2 years ago the Perth Triathlon was my first real triathlon, having only done Swim-Cycle prior. Doing this race again (after it was cancelled last year) was a fun way to reflect on how my fitness has developed over that time. An added bonus: I could head over to my mother-in-law’s house between the athletes’ briefing and my swim wave going off for breakfast with the wife and kids.
This was the least pressured I’ve ever felt heading into a race. Normally there’s a real desire to see what I can do and perform to my potential. But training this year has not gone well and I didn’t have any real expectations going into this race. The good aspect of that is I was relatively relaxed going in, but the bad aspect of that was that I wasn’t in a good state of preparation.
A few examples:
- Riding my tri bike outside for the first time the day before the race
- Not having practiced flying mounts/dismounts or anything transition-related
- Doing a hard VO2Max session only a few days prior
- Running intervals the day before the race at way too high a pace
Some of these would prove to be non-issues, but a few I think came back to bite me in the ass during the race.
Pre-Race
At the athletes’ briefing the race director informed us that the rules were pretty lax - drafting (swim and bike) is all good, you can swim in a wetsuit or buoyancy shorts, etc. which is good as it makes it more welcoming for novices. From what I could tell the people taking advantage of these rules were relative novices - people swimming or biking as a team, wearing buoyancy shorts in the water, etc. - and the athletes at the pointy end all raced fair.
They did old-school manual timing for this race, which I thought was fine. Might not be totally accurate and there were a few hiccups, but as this is a small fundraiser I agreed with the race director’s decision to forego the expense of chip-timing.
About 30 minutes before my wave went off I did a quick 1km warmup run, did some dynamic stretching, then did a 400m swim warmup in the designated lane.
A lane all to myself... luxurious
Swim
The swim goes off in waves, rather than the one-at-a-time serpentine swim they do at the Early Bird. This is nice as you don’t have to worry about overtaking a slower swimmer in front of you, or getting swam over by someone behind you. I ended up getting a lane all to myself which was pretty sweet. I suppose if I had of been paired up with slightly faster swimmer I could have enjoyed a hip draft and gained some speed. A guy in my wave actually asked me if I wanted to team up and trade off drafting one another in the swim. I declined as I wasn’t really sure how that was going to work at the wall, had no idea how close in swim speed we were, and in general just wanted to race my race. Apparently people in other waves actually did this though.
I wasn’t feeling super great about my swim fitness this year, but was targeting 8:30 for the 500m swim. The warmup went well and I was feeling smooth in the water. Once the race was underway, I felt like my effort level was strong but constrained - I was pushing the RPE by the end but finished with lots in the tank (unlike, say, a TT effort). I was out of the pool door in 8:30 - so likely completed the swim in the low 8:20s… basically holding 1:40/100m pace which I’ll take. A good start to the race.
Swim: 8:30
9/52
Bike
Pretty smooth through T1 and the flying mount actually went alright - I’ve never really struggled with these anyways so it looks as though the lack of practice wasn’t a problem. Out on the bike I was aiming to hold 100% of my FTP, but pretty quickly I realized my legs didn’t have it (the VO2Max session earlier in the week or the way-above-race-pace run intervals the night before?). I did the ride based on RPE and my Nominal Power for the ride ended up just under 90% of FTP… so not great for a 16km ride. I did manage the 3rd fastest bike split despite this. They had recently chipsealed the road and the race director warned us not to go too close to the edges. Overall I found the roads fine and there was minimal traffic, so not a problem to ride a couple feet away from the edge of the pavement.
T1 + Bike: 27:10
3/52
Run
Once again, transition went pretty smooth and I was out on the run. I came out flying (I had done intervals at 3:40/km the day before) but reigned myself in once I checked the pace on my Garmin. The legs felt heavy though, and I was in the hurt locker pretty early on. New run course this year, meandering along some gravel paths through the woods for the back half of the course. I was able to pick up the pace towards the end and finish strong. I averaged 4:09/km which is slower than my planned 4:00 pace… but all in all not too bad and the second fastest run split of the day (last time I did this race I had the 34th fastest run split!).
T2 + Run: 14:03
2/52
As this race is a wave start race, you don’t have much of a sense of how you finished apart from the other athletes in your wave. I knew I won my wave, but also knew there were lots of other fast folks out there. It’s interesting to think about how the race dynamics would have looked in a traditional mass-start race. Basically, there were a couple of dudes at the pointy end (including 2nd place finisher Adam) with a fast swim (7:30ish), a small chase pack (including me) about a minute down, and then another group (which included the eventual winner Jeff) two minutes down, which is a huge deficit at this distance. Adam rolled into T2 in first place holding his minute lead on me, now in second. After putting up the best bike split of the day, Jeff had moved into 3rd, 1:50 down on Adam and about 40 seconds back from me. The three of us had managed to put time into the other contenders, but there were a couple of guys only a minute down on Jeff for 3rd, so the podium was not set. On the run I started to reel Adam in, but not quickly enough - I finished 24 seconds behind him. Jeff put up an unreal run split - the fastest of the day by almost 3 minutes. He would have blown by Adam and I like we were standing still in order to take first place with an almost 2 minute margin of victory over Adam. Overcoming a big swim deficit with race best bike and run splits was an impressive victory along the lines of what Lionel Sanders typically does.
Final Time: 49:43
2/6 M30-39
3/52 Overall
So, my first overall podium, which was a pleasant surprise given my low expectations going in. And I got a cherry pie for my efforts. Nice!
Lessons Learned:
- Overall fitness can yield good results. Years of physical conditioning and healthy living take time to yield dividends, but you don’t lose that fitness easily either.
- Tapering works! Even at short distances, fatigue from recent hard workouts can affect your race.
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