Tuesday, June 19, 2007

15 minutes and a new PB




Report on the Tel Aviv Olympic Triathlon

The bottom line is that I dropped 15 minutes off my PB time for the Olympic Distance in a month, now it only my second Oly tri distance but taking it down from 2:56 to 2:41 is good and my challenge now for the next Oly distance is to go sub 2:30. So how did it break down and how can I improve.

Leg #1 - 1500m swim, now everyone who has been reading my blog knows that I have only just started to swim freestyle after being a breaststroker only for all my life. I was confident of swimming the distance as my training in open water group classes has been going well. I am one of those people who prefer swimming in open water to doing laps of a pool.
The horn went off just before 7 am on the beach and we had a long sand bar wade to get to a depth we could swim in, and the course was two loops. I started well on the side hoping for clear water, but for the first time in three triathlons I was well and truly in the washing machine. Hey I even enjoyed sort on contact swimming BUT i was going backwards and was not passing anyone in fact I realised that even with my freestyle breast strokers started passing me.
I had been determined to swim the 1500m freestyle, but the reality of racing made me rethink my race strategy, I was determined to do at least the first loop freestyle and as I came back onto the beach for the second loop I made the decision to switch to breaststroke for the second loop and on the second loop I was in fact two minutes quicker.
I came out of the swim after 33 minutes , happy with my time but I knew that I had been slower than I hoped, the run back to the T1 was a long way thru the Part and took 3 minutes 40 barefoot thru sand and on concrete, it was not worth having running shoes for such a short distance the time to put then on would be negated by the advantage.
My T1 time was 1 minute 16 seconds , the training had paid off
The bike was 40 km and drafting was allowed so the aim was to find a fast group and work together it took a good 5 km's to work up to a fast pack and get the drafting in full swing , Over the course I rode with various riders and we were moving my average speed over the course was above 35 km/h . With 3 km's to go my b.....y computer fell off the handlebars and it was either forget about it and stay with the draft or stop go back and get my computer (Velo Cat eye) I stopped cursed and picked up the computer , the same one that fell down the elevator shaft a week ago. And refocused on the course, I had no one to draft and fought hard against the wind, finally picking up a draft pack with a km to go. Now I thought fast transition get out of your shoes coming into T2 , bending down I managed to twist the shoe off the pedal and had to carry it in my hand , something to work on LOL
T2 was even better exactly 1 minute and I was out and running , it was now close to 30 degrees C around 90 F so it was hard but keeping focused I did the 10 km in 53:20 and probably put more cold water over my head than I actually drank.




So total time 2:41:27 by my watch , my nutrition was probably not the best as I did not eat enough during the race, but my pre race nutrition included a plain no fat yoghurt and gel at 4:30 am and another gel 20 minutes before the start.
I recommend mixing yoghurt and gel makes the gel taste better

Hope you enjoyed the read , was great race
Tri Harder
Mal

4 comments:

21stCenturyMom said...

PR!!!! Go Mal! That was a great race report and a great race.

You are right about the fuel, though. Try eating some carbs in the AM (oatmeal or whole wheat toast or something).

I'm thinking your next race will be your next PR - especially if you fix that bike computer so it stays put!

M said...

Hi Mal,

Great race! You can analyse your running results even better with www.ttsm.com. You can even put your results into your own weblog.

Check mine www.waarismartijn.blogspot.com and you can see how it looks like.

Till your next PB!!

bari said...

Great report, Mal. I don't even want to tell you how hot it was when I started running! Not as hot as it's been for the last few days, though... Congratulations on the PR! And yeah, you might want to fix that bike computer so that it stays on your bike (this coming from the person who lost her gel flask during the same race!)

Arcane said...

Nice job! I find that I can swim faster with breast stroke than freestyle. Mostly because I have runner's legs that allow a strong whip kick, and skinny arms that aren't good for freestyle.