Lake Terramuggus Sprint Tri #1 Race Report

On May 31st, I raced at an after work sprint triathlon series in Marlboro.  The goal for this race was just to get a tri under the belt before the Patriot Half on June 16th.  I was not planning on racing all out, but to focus on a solid brick workout and some transition practice.

 

The race is advertised as a 500 yard swim, 12 mile bike, 3 mile run.  While I was getting ready I happened to be standing near the lifeguards who were playing with the buoys and they decided to set a 800 yard course.  This was fine with me, as it let me get in a longer swim.

 

 

After getting in a few minutes of warmup swimming, it was time to gather for the race.  After a bunch of announcements there was very suddenly the command to “GO”.  I wasn’t ready and as you can see below had to quickly setup and start the watch.  Took me a few seconds but I wanted the data.  As you can see people were in various states of readiness – facing the wrong way, putting goggles on, etc – so I don’t think I was the only one caught off guard by the quick start.

 

 

As usual I started a bit wide and swam in towards the buoys.  This kept me out of the chaos and it only adds minimal distance.  I am in the orange cap:

 

 

I had a pretty good swim and tried to focus on finding some feet to practice some drafting.  On the way in I finally found someone to draft a little.  Below I am on the right in the orange cap and you can just barely make out the kicking in front of me.  You can also see the rubber ducky sighting buoys they used.

 

 

Hitting the shore:

 

 

Out of the water heading for transition.  This race only had splits for swim+T1, bike and T2+run.  They had my swim+T1 at 15:50, I broke that down as 13:17 swim and 2:33 transition.  The race was big enough to run 2 waves, so I was pretty midpack with my swim both AG and OA.

  

 

Out of transition was a longish run along the lake to the road.

 

 

Once on the bike, it is two loops of around 5 miles.  You start with a quick downhill section then it is up a 5% grade for about half a mile.  The course is then rolling for 1.5 miles before a long downhill to a gradual 180 corner.  It is then about a mile along the lake to complete the lap.  My HR was sky high coming out of transition and all the way to the top of the hill.  After recovering on the descent, I went to work on the headwind along the lake portion of the course.

 

Coming by on Lap 1:

 

 

The second lap was very consistent with lap 1.  In fact, according to my lap splits on Strava I was within 1 second of the same time on each lap.  In the end I averaged just under 20 mph, but improved with a top 1/3 AG and top 1/4 OA split.

 

Nearing the end on Lap 2:

 

 

After a pretty quick transition, there is a short trail section out to the main road.  Right away something felt very strange in my right shoe.  I tried to keep running but it felt very strange.  I stopped, took off the shoe and my old shoe laces were in the shoe!  Took those out and carried on.  Once onto the road it is right up a 6% hill to the half mile mark.  I really plodded up the hill trying to find my running legs.  It was then down a steep hill and onto a false flat.  I was still struggling to get up to speed, and then was hit with another hill.  I really was unprepared for such a hilly run course; I thought it would be pretty flat circling a lake.  Finally we hit another downhill and then it turned much flatter.  I finally got into a better groove but I was not running at maximum speed as per my race plan.  We turned the corner onto the road along the lake and I was getting a bit faster all the way to the line, but my split ended up right around 25 minutes which was terribly slow in my AG and about a midfield split OA.

 

Just before the finish:

 

 

Final splits:

 

	Time	Distance	Pace	AG Place	%	Overall Place	%
# Entries				37		170
Swim+T1	15:50	800 yards	1:40/100yd	22	59%	66	39%
Bike	33:18	10.75 miles	19.9 mph	14	38%	41	24%
T2+Run	44:39	3.1 miles	8:16/mile	26	70%	84	49%
Total	1:43:07			22	59%	63	38%

 

Overall this is a great race, especially considering the cheap entry fee and that it is during the week.  I am hoping to race here again during the summer.