2021 Pocono 70.3 Race Report

Background

After two years without racing a triathlon, I was excited to jump back in this year. An April-July parental leave from work left me with plenty of time to train for a summer race, so I signed up for the 70.3 race at Kinetic’s Poconos Triathlon Festival on June 12th in Hawley PA. I also convinced my brother to sign up and made it my life’s mission to beat him.

Training

While I had remained active throughout the Pandemic, my last triathlon was the 2018 Toughman 70.3, so I it had been a while since I had put in the hours across all three disciplines. In 2019 and 2020 I had focused on running, so going into the Poconos 70.3, I would need to spend more time on swimming and biking. Each of these areas posed unique challenges.

Swim

If you want to swim right now in New York City your options are:

• East River
• Hudson River
• Coney Island
• Become a Russian Oligarch and buy an apartment with an Olympic-size swimming pool

Options one and two posed significant health risks, option three proved logistically challenging, and while option four came with several additional benefits I wasn’t able to make it happen.

As a result, I only managed to swim two times during my Poconos training. Both of these swims took place in Wildwood New Jersey on a vacation to the Jersey Shore. The ocean was cold and choppy. On my second swim, the water temperature was 59 degrees and the waves were 3–4 feet. After about 40 minutes I started to lose feeling in my hands and face and decided to call it a day. These swims were my least favorite training experiences of the year, but they reminded me of what it felt like to swim a long distance in a wetsuit, which was the best I could hope for leading into the race.

This was supposed to be an out and back but I got out of the water when I stopped feeling my face and hands

In addition to these two swims, I should have been doing dry-land training, and I did do some occasional push-ups, but I’ve always found it hard to motivate myself to do this kind of work, and this year was no exception.

Bike

Cycling was the area where I needed to put in the most work. After a year of on-and-off cycling, my FTP was around 200–220, and I had very little endurance on the bike, especially in the aero position. The urgency of my situation was brought home to me when I lost of series of online and real-life races to my brother in DC, the Catskills, and Zwift over the course of 2020.

In the past, I’ve built up my bike fitness over long rides on the 9W and in Fahnestock State Park. However, as a parent to two young kids, long training rides away from home were not feasible. So I did almost all of my 2021 training on a trainer.

Without a dedicated pain cave in our NYC apartment, this meant setting up and taking down a bike, trainer, fan, and computer every morning. To save time, I experimented with setting up my bike in my boiler room. However, after inhaling large amounts of dust on a series of training rides, I realized that this approach wouldn’t lead to successful long-term outcomes.

And so most rides took place in the Kitchen with a baby or two at my side. Managing a hard trainer workout while entertaining a child stimulates a level of mental toughness that would be hard to achieve any other way.

As shown in the chart below, I had a decent cycling base at the start of the year with plenty of room for improvement. From January to March, I did a steady schedule of four rides per week broken down as:

• 1 hard Zwift race (30–40 minutes at ~95% of FTP)
• 1 endurance ride (2–3 hours at ~70% of FTP)
• 2 recovery rides (1 hour at a easy/very easy pace)

The races provided a great motivation to push myself above my FTP on hard days, and I rode most of the endurance rides with a group which provided additional motivation in the form of not getting dropped. By March, I could feel myself improving, and an FTP test showed that I had gotten back to 240 watts or 3.8 w/kg, which was as good as I had ever tested.

The left chart shows changes in cycling-related short-term fitness, long-term fitness, and fatigue in 2021. The shaded line graph is long term fitness, the purple line is short-term fitness and the orange line is fatigue (positive is less fatigue). The purple bars show number of hours on the bike per week.

At this point, seven hours per week of indoor riding had started to burn me out, and after a five hour ride of the “Uber Pretzel” route, I scaled down my riding for a month and a half before starting my build for Poconos. In hindsight, I don’t think I ever got back to the cycling fitness I had in March and probably started my initial build too early.

I rode the Uber Pretzel as part of a Zwift Insider group ride. I spent a total of 5:14 on the bike at an average power of 154 watts which is close to what I would expect to do for an Ironman

After six weeks of 3–4 hours on the bike, I started an official training plan for Poconos. I reduced the number of Zwift races I was doing since these often drained me for the rest of the week. Otherwise my schedule looked similar to my previous build with one hard ride, one endurance ride, and two easy rides. Overall in the two months before I started my taper, I averaged seven hours/week of cycling.

The training plan I was using had four key workouts in the month leading up to the race taper. In each of these workouts I would ride close to race pace (or in some cases above race pace) for two hours. I managed to do two of these outdoors, since the thought of doing this many intense rides on a trainer was too much for me to handle mentally. I did the second of these key rides in Prospect Park and managed to hold 191 watts for 90 minutes at a heart rate of about 150 bpm. Including my warmup and cool-down I rode 54 miles in 2:47, which was a great confidence builder for the race.

