Saturday was the Sprint Triathlon

Swim

Due to the high water temperature opted to not use my wetsuit. The water temps were said to be in the low to mid-80s. This was a 500-meter swim and may be one of the best open water swims I’ve done as per comfort level. I aimed to do a 10-minute to sub 10 minutes swim and came fairly close at 10:38 or 2:00 minutes per 100 meters. Strava File.

Bike

For the bike leg, my goal was to purely use perceived effort with glimpses of power and speed. The course is flat and fast as per the race website and profile. I felt great throughout the bike and barely even sipped any liquid from my one drink bottle. I used the drink bottle on the run. Finish the 11 miles bike in 28:56 minutes averaging 22.8 mph and 280 watts. Strava File.

Run

Transitioned to the run while carrying my bike drink bottle which had a mixture of accelerade. The run was pretty shaded and flat which was great given the hot morning weather. I felt great on the run and pushed a bit more as I came across a fellow competitor from my Clydesdale division who after the fact was currently in first place. I finished the run in 23 mins with a pace of 7:37 per mile. Strava File.

I finished 1st in the Clydesdale division 🥇 🎉.

Sunday was the Olympic Triathlon

Swim

Again on Sunday, I swam sans wetsuit. The Olympic swim was 1500 meters. The one mistake was not using mirrored or tinted goggles on the swim. Navigation on the turnaround to head back to the swim finish was a challenge as we faced direct sunlight. I was able to navigate using swimmers to the left and right of me and had to breaststroke a bit to sight the buoys. I finished the swim in 34 mins at 2:11 min / 100 meters. Strava File.

Bike

The Olympic course was two loops of the Sprint course. My race strategy was the same to use perceived effort. I had to hold back at the latter part of the race on side of caution and safety as the course became a bit congested with various levels of athletes. I finished the bike in 1 hour and 6 minutes. Pushing 266 watts at 22.9 mph. Strava File.

Run

The run was the big unknown as I suffered a slight Achilles injury the day before. In T2 I knew I would have to lose some amount of time because I needed to at least attempt to apply KT tape to my Achilles (this may have cost me the top podium spot in the Clydesdale division – in retrospect I would still do so as the KT tape even if it didn’t hold helped psychologically). Not sure if it was the level of racing I did or running on the undulated grass transition area or the lack of shoes or my Hoka flip-flops during post-race. Either way, my Achilles were a bit sore so I took the first few miles very easily. I also made use of running on the grassy areas to soften the run impact from the asphalt trails. This helped tremendously as I was able to maintain a low 8-minute mile pace. In the later miles, I felt better and was able to gain a bit of time. In the end, finished the 10K run in 51 minutes at 8:17 minutes per mile. Strava File.

I finished 2nd in the Clydesdale division 🥈 🎉.

Conclusion

This was a great weekend of training. This week will be mostly a recovery week to rest up my Achilles and evaluate as the week progresses to see if any training will be introduced. Overall a solid performance with IRONMAN Copenhagen being 5 weeks away.