Pic Spocket

I really like the TREX sprint triathlon Serie in Brighton Michigan. It’s 3 races during the summer, wednesday evenings, 1 month apart, on the same course. It’s an awesome benchmarking tool to see your progression. It’s pretty popular: 400-500 people show up, surprisingly for a weekday race. The event is well put on, the park and the course are superb and there’s good ambiance with Canadian rocker Ted Lamont playing music.

I have raced the complete serie in 2009 & 2010 for a total of 6 times. As reported last August, I managed to improve on my previous time at every race so far, which is nice! I was hoping to do the same once again. The time to beat was 1:05:08.

Of course, Craig was also doing the race, coming with Tracy and baby Cadence. Here’s a few shots of our youngest fan…

Corinne was there to cheer us on as well, and take these awesome pictures once again!

After setting up and warming up, it was time to line to the start. I was leaving with the first wave, reserved for the faster people. They called it the “Elite” wave, but the term was used loosely here.

1 minute before the start, I see Corinne and Tracy screaming from the beach “Snaaaaake!”. I thought they were joking, trying to make me swim faster (snakes are my phobia). I thought it could be funny, but that they were a bit mean to try to play me like that. Turns out, there was a real one!!!

No sweat though, this was a ridiculously small one, nothing like that beast I saw in Orlando last spring after a training swim.

And off we were..

SWIM 800m in 12:29 (COURSE PB!) with Wetsuit

(I am the black arm in the air, closer to the camera, gold lenses).

Seems like I had a good swim start. According to these photos, it even seems I was in the lead, but I think the camera angle is distorting reality a bit here. Still, I was in the front. But in the middle of the course, things went south a bit. It got a bit rough (lots of contacts), my navigation sucked doing zigzags, and stopped my swim stroke many times.  It’s another one case of  “bad swim but with a decent time”. Of course, the fact that we had a wetsuit (all 3 2010 races were without wetsuit, as water temperature was too high) helped!

Look at the guy below… Don’t let the huge sideburns fool you: he was first out of the water! I ran into him at the line for the toilets before the race, remembered him from Island Lake Tri a few weeks ago and chatted with him. Before too long, the whole line was involved, laughing, when he explained the sideburns were his secret to go faster in the water hehe! One of the next guys was Shawn, one of the guys I often end up fighting with for position at the end of these races. I won some, he won some.

I came out of the water in ~12th position of the ‘Elite” wave . Not too bad.

T1 in 44 seconds
Pretty good, since it includes removing the wetsuit! Grabbed my bike, then ran for my life

The mount line in on the grass there out of T1, and learned from past experience that you better run all the way to the paved path before jumping on the bike, which I did, passing a few people in the process, including arch enemy Shawn hehe!

Bike ~19 km in 28:53 (Course PB)
Norm Power  = 296 watts ; Average Power = 300 watts (w/o zeros)
>>GARMIN DATA

I had my best bike split ever. I held above 300 watts average (w/o zeros) for the whole ride, at ~304 watts. The average went down at the end of the course, because of the slow section of running path.

The whole time, I fought with Shawn, exchanging positions (but falling behind by 3-4 bike lengths every time to stay legal). I knew I was stronger on the bike this year, so I thought I would leave him in the dust this year… turns out he’s been training too! He had that annoyingly noisy rear disc wheel that does this “woohoohoohoo…” sound so you hear him coming everytime he’s about to pass you (I SO WANT ONE OF THESE! hehe!). I still did most of it in the front.

Within a few minutes on the course, we passed all the fastest swimmers, and we were 2nd and 3rd. By 15 km, the first guy which seemed to be from some university’s Tri Team, was in sight with the distance closing. We were getting really close but we ran out of course before we could catch him and lead the race.

We posted the fastest bike split time recorded on this course since 2008. There is one faster time in the inaugural TREX race in 2008, posted by Shawm, and my guess is that the course was different (shorter) then.

Here are me and Shawn arriving at the turn back to transition.

Fear not, I passed him again in one of the fastest flying dismount I have ever done (on grass please!) to beat him to the timing mat.

T2 in 27 seconds (Course PB again! Woo hoo!)

I had a very fast transition. It helps that for sprint races, I have these Zoot shoes that I can wear without socks. I just “body glide” the cr*p out of them for easy entry. I came out of T2 within 3 feet of the race leader. But it turns out I was no match for him on the run, and he put distance right away.

Run 5 km in 20:11 (Course PB! Again…)
pace: 4 min 02 secs (Garmin had me at 3:58 with a 5.1km distance)
>>>GARMIN DATA

Here is the young race leader… then me coming out… Then Shawn on my heels.

