Indoor Tri Results (and what this tells me about my training)

The official results are in (and I updated my race report with them):

1st through 27th of the 37 total “long course” athletes.

Steve Stenzel, 37, Long Course

• 600 YARD SWIM: 8:51, 2nd overall
• T1: 0:49, 2nd overall
• 6 MILE BIKE: 16:22, 3rd overall
• T2: 0:06, tied for 3rd overall
• 5K RUN: 18:29, 1st overall

TOTAL: 44:37
1st out of 37 overall
1st out of 2 in the 30-39 age group

- The SWIM was better than I could have hoped! In my pre-race post, I noted that I expected to be maybe around 9:12 or so. Going heartily sub-9 was a shock, and it just shows I need to keep up the swimming as I’ve been doing, even if it hasn’t been super fast. Consistency here has paid off!

- The BIKE was right where I thought it would be. It was my first time on these new bikes that count miles much like “actual” road bikes, and I noted that I hoped to be “around 22 mph for those 6 miles.” Well, my watch’s split had me at 22.09 mph, and my official results have me RIGHT at 22.00 mph. The bike computers didn’t show MPH, and I didn’t do the precise math ahead of time, but afterwards, it shows I was right there. I’ve have longer sprint triathlons where I’ve averaged over 22 mph, so holding that for 6 miles isn’t that great. This helps prove that I need to keep my bike training more intense as we come out of winter so I’m ready for multisport season.

- And I’m happy with this RUN. I didn’t think I could quite hold on to the 18:20 split that I posted when I raced Lisa 4 years ago, so being just 0:09 slower is just fine by me. This tells me I need to keep my balance here in my run training: keep up the long runs as I’ve been doing, but don’t forget about the fast/hard speedwork.

- Oh, and TRANSITIONS were good here too. (I often ignore them.) My first transition was the fastest I’ve had at an indoor tri (I was 0:21 slower 4 years ago), and I don’t know if I believe that I was 2nd and not actually 1st in T1 - I RAN from the pool to the bikes, and I barely popped down on my butt to throw on my shoes. Someone who finished in the bottom 1/3 overall transitioned 0:10 faster than me, and I don’t know that I can sprint from the pool to the bikes without doing anything else in that amount of time.

The overall results are always a bit different than my watch at an indoor tri, and some of it I get, and some of it I don’t understand. I understand that when I hop off the bike and when I start the run might be judged differently. Same with T1 before the bike. Am I “off” the bike when I slow up once I hit my distance? Or am I “off” the bike once I’m truly OFF the bike with my feet on the ground?

But at the same time, this was 6 seconds longer than my watch, and that’s a bit much. (I’m OK with 1-2 seconds, generally.) The swim was listed as 0:01 shorter than my watch, which is fine. T1 is 0:03 shorter which could also be fine. The bike is 0:04 longer, which puts me perfectly even at this point. For T2, I hopped right off my bike and was on the track, I ran to the balloon arch, and was off and running. I had T2 at 0:03, and they had it at 0:06 which is also fine. But then it had my run as 0:04 longer which is a pretty large difference (for a track race). And it’s extra strange because they had a 0:03 longer T2 as well, so it’s not like they just judged me as being “stuck” in transition longer. I’m TOTALLY not complaining about this, and I truly don’t know the logistics behind timing a race like this, but I still find it slightly odd that it’s off by that much in the last part of the race. Truly not problematic though!

So I don’t have the fastest time with this new race format because someone who did it last month finished 0:50 faster than me (a time I was SHOOTING for at the race, but it was out of reach). He swam 90 sec faster than me, out-biked me by about 80 sec, but then I was 90 sec faster on the run. So far, we’ve been the only 2 racers under 51:00 with our 43:47 and 44:37 finish times. I’m not sure if I’ll be doing either of the last 2 indoor tris this winter, but if I do, I’ll be keeping that fastest time on my radar!

Here’s my full race report if you missed it.