Projected Finish Times
Even as I started to figure out what events I would do this season, I began to wonder how I would do. At that distance though, I had no idea and I just kept telling myself, it's a warm-up event, it will be a lot of fun, just keep training and the times will take care of themselves.
Now that the Northeast Season Opener is less than a week away, I've got a recent running Time Trial behind me, and a I'll do an updated bike time trial this week, I've dialed in the expected timings a little.
For what's called the "Sprint" triathlon, the "typical" distances are 1/2 mile swim, 10 mile bike, 3.1 mile run. Strangely, there are no real standards,
Tri distances vary from event to event.
Tri distances vary from event to event.
Interestingly, there is a scoring system that USAT ("U.S.A. Triathlon" - the U.S. organizing body for the sport) uses to provide a kind-of handicap scoring to accommodate for these differences in course distances. This is useful to compare your results from event to event.
This event has a short swim, only 1/4-mile, probably because it's in a lake in early May. The water temperature is going to be about 61F so they're probably worried about people turning to ice cubes ("Wet suits recommended" just became "wet suits mandatory" on a special announcement to competitors last week). I've got a shorty wet suit so my arms and legs will be a little cold but I'll live (the shorties are a lot faster to get off during "T1", the first transition - swim to bike).
Anyway, I should do well on the swim, but because it's short, that won't provide me with much of an advantage. A quarter-mile is only 440 yards and my 100 yard time should average out about 1'40" - so I'm looking at getting out of the water in 7'20". A pretty short swim and not enough time to leave the slow swimmers behind. They'll be sending us off in "waves", or groups - not all at once. So I'll probably be swimming with 50-60 other people in the water.
I should do about middle of the pack on the bike. The fast guys will likely average 23-25mph and I will feel pretty good about doing a 19mph average. My bike is not exactly high spec equipment, and it's a standard road bike, not a tri-specific bike which would give me a distinct speed improvement. It's a fairly flat course with a few 1/4-mile sections of slight ascents and one fairly steep descent. So I expect about 32 minutes for the bike.
The run pace I'm shooting for is about 8'00'/mile (that's my "I could probably hold a 7'30" pace, but I'm going to be kinda beat after the swim and the bike" pace) , so figure 25 minutes on the 3.1 mile run.
So that's a total of 65 minutes on the go - add about 5 minutes for two transitions - one to get out of swim stuff and onto the bike, the other to put away the bike stuff and get running sneakers on - and also move through the transition area both times.
This event has a short swim, only 1/4-mile, probably because it's in a lake in early May. The water temperature is going to be about 61F so they're probably worried about people turning to ice cubes ("Wet suits recommended" just became "wet suits mandatory" on a special announcement to competitors last week). I've got a shorty wet suit so my arms and legs will be a little cold but I'll live (the shorties are a lot faster to get off during "T1", the first transition - swim to bike).
Anyway, I should do well on the swim, but because it's short, that won't provide me with much of an advantage. A quarter-mile is only 440 yards and my 100 yard time should average out about 1'40" - so I'm looking at getting out of the water in 7'20". A pretty short swim and not enough time to leave the slow swimmers behind. They'll be sending us off in "waves", or groups - not all at once. So I'll probably be swimming with 50-60 other people in the water.
I should do about middle of the pack on the bike. The fast guys will likely average 23-25mph and I will feel pretty good about doing a 19mph average. My bike is not exactly high spec equipment, and it's a standard road bike, not a tri-specific bike which would give me a distinct speed improvement. It's a fairly flat course with a few 1/4-mile sections of slight ascents and one fairly steep descent. So I expect about 32 minutes for the bike.
The run pace I'm shooting for is about 8'00'/mile (that's my "I could probably hold a 7'30" pace, but I'm going to be kinda beat after the swim and the bike" pace) , so figure 25 minutes on the 3.1 mile run.
So that's a total of 65 minutes on the go - add about 5 minutes for two transitions - one to get out of swim stuff and onto the bike, the other to put away the bike stuff and get running sneakers on - and also move through the transition area both times.
So we're looking at about 70 minutes overall.
As my coach and the predominant literature always says though, you will always go faster in a race situation than you could ever push yourself in training, so I am very excited and can't wait to get there.
As my coach and the predominant literature always says though, you will always go faster in a race situation than you could ever push yourself in training, so I am very excited and can't wait to get there.
Preparation for the Event
I just paged through the latest Triathlete Magazine (you KNEW I had to be reading this, right?), there was a section with pages of tips from elite athletes, most of which was either obvious or not applicable to me. But there was one piece of advice that paid for the subscription in my mind: (paraphrase from Marisa Asplund's tip) "Do a driveway transition run through. Set up a transition area in your driveway. Put on your wet suit, run into the area, strip and get into your bike gear, bike around the block, return to transition, put on your running gear, run around a little and come back".
Not that you couldn't image that process on your own and set-up your equipment in the transition area well and do just fine, but this is exactly the type of thing that settles your mind on race day. A little rehearsal.
Other than that, Michael has laid out a pretty standard week of workouts - maybe a hair on the light side, and very light on Saturday. One notable exception is a Bike Time Trial on Tuesday. Three miles on relatively flat course as fast as you can go. Last time I did a time trial on the bike was in November so this should be interesting and may allow me to dial-in my expectations for race results a little better.
I also plan to have a phone call with Michael late in the week just to chat about the race. He has a quiet-spoken way of tuning me in to what I need to pay attention to.
Unless something else pops into my head uninvited, and God knows that happens, my next post will be a race report.
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