Race Result

Racer:	Richard Gendron
Race:	Kinetic Sprint
Date:	Sunday, May 9, 2010
Location:	Spotsylvania, VA
Race Type:	Triathlon - Sprint
Age Group:	Male 40 - 44
Time:	1:26:56
Overall Place:	23 / 323
Age Group Place:	3 / 37
Comment:	1st Race Followng Knee Surgury

Race Report:

I like Kinetic. Lake Anna is clean, the road surface is good, The bike course is not flat, but there is nothing particularly challenging about it. It's the longest sprint bike course in the VTS. The run is OK, except for the place where traffic crosses. I'd say the only down side was the weather. I prefer 65+ deg. It was more like 50 on Sunday

This is the first Triathlon I've done since having microfracture surgery on my left knee (July of 2009) which now matches my right knee (August 2005). I raced in 2008, but skipped 09 because of the knee and Ft. Ritchie Bike race.

I got to the park around 7:00 AM, it was COLD (about 40 degrees). Executed a decent warm up - about 10 min of Tempo running followed by 20 minutes on the bike. Something was not completely right, my legs felt sluggish on the bike and it was not as easy as it should have been to hit good solid VO2 efforts. I think it was the temperature - I should have allowed more time for WU. Did about 400 meters of swimming, which felt good cause the water was in the 70's.

Swim Leg (12:56 1/39, 32/373)
I was nervous at the starting line, not something I'm used to. In fact, I'm usually yawning at the start of a race. The swim leg to the first buoy was about 250 meters, which was enough room for a selection BEFORE the first turn so I staged in front and gave a little extra pop in the first 100 meter run/dive/swim. The strategy worked, I was in open water for most of the race turning on the buoys. I did have to give one corkscrew stroke to get out of a bundle after turn 2. Very pleased with the time which was 1:20 faster than 2008

T1 (1:37, 3/39, 19/373)
Took off the DeSoto top, goggles, cap in one movement while running up the stairs, then rolled down the bottoms and popped em off. Glasses on, Helmet on, sockless run across the gravel parking lot (ouch) then mounted on the line.

Bike Leg (47:51, 3/39, 18/373)
I had a little trouble getting my shoes on for two reasons. I should have waited to go over the crest of the first hill out of T1, but got impatient and tried to slip in one foot going up the hill. The parking lot stone dust was all over my wet feet and acted like sandpaper. I had trouble and swerved on the road. I gave up and waited till I crested the first hill. Note to self - spray Pam inside of shoes next time.

My motor was revving pretty high, so I targeted sub LT for a few minutes until my breathing settled down. I then tried to settle into my targeted power of about 240-260w. It was not happening, so I did not force it - I felt cold, so I decided to wait for the legs to warm up and really push the pace after turn 1. Good news on turn 1 - since there were no racers coming back into the park, they let us turn left on the left side of the traffic triangle - a much easier turn to make at speed than going around the triangle. After I turned, I expected to start hammering in my target zone. It would work for a while, but as I tried to settle into a rhythm, power would drift back down to high tempo (220 -230w). Again, not wanting to force it, I decided to focus on pacing and riding clean.

I hit the second turn/hill perfectly and then used speed and some added effort up the hill to go across causeway #1 perfectly. I came out of aero at Comfort Lane to wave to my wife and kids who were under a blanket on the corner. Causeway #2 went almost as perfect as #1, except I was passed by two racers (not my AG) going up the hill. I knew something was wrong now, but decided to just ride my race rather than trying to hold these two guys in sight. Spun it out coming into T2. This was a full minutes slower than 2008.

Gotta think hard about the bike - Power data speaks for itself.
FTP is about 260, so this sucked. Notice cadence was low as well.

Bike Leg:
Duration: 47:10
Work: 611 kJ
TSS: 65.1 (intensity factor 0.91)
Norm Power: 223
VI: 1.03
Distance: 17.656 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 455 216 watts
Cadence: 32 149 82 rpm
Speed: 2.8 40.1 22.5 mph
Pace 1:30 21:27 2:40 min/mi

T2 (:59 11/39, 122/373)

I did not use race shoes and forgot to get zipp laces for my Asics. I'm not sure why, but I have never been good at T2. I gave up an average of about 25 seconds to the top 20 racers. Still 30 seconds faster than '08 (made a mistake in 08).

Run (23:35 9/39, 90/373)
Saw Charles Barnes as I was running out of T2 and then Scott Baldwin shouted out a "work that hill" as I was trying to "work it" Got passed by Eric Moore (in my AG) about 1 mile in - DARN, I figured I was running to stay on the podium now. Most of the run was uneventful. After the turnaround I saw where everybody was. I guessed that I taken a ton of time out of the field during the swim and just held on during the bike. No one was close enough (i thought) to catch me so I tried to stay motivated during the run.

Coming in the finishing stretch Scott Baldwin was at the bottom of the hill and hollered "Man Coming". My first instinct was to shield the ball and through a body into the guy .... ooops, wrong sport. I started to sprint and was determined to not give up a spot (not knowing if he was my AG or not). My Sprinter's pride held him off and made for a nice picture, it's the "cover photo" for Kinetic races at www.triduo.com. I look horrible.

Turns out I was 3rd in the AG, but the two guys ahead of me were 1st and 3rd in masters overall and got kicked up - out of the AG results. So I "won" the AG. Doesn't feel like a win, so I'm counting it as 3rd - all results above are adjusted to include the top two guys.

Next Tri is David Glover's Race out at Lake Arrowhead. I like that bike course as well, so hoping for a different result on the bike.