Marlboro Triathlon Race Report

August 1st I raced at the Marlboro Triathlon in MA.  This is a race that is organized by Jarrod Shoemaker who is one of the top ITU distance triathletes in the US.  This connection meant a bunch of elite racers were in attendance – including Ethan Brown.  Ethan took the win, which is not surprising since he finished 5th at the NYC Triathlon which was stacked with talent.  The race was a 1/3 swim, 15 mile bike and a 3.4 mile run.  Interestingly it also had a two transition zone setup.  I was thinking the 3 lap bike course and 2 lap run course, along with T1 on a causeway running along side the swim course, would make an ideal spectator race.  However, the long distance between T1 and T2 made it somewhat of a hassle both from a spectating and setup perspective.  My parents came up to spectate – continuing my run of support at all these races.  Much appreciated.

 

Pre race was stressful as yet again I had issues getting my tires inflated.  The valve somehow seems to close between races.  With the deep rims and tubular tires, it makes it impossible for me to fix on site.  Luckily the onsite mechanics once again rescued me, as I was about to rifle my wheel into the woods in frustration.  Unfortunately the scrambling with my wheel left me unable to get the camera setup properly and therefore the pictures came out “artistic” and very overexposed.  These are the only ones that are even discernable, but I added links to the professional photographers at the bottom.

 

Once again I was in the first wave after the elite men, which gave me a nice wide open swim.  Unfortunately, I probably had my worst swim of the year as I lined up on the right (or outside) side at the swim start.  With the counterclockwise swim, and right side breathing I had really poor sighting.  I swam a lot of extra distance to the first turn.  Once I was heading for shore I was able to get into a little draft and swim straight for the swim exit.  I still managed to finish around the top 1/5 of the field.

 

T1 was set up on a causeway through the middle of the lake, with the bikes racked in descending order down the road.  This was a larger race with nearly 400 people, and I was number 75 so I had a very long run down the transition area to my bike – in fact it was nearly back past the turn buoy on the swim – about 300 yards.  Then about another 100 yards to the mount line – quite a long transition, but I was glad I didn’t have a higher number that would have meant dragging the bike further.

 

Shots of T1:

The bike course was a 3 lap affair with 1 long climb and 2 shorter ones each lap.  I felt good on the bike and was able to put time on a lot of racers on the uphills.  I also really drilled the downhills where a lot of people were being very tentative.

 

Here is a shot on the causeway.  I was breaking the speed limit by about 10mph here:

“Artistic” side shot:

 

On the second lap, I was passed by Ethan Brown who cranked by me on an uphill, in his aero tuck, like I was standing still.  Amazing how fast the pros go.  As the laps wore on the course filled up with the later starting waves, but it never got too crowded.  I was pretty pleased with my bike split.

 

Had a very quick T2.  On an overall basis it was my fastest of the year versus the entire field – just 44 seconds and in the top 10%.

 

The run was another tough course for me.  It was a 2 lap course with a half mile false flat out of transition, followed by a steep quarter mile hill, then a flat half mile, finishing up with a gradual downhill half mile to the end of the lap.  I did a pretty good job of keeping my pace around 8 min miles on the false flats and flats, but dropped a lot of time on the uphills.  The crowd around the finish line, combined with the slight downhill, got my pace down to around 7 min miles at the end of each of the laps.  All told, I averaged 8:10 miles which was just off New London’s pace but this was a much hillier course.  I was pipped at the line by a runner who outsprinted me.  I didn’t see him coming but the announcer said my name and that someone was trying to run me down.  I tried to accelerate but I was only steps from the line and I was caught.  Some of the run finish photos show the awkward strides – kind of funny.

 

I was pretty happy with my results, as I performed pretty well in a high quality field.  I got inside the top 20% overall and top 1/3 of my age group for the first time.  I liked the bigger race and multi-lap format for the sprint race.  However, the logistics of the 2 transitions and the hilly run course make this race a question mark for next year.  Next year I will probably be more selective in my racing and try to race my strengths – hilly runs is not currently one of them.

 

Here are the professional pics (need to click on this link first for some reason to see the rest):

http://www.capstonephotostore.com/search.php?eventnum=363

 

T1:

T1

 

Bike:

1  2  3  4  5  6

 

Run Lap 1:

1  2

 

Run Lap 2:

1  2

 

Run Finish:

1  2  3  4  5  6 

 

And here are the final stats:

 

	Time	Distance	Pace	AG Place	%	Overall Place	%
# Entries				27		395
Swim	9:03	1/3 mile	1:33/100 yd	8	30%	83	21%
T1	2:58			11	41%	131	33%
Bike	44:47	15 miles	20.1 mph	8	30%	65	16%
T2	0:44			5	19%	38	10%
Run	27:45	3.4 miles	8:10/mile	17	63%	147	37%
Total	1:25:16			9	33%	73	18%