2011 Half Full Triathlon Race Report

Yesterday, I competed in the 2011 Half Full Triathlon as the first two legs
of a relay.  This is the second year they have held this triathlon and it is a little
bit different from my other races this year.  The race benefits the Ulman Cancer
Fund for Young Adults and is a bit smaller, more low key and more relaxed than
the other triathlons I did this year.  It was held at Centennial Park, the same place
as Columbia and Celebration, and was nice and close to home.  The distance is
pretty similar to a half IronMan, but is a little unusual, the swim is .9 mi, the bike
is supposed to be 56 mi, but was a bit short due to road construction rerouting and
the run is 13.1 mi.  This year, they did a ~40mi race as well as the ~70mi race.  It
went on at the same time as the 70mi race and was identical except that it was
a single lap of both the bike and run course instead of two laps.

Preparation

After my last race in June, I mostly relaxed as far as cycling for the month of July
and then started training again in August.  This is pretty clear from looking at my
cycling performance manager graph.  The green line tracks long term stress (or fitness);
clearly it took a nice big hit in July before I started ramping back up.  It was also a
bit of a challenge over much of September to get outside to ride due to the almost
continuous rain.  I'm glad I have a better trainer setup this year than previous years;
even if it isn't as good as riding outside, it is far better than nothing.

I think a picture makes it pretty clear that my overall bike training was better than
in the past.  Here's a summary of my yearly mileage over the last three years (with
3 months left this year):

As for swimming, I started doing an online course called Finding Freestyle.  It is a
pretty cool 12-week course designed to help people improve their freestyle.  The basic
course includes a few weekly workouts with drills designed to teach your body various
components of the stroke and the correct timing for things like kicking.  The instructors
provide feedback over an online discussion group and encourage members to post
videos to make the feedback more accurate.  I actually haven't completed the entire
12-week course yet; I got to about week 8 and picked up with doing mostly Master's
workouts instead.  But in those 8 weeks, I actually learned how to kick while swimming.
It sounds pretty basic, but effective kick timing is not trivial and I was frankly a bit
lost in the past.  Like a lot of triathletes, I was notably faster with a pull buoy than I
was swimming regularly.  Now that I'm done with my race season, I plan to pick up
and finish the rest of the course.  I also continued working out with my Masters group
and got some nice feedback about my positioning in the water.

Race Morning
As I do more of these races, the race day prep seems to have gotten much easier.
I had a prepacked bag of race day tools and goodies (things like tape and scissors).
I actually slept a good 7 hours without tossing and turning.  Since the race is close
to home, I didn't have to wake up super early.  I got up around 5:45, got dressed,
made some coffee and a bagel, and drove to my usual super secret parking spot.
It was dark and cold as I walked in the 5-10 minute walk to transition, but I was
nice and warm and relaxed.  I got to transition and was a busy bee for about a
half hour as I setup my stuff.  Its amazing how much little stuff there is to do to
setup, but by now I'm pretty used to it and just settle into pumping up tires,
checking brakes, clipping in the shoes, getting on the wetsuit, etc.

Swim: 23:05, 10th(?) place overall
My family showed up right before the swim start, which was great. 

A big change at this race was that I wasn't going to start last!  The organizers
setup the waves so that the racers in the longer distance event all went first.
So while I was technically in the last wave of the 70mi distance race, I was
actually about half way overall.  Since the race was a bit smaller as well, this
meant a lot less waiting around, which was a welcome change.  The swim
started with a time-trial start, which meant two people go in the water every
5-10 seconds or so.  I'm fine in mass starts, so this wasn't particularly helpful
to me.  It did make it a bit weird in that you don't quite know where you stand
relative to your competition.  For example, I was first out of the water of my
wave, but was actually beaten by a few seconds by two swimmers who started
a few minutes after me.

As for the swim itself, it went great.  On an otherwise cold day, the water was
very comfortable in a wetsuit. I now feel confident in my open water technique;
I have a good pattern for sighting and can easily hold my line without a lot of
extra effort.  The relatively new 2-beat kick that I have been practicing felt
pretty natural and seemed effective.  I didn't manage to do any drafting; I was
passing folks the entire time and generally just tried to avoid others in the water.


Looking at the online results, it looks like I had the 10th overall swim time out
of about 300 people who did the 70mi race.  My time was also almost 4 minutes
faster than last year (26:54).  While it is hard to compare apples to apples with
swim courses since they can be setup slightly different year to year, that still
seems like a very substantial improvement.


T1: 2:22
After the swim is a pretty long uphill run to the transition area.   When I got to
transition, I had my relay partner help take off my wetsuit, got on my helmet,
a pair of socks, took a Tums (gotta keep the tummy happy) and took off.  This
time I taped my sunglasses to my bars so they wouldn't fall off like they did
in the last race.  It did mean I biked with tape on my glasses.  I think my T1 was
pretty darn fast.  It was a cold windy day, so most people were putting on a lot
of gear in T1.  For example, the overall men's winner took about twice as long
as I did in T1.  For comparison, my friend's relay transitioned in 2:02 where all
they had to do was hand off the timing chip.  My wife and kids were waiting
to wave (and take this picture) right outside of T1.  As you can see, I'm getting
on my glasses and my feet are still on top of my shoes after a well executed
flying mount.

