I did my first triathlon since Kona three weeks ago and didn’t write my race report due to traveling and then a nasty two week period of time that included a tooth extraction. Yesterday, I raced a half marathon. I figure it’s a good time to write about both races.
First, the sprint triathlon was the Boulder Sunrise Triathlon. It followed the same course that I had raced many times when I lived in Colorado, starting at the Boulder reservoir and biking up Jay Road to 36 and running in the reservoir. Leading up to the race we gradually acclimatized to the altitude, first by spending three days in St. George, Utah (2700 feet). While in St. George, I ran one loop of the Ironman run course and did some biking. I also stopped thinking about work and COVID-19 (as best I could). We then went to Glenwood Springs (~5700 feet) for three more days, where I ran some more. Finally, we spent two days in Silverthorne, Colorado (8700 feet), where I biked and ran. The great part was that I never really felt stressed by the altitude. It may have helped that my overall stress level was significantly decreased. Then, on to Denver for a week prior to the race. While in Denver I continued training, both running and biking. My favorite day of running was running 13.1 miles and feeling like I hadn’t even run later that day and the next day. My resting heart rate was the lowest it’d been in a couple of years, demonstrating my fitness level. I didn’t really back off training for the race, since I’m really focused on training for Ironman California in October.
Race day came and I rode my bike to the Boulder Reservoir (I love the venue!). It was exciting to be racing again and I actually ran into someone in my age group who remembered me from when I lived in Colorado! My friend Rudy came to cheer me on (always a challenge in a triathlon). I’d forgotten that for sprint triathlons there is no specific spot for one’s bike, so I tried to find a spot close to the end so it wasn’t too crowded. It was fun getting everything set up. Transitions are one of my favorite aspects of a triathlon and I pride myself on quick transitions. Since this was a spring, I wouldn’t need socks and I could put my shoes on the bike. While apparently we weren’t allowed to warm up in the water, I managed to get in for a few minutes and get a few strokes in. When our wave (finally, a wave start again) was to start, I waded in the water and moved to the front, as I usually do. From the start I went out relatively quickly, got knocked around a little and settled into a smooth rhythm. I didn’t feel particularly fast, and focused on sighting the buoys. The swim was over pretty quickly (~16 minutes of time in the water). The swim was presumably 750m, my garmin said I’d swam 867 yards at a 1:53 pace. Considering I was wearing a wetsuit, not particularly fast for a sprint race, and a few minutes slower than my typical swim times in previous races in the reservoir over a decade ago (although all of the times for the other swimmers were also a few minutes slower, so I assume the course was a little long). I stopped on the grass and took off my wetsuit, jogged into transition, got to my bike, threw down my swim cap, goggles and wetsuit, put on my sunglasses and helmet and grabbed my bike. I got to the “mount” line and put my foot in my right shoe, pushed off a few times and put my left foot on top of my left shoe, peddled a bit and put my foot in the shoe, tightened both shoes and headed out of the reservoir.
I’d done this route many, many times, and I was determined to give it a solid effort. I did! In fact, for the first five miles, which consists of a “false flat” uphill (gaining 330 feet of elevation), I managed to keep my power ~195 watts and my speed at 18 mph. I’m pretty sure that those are numbers that I hadn’t held in a long time. The next part of the bike, the next five miles, are always fun, as there is an elevation loss of about 200 feet, with a few short climbs that can be “flattened” by good planning and effort. I managed to keep my power ~195 watts and my speed on this part was 26 mph. The next part of the course has some ups and downs and has no net elevation change, although the rollers need to be managed to maintain speed. My wattage dropped a little to ~185 watts, and my speed was 23 mph. I tried to relax a little and back off the effort for the last couple of miles, which had me maintaining wattage of 170 watts and a speed close to 23 mph. As I turned into the reservoir, I got out of my bike shoes, putting my feet on top of my shoes, and only braked right near the dismount line, doing a flying dismount. My friend Rudy didn’t know what my helmet our tri-suit looked like and didn’t realize that I’d dismounted. In fact, he later remembered seeing someone flying to the dismount line who “looked like a pro.” That was me. In fact, I’d passed a bunch of people on the bike and was one of the early people into the transition. Turns out only about a dozen people rode faster than I did. My bike time (from my garmin) was just under 47 minutes. My “normalized” power was ~190 watts and my average speed was ~22 mph. Solid! I racked my bike, took off my helmet, sat down and put on my shoes, hat and race number and was out of transition in just over a minute. Onto the run.
