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| Note the bare feet on top of the shoes coming into T2 |
4:30am, Out of bed, make an iced coffee in a to-go mug. Drive 10 minutes to Stamford.
The swim waves were scheduled to start at 6:30am, so I arrived in downtown Stamford at...
5:00am. This event has a strange two-transition area setup: T1 was down at Cummings beach, and T2 was up in the middle of town at Columbus Park. That was disconcerting because it added a set of logistics to the race that I hadn't had to deal with before, but in the end it worked out pretty well.
I walked my bike over to T2, found a spot on the bike rack and set up my running shoes and visor on a small towel. I did my stretching routine on an empty piece of parking lot while other competitors filtered in. I chatted with a few other guys racking their bikes close to me. Nobody likes the two-transition area thing.
Then I walked over to the "gear transport" truck and dropped off my large plastic T1 bag with all my swim gear in it. The bag was provided by the organizers specifically for this purpose. The truck would bring that stuff down to the beach and I would pick it up there. Having staked out my T2 area, I used the almost two mile bike ride to the park as a mini-warm-up, spinning lightly and putting in a few pickups. I arrived at the beach, T1, at 5:30am.
After checking in again, I found a place on the bike rack there and set-up for T1. 5:45am. No time to waste, I scootched, slithered, shook and shimmied into the wet-suit and walked down to the beach.
Beautiful morning, sun rising, about 67F above, and 70F in the water. A very light breeze left the water almost completely still so there would be no chop to deal with. Eying the course from the beach was pretty wild. It was a huge triangle. Out to the first large red tetrahedron, and it looked like a looong way off, you turn right to the next mark all the way across the harbor - and it really looked like a long way! - then back to the beach. But with a training load of 7500+ yards a week for the last six-plus months, I had no worries. I’m a water rat.
I jumped in and swam a couple hundred yards easy warm-up. Did some sighting around the harbor. Comfortable in the salt water of the Long Island Sound. Then I swam back to the beach, at a stepped up pace, to get my breathing machine going. Nice, felt great. 6:15am and the announcer is calling for all swimmers to exit the water to prepare for the first wave start.
My swim strategy was going to be the same this time as last: position myself aggressively in the center of the starting line, at the point that formed the shortest path to the turning mark; line up at the front of the pack and swim like hell the first 200 yards to get away from the pack. Then settle into a good strong stroke and just work the distance. I was anticipating something like a 28 minute swim.
A quick trip back up to transition. Suck down a Gu and a little water. Pit stop in the porta-potty, doing the half-strip trick in the full wetsuit (the suit is so tight that once it’s wet, it’s murder to get back on, so you can’t really take it off at that point). Then back down to the beach for the start.
After the Star Spangled Banner and a few words from the Mayor of Stamford, the first wave, Seeded Athletes, started. I was wearing the blue swim cap of the fifth wave: Men 45+. I positioned myself right next to the entry chute so I could be in the water first and pick my spot. The starting method was to have the guys in front standing about knee-deep in the water at the gun. That worked out well and I got exactly the spot I wanted, front and center. There were a lot of blue caps - I estimated about 125 of my brethren spread out along the beach in back of me.
We stood there in the water for what seemed like a long time. The announcer was doing what he could to make the passing of time seem interesting and relaxing but I have no idea what he might have said. In the quiet about 20 seconds before the horn, I turned around, held up my fist, and shouted "Have a good swim and a good race, gentlemen!" and the whole crowd cheered. Good way to start a race.
At the horn I dove forward, kicked out and settled into a high cadence pull. My left goggle immediately filled with water - the thing hasn't been sealing right for a while, and I decided to ignore it until I opened up some distance between me and the pack at first mark. Salt water in my eye wasn’t going to hurt me. Once at the first mark, I paused for a few seconds, pulled the thing away from my face emptying out the water and then popped it back on. No problems after that.
I have to say I could have swum a straighter course. The first leg was okay, but after the first mark, I wove around a little and then coming back in to the beach, with the sun about 20 degrees off my starboard bow, it was hard to sight well, and I really added some distance to the course by swerving around a bit. I think I totally side-swiped a pink capper too.
By the time I got half-way to the first mark I was overtaking the slower swimmers from the pink capped women's group that had started four minutes before us. By the time I got to the second mark the water was thick with those, and some yellow caps from the group that started 8 minutes before us (Men 35-44). Still, it was fairly easy to pick my way between them because I was moving faster.
Getting out, I knew I had done well on the swim and verified that when I got back to the racks. Almost all the bikes in my rack were still there. Strip the wet-suit, quick dry with a face towel, sunglasses, helmet and off I went, bare-footed, running out of T1 with the bike.