Bike 2:29:44, 1st Overall
After being a little sketchy getting my feet in my shoes while riding in the past few
races, I spent a bit of time the previous Friday trying to iron out the kinks.  I practiced
on the actual course and figured out that I needed to get to the first downhill to put
them on without losing too much momentum.  This means riding for the first couple
minutes with my feet on top of the shoes, which turns out to be no big deal.  My
execution in the race wasn't as good as my best practice attempt, but it was much
improved.

What to wear had been a bit of a dilemma.  The forecast the night before was for
high 40s to low 50s with quite a bit of wind and a chance of light rain.  That is
definitely not my idea of ideal weather for cycling.  On the other hand, I'm a bit of
an aero-weenie and hate to give up "free" time.  I settled on wearing socks, adding
toe-covers to my shoes, and wearing a long sleeve "tech" shirt under my tri-suit.
I had been debating about gloves and in the end decided to just go without.

The first 30 minutes or so on the bike went fine.  I felt a little chilly, but wasn't in
too bad shape.  There were still plenty of folks from the waves ahead of me to use
as motivation to overtake and I was trying to settle into a nice groove without
using too much energy early.  After about 30 minutes, my hands were starting to
feel pretty cold.  I found myself blowing on them and holding them together to
try to warm them up.  I realized things were a bit dicey at the first water bottle
exchange.  My plan was to ditch my one bottle and grab a gatorade without
slowing down too much.  I pointed to the volunteer I wanted, rode up with my
hand out and bam, knocked it out of her hand without being able to grasp it.
Fortunately, there was a line of volunteers.  Bam! Down goes the second volunteer's
bottle.  Grab! Whew, I barely managed to hold onto the third volunteer's bottle.
Sure would have been easier if I could actually feel my hands!  I also found that
when I tried to open the zipper on my bento box I could barely get it open.  Hmm,
at this point I'm a bit worried about my no-glove choice.

Fortunately, things picked up.  By the end of the first lap, I had passed most of
the people I was going to pass that were part of the 70mi race.  The field had
thinned substantially and I was passing people less and less frequently. During
the second lap, we started to pick up the tail of the 40mi race, so I got to have
some more folks to use as motivation.  I had taken it a bit conservative on the
first lap and was planning on trying to do the second lap faster than the first.
Last year in this race, I did just the opposite and it wasn't fun.  It must have been
getting a bit warmer and the sun even peeked out briefly during the second lap
and I started to feel my hands again.  Given how cold it was, I didn't lose that
much fluid, so I didn't bother trying to grab another water during the second lap,
so I didn't have a test of whether I could have improved my water grabbing.
The second lap was relatively uneventful; I managed to have some energy left
to push it during the last few miles and felt really good coming back to transition.
I realized that I had a good chance of making it in under 2:30 and used that as
motivation at the end of the ride.  This ended up getting me the negative split
for the second half that I was shooting for.

Last year, my time was ~2:50 at a bit under 20mph.  That was on a somewhat
longer course (I think it was off by 2-3 miles due to the construction) and
different conditions (probably better last year).  My Garmin claims my avg
speed this year was ~21.5mph, which I'm pretty happy with given the difficulty
of the course and conditions.  I had a vague goal of having the best bike split
in the entire race, and as far as I can tell from the online results that happened.
I beat the next fastest split by about 3 minutes (of course he had to save something
for the run).

T2: 0:37
Not surprisingly, the transition in a relay is pretty fast.  I think I actually surprised
my partner by coming in under my estimated time.  He was barely ready to go
and had apparently not warmed up yet.  Still, we handed off the chip and he took
off.

Run: 2:13:50
My friend Vlad did the run for our relay team.  He had some injury issues that
kept him from training the way that he would have liked, but he still toughed
out the run and seemed to have enjoyed the race a lot.  It was great to have an
upbeat partner who was excited to be part of the race.

Conclusions
I had a great race.  I was very happy with my times and the race was very well
organized and run.  I'll admit that my primary motivation for the race isn't my
involvement with their benefit; it is because it is a nice race that is close to home.
Even so, it is hard not to be a bit inspired listening to the survivor stories being
told over the loud speakers during the race.

I know its a bit unfair to compare my times up to T2 to the field since they have
to run 13.1 miles still, but I do it anyway.  Looking over the online results, it looks
like my time up to T2 would have been 1st by about 6 minutes!

Better Aero Field Testing

My last try at aero field testing was plagued with a number of problems,
making the results quite unsatisfactory and untrustworthy.  Here were
a few of the known problems:

• The power data can be bad if you stop pedaling.  In particular, the interaction between a crank based power meter like my quarq and the 705 is bad when you stop pedaling because the quarq stops sending updates and the 705 interprets this as the same as the last reported power (possibly with a timeout and some interpolation).  In practice, this means getting files that can have repeats of a large power with a cadence of 0.  In my previous tests, I hadn't been aware of this and probably spent some time where I wasn't at least soft-pedaling.
• The quarq is sensitive to which chain ring you are in.  I did a simple comparison of my quarq against my powertap while running two head units and found that the two chain rings report a power difference of about 2-4 watts at 200watts.  This is the expected behavior and is considered pretty good.  The moral for testing with a crank based power meter is to stay in one chain-ring.
• I tried to experiment with multiple magnets after the previously reported test and got some weird results with speed dropouts, etc.  I eventually settled on getting a new battery for the GSC-10 and also got some nice rare-earth magnets from Walmart's hobby department and taped three to my H3Cs.  This then requires telling the head unit that my wheel is 1/3 the rollout.  Here's what that looks like:

