Steve in a Speedo?! Gross!

Yesterday was the Square Lake Sprint Triathlon. I missed racing it last year, but I raced in the previous 4 years in a row (2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024). I had laid out some goals in Saturday's post that were mainly to push on the bike, and then have a strong run (if for no other reason than for TC 10 Mile training). I was up early yesterday morning and "taking care of business" in the basement bathroom:

Business wasn't great.

Last-minute double-sided tape fix for my aero helmet.

Dark country roads out to Square Lake.

Getting ready for packet pickup to open by lantern light.

A big line behind me at 6:28 a.m.

Business was better here. And purple for the Vikings! GO VIKES!

Checking out the water: we start across the beach at the
red arrow, do a rectangle, and finish by the orange flags.

It was calm and cool: a crisp 50 degrees! (Notice the hoodie on in the porta-potty shot.) I joked with a guy while putting on my wetsuit about if the hoodie goes over or under the wetsuit. Answer: under (CLEARLY) as it's more streamlined. Later, I worked my way down the beach and hit another bathroom:

Sorry, I only flush for religious reasons.

The buoys on the way back. We were told to ignore the drifting yellow buoy
and just round the pink buoy and head straight back to the green.

Transition filling up! Notice the black long sleeve on my aero bars
in the foreground... I was contemplating putting that on after the swim.

This guy was a vibe!

Other side of transition.

I was ready to be "gritty" as I had to run through this dirt coming out
of the water right before putting on my socks and shoes.

We walked down the beach and were ready to race! It's a "self-seeded time trial" start, and I worked my way into about the 20th starter. Midwest Multisport Races posted a bunch of stories on Instagram, and here's one of race director Judi releasing runners into the lake:

A line of swimmers off to the right!

I was spotted on the VERY edge of one of their stories!
That's me in the red sleeves putting on my goggles.

Judi smiled and me and sent me on my way!

• SWIM: 1/4 MILE:

I wanted to start easy. I did. I stayed a LITTLE to the outside (to the right), but found myself working my way to the left a bit, so I just worked to keep that good line. A (slightly) bad and a (REAL) good thing happened during my swim! More on the "good" later, but the "bad" happened pretty early on. I didn't do any warm-up strokes as the air was so chilly, and the right side of my goggles started letting in some water. It was enough to be quite annoying - I'd feel it drip past my eye when I turned my head with each breath. I stopped for a quick second on the way out to try to clear it, but I didn't do much. It ended up not being as annoying as I went along, thankfully!

I felt good about "keeping my line," and I rounded the first buoy PERFECTLY. Seriously, one of the best opening 5 minutes of a swim ever. And I got RIGHT on line for the next buoy. I actually slightly bumped off the buoy that marked our turn for shore, but it didn't slow me down.

I was happy seeing sub-12:00 on my watch leaving the water, and I figured the swim was slightly short.

• T1:

I really still hadn't decided about changing in long sleeves or not! At the last second, I figured I'd better put it on. One of the volunteers shouted that she thought that was a good idea. I STRUGGLED to get that tight long sleeve on over my wet short sleeve, and I felt SLOOOOOOW here. I knew I had at least 2 rides go out before me.

• BIKE: 18.5 MILES:

As I said in my pre-race post, I was very aware of my bike splits from previous years, and I was out to see how close I could get to my amazing splits from my 2024 race. I climbed the BIG HILL and lost my chain (between my big chain ring and my crank arm) but luckily caught it right away before it got snagged, and I shifted so it popped back on without me having to stop. I was slowly gaining on the 2 riders in front of me (maybe 1-2 blocks ahead depending on the current hill situation), but it wasn't fast. Also, I started regretting taking the time to put on that long-sleeve shirt as I was plenty comfortable, but then I got out into the open and went faster and was glad I had another layer! It turns out that climbing that BIG BILL warmed me up, but it was still quite cool out there.

Around mile 3 of the bike (shortly after climbing the BIG HILL), I was PASSED LIKED I WAS STANDING STILL. He just BLEW past me. I was quick running the math and realized he was going to put a LOT of space between him and me on his bike, and I'd have A LOT of ground to make up on the run. Post-race, I googled his name and found this:

26.3 mph for a TT? I'm toast.

I caught 1 of the other 2 cyclists around mile 5 or 6, and I kept SLOWLY gaining on the other. (The guy who passed us all was GONE.) I wasn't seeing the splits I wanted to on the bike. I kept really trying to push, but I think my August of MAJOR bike miles but fewer 100% "all out" bike efforts was telling me I needed to be biking HARDER and not just MORE. I was going to hit my goal of mid-22.x mph. I was working hard to get close to 22.0 mph. I finally caught the other cyclist (I wasn't expecting her to be female) around mile 15, and that helped push me to pull away in the final few miles.

Always hilly. Always rolling.

