weak field  and ended up finishing 1:35:35  ....  111/150 and 16 out of 29 Clydesdale ... for some reason they listed me in both Clyde and 35-39 AG, which was 20 out 28.  

I view this as my first tri, although I did an XTERRA at Fort Custer a month or so ago.  My goal was to beat 1:40, so I was happy with my time.  Being new to tri, my plan remains to make it through the swim, gain as many spots as possible on the bike, and hope for the best on the run More than half way to the park (45 min drive) I realized that I forgot my 310xt on the charger at home and was effectively forced to do the race blind - no heart rate, time, pace, speed, etc.  This was a bit un-nerving since my training is always done with it.

I really need to work on the swim as well as get used to the flailing limbs (I got hit square in the nose as I came up for a breath in the first 150m).  It's 9 hours later and my nose still hurts!.  Unfortunately, my swim split wasn't captured but I know I am slow in the water.  Doing the math, my Swim/T1 time was about 18:30!  I was a bit light headed coming out of the water, but recovered enough before getting on the bike.  Rode without socks for the first time, which saved a little time in T1.

I had ridden the bike course a couple of times in recent weeks so there were no surprises there.  I managed to pass 70+ people on the course and also have half a dozen people pass me as if I was standing still.  The crosswinds weren't nearly as bad as a week or so ago.

T2 was slow as well.  I had contemplated running sockless, but decided against it in transition.  That said, my transition times were awful.

Heading out on the run was fine, but I ended up doing a fair amount of walking due to the hills.  A painful reminder that I need to run more, though I still ended up with a 10:15 pace.

All in all it was a fun and well organized race.  Looking forward to the next one after some more serious training.

Congrats on finishing your first tri.  The improvements will come quickly and continuously if you keep up the training.  Swimming improvement for me has been slow and painful, but it is coming.

I think I saw that the sprint swim course might actually have been more like 550M instead of 500, which explain some seemingly slower times.  I sure hope so as that would make the swim time actually fairly decent. I guess that wetsuit paid off (note to self, if I'm wasting time trying to find the wetsuit zipper, first run across the swim finish and have that time hurt me in T1 time, not swim time, they don't rank T1 splits).  I was surprised I was still running into people rounding the second buoy even. 

Even with the hill climbs I expected a little better on the bike.  I felt like I was moving pretty well but was a little surprised my avg mph wasn't a little higher.  I did fairly well on the bike last year but had numerous disadvantages (no tri bike, no bike shoes or clipless, no aerobars).  I've purchased a little "speed" on the cheap this year (clip-on aerobars, started riding old school bike shoes in the toe cages instead of running shoes, put race tires on the bike), and it would appear I'm significantly faster for longer in my trainer workouts, but I haven't seen evidence that this has translated to more speed on the road yet.  I'll give it a couple of more races.  I may have to go clipless next.  I doubt a tri-bike is in the budget just yet, though it's inevitable if I stick with this sport.  Guess I need to keep riding more.

Thanks!  I am reasonably comfortable and just need to practice the swimming and running more consistently.

Obviously I'm no expert, but often times the end of the wetsuit zipper pull has velcro that can be attached to the neck closure and thus easy to find (so long as it doesn't get yanked out during the water chaos).  

Whether 500m or 500m ... I'm slow either way.

I was 4/163 overall in the swim (OLY).  My bike and run?   The bike is my limiter - not only am I not fast, but the distance is a reach and saps my run which sucks because I run well.  I ran the entire course with the exception of the hills on the back side (ouch). 

I like going "long" instead of sprints... but yeah, I wonder sometimes whether I should do sprints instead to offset my bike.  Certainly would allow me to run better!  But on the otherhand, I like going long and racing the top swimmers.

Wow.  Sometimes the trigods need to smack you upside the head to get you focused.  That day was yesterday.

I warmed up for the swim and felt great.  Since swimming is usually my strong suit, I moved up towards the front and was ready for a quick swim of it.  This was without a doubt, the roughest swim start of my life.  I was kicked, punched, dunked, you name it.  As I was getting beat down, I tried to kick it into high gear to clear the pack, but I couldn't get clear.  Instead, I found myself beat up and gasping at the first buoy.  Not good.  I actually pulled off for a minute and got my bearings with one of the lifeguards, then proceeded.  The swim never came together and it was a very slow time for me.  When I came out of the water, I was very winded and already feeling beat up.

I got on the bike, and started out.  Something was not right with my bike.  I noticed that my rear derailleur was automatically shifting down to the lowest cog.  It wouldn't stay up!  As I was monkeying with it, I caught the lip of the road and road down into a ditch.  I stayed upright and rode it back out onto the road, but it wasn't pretty.  Instead of killing myself in a wreck, I pulled off to the side and tried to fix it.  The main screw that holds the shifter to the assembly came loose.  I tightened it up and off I went.  It was shifting hard, but it was at least holding for now ...

I hit the largest decent and was cooking.  I was absolutely hammering, trying to make up ground.  I was constantly passing, and slowly working my HR back down to a sustainable pace.  Then the shifter started up again.  I made the turn around, passed the stop sign and stopped again in town to try to fix it again.  I didn't want to tackle the hill with a bum shifter.  Well, that was a no-go.  In the process of the first stop, I bent my screwdriver tip and couldn't get a bite on the screw head.  So, I had to finish the ride with my hand on the shifter to tension it the whole way.  This sucked big time.

So, at this point, I just wanted to finish strong.  I ran, but didn't race, the final leg.

All in all, I had fun.  I enjoyed getting back to multisport racing, and I see some things I need to work on for future races.  Three years ago, this race (oly) gave me a smack upside the head to get focused for Tawas.  Hopefully, the the same thing happened this year.  I don't want to go through a half with these kinds of mistakes and problems.

Ugh.  That sounds like my tri nightmare scenario, especially on the bike as I'm still not all that savvy when it comes to bike mechanics.  Good job holding it together enough to finish the race in decent shape.

I don't know what it was about that swim yesterday.  Everyone was getting beat up.  There were a few times I was swimming up people's back (unusual for me since I'm used to getting passed) and couldn't do anything to pass them because over to my left someone else was THERE too.  So I found myself worried about getting kicked in the face.  One time I got knocked off my stroke rhythm and took in a little water and had to stop for a couple of seconds to get my breath under control again.  Plus, I was distracted because I thought my timing chip was coming off (turned out it wasn't but SOMETHING was dangling from my ankle there).

EEK, oh my!!   Glad you stayed up right!!

I think the swim portion of sprints are inherently chaotic because the distance is shorter and more people think they can go 100%.  In addition, sprints are becoming more popular than OLY's and when you add more people to the start - more chaos.