I completed my second tri on Sunday. Had a blast in a great day for me! Hope you enjoy the report (might be long).

Race Report
SBR Harriman Tri June 1 (SBR Harriman Sprint)
Sprint: .5 swim, 16m bike 3.1m run
Goals for race:
Overall: This was C race for me – little taper – just treat like a hard workout
Swim:
Overcome the open water panic (huge issue as I really had a bad time for my first swim)
Get used to wetsuit – first race with WS on
Bike:
Get used to Power Meter – first race with Powertap
Work on pacing
Run:
Keep form for entire run
Try to get faster throughout (no matter how slow I start out, just get faster)

Results:
Overall: Nailed it pretty well – pushed myself the entire race, right at the edge of my performance level. Felt if I had gone any harder on each, I would have blown up, but flirted with that disaster throughout.

Swim: Holy cow was it great! There was all this trepidation beforehand because the water was going to be really cold, and I had panicked pretty badly in my first race. Water temp wasn’t too bad when we actually got in, so that was a non issue. I swam out about 200 yards and back as a warm up and felt pretty good, no sign of panic. The flotation of the wetsuit was really comforting. I started at the back and far left of the 2nd wave. I avoided all the commotion in the middle, but still found the odd person bumping and grabbing. I managed to find good form on and off, which was really the key. Turns out, when I swam with good form, with long arms and rotating hips, I just swam faster than most around me. I made my way up through the pack very nicely and was at the turn around buoy a little faster than I expected.

On the way back, I had some navigation problems. First off, somehow, I ended up swimming alone, with a group about 20-30 yards ahead and no one around me. It’s possible that I gapped up to the slower wave 1 swimmers. Without the other swimmers around, I got a little off course – heading out wide. When I corrected, I then overcompensated, and actually swam into one of the course buoys. That got me straightened out and I managed a better line for the last 150y or so. Came out of the water feeling pretty good – a little wobbly, but not too bad.

Turns out I did it in 16:02, at a 1:49/ 100y pace. All things considered, that’s a flat out amazing time for me. My wife and son were on the beach screaming like crazy for me as I came out, which was awesome. Wife apparently kept telling my son, “no, that can’t be him – it’s too early…” until I was already out of the water and on the beach – so… no pictures ;)

T1/Bike:
Got into T1 just flying. Felt super coming out of the water and had no trouble getting the wetsuit off. All gear was on and I was jogging with my bike in no time.

Slight comedy of errors, very tough bike with rolling hills throughout and a long grind that was oh so painful. I had made great improvements on the bike in training and didn’t really think too hard about this leg before hand. Turns out I didn’t really manage that fast of a ride, but in seeing the results, there was significant grouping of riders – the stronger riders weren’t that much faster than me – I finished 112th but was only about 9 minutes slower than the 20th place finisher on the bike and only 15 minutes slower than the 1st place bike. The hills really made the difference between the weaker and stronger riders and I see I’ve still much work to do on the bike. For reference, here’s the elevation graph:

Elevation Graph

I’ve been practicing the mount where you leave your shoes on the bike and was all prepped for it. Somehow, when I jumped on, my left foot was on top of my shoe, like it’s supposed to be, but my right foot wasn’t. It’s possible the pedal was upside down, because I hear a scrape, a click and whammo – there I am running back through the pack to pick up my shoe. So I yanked the bike off the road, throw on the shoes and jumped back on. I was a little overexcited and realized I had forgotten to reset my powertap and hadn’t setup my forerunner for biking. Got the PT reset, and after fidgeting with the FR for a few seconds, decided it wasn’t that important and just let it go.

The course is nothing but rollers and they start right as we got out. At about mile 2, I was just getting my breath, starting to feel good, and headed up another hill. I downshifted to the small ring and CLUNK there goes my chain and that awful feeling of the pedaling with no resistance. A quick explicative, and there I was with grease all over my fingers, but a reconnected chain. Data shows that I was out for 34 seconds, but it felt like an eternity as I watched about 20 riders go past me. So I got back in and tried to catch the group in front of me. Mostly hung with them and picked off the slower ones that were dropping back. I was pushing hard, but trying not to blow up – data confirms I was right at and slightly above my FTP for most of the section.

