Week Three

Week three in my end-of-year short course bonanza has come and gone, not with a whimper but not quite with a roar. After a pair of 3rd places at Westport & Fairfield, i was feeling sharp and fit going into my 3rd race in as many weeks at the ITPMan Triathlon in Darien.

Saturday races are great, as they allow me the rest of the weekend to eat & drink a bit more copiuosly and to spend more time hanging with the family in a less-stressed state. After an early rise on a 45-degree morning, i was off to Darien for the 7am start. I had a decent week of "peak" training, short but sweet intervals and three swims, so i was confident i could go hard from the gun and finish strong on the slightly longer sprint course (1/2-mile swim, 15-mile bike and 5-mile run.)

I finally got in the first wave, which was a relief, and once again had a combative swim. I've become much more comfortable swimming in a pack this summer and actually looked for groups to latch onto. I came out in 14:38 which was sub-par on my percentile meter (77th percentile iin the race) but a strong swim nonetheless. No bad spots around the buoys, no off-course detours, just consistent hard swimming where i felt good & strong the whole way.

I bolted out of t1 and fumbled getting one foot in a shoe, while two fast-looking guys passed me. For some reason i started laughing out loud, not a very friendly thing to do but all i could think was that these guys were fast-looking dudes and that i would very soon be leaving them far in my wake. My thoughts were confirmed as I got my foot in, spun out for 10 seconds and easily closed the gap to them. As i approached, I got into my aerobars and then just pulled around & accelerated. By the first turn onto the post road at the 1-mile point, they were 500 yards behind me and I was gone. I continued to pick up the effort and overtook a dozen or so more people, including female Pro & triathlon pin-up girl Jessi Stensland. I gave her a friendly wave & a "good job" on my way by. At about the 5-mile point I came to a turn to start the lolly-pop top of the course. A few volunteers were manning the corner and one of them yelled to me that i was in 2nd place, which was great considering we were only a third of the way through the bike course.

I continued to push hard and by the time I got back to that spot (ending the lollypop) the volunteer told me I was closing in on the leader. Great news again! I upped the effort on the net-downhill return to transition, going 26-27mph in most spots. As i got closer toward the end, i got caught up 3 separate times on cars going in my direction but held up by bikers in the oncoming lane. In two cases i had to coast behind them, whistling to let me by, and in one case i had to nearly dismount to sneak around the car at a corner. There was no fault of the volunteers really, i expect it had more to do with the fact that the leader and I were pretty far ahead of everyone else at that point. By the end of the ride, the leader (tri-coach and Kona qualifier Cliff Scherb from NYC) had actually put 30 seconds into me and was running out the access road to start his 5-mile run. At that point he had a 3-minute lead on me, but nobody in transition was able to give me a split!

I ran out hard on two numb feet (remember it was 45 degrees at the start), hoping that i wasnt breaking my toes with each footstrike. At the 1-mile point a woman was nice enough to give me a split - "you're 6 minutes down on the lead!!" Thanks a lot! I knew she was wrong but when your heart rate is 175+ its hard to think clearly. I couldnt see him up the road with all the turns, and heck he out-rode me, maybe he's a runner stud who just ran a 5-minute mile, and maybe I'm dogging this run? Anyway I went to the redline and kept it there for the duration of the 5 miles. I ended up pulling back 30 seconds to run just under 33 minutes (5th best on the day). 33 minutes is a bit of a dissapointment for me - i've run sub-30 in running races when i was not in nearly this kind of condition - and part of me thinks that I didnt push myself hard enough while running solo with nobody in sight to try & catch up to.

In reality (got to love wave starts) I caught and passed a fast 40-yo Mark Desautelle, who was in the wave behind me and virtually ahead of me by a minute coming out of t2. I out-ran him and finished the race 20 seconds ahead of him for 2nd place overall, so i was pushing at least hard enough to beat someone that i didnt know was ahead of me!

All in all, after 3 consecutive weekends racing i have two 3rds and a 2nd place overall for my resume' - and more motivation to conjure my inner fish over the winter. If i can cut my 1/2-mile swims from 14-and- change to 12-and-change, i will be a little bit further up on the pointy end where i can ride & run with people who will push me, and hopefully I can get some wins along the way.

Trifitness Fairfield Triathlon

I raced the Trifitness Fairfield Triathlon this past Sunday, a race that is in it's second year and that i think has a bright future. Sold out for the 2nd consectutive time, 500 athletes set out from Jennings beach this year. Despite the 2-loop bike format and starting in the 3rd wave (of 5), the course was not all that crowded and I even managed the fastest bike time on the day even though i had to weave my way through the field.

The transition area is at Jennings Beach, the same spot they hold the gigantic Fairfield Half Marathon every year. Plenty of parking on-site, plenty of space in transition, a short run up the beach & over the dune, perfect roads to ride & run on (if you like flat courses, of course) - a perfect venue all around.

