Race Chestermere Triathlon, Sprint distance Race Date July 15, 2012
Name Danny Woo Race Time 08:50 AM
Location Chestermere Report Date July 16, 2012
Distances
Swim:750 m, Bike: 23.2 km, Run: 5 km (measured 4.6 km)
Goals
Swim: Finish well and not panic
Bike: Bike strong
Run: Faster than Vulcan
Overall: Finish my first open water swim race
Result
Swim: Very comfortable, decent pace
Bike: Felt good, pretty steady pace
Run: Ran ok, about the same as Vulcan, but had stomach cramps
Overall: My first open water swim race! Was happy with the race and glad the swim went very well. Did not win a door prize.
Finish Time
Swim: 16:20, Bike: 50:44, Includes transitions, Run: 27:43, Overall: 1:34:46
Transition Time (my watch)
Swim-Bike: 3:56, Bike-Run: 1:11, Total: 5:52
Elevation
Bike: Gain 65 m, Run: Gain 45 m, Overall: flat course
Placing
Swim: 72nd overall
Bike: 44th overall
Run: 80th overall
Total: 61st /117 overall, 15/23 in age group
Race Preparation
Followed training program.
Normal diet. Was a hot week so had trouble sleeping earlier in the week.
I got my bike checked out at Bow Cycle. Luckily I took it in a bit earlier as some adjustments had to be done. Earlier in the week I put the chain into the wheel, causing the wheel to go out of true and the derailleur to get really out of whack. I’m not sure if this was because of me changing the cassette last week, or if it was just getting old. Regardless, Bow was able to adjust the gears and true the wheel that night. One less worry.
Race Day
Weather was Overcast & cloudy, around 20 °C. Moderate wind. Threat of rain but it stayed dry.
Race – Sprint Start @ 8:50, after the Olympic start at 8:20.
Pre-race
I got up at 5:30 was out the door by 6. I packed everything the night before. I was pretty excited for the race, and wasn’t able to get to sleep really early. Took a while before I could fall asleep.
Went to Denny’s for breakfast (maybe not the best choice) before getting to Chestermere at 7:00. I grabbed all of my gear and bike and found a spot in the transition zone. I really should get a gear bag. One of the reusable shopping bags I use as a gear bag developed a hole and I was dropping things along the way: CO2 cartridges, tubes, and who knows what else.
I tried to pick one close to the bike exit/entrance so I wouldn’t have to run as far with the bike. It was pretty full already at that time. Then I went to the very long and slow line-up for timing chips. I don’t know why they didn’t give this out with the race package. This took about 30 mins and then the pre-race meeting so I didn’t really have time to have a decent warm-up. I ran for about 5 mins, and got into the water for another 5 mins. The pre-race meeting was good because that’s where they told us the swim was clockwise, not counter clockwise as the map and website indicated.
I moved my bike in the transition zone after getting my chip as a few other people crowded up my spot. I set it-up in the same way that Angie showed my in Vulcan. I did notice a lot of people used plastic containers. I thought that might come in handy on rainy days, and for wet ground. The transition area here was on a patch of grass and was quite wet from the overnight rain.
I found John B. and Melanie B., who were also racing. They were in good spirits too.
Swim
Mass start, one lap around the buoys. Splits (from my watch) First half – 5:56, Second half – 7:02
476 strokes measured w/ “the watch”. I really like my Garmin 910xt.
Side note and apologies for the ad: best review of this watch: http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2011/10/garmin-forerunner-910xt-in-depth-review.html
The start was pretty straight forward: mass start from the boat launch ramps. I found the spot near the back where I could stay out of the way of the faster people. It was a bit odd to do the mass start and go across the way of the Olympic swimmers. Some of them had to stop to let us go through. That was likely very annoying for them.
My swim goal for this race was to just complete the race in a comfortable pace without getting into any problems.
The graph below shows my speed and route I took. No overly straight on the first half, better on the return.
From the start, I found a “pocket” of space where there weren’t any other swimmers. I was fortunate enough to keep the open pocket for pretty much the whole race. I bumped into people, on maybe five occasions the whole race. I had to slow down a bit or adjust my position so nothing serious. Only once did someone swim right into my right side, but he adjusted quickly. I didn’t have any issues sighting: I was able to see the buoys well, and I could use the other swimmers as well. On the return leg, I thought I was a bit too far left of the “line”, by maybe 20m. But it was a bit hard to tell as there really wasn’t anyone around me until close to the finish.