Unfortunately over my next two key workouts, I never felt this good again. On each of these rides, I averaged closer to 180 watts and 155 BPMs. Going into the race, I knew that I would probably need to set my target power at closer to 180 watts than 190.

One final note on my bike training is that I did almost all of my workouts on my triathlon bike in the aero position. I only used the road bike for the occasional Zwift race or recovery ride. This additional time in the aero position help close the gap on my aero power vs standard power, and I would guess that I got my aero FTP with 10–20 watts of my road bike power (I didn’t have the guts to do an aero FTP test close to the race).

Total time on bike in 7 weeks before the race: 11:14/8:43/6:53/10:54/3:59/9:23/7:07

Run

With my running base from 2019–2020, I was confident about my run going into the Poconos. In 2019, I ran about 2,000 miles and ran a 1:22:50 half-marathon which I consider one of my best performances at any distance. In 2020, I ran about 1,500 miles and completed a 50k (on a track!) and a marathon. I knew from experience that this type of training stays in your heart, lungs, and legs for a long time, and even a relatively small amount of running would bring me back to previous fitness levels.

With that being said, my main goals for run training going into June were:

• Maintain run fitness while scaling up my bike volume
• Practice running off the bike
• Get in a few long runs to test nutrition and build confidence for race day

My run schedule was similar to my ride schedule and looked like this:

• Tempo run every Tuesday
• Two easy/moderate runs during the week
• One long run on the weekend

Because I don’t own a treadmill, all of my run training took place on the streets of NYC. My runs went smoothly and according to plan. As you can see in the charts below, I reached a 50 mile week and improved my overall fitness by about 20% over the three months leading into the race.

The left chart shows changes in running-related short-term fitness, long-term fitness, and fatigue in 2021. The shaded line graph is long term fitness, the purple line is short-term fitness and the orange line is fatigue (positive = less fatigue). The blue bars show number of hours running per week.

I had two confidence-building runs during my build-up to the Poconos. The first was the Two Rivers Half Marathon in late March. I signed up last minute and finished in 1:29:16 with no taper in a pair of beat-up old shoes. A decade ago I trained hard to break 1:30 in a half-marathon, so it felt good to get this result without too much effort.

My second key run was a 17 mile run that I did on a North Brooklyn Runners group run. I averaged 7:30/mile for the 17 miles, which is nothing special by itself, but I was encouraged by the fact that my Heart Rate for the entire run averaged 141 and never got above 150. Of course, it helped that it was a cold, wet day, but this was still the lowest my heart rate had been for a run at this distance and pace. Based on this result, I felt good about my ability to hold a 7:30 pace in the Poconos.

Total running distance (miles) in 7 weeks before the race: 27.7/40.4/42.2/26.2/50.8/32.4/24.2

Taper

I did a two-week taper, reducing volume by about 20% in week 1 and 50% in week 2. The first week of my taper was in Wildwood which made it more difficult to stick to a schedule, but I made an effort to get in quality bike and run workouts while there, and one of my most memorable rides was a set of intervals that I did over the Wildwood Bridge.

Besides the bridge, Wildwood is pancake flat, and I really enjoyed the feeling of riding at a steady 22–23 mph for 60 minutes.

Since I was able to get in these solid workouts in the first week of my taper, I took the second week really easy, doing only about 5 hours of total work in the week leading up to the race, with a few race pace efforts thrown in to keep my legs fresh and remind myself what that pace felt like.

Training Theme Song

Throughout my training block when I needed a push I would put on “A Town Called Paradise” by Tiesto. It’s a truly bad song, but it worked.

Race Plan

Taking stock of my fitness and key workouts leading into the race I decided to set the following goals for myself.

A-Goal: Beat Chris

My main goal for the race was to beat my brother. Despite my lack of recent swim training, I knew that I would be competitive on the swim due to the many years of Ironman swim training that I had done. I figured myself to be a slight underdog on the bike based on Chris’ Strava workouts in April and May, but thought that I could keep it close due to my weight advantage (140 pounds vs 160 pounds) on a hilly course . And I considered myself a heavy favorite on the run. Chris had a stress fracture two years ago and has never been able to put in major running miles. While I would be able to realistically target a 1:35 Half Ironman run, my analysis of Chris’ Strava runs suggested that he would be lucky to break 1:45. So if I could just keep the gap on the bike to less than 10 minutes, this goal would be straightforward.

B-Goal: Break 5 Hours

This was my most ambitious goal for the race. I set it as my B goal because it was less important to me than beating Chris. So, if at some point in the race I needed to make a pacing decision that would allow me to beat Chris but not break five hours, I would go ahead and take that path.