• I was concerned about the repeatability between runs, so I started using the "calibrate" function on the 705 head unit and recording the zero-offset that the quarq reported back.  Perhaps a bit paranoid, but seems nice to have the data around.
• I decided I needed to confirm that I could get repeatable results with the same configuration, including stoping, reseting the head unit, etc.  In other words, do A/A/A/... tests till they matched.  Then when I wanted to test a new setup (assuming I could get A/A/A/... working), do A/B/A/B/... type tests.
• In some of my previous runs, I found that making the turnaround could be dicey.  I moved my turnaround points slightly further uphill to make it easy (at the cost of a slightly longer course).
• I started doing just two laps per setup.  That has the advantage of testing my cross test issues that I was concerned about, and also makes it less painful to bail on a trial when I get passed by cars and its clear that the run will not be clean.

So today looked like a good day to do some more testing.  I was scheduled to do a long ride in my training plan, but didn't want to go too far from home because the weather forecast was calling for rain.  The weather was pretty mild, although I did get hit with a little drizzle during the testing.  My initial goal was to see whether I could do some A/A/A/... runs with my new knowledge and protocol.  I then threw in some A/B/A/B tests.  When I got home, those test results looked pretty good, so I decided to do some more tests with A'/B'/...

So what were the configurations I tested.  Nothing too complex.  I tested my basic bike setup with a road helmet for the initial trial.  My initial A/B/A/B tests were just with A=baseline, B=A+no gloves.  My second set of runs had the same setup, except I switched to my aero helmet as the baseline.  I then tested that second baseline with no gloves and then with no bento box.  So we have A'=aero helmet, B'=A'+no gloves, C'=A'+no bento.  Here's a shot of my baseline bike position (taken afterward on a trainer) and the equipment that I changed:

I also tried a hill-climb repeat with different speed to try to pry apart CdA from Crr.  The protocol I used there was Fast/Slow/Fast/Slow.  For the hill climb, I just stopped the head unit at the start point and then
braked, returned to the start point, stopped the bike and then restarted the head unit.  The transitions are a little iffy, but the results looked pretty decent to me:

This gave me a Crr estimate of 0.0042, which seems to match what I might have guessed for my nice fast tires.  For the Rho, I just used a density calculator with conditions from a nearby weather station. My weight was from a household scale.

Here are the details of the runs.  I put a "*" next to the CdA of the trials that looked "good" in post-processing.

Trial   Time    Config  Offset  AvgSpeed        CdA     Notes
1       8:19    A       -178    19.3            .256*   GPS altitude worked!
2       8:28    A       -177    20.8            .254*           
3       8:36    A       -175    20.4            .252*
4       8:45    A       -182    20.2            .254*
5       8:53    B       -175    20.4            --      Bad car interference
6       9:02    B       -179    20.3            .248*
7       9:11    A       -181    19.9            .252*
8       9:20    B       -178    20.7            .244*
9       9:33    A       -166    20.0            .252*   

Trial   Time    Config  Offset  AvgSpeed        CdA     Notes
1       10:55   A'      -182    20.4            .236    Car interference
2       11:08   B'      -177    20.4            .242*   GPS altitude worked!
3       11:21   A'      -177    20.5            .232*   GPS altitude worked!
4       11:29   B'      -177    20.2            .238    Jagged looking VE
5       11:38   A'      -175    19.3            .230    Jagged looking VE
6       11:47   C'      -178    19.7            .240    Jagged looking VE
7       11:58   A'      -174    19.6            .246    Jagged looking VE
8       12:07   C'      -174    19.3            .242    Jagged looking VE
9       12:18   A'      -182    19.0            .229*
10      12:27   C'      -181    19.6            .244*
11      12:37   A'      -182    21.8            .240*

Generally, this attempt looks much better.  The A/A/A/A stuff is very close.  Config "B" with no gloves seems to test slightly faster, which is the expected result.  Comparing A to A' is a little dicey since they weren't done quite back to back in alternating fashion, but we are only talking about an hours difference and I didn't change anything else.   The second set of runs were less clean in both the results and the plots.  I'm not sure what was up between 11:29 and 12:18, I think it may have actually started raining more then.

I'll attach all the plots at the end of this post so you can get an idea of what I mean by good looking vs. bad looking Virtual Elevation plots.

So what's my conclusion.  It looks like I can actually get some reasonable repeatability.  I don't think I can really make any claims yet about being able to distinguish the configurations I tried.  There were not really enough "clean" runs to feel confidant about the results.  I'd guess that no gloves is indeed better by .004-.008, aero helmet is buying at least .010 and that the bento may be better, but needs some more clean runs to be sure.

For anyone interested in the raw data, I uploaded it into a Google docs folder.  The filenames should be pretty clear (data/timestamp embedded in the name).

EDIT 09/14/2011: I think I can explain the jagged plots.  The next ride I took, I noticed my speed was a little flaky.  It looks like my magnets were slowly sliding outward (centripetal force I guess) and the tape wasn't quite keeping them aligned.  Not surprisingly, if the speed gets flaky, the VE plots get flaky.  Guess I'll have to find a better way to attach them to the wheels.  I would prefer something that is removable later, so I don't want to do epoxy...

EDIT 09/17/2011: Yet another caveat.  I discovered that my Garmin 705 reset itself to "smart" recording when I upgraded the firmware.  The smart recording feature sucks for this type of thing.  It is a wonder that my data looks at all reasonable. 

