Today Lake Erie was still choppy. Not as bad as yesterday, but not smooth by any means. Spotting during the swim was very difficult. A majority of my spotting attempts during an out and back section forming the first 1000 meters of the swim yielded no results, other than seeing that another wave was fast approaching when going out and fast passing when coming back in. On the way in, I recognized that some trees aligned nicely with the path of buoys, and used those to spot. Spotting was further complicated because I could rarely see more than one buoy. A few times I wondered whether an identified buoy was the next one along the course or a buoy on another part of the course, as all buoys were the same color.
I exited the water in 37 minutes (OUCH!), but looking at the posted results, it looked like everyone was slow. For reference, the fastest swim that I noticed with a quick glance at the results was 1:31/100m pace...not exactly blazing.
Onto the bike, I hammered for a mile or two to get away from a close crowd of riders. After settling into pace, some guy passed me. I sat behind him a legal distance (probably much more than a legal distance) for a mile or so and then popped the watts way up to make a pass. Shortly after, I slowed a bit due to some riders in front of me taking up a lot of our lane, only for one of the riders to pass the other on the right, and was passed back by the guy that passed me. He was moving >25 mph, so I figured I wouldn't spike my watts to pass him again. Instead, I'd sit a legal distance behind him and pass if he slowed. Sure enough, about 3 or 4 miles later, he sat up to take a drink, and I sped by. I looked back a few miles down the road and saw no sign of him.
I rode pretty hard and kept my HR around 160 bpm. Actually, that pace didn't feel hard for the first 35 miles or so. The course, by the way, is pancake flat, but is prone to wind. There's also enough chip-and-seal to make a dent in the average speed. One 2 mile or so section of road that racers traverse three times, while not chip sealed, has large cracks/bumps every 20 feet. It's pretty harsh riding on my aluminum bike, and my HR drops by 5 bpm once I leave that section.
The course also has lots of turns, which are the only opportunites to stop pedalling and to get out of the aero position for a moment. Each turn is visible in my power profile as a steep power drop.
By 40 or so miles I was started to feel my effort. That's an indication of good HIM pacing for me, it seems. By 5 miles left, the excitement of starting the run can help overcome fatigue.
I rode the course in 2:18 for an average speed of 24.3 mph. That's a bike-split PR for me by about 5 minutes. It also ended up being the fastest bike split in the race by almost 3 minutes, my quick scan of the results revealed. Avg. stats: 159 bpm, 246 W and 85 rpm (though more like 85-90 for most of the ride, with the average lowered due to cornering).
All the bike data:
Smoothed bike data:
My power is pretty even throughout, save for a high section at the start, followed by a low section where I followed behind the passer. It's tough to get a good read on what my normalized power would have been, but I'd guess around 250-255.
My legs were feeling a bit thrashed by the end of the ride, but I was interested to see how my placing would be by counting the numbers of bikes in transition. Instead, I was able to see all four guys that had beat me back because the first mile of the run is along the end of the bike course. The lead was 2/3 or 3/4 a mile into the run, following a 1/4 mile by a pair of guys, and then another 1/4 by a fourth guy. All right, I thought, time to run some people down.
I started the run hard. I thought I might be able to make up the deficit, but it would require running 6 or 7 minutes faster that the leader, and about 5 minutes faster than the others. (Their leads on me estimated above are based on my view from the bike, meaning I had to ride to transition, put on the running shoes, and head out, so add a bit more distance.) The run, by the way, is two loops of 6.5 miles each, of course.
Looking at my Garmin data, I headed out at a good clip, 5:30/mile or so when the ground was level. The run was flat save for a few small up and downs that nonetheless appear in my speed data. The run also includes a 1.5 mile out-and-back (i.e., 3/4 mile each way) begining 3 miles into the run, so I got a glimpse of the guys ahead of me. The leader was flying. Damn, not likely catching him, I thought. I appeared to be gaining some ground on the others, but it was tough to tell based on the comparison of their position relative to me between seeing them at the end of my ride and seeing them again on the run. By mile 4, I was getting some chest cramps and side stitches. I slowed down a bit so they'd subside. They quickly obliged, and I picked up the speed, but not back to my original pace. I had 9 miles to go and figured I could still come in second with steady gains...no need to make up all the time on loop 1.
Loop 1 time was 40:27. By the end of the first loop, my left foot was killing me. I had a rock or similar object in my shoe, so I stopped quickly, took the shoe off, emptied it out, then put it on and continued on. I did not, however, get the object out. Every step hurt, as the object pounded into the same exact spot on the bottom edge of my foot. Soon, another pain developed on the same foot. Now, I don't typically run 13.1 miles sockless, but I had such good luck with the two olympic races at the TTT (I wore socks for the half), that I thought I could get away with it. Live and learn. The pain didn't slow me, but it was an annoyance.
At the beginning of loop 2 I made a pass and moved into fourth place. By now, runners on their first loop were on the course. I headed out for the out-and-back section, now at mile 8 or so, and hoped to see some progess between the runners ahead of me. "What'd the third place guy look like?", I asked myself. His clothing was too generic, red and black just like seemingly every other guy out there. I think I saw him and was gaining ground. I had picked up the pace at the beginning of loop 2, and tried to pick it up again.
For the next 2 miles, I couldn't see the guy, even when I could see 1/3 mile or so up the course (no too many good views, as the course was through a generally wooded paved trail). Finally I saw him about 1-2 minutes up the road from me around mile 11.5. I picked up the pace a bit, or at least I tried to. I glanced at the Garmin and saw I was only going slightly under 6:30. Not fast enough. Finally, there's a second out and back near mile 12.5. He still had a 45 second lead and was moving. I wasn't going to catch him. I stopped and took off my shoes, as my left foot was killing me with each step of the chase. The right, I figured, should come off to so as not to through off my balance. I jogged the last 1/2 mile bare-foot on grass along the side of the trail.
Total run time: 1:22, or about 6:20 per mile (faster than the open-half I did a few weeks ago). Loop 1 average HR: 165 bpm, loop 2 average: 169 bpm. Third fastest run. I gained two minutes on loop 2, but that's close enough to even to indicate good pacing to me. Still, I couldn't believe I didn't catch more than one of the guys ahead of me. Gotta get that swim speed up still to be more competitive. Time and effort is all it'll take. Then my 4:20 finish time will be much closer to 4:10.
The winner, Brad Seng, popped out a 1:13 half. Fast...losing 9 minutes on the run was not expected. Dude is 40 years old, too.
I'm feeling a bit fatigued now, but that's too be expected. I'll see how the next few days go...shouldn't take too long to feel good again.
Oh, and this time Stacey finished with a smile, and was smiling when I saw her at the end of her first loop. She cut quite a bit of time off her HIM PR, and was very please with her race. Her run looked much improved from last year.
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