Net on the swim: 24 minutes – 4 minutes better than what I anticipated.
My new T1 exit routine worked perfectly (see previous post if you must have the gory details on that).
The bike was a surprise. I had resigned myself to a self-preservation strategy of going relatively slow-and-steady up the steeper sections of the long seven mile climbing section of the course. I had imagined that everyone else would be flying by me uphill. In actuality, there were some guys that climbed past me (guys I had blown away in the water, heh, heh), but I found that a lot of other guys were either blowing up at slower speeds than me, or grinding up the steeps at just about my pace.
Net on the bike leg: I did pretty well, averaging 19.8mph overall and finishing in 1:15, about 10 minutes faster than I’d imagined.
The run was no surprise. I sprung out of T2 pretty quick, tagging along momentarily behind Yori from Pacific SBR long enough to ask him what pace we were making (7:50). But clearly that was his pace, not quite mine, and he slowly moved ahead on me.
The course was two laps around a 3 mile section of downtown. The cops and department of transportation and volunteers were out in force, directing cars and closing sections of roads. I have to say the City of Stamford goes way out of their way to make this a spectacular event.
But back to the two laps thing: it’s brutal psychologically. Something about seeing the final quarter mile to the finish line and having to bang a right hand turn and do it all over again… oooph.
I walked two of the water stations, drank a little bit, and dumped some down my front and back to cool off. It was sunny, and the temperature was warm, but not brutal. Although I didn’t have any pains, like some guys I saw who were obviously struggling with tight hamstrings, forcing them to stop periodically and put in a quick stretch, or doubled over by the side of the road (“Are you okay, buddy?” – “Yeah, I’ll be fine”). I finally got toward the end of the second loop and started chatting with the guy next to me with the tight hams.
Me: “Let’s show them what we’re made of for the finish”
Him: “This is only my first loop, but you’re looking pretty coming in, buddy”
Me: “Thanks – make it a good one”
So there were people suffering more than me!
I peeled off for the last quarter mile into the finish at Columbus Park. I was struggling and because I wasn’t wearing a watch, I didn’t have a very good idea of how I was doing. I put my form together, geared up for the last 200 yards, and totally missed my peeps (Karen and the boys) who were positioned and cheering for me at the last turn. I missed them mostly because I was partially delirious at that point, but also because I was focusing, right at that moment, on not wiping out on the huge depressed storm drain right in the middle of the turn.
Net on the run: 51:05 on the 10k for a pace of 8:15/mile overall. Not great, but not a disaster.
I was really wiped out afterwards. I was feeling it for days too. The Olympic distance was kick-ass, and it did.
Bottom Line: Results
Net on the race: I managed a 2:34 overall, a podium spot for second in age group and a 94th overall with about 360 competitors. My second prize cup of this season. I was thrilled and honestly quite surprised. This seemed like a very competitive event.
Post Mortem
If I could have maintained a 7:15 run pace, I would have (1) been challenging for 1st in age group, (2) improved my overall time by more than six minutes and thus (3) bumped up my overall finishing place by almost 30 spots to about 62nd overall.
I have a lot of work to do on my run.
Although I had the big feel-good about my new T1 routine, at 2:37, I was still grossly slow (rank 118). The fastest fifty T1 times were under two minutes, so I really should be there. I'm going to have to work on that.
My T2 was acceptable - top 70 - and at 2:00, pretty darn close to the fastest T2 of the day: 1:28. Room for some improvement, perhaps, but not a whole lot.
On the bike I would have to say I was a little distracted on the last part of the leg that was all downhill. I should have been powering along more consistently. I did some screwing around with my bike computer because I had hit the lap button which had inadvertently ended the monitoring of the leg and the read-outs. Next time the damn thing either performs flawlessly and all by itself or I just ignore it. I am happy I had it though, because it helped me to monitor heart rate on the climbing sections.
I was also busy sucking down a Gu and hydrating to prepare for the run. Can't fault that though - I had needed every bit of that stuff, but it did slow me down on the slight downhill and flat sections at the end of the bike leg.
Next event: Massachusetts State Triathlon (Olympic) Sunday, July 17th, 2011
Thanks for posting these rates notes. Am doing the Stamford Kic It this weekend and these help greatly! Wondering if there is a current to work with on the swim at this race, since I noticed race times were faster in general on this race.
ReplyDeleteJoe: the swim is an out and back course so if there is much current, the effect going out is offset coming back. Last year they timed it for high tide, which made any concern about cutting your feet up on shells go away (that happened in a previous year when they started the swim at low tide. It's a common issue at LI Sound beaches). As a result, it seemed like the current was minimal.
DeleteIt's a great race. Have a good time!