The Elkhart Lake Triathlon series has always been a race I have wanted to do, but it has always fallen on the weekend before the High Cliff Triathlon. In the past, the High Cliff Triathlon (usually a half Ironman distance) was my "A" triathlon race for the season. With that in mind, I have never scheduled the Elkhart Lake Triathlon because I would be in the middle of my taper for the High Cliff Triathlon the following week. This year, my goals are a little different. I not only took advantage of this seasons Ironman focus, but also the fact that I had off from work the day of the Elkhart Lake Triathlon and did not need to take any additional days of paid-time-off to make it fit into my schedule. With my main training focus on the Ironman in September, my goals for the Half Ironman race at High Cliff are to work on my race day nutrition for the full Ironman along with other race strategies that I plan on using during the full Ironman. I still want to race well and put up a strong time, but ultimately my goals are to race it as a "simulation" to the full Ironman. More importantly that High Cliff not being my #1 race of the season this year, my training volume is MUCH higher this season then previous seasons. My body is currently used to a much higher work load. Knowing this, I am not concerned with racing a short sprint triathlon the week before my half Ironman triathlon. I have little no no worries that I will carry over a significant amount of fatigue into the High Cliff Triathlon next week. Plus, racing a short sprint triathlon the weekend before High Cliff will give me the opportunity to iron out all the wrinkles in my race efficiency. I will get an opportunity to work on my transitions, open water swimming, and do one full triathlon at race effort before going into High Cliff. In my eyes, it's a win-win!Training Plan
My training plan had no taper or reduction in training volume prior to this race. The only adjustments I needed to make was to rearrange my original longer workouts I had planned on completing when I first created my training plan months ago. I placed my 13 mile long run on the morning after my last night at work and did a 50 mile indoor ride followed by a 3 mile brick run on the day before my prescheduled SWAT training day. Due to having SWAT training on the day before the race, I did not want to do any heavy training, so I scheduled a technique focus swim in the morning before training. I think it worked out well, I was not sore, or physically fatigued at the start of the race, which is always a good thing.
Day/Night Before the Race
The race was held on Saturday morning which I honestly prefer over a Sunday race. Friday, I had a full day of SWAT training. It wasn't a physically demanding training by any means, but I was on my feet all day with about 30 pounds of gear on. Friday evening my legs were tired, I could feel it, I was sore from standing on my feet all day and it worried me that I would be sore on Saturday at the race. Right after training I drove from Oshkosh to Elkhart Lake for packet pick-up. It was a simple process with a few vendors as part of their "expo." The race is held at The Osthoff Resort which is right on Elkhart Lake. The resort is SUPER nice and absolutely gorgeous. It was a really neat setting for a triathlon. After picking up my packet and checking out the transition area and the swim location, I was back in the car to head home for my hot date with my wife. :)
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| Sarah and I absolutely LOVE sushi! |
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| A view of The Osthoff Resort from the transition area. |
June 2nd was our 6th year wedding anniversary. We had originally planned out going out to dinner for our anniversary on Thursday night, but instead we bought a new car (2012 Ford Flex). The entire process of buying a car took way longer than we anticipated. So to make up for missing out originally scheduled date, we rescheduled out sushi date for Friday night. After dinner, it was home and I quickly packed up my gear and was in bed around 10:00pm.
Getting to the Start Line
Elkhart Lake is about an hours drive from Kaukauna. With the transition area opening at 5:30am and closing at 7:00am for the 7:15am start time, I wanted to get there no later than 6:00am to give myself ample time to set up my transition area and get into the chilly water to allow my body to adapt to the cold water temperature before the race started. In order to hopefully get to the race on time, my alarm went off bright and early at 4:15am...egh. After rolling out of bed and getting my morning coffee ready I was on the road by 4:50am. I arrived at The Osthoff Resort shortly before 6 and found a pretty nice parking spot close to the transition area. Right after I stepped out of my car, I heard a guy calling my name. It was Jason Meekma, who also races for TheTriShop.com. He was racing the International Distance race. It was great to meet one of my teammates at a race. Considering that there are right around 50 of us who race for TheTriShop.com it's pretty rare to run into a teammate at a smaller race, like the Elkhart Lake Triathlon. After meeting Jason, I went right to the transition area and got my gear set up for the race. Around 6:45am I put on my wetsuit and headed down to the beach to see exactly how cold the water was. The week leading up to the race I received 2 emails from the race director. The first email was on Monday and said the water temperature was 66*. On Friday, I got the second email and due to the high temperatures being in the mid 50's along with a considerable amount of ran, the water temperatures dropped to 63* and they recommended using a wet suit. I had initially planned on not wearing a wet suit due to the shortness of the swim leg. I changed my plans and opted for the in water benefits of a wetsuit and figured it would help me in the long run considering the extra amount of time it would take in transition to take the wet suit off.
