Shadow Creek Triathlon - Race Report

I want to start off by thanking my wife for putting up with this triathlon addiction. This past weekend was our 5 year anniversary and she was awesome enough to let me race.

We went out Saturday night while my parents did the babysitting and I got in bed a little after midnight.

Then I woke up at 3:30am ate my blueberry muffin and went back to sleep for another hour. I did this so that my stomach would be empty prior to the race by giving myself 3 hours to digest all food.

Swim: The swim was a 500m straight point to point swim in a neighborhood lake. The first 100-200m or so was definitely crowded with no clear water but then people started to fall off as I am sure they hit a wall and remembered they could not swim that fast.

I could have swore according to my data I had the swim I was expecting just under 2min/100m as I have only been swimming 1-2 times per month with my schedule being crazy but they timed me at 7:26 for the 500m swim. That pace is ridiculous to me and put me in 3rd coming out of the water.

T1:My transition spot could not have been in a worse location. Most of the times a transition spot will balance out during the race because of different entries and exits. This race swim entrance was the same as run exit and bike exit and entrance was in the middle. My spot happened to be on the last row against the fence farthest from the swim entrance and run exit.

With that being true it is a good thing I am decent at transitions.
I had the 3rd ranked T1 time and was a second away from 1st.

Bike:This was my first race on my new custom Apex Endurance bike and second race using power. After learning not to put a top end power during the race from my last experience I rode much better this time. I averaged right where I wanted to ride and had a PR on the bike at 22.7 mph. It was a flat course but had lots of 90 degree turns and 3 u-turns I believe. This race I watched my power, HR, cadence and speed to make sure I was working hard and smart enough. I avg a 179bpm and 92rpms. Even though I thought I killed the bike and I did for me there were some good riders and I ranked 5th on the bike. This dropped me to 4th place which is where I would stay.

T2:Again, I would be affected by my bad transition spot but I managed to kill the field and rank 1st in T2, with 2nd place being almost 9sec back. I even mad a small mistake racking my bike.

Run:Well I started the run great in the low to mid 6's but that did not last long. By mile one my fatigue hit me hard. My HR was up around 190bpm which is where it should be but my speed for that effort was not there. So, I just managed my effort according to HR and tried the best I could but that was not good enough to catch anyone as it shouldn't have been. Finished the run with the 4th best run but it was about 40sec/min slower than it should have been. Oh well.

Final Result 4th place. Crazy part is I was second during awards on race day and got the belt buckle for it but according to online results I am 4th.

Good race overall and I know now I definitely need more sleep and I am going to start working more short race pace brick runs in after bike workouts. I guess even though they say my swim was good I need to swim more and goal is to swim 2x's a week.

Next race is www.bridgelandtri.com the first weekend of August. This is a super popular race here in Houston and I will be lucky to get a top 10.

Race Nutrition:
I am trying very hard to get my body away from using/needing carbs to workout and race. So, the only carbs I got were at 3:30 with my muffin. Pre-Race I had a couple Hammer Race-Supreme caps and 3 Endurolytes.
On the bike I took in another 3 Endurolytes fairly early and another 3 just before getting off.
For liquid I used www.gozym.com catapult tablet in my water. During the run I drank some water and swished cytomax.  Did not swallow.

My goal is the get my body more efficient using fat stores because our bodies have a lot more of that than they do glycogen.  Plus our body stores about 90mins worth of glycogen so you can get through a sprint without any.

Kemah Triathlon 2012

The Kemah Tri was my first tri of the year and my first try as a new dad.

Things did not go off without a hitch of course. First, I forgot my Garmin on the charger at home so I had zero technology for the entire race.  This is not a bad thing if you are used to racing/training that way but I am not and have become a tech junkie.

Swim: The swim was in the bay so we did have to deal with some chop but it was not terrible. However, I could not keep water out of my goggles which really hurt my time.  I cam out of the water in 9th place.

T1: I had the fastest T1 time on my group and that definitely made up for a portion of the swim

Bike: Well on to the bike not know what my cadence, hr, speed or power was during the ride.  The only thing I had to gauge how I was biking was others on the course and perceived effort. I pretty much ignored perceived effort and just tried to stay with a few other bikers who seemed to be doing well. After the race I talked to the bikers I stayed with and we averaged right at 23mph for the bike. They combined my bike and T2 time together and I was 5th in my group.

Run: This is where I normally catch some people and it started pretty much the same but I had a hard time pushing myself because of not knowing how hard I was running. I usually really rely on the Garmin to tell me I need to go faster on the run. All for not though because as I was in 3rd place with less than a mile to go on the run I developed a massive hamstring cramp that stopped me dead in my tracks. I tried really quick to get rid of it so I could finish but I couldn't even walk for several minutes. With that I decided I would just cut through the course hobbling and turn in my chip.  My first DNF. Oh well I learned a lot from the race about my capabilities and limitations.

If I had to do it over I would follow my own directions to my athletes and hydrate better leading up to and the morning of raceday.

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