The swim itself was fine. I thought I had a consistent pace, but it looks like I was about a minute slower. I think there’s a moderate current in the lake or I was just slower. I thought I kept a consistent pace. The water was murky, but had decent visibility around me, say about 5m, with the light shining through. The weeds were close to the surface at the start but cleared up until the return leg. The weeds on the return leg were just below the surface in spots. I got tangled up a few times with the weeds. Nothing too serious, but annoying.
The last 150m or so is where more swimmers bunched up. There was a bit more bumping and I noticed a lot more people doing breast stroke so I would run into them a bit more.
Transition 1
Watch time – 3:56, included with the bike split
I got out with help from the volunteers. Good thing too as my first few steps were a bit wobbly and the boat ramp was slippery. I ran through the timing right after that and took off the top half of the wetsuit myself and then got the wetsuit stripper volunteer the help me with the rest. I thought this went fairly quickly. The run to the transition was short, but I was slow. I thought it went well, but putting on the HR transmitter was slow, especially since I forgot to put it out. I should just wear it while swimming next time. This took about four minutes.
After running to the bike mount spot, I tried to do a quick stop to mount my bike but ended up slipping and almost falling on my bike. I saved it, but that killed a bit of time and would have been very bad.
Bike
Two laps around the community.
As measured on my watch: First lap 23:14, Second lap 22:27, total 45:54. Official time 50:44 w/ both transitions.
Avg speed 30.4 km/h, Avg/Max HR 165/172, Avg/Max Cad 93/115.
My goal here was to maintain steady, fast pace. The course was quite flat and my only concern was riding on the highway as it wasn’t a closed road for the race and road debris. Luckily, traffic was fairly light as it was Sunday morning, and there was very little road debris (a bit of glass on the road). They had lots of volunteers to help direct people and traffic.
There was a bit of head wind going west, and then north, but got a tail wind coming back so that was nice. I think I was around 27 km/h going into the wind, and 33 km/h coming back with the wind. During the bike ride, I really felt bloated. I wasn’t sure if it was my breakfast, or I sucked in a lot of water and air during the swim. Either way, I didn’t drink as much as I should have. I had a decent ride, probably could have gone a little bit faster. I was with one rider had a very similar speed for most of the race and we would alternate leads (no drafting of course). This was my first no-drafting event but that wasn’t an issue as people were either much faster or much slower than me, other than the one fellow.
Attached is the graph and info from my watch. Speed varied quite a bit, but cadence was relatively steady.
Transition 2
Watch measured time of 1:11, but it was longer than that as I didn’t stop the watch until I put the bike on the rack. Included with bike split.
Coming back into transition, I thought I had a decent change. But time wise it was slow as I had to tie-up my laces. Really should look into quick laces.
Run
Two lap course, True distance of 4.6 km, not 5 km as advertised.
First lap 13:56, Second lap 13:46, total 27:43.
My watch “intervals”, for 1.6 km (1 mi) were 9:52 (6:08 pace), 9:37 (5:59 pace), last pace 6:04, average speed 9.96 km/h, 6:02 min/km
Avg/Max HR 163/170
My goal here was to be a bit faster than Vulcan, but with a better pace. I thought I was uneven with pace there.
The course was flat with one small hill. I tried to keep an even pace mixed in with some fast pace every five minutes or so (“strides”). Unfortunately, I felt my bloated stomach a bit more here and had stomach cramps about halfway through my first lap, for about a minute. I kept running, but it felt slow. My cramp mostly went away on the downhill portion of the run, but was there for the rest of the race. I did get in some water along the way. I did pick up my pace on the second lap, though I did feel crappy going back up the hill. I almost ran past the turn for the finish, even though the finish line was quite visible from a long ways back.
Post Race
MY FIRST OPEN WATER TRIATHLON!! Very happy to finish. Everything went pretty smoothly, other than the stomach cramp.
I felt pretty good after the race, and no muscle or joint pains. I felt a bit bloated still.
It was great to finish and to finish fairly well. Considering I really only started to learn how to swim in June 2011, this felt really good.
Thanks to Angie for really teaching me to swim and to get the fitness, training and confidence to finish well.
Two days later, no abnormal aches or pains, from the race. Some muscle fatigue, but nothing more. The soccer game after the race was another matter.
Learnings:
1. On short races, fast transitions are really necessary. It’s hard to make-up time lost there, and should be a good place to save time.
2. Probably should not go to Dennys for breakfast before a race. At least not 2hrs before.
3. Have something to keep the gear dry in the transition area on rainy days.
Prizes
Sadly, no door prizes. Really thought I would have a good shot at something as most people left by the time they started giving out the prizes. It was odd as they just wrote people’s numbers down on a piece of paper.
Everyone got a medal, and it was nice.
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