Here was the second set of trials.

More Aero Testing

Another day, another set of runs. This time a bit more careful with recording
everything. I still haven't calibrated my PM and I still have just one speed
magnet. I started marking my turns, which helped, and recorded whether
cars passed. This time I decided to try some equipment changes as well.

9/2 Aero testing notes: from ~8:30-9:30 am
Venue: “Preserve” half pipe
Turn Marking: Entry/apex/exit marked with chalk
Weight (bike+rider): 175lbs before, 173lbs after
End conditions: temp 68.7 F, pressure 29.63 in, humidity: 94%, calm
Crr guess: 0.005

Cannondale Slice, Quarq, Hed3C, Vittoria Corsa Evo Tubies, Dark Speed Works bento, between bar water, frame water.
Clothes: DeSoto Liftfoil, arm warmers, gloves, Giro Advantage

Runs: (Key: 0p: no cars, pa: car passed against, pw, car passed with)
1.) baseline: 1pa,2pa,3pa,1pw: CdA: .234
2.) Road Helmet: 0p,0p,1pa: CdA: .234
3.) #1-gloves,-arm warmers: 0p,0p,0p: CdA: .212
4) #3-bento: 3pa,1pw,0p,3pa: CdA: .252
5.) #4-frame water: 0p,0p,0p: CdA: .252
6.) baseline: 0p, 1pa, 1pw: CdA: .236
7.) baseline+no turtling: 0,0,1pa CdA: .260

I believe that the data looks pretty good this time except for
a few of the laps with car interference. The big change
items could presumably use some retesting.

-) My aero helmet doesn't seem to help at all.
-) Who knew gloves and arm warmers sucked so bad? I need to test them individually.
-) I should advertise for Dark Speed Works.
-) Turtling is a big deal.
-) My frame water bottle seems like a non-issue. 

Aero testing protocol tuning

I've recently been playing around with some aero testing protocols.
In particular, I've been trying to use the "Chung method", which relies
on computing Virtual Elevation (VE) based on the inputs from a power
meter and your speed.  Ideally, if you have a good testing protocol,
the can give you results that are similar to having a wind tunnel.  That
means you can get feedback on position and equipment changes without
visiting a wind tunnel (and paying the big bucks).  This sort of field
testing does seem to require a bit of care.  I've been working on getting
the hang of what are the important bits so far.  There are some folks who
use a spreadsheet, but for now I'm using Aerolab in GoldenCheetah.

My first try was back in Feb, where I had all sorts of problems:

1. It was really windy.  Bad bad bad.
2. There were passing cars. Double bad.
3. I was varying equipment before verifying the protocol.
4. I was using GPS for speed.  Yuk.
5. ...

What was cool was that it still seemed to show some coarse
differences in CdA between the large scale equipment changes.
At the time, I was using my powertap, so I couldn't really test
my full race setup since I race with H3Cs.  I got some feedback
on slowtwitch which suggested I needed to refine my field testing
before going further. http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=3508712#3508712

Recently, I got myself a quarq (very nice) and decided to give
it another shot now that I can test my actual race setup. 

Here's what that looks like by the way:

For the new testing, I changed a bunch of things:

1. Picked a new venue, a half-pipe close to home where I can turn around slowly on the uphill ends.
2. Added a speed sensor and wheel magnet.
3. Upgraded my Garmin 705 to new firmware (3.3)
4. Varied the power quite a bit from lap to lap.

My first decent test looked like this:

Here the elevation actually matches reasonably from the Garmin for the last 5 laps or so.
It isn't entirely clear what was going on the first few laps, some combination of not hitting
my marks, cars passing, not keeping an identical position, etc.  The raw data can be
found at:  http://connect.garmin.com/activity/110917690

I tried again a couple of times today.  The equipment was identical to the day before
(different clothes, helmet), but the idea at this point was to see if I could generate
repeatable runs.  The first time I tried, the wind was perfect, but I was getting a
little bit of car traffic (messing up the "wind") and some foot traffic that was
messing up my lines.  I eventually gave up and rode around for a while and then
came back later.  Here are those two attempts:

 

 

Clearly the second try was much better (although the first was still better than my previous attempts).  The second to last lap has a pretty clear glitch.  I think that was a truck going by.  The route was pretty isolated otherwise (there may have been a car passing the other way on one or two of the other laps).  Unfortunately, the altitude was glitchy, so I ended up zeroing it out.

Raw data at: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/110919793 and http://connect.garmin.com/activity/110920056

So what's next.  The suggestions I've gotten so far:

1. Mark the turn around carefully with chalk (point of entry and apex)
2. Calibrate the power meter.
3. Use more than one wheel magnet.
4. Weigh things carefully with a good scale.
5. Get a Kestrel 4250 (portable weather tracker).

I was hoping to do some actual testing of different equipment, but that really
does depend on being able to get some repeatability.

Celebration Triathlon 2011: Lookout Susan Lucci

Yesterday I did the Celebration triathlon as a relay.  As usual,
I'm responsible for the swim and bike and get a pinch runner; for
the second time this year my wife.  Celebration is a "sprint" triathlon,
which in this case meant a .62 mi swim, 17.5 mi bike and 3.4 mi run.
Celebration is very convenient for us; it is in Centennial park where
we did the Columbia tri and is just down the road from where we
live.  As a local sprint race, the field is notably less competitive than
Columbia or Eagleman.  It is intended to be friendly to newcomers
to the sport and thus has a field largely comprised of less experienced
triathletes.

