Positives and Negatives

First the positives, I was almost four and a quarter minutes faster than last year! Who would not be pleased with that? Also, I was really happy with my fourth fastest bike segment in group. Using the 16 miles the race advertises my average speed was 22.9 mph which was almost two mph faster than the previous year. Had I know that I was going to suffer so much on the run I probably would have pushed a little harder on the bike for a better time. The difference between myself and the athlete who had the fastest time was 1.3 mph hour. That gap could be down to a better set of wheels that get through the air more efficiently. Another positive is the time saved over last year in transition. Looking at the leaders I still have some room for improvement, but I saved over a minute which I am happy with.

The negative is the obviously the run segment where I ran 30 seconds per mile slower than last year. I am sure that I pushed a bit too hard on the bike, but even so, I thought my overall fitness would have been high enough to sustain that level of pace. It shows me how tough triathlon racing is. I think it was also hotter this year than last August, especially on the run.

 

Additional Insight

Something else that grabbed my attention and grated me a bit was the swim segment. While I was faster this year than last year on the clock I don’t think that tells the whole story of whether or not I actually swam faster. A look at the Garmin data below for 2016 and 2017 shows something interesting. As you can see circled in black I actually swam further in 2016 than in 2017 by over a 100 yards. For 2016 I swam approximately 578 yards before the stroke count falls to zero in 0:9:17 for a pace of 1:37/100yards. In 2017 I swam 445 yards in 0:7:46 for a pace of 1:45/100 yards or 8 seconds slower per 100 yards.