I tried to bomb down back to transition, and I FINALLY saw my average creep from 21.9 to 22.0 mph. My splits every 1/4 mile of the bike were:

- 20.6 mph at mile 4.5
- 21.4 mph at mile 9
- 21.7 mph at mile 13.5
- 22.0 mph at mile 18
- down to 21.9 mph rolling into T2

I saw the FAST cyclist running out of the park when I was pulling into the park on my bike. He had a BIG lead. I noted my time where I met him so I could see how far back I was.

• T2:

FAST. I was on a mission to catch the guy in front of me (even though seemingly impossible). I stripped off my long sleeve, was teased by Nicole that "you let someone catch you!!!", and I ran out HARD.

• RUN: 3.1 MILES:

That damn hill out of transition always sucks. I noted it took me 60 sec to bike to T2 after seeing the runner heading out, had about a 35 sec T2, and then it took me about another 2:10 to run to where I saw him. So I was a few minutes into a 5K run, but still about 3 minutes and 45 seconds behind this guy. That's too much time to make up in a 5K. But I was still going hard... I didn't know if he was a slow runner or was going to crash and burn. I was putting in the effort to catch him, which helped keep this run hard and fast.

The first mile is a lot of uphill, with the mile marker coming just after coming down a hill out on a quiet highway.

- MILE 1: 6:09 (3:09 + 3:00)

I had NO SIGN of the runner in front of me. I hoped I would crest that hill around mile 0.9 and see him in the distance, but he was out of sight. As I was getting closer to the turn-around, a spectator was out there jogging and cheering, and she said Good job 2nd place! I wasn't actually sure there weren't MORE runners in front of me, but that cleared things up.

When 1st place was visible running towards me in the distance, it didn't look good for me. I noted where he was when we met, and I checked my watch: it took me 2:30 to get back to that point, so I'd only made up 1:15 over the first half of the run. I wasn't taking off enough time, and he was running away with the win. But now that I'd turned around, I was seeing a line of runners behind me... so now part of my reason to push was to not give up 2nd place!

- MILE 2: 5:53 (2:57 + 2:56)

Well, I was keeping my streak alive of always negative splitting each half mile at this race! Could I keep that up? Honestly, I wasn't in the best head-space. My run was turning out OK (about what I had hoped for), but the slower bike was a bummer. I tried to keep my spirits up and keep my splits down. Seeing a 2:54 half-mile split to start mile 3 was nice. I climbed the last little hill in the park between the parking lots and tried to bomb down the hill to the finish.

Photo that I took later of 4 others coming down that nasty hill to the finish.
(The hill we had to climb out of T2, and to start the bike out of T1.)

- MILE 3: 5:41 (2:54 + 2:47)

OFFICIAL RESULTS:

Steve Stenzel, 45, M, St. Paul

- 0.5 MILE SWIM: 11:59, 2nd in age group, 6th overall
- T1: 1:40, 3rd in age group, 16th overall
- 18.5 MILE BIKE: 50:20, 22.1 mph, 1st in age group, 2nd overall
- T2: 0:35, tied for 1st in age group, tied for 2nd fastest overall
- 5K RUN: 18:07, 5:51 pace, 1st in age group, 2nd fastest overall

1:22:38
2nd overall out of 124 total
1st out of 8 in the 45-49 age group

[Garmin: 11:58 swim for 713 yards (1:41/100), 1:39 T1, 50:19 bike for 18.40 miles (21.9 mph), 0:35 T2, 18:06 run for 3.08 miles (5:52 pace)]

So I held onto 2nd! So my 5 finishes in the last 6 years at this race were 2nd, 3rd, 3rd, 2nd, and now 2nd again.

FIVE POST-RACE NOTES:

• ONE: I closed the gap to 70 seconds! The winner was only 70 seconds ahead of me. Sure, he probably let up and could have finished a bit faster if he needed to, but I brought the gap from 3:45 a few minutes into the run, to 2:30 half-way through the run, to 1:10 by the end. Here's an MMRaces story screenshot of him winning 70 seconds in front of me:

• TWO: I miss my bike fitness from 2 years ago. I know this is a lot of impossible "IFs," but if I had the same bike split that I had in 2024 which was 2:11 faster and nearly a full mph faster, that could have secured me the win. I can't dwell on that, but I CAN use that to keep up the intensity in my bike workouts in the future! (And I was still a few seconds faster on the run in 2024 AFTER laying down that big bike split as I was coming up a few years of injury-free running, and setting PRs earlier that year as a 43-year-old!)

• THREE: the biggest shock of the day was my swim place! Above, I said there was a "real good thing" that happened during the swim, and it's this: I've NEVER placed 6th overall in a swim before! Looking back in time over the previous 4 times I did this race, I was 20th, 21st, 14th, and 16th in the swim. And when I look farther back to pre-pandemic races where I was in DECENT swim shape (better than I am now), I was also finishing in 21st and 19th overall in 2019 and 2018 triathlons. WHY DID I PLACE SO WELL?!? ESPECIALLY WHEN MY GARMIN-STATED SPEED WASN'T ANYTHING BETTER THAN NORMAL? Easy answer: I somehow managed to swim straight. I got a little zig-zaggy on my way back to the final buoy before hitting the shore, but EVERYTHING ELSE was super straight. I've never seen a swim map of mine look this good:

Straight out, straight "back stretch," a little wobble
near the split, and then around the final buoy to shore!