To skip to the end, we ended up in second place in all the relays
by about 27 seconds.  This second place by seconds thing
might eventually get old, but for now I'm pretty happy with the result.

Celebration 2010
Last year we also did Celebration and got 4th place mixed relay,
but it wasn't exactly the highlight of my season.  It was my first
non-wetsuit open water swim and I wasn't happy with my
gear choice (bike shorts and a tight tri-top).  The top chaffed and
dragged.  I just didn't have it that day on the bike and frustratingly
did the course 3 minutes slower than I rode it two days after the
triathlon (3 minutes is a long time on a 17.5 mile course!).  I even
got into an "accident" where I grazed some dude who had stopped
in the middle of the bike lane and bent over to examine his bike.  I
saw him at the last second, swerved and knocked him over.
Fortunately it was on an uphill part of the course, so it wasn't really
bad for either of us, but I think we both came away thinking the
other guy was a jerk.  So while this wasn't exactly a redemption
race, it was definitely one I was hoping would go better.

Race Morning
Guess when my wave went off.  Last.  Don't worry, I'm used to that.
My wave is supposed to leave at 8:22 and I'm supposed to be there
by 6:30 to get body marked.  The race morning was pretty much a
clone of Columbia, minus having to carry around a wetsuit.  I got up
at about 5:30, made some coffee and went to park at my super secret
local spot and walked to transition.  We went one better than Columbia
and I body marked my wife the night before, so I didn't even have to
call home to tell her what to do.  I setup my gear and was ready pretty
quickly.  I had some friends who were less experienced doing a relay, so
we killed much of the time chatting about triathlons.  We took our time
and wandered over to the start after having spent most of the long wait
hanging out in the transition area (it was nice not to be kicked out).

The Swim: (16:55)
At the swim start, I saw a number of friendly faces, which is always nice.
I recognized a girl from Columbia who I've seen at the last couple of
relays.  I said hi to a friend who had just done Eagleman and was also
doing the first two legs of a relay here.  I walked in to the nice warm
water with my friend who I had hung with in transition.  As we treaded water
waiting to start, I'm trying to eyeball who I'll follow.  So the gun goes off
and I start pretty hard.  After the first hard push, I lookup to see if I'm on
line and try to find who I'm going to follow.  Much to my surprise, there
isn't anyone.  Looks like I'm the big dog here, which is certainly a first.
I swam very comfortably in my new tri-suit as I did at Eagleman.  It is
certainly a big upgrade over last year's chaffing.  I was basically on my
own till about half way when I started passing the wave ahead.  It was
largely uneventful, with some very minor congestion at one of the turn buoys.
I was really happy with my open water navigation.  Every time I looked up I
was right on line.  I think having done a couple of other races recently has
definitely helped with the open water technique.  I believe that I came out of
the water first in my wave, but as of this morning the splits aren't posted in
the event results.

T1: 1:21
T1 was pretty good, but not flawless like Eagleman.  I got to my bike, put
on my helmet and ran off.  Halfway through transition, my sunglasses fell
off the place I had stuck them on my bike and I had to go back and get
them.  Not a big deal, but felt stupid.

Bike: 45:09 (http://connect.garmin.com/activity/95204622)
Once again I did a flying mount.  Getting on was fine and I planned not to
put my feet into the shoes till a flat section, which meant a minute or two
riding with feet on top of the shoes.  I'm still not as fast as I'd like getting
my feet in while riding, but nothing went dramatically wrong.  I think I had
gone out pretty hard on the swim and felt it a bit at the start of the bike.
My heart rate was at 184 or so for the first minute, which was pretty similar
to Columbia, but this time felt a bit worse.  I had done a fast dry-run of the
course on Friday with a time I would have been happy with for the race, so
I had a good idea of what sort of splits I wanted at various points.  I was a
bit behind my Friday pace at the turn around, but not by much.  After the turn
around it is net downhill, which can be a lot of fun since you really fly.  Sunday
it was fun, but also frustrating at times.  I kept getting blocked by cars on the
course that were getting blocked by bikers who were not far enough to the
right.  There is nothing more frustrating than being forced to use your breaks
during a race on a long straight downhill.  This happened to me two or three
times.  In the end I finished strong and was relatively happy with my time.  It
was slightly frustrating to be slower on race day than my Friday ride of the same
course, but given the added up front swim and the traffic issues, I really can't
complain.

T2: :38
T2 is just handing off the chip and saying "Go go go".

Kid Retrieval
As with Columbia, I did have a third leg that needed to be done at race pace,
only I had even less time since the run is half as long.  I had about 30 minutes to
get home, get four kids in the car, drive back to the park and get setup for
pictures of my wife finishing.  I grabbed my back pack of stuff, got back on my
bike, and headed off to where our car was parked.  I think I got to the door in
about 15 minutes from when I came in to transition, which was good, but cutting
it a bit close.  I stashed my gear, put some clothes over my tri-suit and got
everyone in the car.  We were at the park with what I guessed was about 5
minutes to get in position.  I hustled the kids up the quarter mile or so from the
parking lot to where we could see the race and we quickly setup to watch.
Within about two or three minutes, we saw my wife from a few hundred yards out.
I got some video of her running and some stills and we cheered as she went by.
We were setup maybe half a mile or less from the finish, so she still had a little way
to go till the finish.  Shortly after she passed us, we saw some tall lanky kid scream
by like he was being chased by a lion.  Turns out that kid was on the winning relay
that passed my wife not long after we saw her.

