Friday, August 7, 2009

Pequannock Sprint Triathlon

This past Sunday was my first sprint triathlon, up in Pequannock, NJ.  One of my college swimming friends (Joe) lives in the town, had signed up, and asked me if I wanted to join.  Of course, I said yes.  We then proceeded to shame two other swimming friends (Reid, Bart) into joining us.

The week leading up to the race was interesting.  There was an endless email chain of 'what do I do' questions.  Reid used to race cycling, but was confused by transitions, Joe and Bart, being sprinters, took most of the week to grasp the concept of having to race for more than an entire minute.  My training has been very sporadic since Providence.  Between recovery, the beach, and going out with all of my teacher friends that suddenly have no real responsibilities, I'm slowly inching from 'in shape' to 'round shape'.  I'll need to stop that soon.

Race goals: go fast.  I was really curious to see what kind of speed I could hold on a course like this - short, with long, flat, straight segments.  My plan was to get in a tight tuck for these and just crank hard, then just work through the turns.  The run was just going to be whatever was left - I doubt it's possible to really toast your legs in a 12 mile ride, when you've been training for a HIM.

Race morning.  Up at 4am, pack the car, and drive up.  Turns out that Google maps gave me a longer drive time than it really was, so I was there at 5:40.  Met a nice woman who didn't know how to fix a flat (and didn't have a tube), so I rescued her race, got my stuff together, and meandered over to transition.  Set up, light warmup, and just killed time - I like having time to relax pre-race.  My other friends get there around 6:45 (7:00 mandatory pre-race breifing).  I also ran into Shane, who swam with me in high school.

Start!
Swim:
1 lap, 400 yards in a lake.  Gun went off, and I settled pretty quickly into a pace.  Wasn't particularly fast - probably around 1:15/100.  That put me in a comfortable 7th, with Bart in 2nd, Shane right ahead of me, Reid and Joe not far behind.  Run up the fake beach, and into transition.

T1: 0:33, 2nd OA
Since the swim was so short and warm, I wore a tri suit instead of wet suit.  This meant that I had an absolute minimum of tasks in T1.  Goggles and cap thrown on the ground, helmet on, and run out with bike.  2nd place at the end of T1.

Bike.
I forgot to mention - it was raining.  Not too hard at first, but it picked up significantly.  With the road soaking wet, all my turns had to be taken slowly.  Because I'm a bit of a coward turning on wet roads, I slowed down more than necessary on each turn.  I also could barely see through my visor.  Next time I need to take that off in the rain - riding blind is scary, and made worse by other people being even worse at turns than me.  Since it was a two lap race, the second lap was all about finding a safe position in the pack through the turns.  Even so, I managed to keep up a good pace on the straights, and had an overall average speed of 22.5 mph over the 12 miles.  My average speed over the straights was in the low-mid 23 mph range, so I met my goal for the race.

T2: 0:34, 12 OA.
I was 2nd in my wave coming into T2, with Shane very close behind.  I stupidly passed my rack by one, so had to cut back and go around to rack my bike.  Helmet off, shoes on, and running.  Beat Shane out of transition, still 2nd.

Run:
The markings on course were terrible, and nobody was directing us out of transition, so I was a bit confused as to where the run started.  I knew the general direction, went that way, and apparently guessed right.  Shane caught me within 400 yards, and we ran the whole 5k together.  It was a good thing - the neon orange paint used to mark the course was barely visible with the glare of the rain - a few times we split to opposite sides of the road just to look for the course markings.  We pushed each other at a pretty brutal pace (nowadays apparently 6:20 pace is fast for me), and I was almost certain I'd get dropped near the end.  This feeling got even worse when I was certain we had run our 5K, but didn't see a finish line.  Turns out the course was 3.45 miles.  Finally, when all looked grim and walking sounded lovely, we came around a turn and I saw the race tents.  The finish was 100 yards away.  Pain melted away and I dropped the hammer.  Shane responded with a disheartened grunt, and the race was over.

Finish.  2nd in my age group, also 2nd 34 and under.  2 other people beat me from older age groups, so 4th overall.  It was raining, and we had a bunch of friends there cheering for us, so there was no way I was staying the 2 hours to wait for awards.  An awards ceremony 2.5 hours after the start of the last wave for a sprint is stupid.