Race report - 2012 Gatorade Race 7 Triathlon, St Kilda
Today's race was the last of the Gatorade series in Melbourne for this season, my second 'sprint' distance, and my longest yet. The "sprint" one I did in Elwood had a shorter swim.)
Time: 1:31:48 (7th of 8 in my category)
Swim: 16:40 (5th)
T1: 1:42
Bike: 40:01 (7th)
T2: 2:24
Run: 30:59 (6th)
I was a little muscle-tired coming into this race due to my run earlier this week, which was not the most ideal race prep, but whatevs. My "realistic goal" was 1:35, and my seekrit real goal was 1:30 (which is what I did in my first sprint race, so it would be a good improvement to do that with a longer swim as well). And my second seekrit goal was to do the run in under 30 minutes. So I didn't succeed with either of those BUT, CAVEATS.
It was perfect conditions for a race - no rain, virtually no wind, cool temps (cloudy), calm bay. A couple of folks that I did the corporate tri with were doing this race and bringing their cheer squad which was nice!
For this race I chose to race in Athena rather than my age group and I think I will continue to do that. For a start it's a lot easier to get a top 10 finish ;)
With this race we had a "shallow water start" - normally you either start on the beach or fully in the water (deep water start), but in St Kilda it's shallow half the way out there, so we started just standing in the water. I had forgotten to bring my goggles (I went swimming yesterday and very carefully filed them into my pool swimming bag) so I bought a new pair, bringing the total to 4. if you want some goggles, please take some off me. :)
Luckily the ones I bought seem quite good, didn't leak. About 2/3 way through some men from the following wave started overtaking me. 16:40 is 2:13/100m, which is...better than I realised, actually. (That also includes running up to transition.) There is some extra buoyancy and "tide assist" in the ocean though.
The ride was pretty uneventful, my time almost identical to my first sprint race. My legs started to feel tired pretty early, which made me regret the running. And my knees started to hurt after about 15km, which made me regret not putting my seat up! As I have been intending to do for weeks.
A T-A woman went past part way through my first lap, but not much faster, so I made it my goal to stick on her tail. Possibly illegal drafting at times, but they only ping you if you do it blatantly. (Wish they would stamp out undertaking, ie overtaking on the left. It's so annoying, and dangerous!) I'm not sure I got any physical drafting benefit from it, it's more psychological. It's easier to keep on someone than to maintain your own pace by yourself. Although this doesn't work so well if they don't go slightly faster than you would by yourself - I wondered at times. Towards the end of the first lap I overtook her back, then she took me again and finished her bike and I did the second lap with no one to follow, but feeling more solid anyway.
One thing I had felt in my first race, was that heading out on the run (after an hour of exercise) I felt very "empty", and thought "this is probably the point at which people take gels". However having not experimented with them during training, and reading the dire warnings on the back about consequences if not taken with the right amount of water, I decided it was safer not to innovate so radically on race day, and just put a packet of jelly beans in transition. Then in transition each time I just chomped on a mouthful of them. It would actually be better to do the eating on the bike because your body takes away energy to digest food (takes away energy from running, for me). But oh well, pretty close. And this worked really well! I didn't have that same "empty" feeling and in general felt a lot more capable on this run compared to the first sprint race I did.
I used my watch just to record my run, so I could use the heart rate and pace/timing feedback. I really find that helpful in knowing if I can push myself harder and if so how hard. Plus, my watch doesn't have a convenient way to switch disciplines and I didn't want to be stuffing around with it in transition.
So according to my watch:
Distance: 5.38km
Time: 31:07 [probably under 31:00 - I forgot to immediately stop it after I finished]
Pace: avg 5:47 max 4:25
HR: avg 172 max 184
Steps per minute: avg 85 max 91
Yes, I think the course was a little long! I feel a bit cheated out of my sub-30 minute goal! Oh well.
On second thoughts, maybe it was out of whack because I was trying to increase the number of steps I took in order to go faster, which seems to have worked - I think 91 is the highest I've ever seen it record for me (in the short time I've owned it), and 85 is high compared to "normal". So if they were faster they were probably shorter, hence distance fail. (This seems borne out by Runkeeper/Google Maps.)
When I started the run I tried to keep pace with an older woman who started the same time as me. I managed for a while. Someone said "there's a peleton of women here". There was about five other women, eventually they broke away from me. It was nice though - definitely spurs you on I think. And despite tiredness it didn't feel as "hard" as the 5K I did on Thursday, even though it was a similar pace. (Lower heart rate, obviously it wasn't as hard in that sense.) I think it's because on Thursday it was 28 degrees and I was barely warmed up. Doing 2/3 of a triathlon is a decent warm-up for a run, in my experience. :)
At times my posture felt bad and my back twinged in odd places, not as much as the first sprint tri though.
After about half the run I still had sight of two of the women who had broken away from me. One of them started to walk. As I ran past she started to run again and I tried to encourage her to keep me company. She did until the last km or so. Having some runner camaraderie was nice.
Anyway I shaved over 2 minutes off the run compared to my first sprint tri, which is pretty huge. I'm excited to see how it will look after a winter of training.
Here endeth my 2011/12 triathlon season :)
Previous races
Mar 2012 - Corporate triathlon, Elwood
Feb 2012 - Sprint triathlon, Elwood
Dec 2011 - 5K Sussan run
Nov 2011 - Mini triathlon(duathlon), St Kilda
Jan 2011 - Mini triathlon, Sandringham