Run: 33:35
My wife seemed pleased with her race.  She told me how much better she
felt this year than last and how easy this seemed compared to Columbia (it
is half as long!).

Post Race
We got our medals, said hi to a few folks and took off.  We were hosting a
small get together of friends at our house after the race, so we had to go home to
shower and setup.  I did run into the overall female winner on the way out and
congratulated her on her race.  I had seen her at masters swimming on Friday
and we had briefly talked about triathlons.  It was nice to see someone that I
(sort-of) know win.

Summary:
There was no "big mistake" that cost us the race this time.  To win we just needed
to have been a bit faster (or to have tripped that kid running by).  Still, I improved
on both my swim and bike times for this same race from last year and my wife
improved on her run time.  My cumulative time up to T2 would have put me in
third overall place for the race.  Can't ask for much more than that.  I'm looking forward
to a bit of a break from racing for a few months.  My next race is not till the first
week of October.

Eagleman Aquavelo 2011: Pretty close

This morning, I did Eagleman Aquavelo.  This is a great category for me and seems to be a growing category based on the number of folks in my swim wave.  Eagleman is a pretty big time 70.3 Ironman race.  They have a bunch of Kona (Ironman 140.6 championship) qualifying slots and even more 70.3 championship slots.  Fortunately, they also have an Aquavelo category for those of us who want to skip the run.  This year it was chosen as the Mid-Atlantic championship for Aquavelo (whatever that means).  As far as I could tell that wasn't exactly a big deal, but it is on their website.

To cut to the quick, I got second place and had a good race.  But there are some interesting details...

Eagleman 2008: A brief history
I did Eagleman Aquavelo in 2008 as my first longer than Oly race and always viewed it as a bit of a failure.  I bonked about midway on the bike and had various fun issues.  The night before the race, we got into our B&B very late without having had dinner yet.  The only place to eat was some hole in the wall bar that had shrimp salad sandwich as the only substantial food.  I took my chances and lost.  My clip-on aerobars slipped about 20 miles into the ride and I couldn't really lean on them right.  My shirt wasn't pulled down all the way to my shorts, giving me a vicious burn on my lower back.  It got to the high 90s that day and just totally killed me.  For various reasons, I haven't done it again the last two years, but I did complete another long aquavelo, giving me some confidence that I can actually do that distance.  I signed up for this year hoping to show I could do well.  Since 2008, I have a new bike, new wheels, and many more miles of training and racing.

Travel/Racking/Lodging
Eagleman is in Cambridge, MD.  Just about nothing else of interest is in Cambridge, MD.  We booked a couple of rooms at a much cheaper hotel that was near the quite expensive host hotel.  Driving out to Cambridge was pretty uneventful as was the race registration and bike racking.  We then went to our hotel and realized that it was pretty crappy.  We don't have very high standards, but the place smelled of smoke, the pool was closed and in a weird state of disrepair, the public bathroom was shared with a liquor store, etc.  After dropping off our stuff, we drove back to Easton (about 20 minutes away) which is a bit larger and nicer for dinner.  We went to a "Ruby Tuesdays", thinking that safe was better than good for me and the kids.  This was surprisingly successful.  I got some pasta with their heavy cream sauce on the side and ended up with a nice safe pre-race meal.  The kids got stuff they liked.  We went back to the hotel, gave everyone showers and put the kids to bed.  We had an interesting arrangement, me in one room with the 2 yr old in the bathroom and Sylvia in the other room with the other three.  This left me with good sleep, but poor bathroom options.  I had to use the fun shared liquor store bathroom in the middle of the night.  I went to sleep early after getting my race stuff ready.

Race Morning
In case I didn't mention it before, my wave goes last, always.  In this case, it started at 8:30, but we would get kicked out of transition by 6:45, so I figured I needed to get to transition at the latest at 6am.  The key problem to surmount was how to get from the hotel to the race.  Our fairly brilliant plan was to let Sylvia and the kids sleep in and for me to make my own way to the shuttle bus that would go from the main parking lot to the race site (you can't park right at the race).  Initially, I thought I would bring a second bike and lock that up, but we then realized that I could roller blade instead.  I spent a good bit of college and post college commuting on roller blades, so this isn't that crazy an idea.  That is how our hero finds himself roller-blading with a backpack, an aero-helmet, a bike pump and a bagel at 5am on a dark back country road.  I actually was too embarrassed to wear the helmet on roller blades, so I just carried it.  Believe it or not, this part went very smoothly, took 15-20 minutes and was probably a nice little warm-up.  I got to the shuttle fine and got to the transition area in plenty of time to setup my stuff.

Race Belt, What Race Belt
For some weird reason, they required everyone to wear a race number while on the bike that I've only seen runners wear before.  So I wasn't prepared for this and didn't have a race belt.  They seemed quite serious about the rule, so I went in search of a solution.  Fortunately, after searching around for a bit, I found a place where they were selling race gear (shirts, etc).  The people there were crazy nice and ended up just giving me a race belt.  After getting the race belt it was pretty clear how it was supposed to work and ended up not being a big deal, just buckle the thing around you in T1.

Hurry up and Wait
So we get hurried out of transition at 6:45 and then need to wait till 8:30 to start.  Sat around and tried to relax while staying hydrated.  At about 8:00, Sylvia and the kids showed up.  We had a nice little picnic breakfast together before I had to run off to the swim start.