For the first half of the course, the only thing I could think about was the pain and the strong desire to start walking. I almost did it. But I held on.

I really wanted to go sub 20′ on this course, and I managed to hold 3:58 pace on my Garmin watch, which would give it to me. But either the course was a bit long, or my watch was slightly off so I missed my target.

There’s a few loops and out-and-backs on the course, so you can see your competition pretty well. I was happy that I seemed to gain space on Shawn behind me. He did outran me at least once last year. So I was safe there. Forget about Mr First: he was just increasing his gap with me, and set a new course record. I am no match for these 17-18′ 5k runners (in a TRI!!!). But I could also see “Roman” coming up on me. Last year, he was passing me every time in the first km of the run. I try to hold on my position, but between 3 and 4 km he passed me in such a way that trying to tag along was not even an option. So I lost my second position. At least, he is now passing me at the end of the course. Give me another year or 2…

So… I obliterated my TREX course record. Last year’s best time was 1:05:08, and as seen above I was already ahead with eating cookies at 1:04.

Final Result: 1:02:46  | 3/425 overall | 1st Age Group
>>> Official Results Here

PODIUM! First ever 3rd position at a T-REX race (did 4th once last year).

Here is my split progression over the last 6 times I raced this course.. Interesting… and it will be hard to beat next time!

* Wetsuit Swim
** Speed Suit Swim

Craig also did an awesome race, beating his previous best time by 3 minutes or so.

Here’s what NOT TO DO in transition:

I did my transition in 44 seconds including wetsuit removal. Craig did his transition in 1:46 and he had no wetsuits to remove!!! I really need to force him to practice those! And he is the one laughing at me for practicing to quickly putting on my helmet….

Of course, he did his signature move, like 100m before the finishing line.

At least he did not get passed (by one of his wave anyway) doing so. Although looking at results, he definitely lost a few positions. Still, he did pretty good at 136/425 finish for the small amount of training he does (new baby… not that he was training that much before the baby haha!)

As usual, larger and better pictures in the album below.

2011 Triceratopr Tri

For my Ironman preparation, I needed a half-Ironman race (70.3 miles) near the beginning of June, ideally on hilly terrain.  Since last year, I really wanted to try one of the event organized by REV3: they are growing fast and offering a good alternative to WTC’s Ironman brand in the sense of ‘big event experience’. WTC is not gaining in popularity these days: it’s clear that their only interest is capitalizing on the name and making as much profit as possible over the athletes. REV3 is doing the things it needs to do to gain momentum & popularity: offering the best athlete experience possible, not just for pros but also for Age Groupers. They are also known to offer some pretty nice race swag.

‘REV3 Quassy’ in Connecticut fit the bill perfectly: tough and hilly course representative of IMLP. Quassy is about an 11-12 hours drive from Windsor though, so for months I was looking for somebody to do the trip with. Corinne could not come: not enough vacation, and she can only handle so much sport-related trips in one year, and I pushed the envelope a bit far this year. I was about to give up and do one of the 2 smaller local 70.3 races in Michigan that weekend when LPC Pro Triathlete Ryan Power contacted me about the race. He was interested in doing the REV3 Olympic distance happening the day before the feature 70.3 race. So we teamed up and planned the trip!  His race report is actually already online on his blog: REV3 CRAZY. This is a pretty high profile event attracting many pros because of the big prize purse. They also have a big purse for age groupers participating in the serie, so they attract some pretty fast non-pro athletes as well. So competition is pretty fierce.

We left on the Thursday afternoon, breaking the trip to Middlebury CT over 2 days.  Some trip related statistics (for the whole adventure between the 2 of us):

Here’s some of my stuff ready to go packed the night before departure, and the trunk pretty full of equipment. I had scared Ryan of limited space in the car (hehe!) so he timidly showed up with one and only bag haha! However, it was pretty amazing how much stuff he had in there, as shown by the mess on his side of the room once unpacked!

We actually crashed 2/3 of the way somewhere in Pennsylvania. We had a small bike ride to do on the Friday, which we did while over there. The hotel was strangely located though, so we had the choice between “Steep Hill Neighborhood”, or entering the grounds of the local airport. We did a bit of both, speeding through the airport access loop which was actually pretty cool hehe! Imagine dropping somebody at the airport, then being passed by 2 guys speeding on TRI bikes with aero wheels & helmets. We did get a few puzzled looks by the very few bystanders. We did not hang there too long to stay out of trouble.

As we got closer to our destination, the scenery changed drastically: lots of greens, and no flat areas, just hills one after another.  It’s a very nice area actually.

