Race Report: Escape the Cape Sprint Triathlon

So this race was my chance to redeem myself from the miserable swim that sunk my performance at the NE Season Opener.

Finish line

Escape the Cape Tri - Onset, MA - Sat June 4th

Gorgeous 73F dry, sunny, breezy New England Day in a truly quaint village at the top of buzzards bay. The swim was in the town's beautiful little harbor - a straight line swim from point to point, 1/3 mile with a light breeze and current against us. Then a 10 mile bike followed by the 5k (3.1 mile) run.

Pre-swam the course for about 250 yards to get used to the sightlines, water temps and visibility. Swam hard to warm up the breathing gear (this was one of my lessons learned from the last event...
- always do a swim warm-up in the water where you will be competing the morning of the event!).

I had a legendary swim. We were the fourth wave to start. They started one wave every five minutes. As we were walking down the beach, I noticed that the current was coming in a little. I decided then to to swim a path closest to the beach in shallow water to avoid the stronger current in the deeps. This is the kind of stuff a sailor would know that probably a lot of others might not. Score one for age and experience :)

Overtook a lot of Red Caps in the Water

I felt confident I would be as fast, or faster than 95% of the guys I started with, so I brought that "A" attitude to the water and lined up on the front line of swimmers, at the inshore mark, for an aggressive swim strategy. The success of this strategy depended wholly on me being able to swim fast enough right away to clear a lane and get away from the crowd, and then hold enough speed to stay out front. 

At the horn, I sprinted out the first hundred yards by which time I had very little company. So far, so good. Then I relaxed into a strong regular pull, breathing easily from both sides to keep my sightlines. After that I just swam away from almost everyone and had a clear field. I was 3rd man out of the water in my wave and we lapped a lot of the red cap guys in the group that started 5 minutes before us.

My swim split was 9:22, which figures at 1:40/100yards pace, but the swim pace itself was probably more like 1:30 if you back out the run up the beach to the timing mat. 27th overall out of 586 competitors. Not too shabby for the old and wise. This was my first race in the new Xterra X3 Pro full length wet suit (another lesson learned from the last race - always race in a full wetsuit when legal). Wow does that thing make you fast in the water. Holy smokes, you just skip along the surface.

Into transition. My T1 was slightly more streamlined than last time: no socks. I set up a footbath because of the sandy beach. Worked well. Rode my trusty old aluminum war horse road bike, the Giant OCR3. Used my new Garneau Vorttice Aero helmet for the first time in competition. Easy and fast to put on.

Crushed the bike. Only 3 guys passed me the entire ride. I rode past hundreds of others. Averaged 21.1mph on a very flat course with just a little wind effect in some parts. I was riding with the demo Cyclops Powertap wheels and a Joule 2.0 cycling computer (thank you to Jared Gell at my favorite local tri shop Pacific Swim Bike Run, for the demo/loaner - do you think they might have known I would get hooked on training with power???)

Highlights: normalized power: 262watts (I'm working on a separate post about training with power - give me a few days). Based on the 3 mile time trial I did earlier this week, that's just a little higher than the 250watts I thought I should shoot for on a 10 mile ride. Average HR 156, max 160, so that was very consistently at a very high, maximal - i.e. at or slightly above "race pace", level :)

The run: overall pace 7:56 mins/mile. Just a shade better than my goal of "less than 8:00 min/mile" and not bad for a run with tired legs, but I know I could do better. HR on the run 158bpm avg with a max of 162bpm. Pretty much maxed out the whole way - exactly what Michael told me to do - hold nothing back.

I definitely had people running past me - but not as many as in my last race and no one in my age group. And I was passing people from time to time. Thirty-eight year old people :) The guy in my age group that beat me passed me on the bike and completed the bike course just about two minutes faster than me. He was the one with no shirt. I spoke to him, Bob Lamothe, at the awards ceremony. He said he's been doing tri's for 20 years. I didn't feel so bad after that. He finished 14th overall. Monstrous.

Bottom line: I was on the podium in 2nd place for my age group, and even more, I was 46th overall in a field of 600 competitors. I am simply amazed and greatly humbled by this performance.

Podium Time - 2nd in Age Group

I give a lot of credit to the integrity of Michael's coaching and training plan for incrementally building my conditioning to be able to pull off this kind of performance in my first triathlon season. It's simply remarkable to have achieved this level so quickly. I know that I've done the work, and I'll take the credit for that - this is not false modesty - but I could have done twice the amount of work and not achieved half this level of results without the steady guidance of Michael Hagen.

And yes, I do expect to improve as the season continues.

Next race: Stamford KIC IT Tri - my first Olympic length event - June 26th.