The Swim: 34:42
The water was warm.  Really warm.  About 82 degrees.  This made the race a non-wetsuit race.  We had gotten forewarning from the race director, so I ended up buying a tri-suit that I was very happy with (Desoto's Liftfoil).  I started the race at the far buoy to avoid traffic, and had what I thought was a pretty uneventful swim.  I felt like I sighted ok, but probably swam a little bit extra.  The one funny thing was that the water level was so low that you could have put your feet down the entire way.  Toward the end, there were people walking in from a long long way out.  That didn't seem like a very good decision to me; they were going very slowly walking.  I knew I wasn't first out of the water in my wave, but I thought I did a decent pace.  When I got on my bike, I was surprised to see the time of day was 9:05 on my bike computer.  That gave me some idea that I swam in 35 minutes; I was expecting closer to 30.  Afterward, I found out that a number of people seem to think the race was "slow".  With current, and setting of buoys, I guess there is a lot of variation.  My time corresponded to 1:49/100m pace, which sounds snail slow, but my time was 192 out of something like 2000, and I was 13th of the Aquavelo's, so it must not have been that bad.

T1: 1:13
I was excited about this transition.  No wetsuit, plus flying mount should mean a fast transition.  Plus, I got lucky and had my bike right on the end of the row.  All I needed to do was put my glasses and helmet on and strap on my race number.  Then I was on my way.  Just for comparison, the overall pro winner of the whole race had a 1:11 T1.

Bike: 2:16:51 (http://connect.garmin.com/activity/92023560)
The flying mount didn't go quite as cleanly as at Columbia.  I got on the bike fine, but took a little while to get me feet into the shoes.  In fact, one of my shoes came unclipped as I was getting it on.  I don't think this cost me that much time, but you can see in my garmin data that it took a minute or two to get up to full speed.  My plan for the race was to keep a reasonable heart rate and try not to blow up in the first half like last time.  I wasn't actually sure how fast that level of exertion would translate on the pancake flat course that is Eagleman.  I hadn't ridden my new bike or race wheels on anything so flat before.  After about 10 miles, I felt pretty good that a high 160's heart rate was giving me 24-25 MPH.  I had figured from previous years that a 24 MPH average had a good chance of winning the race.  My first challenge came at mile 11 or so.  My plan was to carry one water bottle and exchange at the aid stations as needed.  Turned out just fine.  At the first aid station, I threw them my bottle and grabbed a Gatorade that fit just fine in my bottle holder.  By the halfway point, my average speed was at 24.5 MPH and I was still feeling strong.  It was great to pass the point I had blown up at last time and still feel in good shape.  I managed to keep a pretty steady pace, using passing all the other folks out there as good motivation.  I remembered from last time that at the furthest point the biker's starts to thin out, same thing this year.  The funny thing is that it starts to get crowded again as you make your way back.  Not sure what accounts for that phenomenon, maybe the timing of the waves.  I passed a couple of other people in the Aquavelo category and figured I was out in front by the halfway point.

The Error that Cost Me
The bike is going just fine, I'm at like mile 40 or so, passing people like usual.  After passing a couple of people, I follow a couple of bikers turning, figuring the course turns.  Oops, that wasn't the course turning, that was them both deciding to go to the porta-potty at the aid station.  So I then have to turn myself around (which is pretty hard on a narrow road on a tri bike when you were going 25MPH), go back to the course and get back in the grove.  I figure it had to have cost me at least 20 seconds.  Little did I know that this would matter.

Finish
My plan had been to raise my effort for the last 10 miles or so.  I tried to do that, but didn't really have much left in the tank.  I managed to get my pulse above 170 for most of the time, but didn't feel like I was going much faster than the rest.  Still, I knew I could keep up my pace for the remaining time.  That was a good feeling to know I was going to finish without bonking again.  When I got back to transition, the Aquavelo section looked empty, and I thought I had won.  As I racked my bike, I saw that there was one dude already there.  Damn!  I went over and talked with him.  Turned out he had "just finished".  I congratulated him on his race and we briefly chatted about the race.  He swam faster, but was a bit slower on the bike.  Seemed like a nice guy.  Shortly later, the third place guy came in.  Took a bit longer before another dude showed up.

Going Home
My wife and kids were tired and ready to leave.  I told them that if I didn't win, we would skip the awards, so they were very happy with second place.  I gathered my stuff, got picked up by my wife and we drove home.

11 Seconds!
After I got home, I looked up our times.   Turns out I lost by 11 seconds.  Are you kidding me.  I know that I lost fair and square.  Knowing the course is my job.  Not following some idiot off course is my job.  Still, it burns to know that one mistake cost me the race.  So many things went right in this race that I can't be upset, but darn.  I wish that I knew he was ahead of me.  I'm pretty sure I had 11 seconds more in my legs had I known I was chasing someone.  I just assumed that since I hadn't seen anyone in my wave in so long that I was all alone.  Oh well, lesson learned.

Columbia Triathlon 2011 Race Report

Yesterday I did the Columbia triathlon as a relay for my first race of the
year.  I did the first two legs and my wife did the run leg.  This race is
virtually in my back yard, so I've done it a few times before and ride the
bike course as much as a few times a week.