Finished the Drive on Friday morning and got on site for packet pickup and swim practice. The weather was cool and sunny but quite windy, and the water was awesome even if it was showing white caps that afternoon (wind)!! The water of the lake was very clear and would be very calm for both of our races. Very nice venue.

Packet pickup was smooth on the Friday afternoon, with very little wait. Ryan had the royal treatment, being a PRO. He got questioned everywhere he got though about why he did not do the race on Sunday since it was the one with prize money. But the Olympic is what he came to do, preparing for one of his top priority 70.3 race in 3 weeks. He had a dedicated spot in transition in the pro area, with a huge banner with his picture. Cool! He even got to keep the banner.

I was wondering how the trip would go since I have never travelled and shared accommodations with another athlete for the purpose of a race, let alone the generation difference, but I think it worked pretty well Since we were both there for the same reason, all activities/schedules/restaurants choices were aimed to be compatible with our upcoming races His race being held on Saturday and mine on Sunday had pros and cons. On the positive side: On race day, the other was there to offer any support needed, carry equipment, take pictures, cheer, etc : Nice! On the other hand, it meant that we both had to wake up before sunrise on both days and our moods were shifted by 1 day. By the time I was getting real nervous for my race and needed to be cautious with my nutrition, he was all relieved that his race was done and was ready to eat treats hehe!

I made sure to harass him with a lot of questions, trying to pick his brain and understand better the life of a Pro Triathlete. Turns out they do not necessarily train that much more (in duration) than a very dedicated age grouper training for long course. However, a much larger portion of their training is done at high intensity and they must be masters of recovery. That’s what is more difficult to do for us age groupers: training wraps around work, family and general chores (the ones you have time to get to).. By the time you are done, sleep and repeat. No time for power naps.

Saturday

So I was the ‘support team’ for Saturday’s race and watched Ryan. I was excited ‘cause I never get to watch races. His bike computer went dead while he setup his bike in transition, so I tried to slap on my Garmin Edge 500 with the limited tools we had, which I got done. Somehow, it did not pair completely with his power meter and we did not realize it at the time. It’s hard to pair with a device on a race site just because there are just many units in the area. I wish I thought of using my spare wheel I had with me: it was already paired with the computer. So he ended up racing without power data. He had a very good race for his first one this season.  He started the swim in the second wave, but still was within the first athletes out of the lake, a swim PR for him. Details of his race are on his blog. I got a few decent shots of him while racing. I tried to scream at him a few times to get his attention, but he was so focused on his race that he never really saw me. Tunnel Vision.

Olympic Distance Swim…

Bike.. Ryan flying back in T2 in the second picture…

Run… The last mile was up a hill and it happened that there was an overpass right above the running path. I set myself there for an interesting viewpoint. When Ryan came, I screamed at him hoping for a look at the camera… but the kid was too focused on racing and did not notice anything… go figure hehe!

Turns out that watching a race is pretty tiring and maybe even a bit stressful when you are trying to run from a spot to another constantly, trying to get good pictures of the race. Ryan thought the same thing by Sunday’s end (of course, he did swim and biked too that day).  I have a new respect for my wife, which does that at every race I do!

After dropping off Ryan at the hotel to cool down and relax, I was back at the race site for another swim practice, one last bike ride to make sure everything is in working order, keep the legs moving, and drop my bike in transition as required. By the day’s end, I was pretty tired and started to wonder if I did not pass too much time on my legs running around, the day before my race! At least I got to bed REALLY early by my standards (10 pm) and managed to fall asleep before too long.

RACE REPORT - SUNDAY

Clock went off at 4h30am. I had something close to my usual 70.3 breakfast: bagel with Peanut Butter & one bottle of ‘Ensure’ meal replacement. Filled my water bottles and nutrition mixes, packed the gear and we headed out to the race site which we got to for the opening of the transition area at 5h15 am. This helped avoiding the long waiting line of cars and gave us on-site parking really close to the transition area. The car could then be used as our on-site locker Thanks to Ryan, I have some pictures to share of my race!

My location in the transition area was simply the best! Very easy to find as I was the last bike in the row right in front of the corner of the “PRO” area. I did not even have to “walk my transition” 2-3 times like I usually do before a race to memorize the flow in transition.

Transition setup, ‘fake tattoo numbers’ (which did not hold up the swim!).

