UBC Olympic Triathlon – May 16th 2010

2:07:47

First ever Podium - 3rd Overall

3/244 Overall
2/26 M30-34

http://www.winningtime.ca/10/10ubctri/oly.txt

So managed to get 3^rd Overall and my first ever podium on Sunday at the UBC Olympic Triathlon. This was my second ever Olympic race after having done ubc as my first triathlon 26 months ago. Even with a longer run course than in 2008 I managed to PR by a lazy 45 minutes and 8 seconds. So the work over those last two years and especially the last 16 months is starting to show results.

Congrats to Nathan Killam on the Win and Colin McArthur on 2^nd. Good strong all around performances by both of these guys got them great results come race day. Hopefully Colin and I both have strong days at IMCDA in less than 6 weeks time.

Thanks

Thanks to my supporters in Speed Theory, Forerunners and Newton Running.

Thanks to Clint of Mercury Rising Triathlon whom I have been working with since October. Still early days but definitely seeing a progression in the correct direction. Also thanks to those who I train with whether it be the dolphins crew in the early am (Think dolphins made up 4 of the Male and Female Podium) , the Speed Theory group for some of the adhoc sessions such as 10 b4 10 and Jerry, Art and co at Forerunners who I get some good feedback regarding the running side of things as well (especially the importance of drills/form)

Lastly thanks as always to Les and our friends for putting up with me either skipping or turning up late to many a social function. Can pretty much guarantee that will keep happening until July so apologies in advance.

Approach

Approach wise UBC Olympic was a training day type of race on the schedule before the next two key races on my schedule being Shawnigan Half Iron and Ironman Couer’d’Alene. Going into this one did not know what to expect. Had been a pretty big week of training but actually felt quite fresh coming into the weekend and after a light day of swim, bike, run on Saturday Race Day No 5 of 2010 was here.

In terms of goals didn’t really have much specific. Did do a race plan on how I wanted to execute effort wise but what this meant time wise was a bit of an unknown due to my inexperience at the distance added to a full training week. Essentially it was to have a good solid swim, go as hard as I could on the bike and run strong.

Race Report

Swim 26:05

(1500m - 1:44 per 100m)

Swim was a pool snake type swim, self seeding so got front 3^rd of my heat. As always before you know it it is go time and you are underway. It was 10 seconds between starts so first target was to get to the feet in front of me. This took about 300m or so and from this point on sat in, letting this person “negotiate” the overtaking and sneaking in behind whenever it happened.

Came through 800m in around 13:45 and after the 25m along the deck it was back in the water for the final 700m. Made a couple overtakes in the last 500m but generally just tried to sit on feet and not do any crazy accelerations.

T1 (including run to transition are) – Approx 2:00)

After sprinting through to the T1 area had a good T1 (helmet on, race number on, shoes on) and was heading out on the bike course. Had my sunnies attached so put these on in the first 200m of the bike.

Bike 1:00:02 (Guess splitting out T1 and T2 times)
(40km - Avg Speed 40 km/h)

Used the 1km out section to find a rhythm then started working hard on the 4 laps. Don’t have exact data but my pacing seemed quite even for all four laps. Main challenge was fighting the headwind while going back up the false flat along Marine, this made for tough going but just focused on keeping the cadence high. The hill going up 16^th felt pretty easy and was able to fly up this each time. Other than that the main focus was to accelerate hard out of the 12 180 degree turns on the bike course. I now know why the ITU guys practice these as there is much speed to be gained in these.

Good bike, felt like I was topping out power wise though. This is not a horrible thing though as feel I could hold this output for longer as was not red lining at all aspects. Overall this was the 2^nd fastest Bike Split including T1/T2 so happy with that aspect.

T2 (Approx 30 seconds)

Dismount, racked bike, helmet off, slipped into my Newton Racers and grabbed bottle with Gus taped to it along with a headband. Not much to improve here except my dismount which was a little bit slower than ideal.

Run 39:11
(10.71km – 3:40 min/km pace)

So post run was a little bit unhappy with this as thought I had blown up on the second half based on my watch, however the body had not felt this was the case. In the end based of multiple GPS watches of people who race it seems the course was around 10.71km. Due to the TT start and having started in the second to last heat the run was pretty much a individual Time Trial (Similar to the bike). As a result just went out trying to hold 3:3x km pace. Looking at post race data it seems I ran an even split even with the longer than expected run to the finish. Racing the run is one of my strengths so not sure the pure time trial nature brought the best out in me for this regard. However this is the same scenario for everyone.

In the end had the run been 10km it would have worked out to a split of around 36:35 which is about 7.5% slower than my sun run time of 34:05. In the end given the course (lots of turns), being off the bike and in a TT format is a ok result. Still room for improvement on this also but not every day can go perfectly.

Overall Impressions

Definitely happy with going sub 2:10. When did the math I figured it was achievable but you race to find out what is possible. Was fun to race this distance and look forward to doing some more of these more speed focused races into the future, especially as the swim improves as that is key at all distances but especially Olympic.