• FOUR: my bike splits show me speeding up. My Garmin takes 5-mile splits on the bike, so I had 4 splits out there (3 full 5-mile splits, and a final 3.40 mile split). They only got faster: 14:18 (21.0 mph), 13:39 (22.0 mph), 13:21 (22.5 mph), and 8:58 for 3.40 miles (22.7 mph). Part of that is due to starting up the big hill and ending down it, but that doesn't explain the middle splits. I was desperately trying to better my time.

• FIVE: it was my 4th straight Square Lake Sprint with perfectly descending half-mile splits on the run! I didn't have a working Garmin at the 5th race back, so that maybe had it as well, but we'll never know. But for sure in 2022, 2023, and 2024, I ONLY got faster every half-mile of the run! And this year ended up being my 2nd fastest run split of the 5 years at this race: I ran an 18:02 in 2024, and an 18:08 in 2023. And I was quite a bit slower in 2022 and 2021. So yesterday's 18:07 fulfilled my pre-race goal of being sub-18:30 and seeing if I could hit 18:15. (Even if it wasn't 0.02 miles short like my Garmin noted, I was still on pace for 18:13.)

Garmin stats showing me (generally) speeding up through the run.
(I don't believe this HR chart. At all.)

With the elevation overlaid for fun.

Some final pics:

Transition with most of the bikes back after I finished.

Four runners heading up that DAMN HILL out of T2 (with the finish behind them).

Coming and going.

Sweet medals!

NICE.

A chicken dog at the post-race BBQ.

I've NEVER made all 3 of these "top 10s!" That swim was surprising!

Tied for the 2nd fastest T2 as I was gunning for the leader!

At home with my 1st place age group ribbon on my finisher's medal.

I am signed up to do the Square Lake Sprint Triathlon tomorrow for the 5th time in 6 years (missed last year due to a wedding). After two different injuries earlier this year (glute in Jan and calf in April), I’m feeling a lot better about my current fitness after a handful of good TC 10 Mile training workouts:

Garmin is calling my training "productive" for the last 3+ weeks.

The last 12 weeks: in a good stretch of "productive!"

My typical pre-race run yesterday: 3 faster "pickups" in the middle.
(Easy to spot those...)

Here are some pre-race thoughts:

SWIM: Survive. And start easy so I don’t blow up and have to tread water like I did once a few years ago. Try to swim straight. (Yeah right.) No real speed goals.

BIKE: See what speed I have on these “endurance” legs. I just came off a huge month of biking, and I noted that it was a lot of decent miles on my tri bike, but I don’t have the same top-end speed that I had two years ago when I posted a 23.0 mph average as my bike split at this race. Two years ago, I also had a big month of biking before this race, but there were two differences: it was fewer “workouts“ with more time spent commuting on my bike, but the actual workouts were faster than they were this year. (So a PRO and a CON when comparing my bike fitness to 2 years ago.) I’d be happy with a mid-22.x mph bike split this year (which would be my 2nd fastest, smack dab between my current top-2 bike splits at this race of 21.9 mph and 23.0 mph). But I'd also need a perfect morning to be fast, and it could be chilly and/or drizzly.

RUN: Suffer!! Try to keep speeding up and negative split the run. This race in 2024 was my fastest 5K in a multisport race (18:02) as 2024 was the best year of running in my life. So I’m not hoping to re-create that same split, but I’ll see how close I can get to that. I want to keep it sub-18:30. Can I hit 18:15? I want to make this fast if for no other reason than it being a good tempo run in the middle of my TC 10 Mile training.

OVERALL: Can I be top-3 again? In the first 4 years I did this race, I finished 2nd, 3rd, 3rd, and 2nd overall. I’ll be gunning for a podium finish, but it really comes down to who shows up to race. So my main goals are about turning in a good performance, and less about how I place overall as a lot of that comes down to simply who toes the line with me.

Sometimes when I am preparing for a race, I specifically WON’T look at my splits from previous years just so I don’t become complacent with how my current race is going and think "well, that’s about the pace I held last time, so I’ll just try to hold this here" when I could maybe be pushing harder. BUT I’M VERY AWARE OF MY PREVIOUS SPLITS AS MY 2024 PERFORMANCE AT THIS RACE WAS ONE OF MY BEST MULTISPORT EFFORTS EVER. So I’ll be thrilled if I can get anywhere near those splits. They won’t be holding me back! We’ll see if I go out as aggressive on the bike as I did in 2024, or if I hold back a little, as I am less sure of my bike "racing speed" at the moment. But then I hope to go hard on the run and really put myself deep in the hurt locker.

Well, off to race shortly!! Wish me luck, and check back for a race report!...

Here are my race reports from 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.