Few bathroom stops, then it was time to suit up and head out to the beach for the swim warm up. The lake was very calm, and the water temperature was nice and comfortable. Before too long, the pros were starting: Mens, followed by Women. After the women pros, they made us wait 10’ to give them a good head start. I was in the first wave, Men 35-39, which was pretty nice. In some places, they make the faster age groups start last which is kind of stupid since we end up with a very busy swim course and dodging people for the entire duration of the race on the bike and run course. The first turn seemd kind of really far from the beach… Second picture is the pro race start!

SWIM 1.9 km in 29:33 (70.3-PR!)
10th place in M35-39 / 128
35th place in Overall Mens / 625  (non pros)

Once again, one of my best race swims (my best in this case!)  is in a ‘long course’ event! Somehow, I often screw up in short-course, but I guess I am so scared about the 70.3 distance that I really start easy and build into a good rhythm, leading to a good swim.

My plan was simple: start to the side, out of trouble, at MOD intensity for ~100m then build to a higher effort while ‘natural selection’ occurs and the field becomes sparser. Before too long, there were not many people around me and I could go ahead and navigate using the most efficient path. I was able to draft a bit on the first leg, but a bit later there was just nobody around me to draft from: a handful of swimmers way ahead of me, and the mass behind me. After turning the first corner (which was F-A-R!), we got the rising sun in our eyes, which made navigation difficult, but I mostly aimed for the splashing in front of me in the distance. It was nice to turn the second corner and be able to see normally again. I had good rhythm, and aimed for the SWIM IN portal.

My swimming came a long way this winter as I came out of the water 10th of my age group (and of my wave) in under 30’ - actually made spectators laugh when I removed the top of my wetsuit, looked at my watch, saw my time and raised my hands in the air as a sign of victory: not only I made a PR on the swim, but I met another of my 2011 goals by having a sub 30’ HIM swim. I had the 35th fastest swim split over 625 non-pro men that day. How freaking amazing is that? If somebody would have told me that 2 years ago, when I was barely able to cross 1 pool length, I would not have believed them…

T1 in 1:41

There was some distance to cover, so my transition is not as slow as the time suggests. I did lose a good 10-15 seconds going back to volunteers for water, which was stupid because I had a bottle in transition beside my bike. In a matter of seconds, I was passing the mount line with my bike, doing a decent flying mount…

BIKE 90 km in 2:39:06  (34.0 km/h avg)
MEN | started the bike in 32nd position (gained 3 spots in T1), ended in 14/625
AG M35-39 | started the bike in 10th position, ended in 3/128
>> GARMIN DATA
Normalized Power = 268 Watts
Best:   30” = 395w | 20’ = 298w | 30’ = 293w | 60’ = 277w | 90’ = 274w

There was simply no flat area on this course. You were either going up, or down. What changed was the grade. I got a few times above 70 km/h going down hills, which I have to say does not make me really comfortable especially when the road surface is not top notch and there’s a curve in the bottom…

Course was superb and the scenery was something! The course was passing by a lot of lakes or following rivers. The sun was out, but temperature was not too warm and there was a lot of shade: perfect racing conditions.

My split involves zero drafting (even legal) simply because I was pretty much alone the whole time (I was in the first wave). I did get pass by a few M30-34 towards the end, which left after us (these guys were machines!!!)

My coach had recommended a very conservative race plan at ~250-255w average for this course knowing that not only the bike course was challenging, but also the run would be a tough one.

I have to say, I completely went overboard on the first section of the course. In theory, the power I can hold for 1 hour (FTP) is roughly 300 Watts.  After 20 km, my Average Power was at 288 watts, and I had passed 3 pro female already (and they left 10′ before us). That should have been a hint…

I kind of realized I was pacing this like an idiot, but I remembered (as a joke to myself, on the bike) that the coach said: “if you see you do something different than everybody else, you probably are doing something good”… hehehe! But I guess he meant it the other way around…

I tried to reduce my enthusiast, but after 50 km, average power was still around 278w and I lost count of how many Pro Women I passed (over 10) which never happened to me before, at least not that early on the bike.

At 60 km, started to feel quads giving up at times – a pretty bad sign - and started to swear at myself for pacing this course so badly. I had the elevation chart stuck on top of my aerobottle (best idea ever!!! I liked knowing where I was and what was coming…) and know that most of the climbing was done. I still intentionally backed off a quite a bit on the power output for the rest of the course in a weak attempt to save the run (perhaps too much in retrospect).

By the way, my gearing was P-E-R-F-E-C-T for this course. I was spinning my way up comfortably even decently graded hills, drinking my nutrition while a few people around me were standing, grinding like mad-(wo)men. I very rarely had to stand up. Di2 worked flawlessly too providing reliable shifting and no chain drop (which could be catastrophic in my setup).

