Ryan Bickerstaff

My last triathlon of the year was yesterday on Treasure Island. It was nice to finally be able to do this race. Two years ago I was sick, and last year I had injury a month or two earlier and decided to just refocus for this year. I wasn’t 100% going into the race, as I had only gradually worked up to 30 minutes of running since getting an injection in my foot last month. So, given that I hadn’t run a 10k since the Scott Tinley’s race a month ago, I didn’t have many expectations for the run. However, I hoped to finish the swim with the first or second pack and stay with it during the bike. Here’s how it ended up playing out:

Swim
The swim was in the San Francisco Bay, which was reportedly 56 degrees…a bit chilly. It was in a little protected harbor, so the waves weren’t that bad. It’s still a bit of a shock when jumping in, though, especially on your unprotected face. I only warmed up in the water for about 50-100m. In retrospect, maybe I should have done more, but I was worried about losing body heat and losing energy trying to keep warm before the start. My start position was right in the center of the pontoon. For some reason, my reaction time was really slow on this start. Either because I was cold and stiff or my weight was shifted backwards, I was already a half body length back when I entered the water. I wasn’t able to get clear water, and the next 30-60 seconds was a bunch of thrashing/pounding/kicking with other people. I had an ok position 500m in and was towards the back of the pack up until somewhere between 1000-1250m. Sometime during the last third, I think I swerved off a bit, and lost contact with the pack. I tried going hard to catch back up but just didn’t have the energy.

Bike
Due to losing contact on the swim, I exited the water about 10 seconds behind the last person to make the main bike packs. The bike was pretty flat except for a short hill towards the end of each of the 6 laps. However, with 20-25 turns each lap (120-150 turns total), it was pretty technical. I was hopeful that I’d be able to go hard and corner faster than the groups and catch back up. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out (15-20s is quite a bit of time to make up if you aren’t super strong on the bike). So, I ended up riding the whole bike by myself. Not exactly the most fun thing, but I needed to finish without getting lapped to be eligible for the Tri-California Series prize purse. I ended up losing about 6 minutes to the packs on the bike, but there wasn’t much I could do after the swim result.

Run
Knowing that I had lost so much time on the bike, there wasn’t much I could do on the run. I just started out easy and tried to work into a good rhythym. I managed to pass one person to move up to 25th place. My run wasn’t that much slower than the bulk of the run times, and since I haven’t done really any hard running since the end of May, and I worked by myself on the bike, I was happy with how it felt…knowing that I’ll be going a lot faster when I get a bulk of run training underneath me.

Overall
By virtue of my finish place and certain other people not finishing too many places ahead of me, I held on for 9th place in the Tri-California Series. That earned me $500 which was a nice consolation prize considering how the day went. If I had raced Pacific Grove, I would have earned more points and ended up with an extra $500-$1500, but that race was the week before Nationals, and I wanted to make sure I didn’t wear myself out for it. Maybe next year I’ll do all the races…we’ll see.

This race really just came down to the swim for me. Time-wise, I wasn’t that much slower relative to the other people I compete against all year. I think not making the pack was more bad luck than an overall sign of where my swim is at. I’ve definitely improved the past year. Just a week and half ago I did a 1650y tempo in 18:10, splitting 5:31,5:30, 5:31 per 500y. It’s easier to see progress in the swimming pool. I just need to figure out a better way to translate that into the open water, especially with wetsuit swims where I tend to not do as well. It’s hard to simulate the start of one of these races when you’re training by yourself, but I think I can work to find a way to swim more regularly in the open water where visibility isn’t as great. I think the ability to sight bouys, swim straight, and keep a steady relaxed stroke simultaneously is pretty much essential to do well. I definitely hope to improve in that area next year.

Filed under: Race Recap