Training and Prep
This years preparation was a bit more intense than previous years.  In December,
I started swimming with the Columbia masters.swimming club to work on
my swimming and have been going regularly three times a week.  At least
in the pool, my swimming seemed to have improved quite a lot.  As for the
bike, I got myself a new ride last fall and a set of race wheels (Hed 3s).  I
also started using GoldenCheetah's performance manager to track my training
with my power meter.  This allowed me to track my fitness much more
accurately and helped with scheduling a taper.

 Race Morning
My wave goes last, always.  So I had till 8:15 even though the race org wants me to
show up before 6:30 to get body marked.  I actually slept well, got up at about 5:30,
had a cup of coffee and some light breakfast and left the house at about 6:00.  Parked
in a secret local spot and walked 5 minutes to the transition area.  I got body marked,
called my wife to tell her how they were marking so she could mark herself and started
setting up my stuff (clip in bike shoes, setup water bottle, setup garmin, etc.).  It was
then waiting time.  At least I got to wait near my masters' swim lane mate Linda, who
was also doing a relay.  This helped kill the time.  I did feel like quite the wily vet when
I went to use the porta-potty and someone came out warning the line that there was
no tp.  I had a nice stash in a little plastic baggy in my pocket.  Finally wandered over
to the swim start at about 7:45 and got on my wetsuit and got in line to start.

The Swim: 22:36
At the swim start, I saw a couple of friendly faces from masters.  I was vaguely hoping
to draft off the fastest guy I knew, but that hope ended about 50 yards into the swim as
I had to watch Reg swim off into the distance.  So I ended up concentrating on staying
relaxed and sighting well.  I didn't spend much time drafting except for a brief spell after
the turn around buoy where I crossed paths with another swimmer in my wave and held
his feet for a while.  He seemed to be holding a slightly higher pace and less optimal
line, so I peeled off.  Overall it seemed to go by pretty quick and I was happy with
my open water technique.

T1: 1:58
After getting out of the water, I peeled down the arms of my wetsuit while running to
the transition area and let my goggles and cap get stuck in the arms as planned.  Ran
by the wife and kids and waved.  The relay transition area was very crowded.  I was
at the front of the wave and there were all the team's runners and bikers waiting in a
mob.  I got to my bike and found that my sunglasses weren't there.  I believe I may have
cursed a bit.  I stripped off the wetsuit, put on my helmet, got the bike down and took
off, yelling for folks to get out of my way.


Bike: 1:04:56 (http://connect.garmin.com/activity/87499639)
After getting mud stuck in my cleats last year, I decided I needed to learn to do a flying 
mount.  This went off pretty much without a hitch.  I had to wait till I got to 108 before
putting my feet in the shoes and I had to adjust the straps a bit, but otherwise was off to
a pretty good start.  In some previous years I felt like crap at the beginning of the bike,
so this year I did the majority of my bike workouts on the same day I swam.  I think it
helped and I felt better than in the past.  I did have a heart rate monitor on and felt a bit
worried to see mid 180's.  I can hold mid 170's, but 180's a bit high for me.  I got into 
a groove and tried to push it since the first half of this course is harder than the second. 
I hit the first third split at about 22:30, the second at 21:00 and knew I was on pace for
a good time.  The last third is net downhill, so I hit that at just over 21:10.  Since I started
in the last wave, I get to spend the whole time passing folks (and didn't get passed).

T2: :40
Well T2 is just handing off the chip to my wife.

My Third Leg
For me, the third leg was kid retrieval.  I quickly gathered my stuff and rode my bike to
my car.  Someone nice guy handed me my lost sunglasses (better late than never).
I drove home, quickly showered, gathered the kids and drove back to the race.
We then had to walk 10 minutes or so to the race finish line to wait for my wife.  I got the
kids and camera setup and we waited around for mommy.  Gave a nice cheer and high
five as she went by.

Run: 1:07:25
My wife had been shooting for below 1:10, so she was very satisfied with her result.
She hasn't been training for that long and was proud to see that she could push herself
a bit in the race.

Post Race
Enjoyed some nice post race food and met up with various folks we knew doing the
race.  The kids especially enjoyed eating the chips.

Summary:
My swim improved by over 2 minutes and my bike by 4 minutes from last year.  If you
compare my times to my age group, I had the best bike split and the best cumulative
time at the end of the bike.  On the other hand, the real triathletes in my age group had
to save something for the run!  I think my overall bike time was just about 30th,
including the pros and elites.  Next up is Eagleman aquavelo in three weeks.  Not sure
how realistic it is, but I have high hopes of placing or winning.

Intro

I enjoy doing triathlon's.  Except that I don't run.  Seems kinda weird, but
I've been doing it for a few years now.  I guess that requires some explanation.
I had back surgery for the first time when I was about 21 after spending a good
part of a year with debilitating pain (sciatica, etc).  A few years later I had to
have the same surgery revised after more months of debilitating pain.  At that
point my doc strongly suggested giving up sports that put a lot of impact on
your back.  In other words no running.  But I could bike and swim, so I did
that for fun.  One year some friends of mine stayed at our house to do the
Columbia triathlon.  They were doing it as a relay.  I thought really, you can
do that.  I swim and bike the distance they were doing regularly, it would be
fun to do.  So I signed up for Columbia with my sister as my pinch runner
and had a good time.  That was quite a few years back (6 or 7?) and quite
a few kids less.  Since then I've done a couple a year (with a few years off
when we had a higher baby load).  This year I've gotten a bit more serious...