S: 11,460 yds - 2hr 45min
B: 100.96 mi - 5hr 20min
R: 17.44 mi - 2hr 20min
Total: 10hr 15min
It's early August and that can only mean it's time for MLT. In the wee hours of Saturday morning (4am to be exact) Lori and I headed up towards Guntersville, AL to race the Mountain Lakes Triathlon. Firstly, I just have to say that I LOVE this race course, mainly the bike and the run. For a sprint, the bike course is slightly longer than "normal" at 16 miles which certainly suits my strengths. The clock-wise loop around the lake has all right-hand turns and is mostly flat with a few slight rollers that you can easily power over in your big ring, so speeds are always fast. The run is a scenic 3 mile out-and-back on a paved running trail right along the lake. The swim is just average though, and is advertised as 600 yards although it seems like it's always either much higher or lower than that. The only thing I really don't like about this race is the same thing I don't like about almost every other race in the southeast; it's a time trial start.
I've done this race the last 6 years and there has defintely been a progression to faster times, as one might expect. This is, of course, a good thing.
Year Swim Bike Run Total Place
2008 9:18 41:32 20:31 1:13:44 52
2009 9:44 39:23 19:38 1:11:00 24
2010 7:11 40:18 19:43 1:09:03 19
2011 8:51 37:43 18:49 1:07:28 3
2012 10:22 37:47 18:09 1:08:22 5
2013 8:56 37:10 18:49 1:06:45 3
The swims are all over the board, mainly because the swim is different every year. If I were RD I would actually measure the swim. How hard could it be? Not very. 2008 through 2010 were my learning years, and then all of the sudden 3 full years of consistent training started paying off and my times started dropping. One other interesting note is the bike splits. 2011 and 2012 showed practically the exact same splits, which makes sense because my average power was pretty much exactly the same in both races. This summer I've done some work on my position and even made a trip to the soon-to-be-blogged about A2 Wind Tunnel. The conclusion of the trip was that my helmet sucked pretty bad and I made a few other changes to optimize my position. The result...drum rolllll...is what you see in the chart below for the years of 2010-2013 at the Mountain Lakes Triathlon bike course.
That's 26.15 mph off of 273 watts compared to about 25.7 mph off of 289 watts the previous 2 years. So basically I went 0.42 mph faster off of 16 less watts...got to love free speed! To give another idea on how huge this is and how much physiological difference 16 watts makes when you are near threshold, so far throughout all of my rides in 2013 my duration for a mean maximal power of 289 watts is about 63 minutes and my duration for a mean maximal power of 273 watts is 93 minutes. So as power increases by just 5% from 273 to 289, the duration that I can maintain said power decreases by 32%.
Anyways...going faster off of less is always a good thing. Now enough with the analysis...I just got excited for a little bit. Here's how the race played out.
Swim - 8:56 (13th)
I was the 9th racer to start in time trail fashion. Andrew Hodges was the first racer to start and I knew he would be tough to beat...it would basically take the bike of all bikes to overcome the swimming and running deficit that he would put into me. I was also surrounded by a bunch of kids from the Southeast Junior team...most of them are pretty good swimmer/runners so you can't take them all for granted. As I went off I tried to find some feet to catch and just swam as hard as I could. I exited the water right with Lori who started 30 seconds behind me so I felt pretty good about that.
T1 - 1:15 (30th)
Ok, I'm just going to say it...this was terrible. I think it's because the straps on my new helmet have smaller buckles or something because I fumbled around for what seemed like 15 seconds with it. Crap! In a sprint race this can easily be the difference between winning and losing so I was not happy about that. I finally got it buckled and was off to catch some bikers.
Bike - 37:10 (1st)
I knew I had my work cut out for me here, figuring there were 5-10 people out on the course in front of me. Trying to settle into a sprint distance bike is tough because you don't want to blow up in the first 10 minutes but you don't want to leave anything on the table either. After a few minutes I found my sweet spot and just tried to keep the power output steady from there. From there I passed 6 or 7 people in the first 5 or 6 miles before the roads became empty. At this point I thought that Andrew was the only one in front of me. Somewhere around mile 10 or so I came upon a rider who I knew wasn't Andrew and it turned out to be a relay racer, but with a few miles to go I finally caught sight of him up the road. With about a half mile or so to go I made the pass, thinking that I was first in off the bike and sitting in the virtual lead of the race. However, after rolling into transition I noticed that there was one bike on the rack, so one of the kids must have been having a good race.
T2 - 0:37 (26th)
No mistakes here, just a quick in and out.
Run - 18:49 (11th)
As I started the run Andrew couldn't have been more than 10-20 seconds behind me, if that. Sure enough he came flying by me a minute or two in and there was nothing I can do. It was hot but more than that it was super humid, and I was struggling with 6 to 6:30 pace. From what I could tell there was no one close behind but I knew that Jeffrey Shelley had started a good bit behind and we would be close. At the turnaround I could see the leader (some 15 year old kid) and Andrew not far behind him. The rest of the run I just tried to focus on not blowing up and staying strong. It was nice to see familiar faces on the way back in, and with a slight negative grade on the return trip it made it that much better.
Total - 1:06:45 (3rd overall)
I knew I was 3rd across the line but only time would tell if that would hold up. As it turns out, Jeffrey finished a mere 5 seconds behind me so I was able to secure 3rd overall. He later got hit with a bogus 2 minute drafting penalty that was likely some sort of mix-up. I think that makes me 2-2 against him this year...it's always a hard fought battle. At the end of the day I was pleased with the race although I know I can still run faster. It's just hard to execute everything perfectly in this Alabama heat and humidity! Also...huge props to Lori for winning the overall female race by a good 2 minutes...in only her 4th triathlon ever!
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| overall podium, Lori got the win! |
1 comment:
Nice write-up!
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