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| View of the lake from the transition area. |
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| My personal space! |
400m Swim
The start for the triathlon was a completely new start for me. They implemented a time trial style start, were only one person goes off about every 3-6 seconds. Normally, in all other triathlons I have done a wave style start is implemented were groups of 50 athletes go off every 2 minutes. To start the race, we had to group together based on our bib numbers. The sprint distance went off first. Bib numbers for the sprint started at 800 and went up into the 1200's, I believe. My race number was 977. After forming a quasi single file line with the 900's, we were shuffled to the start line about 3-5 minutes after the first athlete went out. The water temperatures were not terrible, don''t get me wrong, they were cold, but definitely tolerable. I'm sure the fact that the air temperatures at 7:00am were hovering around 58-60* helped. The water was crystal clear and you could see right to the bottom even at depths over 6'. The bottom was mostly flat sand with a little vegetation. The beach going into the water was tightly packed soft sand. The lake was pretty much an ideal setting for a triathlon. I really wanted to have a strong swim time at this race. I have really been working hard on my swim technique. I started strong right off the bat and did my best to put the cold water issue out of my mind. It still took my breath away initially, but that didn't last long. I got held up about half way though by a "wall" of slower swimmers but managed to weave through them. After coming out of the water I was happy with my swim, but didn't look at my watch as I was focused on were I had to go to get to the transition area. We had a short run up a hill to get to the transition area. Once there I ripped off my wet suit and got ready for the bike. My swim time for the 400m swim was 0:07:14 or a 1:48/100m pace and was the 24th fastest swim overall. I was really hoping for something in the 6's. After coming into the transition area, I struggled finding my bike. We came into transition from the back side which I didn't know we would be doing. I should have known that we would, which is my mistake, but I needed to loop around a couple aisles just to find my spot. My T1 time was 2:35, or in one word - SLOW!
20k Bike
After reaching the mounting line of were you can get on your bike, I took a few extra seconds to get clipped in because I opt to not have my bike shoes set up on my bike ahead of time. After getting clipped in, I was off. I really wanted to just hammer the bike and really see how fast I could do it in. The bike portion was rather technical, with a couple sharp corners and a few moderate climbs from the rolling terrain. I passed quite a few bikers on the course, which is always motivating. For the first time ever, I think, I was not passed on the bike portion of a race. In my eyes, that was way more motivating than the number of other cyclists I passed. I finished the 20k (12.4 mile) bike in 0:35:11 (21.14 mph ave) and was ranked as the 11th fast bike split. I was happy with my bike time, but know it could and should have been faster. I would have like to see an average speed closer to (if not over) 22 mph. After coming back to the transition area, I found my spot right away and had a decent T2 time of 1:20, definitely still room for improvement though.
5k Run
The run was nice, much hillier than I anticipated. My legs were a little heavy from intentionally hammer so hard on the bike leg. But I pushed through it. The run portion was an out and back style run with a small loop at the turn-around end. As I approached mile marker 1, I saw the lead guy out in front, so I knew I was about a mile or so behind the lead runner. I continued to just try and catch the next person who was in front of me. I finished the run leg in 19:06, or a 6:09/mile pace, which was the 4th fast run. Huh - I wonder where my strength in triathlon is??? HAHA. My total time for the race was 1:05:29.
Post Race
My goal going into the race was to be in the 1:00 - 1:03 range. So, I missed the mark a little. After the race, I grabbed my usual banana and bagels, but they also had PowerBar protein bars and Gatorade. Since I was by myself at this race, I went and sat down by the lake to relax for a while before heading up my the race central location to find out if I had placed or not in my age group. After packing up my gear from transition and putting my bike int he car, I headed back to the resort to find the results. I placed 6th overall and 1st in my age group. I was very satisfied and happy with my results, even though I did not meet my preset time goals. It's always a little tough to set a specific time goal for a race you have never done due to the unknowns of the course, hills, layout, etc. Part of the completing the race, we were all given a voucher for a free sandwich and drink. I got a vegetable-ranch wrap along with a cold Corona, which was a perfect way to celebrate another age group win!
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| 1st place in my age group and 6th overall. |
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| A celebratory brew! |
Other Notes
I loved this race. It was very well run and the course setting was awesome. It was a challenging race overall and it brought out some good competition. The overall winner of the sprint triathlon finished in 0:58:19 and is a member of Team USA and a previous ITU Champion. So, he's good. I think I will try to get to race in the future to do it at least a 2nd time.
Lessons for Future Events
I learned quite a bit from the race, not only for the Ironman, but for next week's Half Ironman. First and foremost, I need to work on my open water swimming. I also need to start focusing on longer swim sets when I swim in the pool for the mental aspect of just putting my head down and swimming. I have done a ton of 400m sets of straight swimming before it's really not that long, but I know at next week's half Ironman triathlon, I will struggle with the mental aspect of swimming for 1.2 miles straight. The only way I'm going to get better is to swim in lakes, and swim longer sets. Secondly, I need to work on my transitions and make them smoother. If I can improve my transition times, its free time. I can improve my race times without improving my fitness, it's a no-brainer. I also learned that I can go harder on the bike and still put up a decent run split. In the past I always ride at 90-95% to reserve some energy for the run, or at least that's what I thought. I think in next week's half Ironman, I will ride hard and see how my legs react on the half marathon portion. I should be interesting.
What's Next
The High Cliff Half Ironman that I have been talking about in this report is on Saturday, June 15th. With one triathlon under my belt already, I should have a better idea on what I need to improve on this week to make for a smoother faster race at High Cliff. I have a relatively easy training week leading up to the race, which is done intentionally to set myself up for a strong race. I am also doing a couple of "mini triathlons" on Thursday. I will swim for 10 minutes, bike for 15 minutes, and finally run for 10 minutes, all done back-to-back-to-back as one mini triathlon. I will do 2 sets of that for roughly a one hour training block. That should help with my open water swimming and my slow transition times....I hope!
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| My race bib and finisher medal. |
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