Sudbury Spring Sprint Triathlon Race Report – Jason

May 9th was my first tri of the year, although it was a pool swim.  This was good news as the race temperature was 38 degrees with winds up to 40 mph.  The race was a 400 yard swim, 7 mile bike and 2.3 mile run.

 

Swim start times were determined by estimated times submitted with the race registration.  I had forecast 7 minutes which put me around the middle of all racers.  Everyone started 10 seconds apart in the pool, swimming down and back in each lane and then moving to the next lane and doing the same until the other side of the pool.

 

Getting ready to go:

I tried to settle into my pace but very quickly overtook the person who started in front of me.  With the 2 way traffic in the lane it was pretty tough to actually pass someone as it required a near full sprint.  This really disrupted my rhythm and put me out of breath.  Knowing it was a short race I just kept it going though, eventually passing 3 or 4 racers during the swim.

Out of the pool and into the freezing air.  Finished the swim in 6:53 or 1:42/100 yards.  This gave me 4th out of 15 in my age group and 104 out of 428 overall.  Pretty happy with that as it was about top 25% for both and very close to my target time.

According to my parents some people really suffered in the cold, with some being forced to drop out due to the wind chill.  I took the extra time to bundle up which killed my T1 time but allowed me to finish.  T1 was 3:41 – yikes!

The bike was not as strong as I would have liked.  However, I still passed many people and extended my streak of not being passed by fellow competitors, but I did not feel like my ride was overly strong.  My lack of power and 40mph winds were the primary factor.  I also elected not to use my deep rim wheels due to the wind.  I would have used the rear wheel but had issues getting it to inflate.  My bike split was 22:20, only 19.2 mph, which gave me 5th in my age group and 88th overall.

 

T2 was a lot faster, in 1:14.

On to the run and immediately had to fight to lower the HR, which took a bit of time to get under control.  The only issue was I was running significantly slower than in Greenwich.  I really think it was the cold and wind, but who knows.  I started to get into a groove, but then the course went onto a trail and at the exit the marshals did not give a solid indication of where to go and I was not familiar with the race course.  So I ended up taking a wrong turn.  From the GPS I can tell this added 1:22 to my race time, which would have moved me up 19 spots overall and 1 in my age group.  You can see the out and back right in the middle of the top blue line. 

In the end my run time was 20:21 for 2.2 miles (I think they had the course at longer than it was, since my distance was shorter with an off course excursion).  This put me at 9:15 pace which was very disappointing after running almost 1 min/mile faster a week earlier.  My run was 13th in my age group and 266 overall.

 

My final stats:

			Age Group - 15 competitors	Overall - 428 competitors
Swim	6:53		4	104
T1	3:41
Bike	22:20		5	88
T2	1:14
Run	20:21		13	266
Total	54:28		10	143

 

Post race shot with the fan club.  Thanks to TJ for taking the pictures.