I was 3rd wave and decided to start front & center and make people swim around me. I'm typically cautious on swim starts but i've been working hard in the water this summer and i've seen my swim times coming down in relation to the field. Historically i've been a 60-to-70th percentile swimmer, which means i swim faster than 60-70% of the people in the races in which i compete. In July this year I had two races where i was high-70s, and then two weeks ago in Westport i was 85th percentile, so things are looking up. I had a combative swim this time in Fairfield, lots of contact, i was in a group the whole time but came out in about 13:30. With the run up the beach and over the dune to T1 my time to the mat was 14:09, which was 85th percentile for the second week in a row. Great news but still lots of work to do since at that moment I was behind the race leader Ian Ray by over 3 and a half minutes.

After an uncharacteristically slow transition (trouble stepping out of my wetsuit?!) i was on the road. Going into the race I had ridden nothing but the P2C for almost 2 months, i've never felt so comfortable on it. My position was dialed and my tactic was to really push the pace, take back as many people as I could to put myself in a position to run down Ian. I stood up at all the corners to get back up to speed, then i would tuck in and crank. Keep the cadence high, keep momentum high, go go go.

I rolled into t2 with a 35:03 split (25mph), 20 seconds slower than last year but on a longer course by about 1/2-mile. The next closest ride was my friend Mark Foster, who is an absolute beast on the bike and who i've never beaten on a bike or in a triathlon.

T1 was fast. I had a perfect dismount and ran into the corral, the announcer Don Stuart was heckling me over the mic since I hesitated once and it appeared that i couldnt find my racking spot. By the time he had finished his sentence, i had found it & already pulled on my running shoes and was running out... so his sentence was something like "here comes Don Gustavson off the bike with a nice dismount, uh-oh looks like Don has lost his spot and WHOAH there he goes off & running!!"

That was a nice little boost, i was in race-rage mode and was out for blood, nobody was going to heckle me (even though it was very good-natured heckling and Don Stuart is an awesome guy.)

There was a huge crowd at the race, and everyone was right around transition and I blew out of transition at what felt like a suicidal pace. I focused on my keys to having a good run - relax the shoulders, lean forward, get up on the toes and keep a fast turnover. As I exited the parking lot I knew there were guys up the road, one of which was Mark Foster. I concentrated on running as fast as I could at each given moment without blowing up. The side stitch i had off the bike in Westport never appeared and i was able to increase my pace as the run went along. I picked off 5-6 guys, including Mark, but Ian was in the 2nd wave and way out of reach so there would be no catching him. With about 3/4 of a mile left there was noone behind or in front of me, but knowing i was in the 3rd wave i knew i had to keep up the effort, since i might virtually be neck & neck with someone from the under-35 wave or the over 45-wave (like Maneesh Shanbag or Bryan French or Chris Woods or Joe Whelan...) I kept up the effort and had a great run. Coming toward the bridge I started my sprint to go over the dune and into the finish chute on the beach, just as my 3.5yo son Jack leaped out of the crowd to run with me. I slowed down so he could run with me and we coasted across the line for an 18:10 5k.

In the end, Ian finished 82 seconds ahead of me to win and Shane Meehan (who won Westport last week) finished 50 seconds ahead of me for 2nd place. I had my second consecutive 3rd place finish and managed the top bike time & 2nd fastest run (behind the #1 woman Amy Bevliacqua, who ran 18:02!!) Because I like to rub my nose in my own swimming deficiencies, i did the math and could see that if you got rid of the swim i would have won the race by over 2 minutes... I'm very happy with my performance and look forward to taking my 85th percentile up to 95th by next June so i can be in the hunt for some wins.

Next up is the ITPman Triathlon in Darien on Saturday, a .5-mile swim, 15-mile bike and 5-mile run. I'm hoping for a good result based on how i rode & ran this past week.

Short Course of Pain

I never have all that much time to train. I typically go out the door with a specific plan, pacing & effort in mind for that workout. I like to think that i train pretty smart - no junk miles, no wasted effort, i never completely smash myself.

That's why short course racing is my absolute favorite. It is an escape. No time to think, no time to judge effort level, to feel hungry, to worry about missing time with my wife & kids or about being late for work. Its an all-out effort. Go as fast as you can without exloding (puking & falling apart.)

I raced a super-sprint race in Westport yesterday, 1/2-mile swim, 5.5 mile bike and 2.2 mile run. The three legs of the race take about equal time to finish, which is atypical of triathlon where the bike segment usually takes about half the racing time. So Westport favors the well-balanced athletes. I've been working on my swim and had high hopes - and I felt like I delivered while i was racing. It was only a 35-second improvement over last year, but swim times all around seemed slower by 30-45 seconds for other people. I smashed the bike by 30 secs over last year and was the fastest split (they botched the winning guy's splits & gave him a slower swim by 4 minutes and a faster bike by 4 mins) - and i ran through a side stitch for a 30 sec improvement over last year. But when it came down to it, Dave Yockelson (a fast 40-yo out of Westchester) came by me at mile 1.5 and i couldnt respond. He's a fast runner, but I know that if i didnt have the friggin side stitch i could have run with him and taken it to a sprint finish, where I'm mighty confident. Serves me right for not being quite up to that high-end effort, and good for him for having the legs to smoke me and come in 2nd place overall.

Oh, and a relay actually crossed the line second place and they actually counted it as second overall... weird. And then when they got to the M35-39 age group, they didnt list me as winner because i was the actual 3rd overall individual... i didnt want the trophy or anything but my kids were dissapointed... it seems like all too often that race directors are like the keystone cops with getting results right.