During the bike, I was playing leapfrog with a 71 year old, Steve Bell. He came into transition just ahead of me and started the run about 10 yards ahead of me. I was never able to catch him, but the distance between us never changed! I had set myself to start the run comfortably for the first 400m, and the crest of a hill and then get into my run rhythm and pace. Which is exactly what I did. My first mile was at 8:14 pace. I let the effort get harder as I went along, and it did, but I was able to maintain my pace at 8:11. I had planned to push harder over the last mile, which I did, breathing every third step and keeping my pace right at 8:09. Six hundred meters from the finish I realized that the person ahead of me was in my age group. He was tall and lanky, and I assumed he was pretty good. I didn’t want to get into a sprint finish with him so I came up behind him with about 500m to go and slowed down a bit and relaxed for about 100m. When we hit the crest of the hill (the rest of the way was mostly downhill), I sped past him and put about 20 yard between us in a very brief period of time. He certainly didn’t have the energy to stay with me, and I continued as fast as I could to the finish, hitting the finish line with a pace over the last few hundred meters of 7:12.
It turned out that that last surge got me first place in my age group, making this race one of the more exciting ones I’d ever done. I was 29th overall, and realized that my bike and run splits were close to my best times over a decade ago. At the age of 62, I’ll take that every day of the week!
I went back to our hotel, showered and then we drove home over the next two and a half days. Two days after I got home I went to the dentist to get a temporary crown on a broken 3rd molar. It didn’t take well and I spent the 4th of July weekend in agonizing pain. When I saw my dentist on Monday he immediately said that the tooth needed to come out. He put me on antibiotics, and the next day I had the tooth extracted. Six more days of significant pain finally got me to the point where I could run again, so I went into last week with some training to “make up.” I had a half marathon that I wanted to race. I had no clue how it would go, I’d done no speed training, and I was significantly fatigued from all of the pain. Nevertheless, I ran 8 miles every day for four days, ran another four miles on Friday and did a solid 3 mile run on Saturday. The solid 3 mile run was probably a little harder than it needed to be or should have been, but I wanted to “test” myself. I also biked a few times during the week, including a ride on Saturday afternoon.
Sunday morning found me feeling only “ok” when I woke up. My resting heart rate wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t bad. I felt a little sluggish, but knew that once I got going I’d be ok. I drove to the race venue, parked, and ran 1 mile to the start, keeping my HR below 130. My pace was right around 9:30, which was good. My coach had suggested that I start out easy for the first mile, but I decided to “test” myself, an went out with the 1:40 pace group. The temperature was 65 degrees, but the humidity was ~80%. The pace (7:37) was a little on my limit, but I let them move a little ahead on the slight climbs and came back to them on the downhills for the first two miles which I did in 7:36 and 7:45 respectively. My HR had come up to ~160 and I didn’t want it higher, so I realized that I should back off, which I did. The next six miles were done at 8:09, 8:16, 8:22, 8:26, 8:27 and 8:22 pace. I had stopped looking at my HR, which actually dropped down into the 150’s. After the turnaround I tried to pick up my effort, but my body wasn’t really responding too well. Of note, my 10K time was right at 50 minutes (8:08) pace, which would have been solid on its own, much less than during the first half of a half marathon. I tried to push harder the last 5 miles, but all I could manage was 8:41, 8:58, 8:51, 9:02 and 9:16. The 1:50 pacer passed me with a little more than I mile to go, but I couldn’t stay with him. I tried. It turns out that my HR did show my attempt to push, as it went up over the last mile and a half, getting back to ~170 at the finish. My average pace was 8:28 (1:51:11), and I ended up 4th in my age group, just a couple of minutes out of 2nd.
In retrospect, if I’d started at 8:20 pace, I have little doubt that I could have broken 1:50, and possibly ended up second in my age group. However, that’s not consistent with my approach of testing myself. I really wanted to see what I could do. I had some speed in me, but haven’t really trained to hold it. Nevertheless, I was very happy with my result and the fact that I kept right at 8:20 pace for 10 miles (83 minutes). Even when it got hard at the end, I managed to maintain a pace close to 9 minutes. From my Ironman perspective, that’s really good to know.
It was humid, and I only stopped for water (we had to bring our own cups) three or four times. I probably lost about 5 pounds during the racer, but aside from my shirt being soaked and my hands looking like prunes, I actually felt ok. A really good experience, and a lot of fun racing again!
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