The groups stretched out a bit and I did some trading with lighter riders – they passed me on the uphills and I tried not to knock them over passing them on the downhills. I found I could coast faster than a lot of people ride in the downhills, so I did that a bit to try to save the legs – both soft pedaling and just holding steady. The course has a 2.5mile downhill that came up a little earlier than I expected. I could have passed a few people that I waited behind, which slowed me down a bit until I realized I really was in the downhill, so I just let it fly and passed them. The downhill was fast and a bit tricky. Roads were wet and there were several switchbacks. Managed 29.6 mph for almost no pedaling with a Max speed of 39.6 in this section.

There was, unfortunately an accident where a rider went off the road into a rock face. It wasn’t someone in the race, and when I got there, there were several people and cellphones and a few motorcyclists stopped. The rider was ok and talking, but looking pretty banged up. I was a little annoyed that a racer passed me while I was slowing down to be careful at the scene, but it was ok, I passed him within a few hundred yards. At the bottom of the downhill was a very sharp turn, straight up into the beginning of the uphill grind.

It was longer and harder than I expected and l lost a lot of ground. It was about 1.5m long, and the entire field was reduced to about 9-14 MPH. I stayed mostly around 8-10MPH, right at my FTP and I might have been able to push harder, but felt I would blow up. I joked around with a lot of people who passed me in this section. When I finally crested the top though, I took off hard. There were still rollers, but overall the grade was downhill for about 4 miles back to T2 and I amped it up and caught several of the people that passed me on the uphill. Felt really good – got up on the nose of the saddle and just let my legs fly but I still only averaged about 19mph in this section even though I felt faster than that.

T2 / Run: I came into T2 a little hot, and got slightly discombobulated. I forget to unstrap my shoes for my dismount, so by the time I got to the mat – I only got one foot unstrapped and was at the mat, so I clicked out and jogged it in with one shoe on and one shoe off. I also overran my station and had to stand there for a few seconds to get oriented. I felt kinda foolish, but once I found it, got about my business. Misplaced the hat I wanted for the run so grabbed another one from my bag and took off. Felt like I was a little slow in T2, but otherwise great. Wife and kids were waiting for me coming out of T2. Wife kept yelling “You’re rockin’ it!” which made me feel great.

Run was off road on a trail that was muddy, rocky, and oh yeah, by the way, STEEP on the way out. After about 200 yards of reasonableness it was a climb followed by a climb followed by a …. climb up to the turnaround point. (OK, it wasn’t really that steep, but it was a constant climb and I was tired.) I was also cramping pretty bad just behind the lower part of my rib cage. It felt like it was my diaphragm, not my stomach (can that happen?) and I was very uncomfortable. I kept the legs moving though and forced myself not to quit.

Made it to the turnaround and enjoyed the downhill running on the way back. I was still very slow on the run and got passed a *LOT*, but in a funny sense that made me happy – it meant I got gotten out in front of many strong athletes that had to work to catch me. Now if I can add speed to my run, I might actually scare some people. After coming off the trail and headed for the finish, I did my best to add as much speed as I could. I think was down to sub 8m/mile for the last .25 mile or so. That is until the finish – my 5 year old jumped out and ran across the finish line with me for the last 15 yards or so. It was great, but he was sad they weren’t giving out medals just for crossing the line, like the last one.

The event was reasonably well organized, but it seemed to have a slight attitude. It favored people who were contenders and wasn’t as friendly toward MOP and BOPers as the last one I ran. I don’t think there was a photographer and the wife missed most of the photos so probably not many pics to add.

Tale of the tape:
117th out of 213 Finishers

Swim: D: .5 Mile T: 16:03 P: 1:49/100y Plc: 56

T1: T: 1:38 Plc: 38

Bike: D: 16 Mile T: 59:41 Sp: 16.1mph Plc: 112

T2: T: 2:06 Plc: 188

Run: D: 3.1 Mile T: 30:04 Pc: 9:42 mn/ml Plc: 177

Finished 27/36 in age group