Here I am getting close to T2… As usual, I am pretty aware of my surroundings, spot Ryan with the camera, and waved him off

Carefully got off the bike for T2, knowing that legs were trashed…. I thought the chances of a decent run were shot, especially knowing the course ahead of me… Actually even wondered if I would be able to finish.

T2 in 1:29

Nothing special to report here… I was pretty quick out of T2 to tackle the run course. There are faster T2 times out there, but the top of my age group were posting similar times.

RUN 21.1 km in 1:33:07  | 4:28/km Pace   (70.3-PR!)
(actually my Garmin has the course a bit short by ~300m, so 1.3’ fast, confirmed by other GPS tracks)
MEN | started the run in 14th position, ended in 29/625
AG M35-39 | started the run in 3rd position, ended in 9/128
>> GARMIN DATA

 I made Ryan laugh when I passed by him in the first km saying “I’ll never make it!! I am dead!”  First 6 km of the course are mostly downhill, which gives you a chance to get some of your legs back. Here I am starting this grueling course, wondering if I can really make it…

 I could not help myself but stop in the 2nd km to ‘water a tree’ so I lost ~30 seconds there

I ran fine for the beginning of the first section, but at km 4.5 I got into some trouble with hamstring muscles cramping affecting my run a lot (Just before the limit where I would need to stop). First the right side, then it passed after a few minutes. Then the other side… but same thing: it passed after a while. Also felt the front inside quads starting to give really bad signs before hitting the hard hilly section.. I was really not confident at that point about my chances to run the whole course.

After the first 7 km, then it turns into a bad joke with a pretty challenging section from km 7 to 14 with lots of climbing and rolling hills on a dirt road. At least, there was a lot of shade. I got passed quite a few times in the first half of the course. There is just nothing I can do here but race my own race the best I can: I can’t run -yet - like these guys. Many of the downhill sections were too steep to capitalize on and I had to be on the brakes, giving a lot of pounding on already very sore muscles. It seems some of the athletes were better than me at negotiating the steep downhill sections. I need to work on that.

Somehow, I took it as it came, pushing through but without going too hard and before I knew it, I was passed the most difficult section. Once I made 2 steps of walking in one of the steeper hill, but my legs felt 10x worse and came on the verge of buckling, so I went back to running right away (good deterrent!), keeping a short stride.

My clearwater pace was ~4:31 IIRC. I think Ryan will tell you the run courses were not fast ones… So I was surprised to see I was on 70.3RUN-PR pace even after the hilly section at 4:27-4:28 pace avg!!

I knew the 3rd and last section was much easier at the exception of the last mile with a long (but not too steep) incline that I dreaded for a while. Somehow, I dreading it so much in the kilometers leading to it that when I actually got to running it, it did not even feel so bad (don’t get me wrong, it was hard… it’s just that I could keep a good momentum on it).

Even after that last hill, I was still at 4:28/km pace by my watch. For that course, it’s a VERY good pace for me as it is only 6’ off my stand alone half marathon PR time on a flat course on fresh legs. I was able to crack a big smile at Ryan when I passed beside him on the ‘home stretch’ and finish strong. That picture is taken right after the last big hill, going to the finish area with 2 other guys battling for positions in the M30-34 age group.

FINAL RESULTS:
TOTAL TIME= 4:44:57
MEN (Non Pro)     29/625 Overall
AG M35-39             9/128

My age group was crazy fast, but also very tight since 2nd to 10th positions were within less than 5’. So placing in my AG in a similar event in the future is not a ludicrous goal.

I am extremely pleased with my race. My execution was smooth, met all my goals and I know I’ve left everything I had on the course. I was hoping to place slightly higher in my Age Group, but competition was just fierce and I have nothing to be ashamed of. Here I am, after receiving the Finisher’s swag.

I have to say though, I think I’ve ridden on a very fine line here…..

We got back in town shortly after the race and hitting the buffet. I was still hungry, so we hit McDonald’s for a crazy-not-so-healthy-recovery-meal.

I failed to do the recovery activities I should have done. I did not have my compression socks (if you can believe it, despite having so many bags) and I really should have done an ice bath. As a result, we are 4 days later, I am still extremely sore and can’t even think of running again. Yet, I am supposed to race a Sprint Distance in a few days (next Wednesday).

Monday was the veeeeerrrrryyyy long return trip. We were both exhausted and ready to go home. So to be honest, the trip was a real torture.

Overall, it was an awesome adventure and REV3 certainly did not disappoint! I highly recommend this race.

I wish we did more pictures of the trip in general, there was some pretty sights along the way. Oh well… Here is the photo album:

Rev 3 Quassy 2011