Although this is very early in the season, this race was definitely about redemption for me at the 70.3 distance. It’s been about 5 months since Cabo (you can read up here), but as stated in my previous post, lots has changed. I came into the race with a plan to finish in about 5 hours (+/- 15min). A considerable amount of hard work has been put in and progress made since I started following MJ’s programming and joined the RIDE Tri Team. I had seen solid results in the Desert last month and knew that I was coming into this race well prepared. For lack of a better phrase, I had drank the Kool-Aid.
70.3 Oceanside | 4:44:30 | 21 - Age Group, 106 Overall
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| Jamming in my BlueSeventy Helix |
Swim | Goal 31:10 | Actual 32:08 | Cabo 37:53
The swim went off in waves, so being in wave 8 I knew there’d be a fair amount of people littered around the course. Now I’m not the fastest swimmer by any stretch of the imagination, but do well enough where I knew I’d have to navigate through a lot of bodies. My plan was to try and stay with my wave’s lead pack, but that plan feel apart as we approached the first buoy and started intermixing with the previous wave. I settled into a steady pace, but then ended up getting into a traffic jam about 800m into the race. I came out of the water slightly off pace, but feeling really fresh. Saw my neighbor from WI at the swim exit which was a nice pick-me-up and ran towards the endless transition area to find my bike.
Bike | Goal 2:44 | Actual 2:34 | Cabo 2:46
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| Hydration (SpeedFill) + Hammering (Felt) |
I had a conservative plan on the bike that would keep me within my power goal and how the course was laid out. MJ and I agreed on going out nice and smooth for the first half of the bike course as it is rather flat, but can result in you blowing up on the second half of the course which is much hillier. I felt really smooth on the bike and was able to come across a few of the RIDE Tri Team members. I had lots of temptations on the course when I was passed by some people, but ultimately stuck with the plan. This allowed me to have a strong second half of the bike and resulted in me not being past after about 35 miles in. I don’t have a whole lot of superlatives to discuss about the bike as it went almost exactly as I planned. For my data geeks/Training Peak users, you can take a look at the below data.
Intensity Factor (NP/bFTP) = 96%
VI (NP/Actual Power) = 1.08 (As to be expected with a hillier course)
Cadence Fade = 1.01%
Avg Power Fade = 99% (Actually rode the second half with slightly more power)
At the end of the day, my actual average power on the bike was 1 watt above my targeted watt output.
Run | Goal 1:33 | Actual 1:30 | Cabo 2:01
So this was really the moment of truth for me. I knew coming into T2 that my legs felt really good, but I was still sitting on my bike. The second I dismounted my bike and started jogging to my run gear, I knew I was going to be able to clip off a nice run. It felt just like all of the t-runs that I had been doing for the last few months. I ran the first two miles at a 6:55 pace, which had me a concerned as it was definitely a little faster than planned. Mentally, I was worried that this would come bike to bite me in the butt later on. It was about this time that I ran into one of my teammates. I pulled back a little and ran alongside Jason for about 3/4 of a mile, which really helped me mentally regroup and think through what I needed to do. At the next aid station, I took off. Now I didn’t say anything at the time, but I knew it was time to get after it. We had a laugh about it over beers a few hours later. The next few miles went off without much thought. I had a dark moment from about mile 9 to 11 where I let my pace slide over 7:00/mile. I was honestly in really good spirits the whole run except for those ~15minutes. I suppose it was easy to be in good spirits because there were SO many teammates, friends and family out on course cheering me on - this definitely made for a nice “home field” advantage.
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| Loop 1 Dan, slight V |
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| Loop 2 Dan judging Loop 1 Dan's V |
All in all, I couldn’t have asked for a better race. This is definitely a great way to start my season. I’m excited for all the races to come, but I know I’ve got lots of work to put in to get there. So for those of you wondering or doing the math, this was a 47 minute PR over Cabo.
Now it's time to put both the good and bad results behind me and go put more money in the bank. My next withdrawal from the bank will be at Wildflower later this month.
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| Part of the team hanging at the Felt booth the day prior. |