So the tri season finally started for me. After months of indoor training, some outdoor efforts and not enough swimming the first of my Triathlons was finally here. This year I have decided to go long; 5 70.3s, 2 Olympics and 1 140.6. The Jerseyman is the first 70.3 on the schedule and I was really excited for the race.
Since the race was in NJ, I did not need to travel and instead was able to drive down early on Sunday morning for race day. I did this race last year in the sprint distance and really felt like it was a well run race and being local helps too. The weather forecast was good, no rain light winds and moderate temps- it did not end up like that at all.
The swim start was from the beach and my wave had a short delay as we were just about to go off- not a big deal but annoying just the same. Once we got started, I settled into my swim stroke, there were not too many folks in my wave and given my lack of serious swim training I wisely stayed near the back of the pack. As we swam further into the Spruce Run, the wind really picked up and the water go rough- sorta like an ocean swim, but also with fog. There were a couple of times I took in some water instead of Air, but switched to breathing on every stroke to minimize the issue of drinking water. While I have not had a enough swim time during the off season, I felt reasonable and finished the swim in 38 minutes- slower than I would have liked but felt ready for the bike.
T1 was okay- 2 minutes which is a little slow for me even with the wetsuit, but for race one of the year it was okay. The first few miles of the bike were rolling and I got comfortable with a solid pace. Then it started to rain- not hard but the roads in rural NJ are not the best so adding wet pavement and rolling terrain is not ideal for race speeds. But I powered on and the miles started flying by. Until I hit the river. Advertised as a nice flat section- it was flat but a nasty head wind. So instead of hammering hard at 30 MPH or so, I suffered to maintain 22-23MPH. Headwinds suck! The last 15 miles or so again were rollers- nothing too steep or long, but oh so annoying after the rain and headwinds. There were some cross winds as well, but my Zipp 101's really felt solid and I did not feel much of an impact on the bike's stability. I finished the bike in 2:44 and given the wind and rain- I was happy
Coming into T2, my parents were right at the bike dismount line and it was cool to say a quick hello. T2 was 54 seconds- again a little slow, but I put my race number belt on first, instead of my Fuel belt- but practice will fix that. The run course sucked- WAY to many turns and curly Q's- yup I said curly Q's. Once you got out of the park, there were some long straightaways with hills- especially one that you ran down and knew that on mile 8 you would have to run back up. I had some trouble eating on the run- GU got too sweet for me and I struggled to take more than a couple sips from my fuel bottles. The sweetness just made me feel sour so by mile 9 I was starting to feel bonky. I was able to power through the last few miles by taking some sips of my fuel and drinking some water at the aid stations (usually I only dump water on my head) but drinking the water seemed to wash out the sour taste. I finished the run in 1:49- slower than I had hoped but given the nutrition challenge, I was very happy to see the finish line.
So my total time was 5:15, 5th in my age group and 29th overall. My goals for the race were Finish- which I met. I also wanted to go under 5 hours- well that did not happen. But finishing these races are hard, but RoadID says never quit- so even though I felt bad on the run, I was finishing!
Lessons learned:
1) I need to swim more. The good news is I have access to a lake and it is finally getting somewhat warm enough to swim in the morning
2) I need to dial in my nutrition- FLUID is awesome, but adding the electrolyte tabs made the bottles too sweet. And GU is great, but after 5 or 6 it gets to be way to sweet.
3) I need to work on my Transistions- just because being fast here makes you faster in the race.
4) The new Tommaso Bike is Awesome! Switching from a Road bike with aerobars to a purpose built Tri bike has been worth it.
To see a visual representation of the race go to www.zumtri.com and search on the Jerseyman Half. My number was 71.