My 70.3 PR going into the Poconos triathlon was 5:14, so I would need to go 15 minutes faster than I had ever done in order to achieve this goal. There were three reasons why this felt possible.

• Strong bike and run training: The three months leading into the Poconos 70.3 were the best combination of bike and run training that I’ve ever done before a race of this distance. With the extra time afforded by parental leave, I consistently spent 10–14 hours per week running and cycling. Doing this on top of a strong run base from 2019 meant that my run/bike fitness going into the Poconos was as good as it had been before a 70.3.
• Course conditions: Although the Poconos course was far from easy, the conditions on the day looked promising. The weather for race day was forecasted to be between 60–75 degrees and overcast. My PR had come on the Quassy course which had gotten close to 90 degrees during the run (Quassy also had about 500 more feet of climbing on the bike and 300 more feet of climbing on the run). So this course would definitely race a few minutes faster than the one where I had set my PR.
• Shorter bike course: I have mixed feelings about this one. For whatever reason, the race organizers couldn’t find an extra two miles of road for the bike leg and so the bike course for the Poconos would be 54 miles instead of 56. While this would put a big asterisk next to any result, it would give me roughly six extra minutes towards breaking five hours.

To break five I figured I would need to execute the following race plan:

• Swim: 30–35 minutes
• T1: 2.5 minutes
• Bike: 2:35–2:45
• T2: 2.5 minutes
• Run: 1:30–1:35

These felt like aggressive but achievable targets, but the big unknown was the swim. Without a base of workouts to judge my swim fitness against I would need to make a game-time decision to see if the 5:00 hour goal was still in play.

C-Goal: Get a 70.3 PR

For all the reasons described above, a 70.3 PR felt very realistic, and, given the two miles missing from the bike course, I would have been disappointed not to achieve this goal.

Gear and Nutrition

Swim

For the swim I wore the same Xterra wetsuit that I’ve worn for my ten years of triathlon racing. Starting in 2016, I’ve also worn this wetsuit every year for a downhill ski race in Killington. Over the years, it has accrued its share of holes, and this will probably be the piece of gear that I replace next.

Wetsuits are surprisingly aerodynamic

For goggles, I went with tinted Aqua Sphere Kayenne goggles which I’ve been using for open water swims since I started doing them. The goggles are sturdy and not too dark, even when it’s cloudy.

Bike

For cycling, I’d be using the same setup that I have since 2015: a Cervelo P3 with Zipp 404 wheels. I have Ultegra Di2 on this bike which is especially nice for changing gears in aero position. This year I swapped out my 11x25 cassette for an 11x32. On my outdoor training rides, the additional gears were a welcome relief on steep grades and allowed me to tackle almost any hill at a cadence above 80 RPM.

My setup was exactly what you see in the picture below (this picture was taken on the Quassy 2015 course where I set my previous PR): Bell Javelin helmet, Profile Design between-the-bars hydration, a Wahoo Element Bolt computer, and Sidi road shoes. For my tri suit I decided to wear the Orca suit you see pictured below and not a newer 2XU tri suit which felt a bit more restrictive on my training rides.

My setup for Quassy in 2015 was essentially the same one that I took to the Poconos

For nutrition, I would be attempting to go all-liquid on the bike, taking two Maurten’s 320 drinks. These are 320 calories/80g carbs each, which would get me close to 250 calories per hour at my goal pace. I’ve always struggled with stomach issues in long course tri, and Maurtens drinks hasve worked well for me on longtraining rides so I felt hopeful that I could avoid GI issues with this plan.

Run

My major gear upgrade for the run was a new shoe. Technically a pair of shoes. In all my previous triathlons, I’ve worn whatever shoe I was currently training in. After hearing from a number of running friends about the benefits of carbon-plated “super shoes” I bought a Saucony Endorphin Pro for the race. My training runs in the shoe helped me to understand the benefits of these new shoes. I felt faster and less fatigued when I had it on. This shoe was a big part of why I was able to hold a 7:30 pace for 17 miles at a low heart rate, and I was excited to see what it could do for me on race day.

On the run, I would be taking 2–3 Maurten gels which are 100 calories each. I planned to have a caffeinated gel ready for the second half of the run which is always the most difficult section to handle mentally. Finally, I would be using my trusty Forerunner 920 watch which is still going strong after 7 years.

Race Day

Pre-Race

After a pasta dinner and 8 pm bed time the night before, I woke up at 4:30 am on the day of the race and ate a breakfast of oatmeal and a banana. I covered my body in Chamois Butt’r and sunscreen, and then Chris and I made the 15 minute drive down to the race start.

We had to set up our whole transition area the morning of the race, so there was the usual scramble to rack the bike and set everything up before 6:45. The air temperature was 60 degrees and the water temperature was 75, which made for ideal racing conditions. I decided not to wear sleeves during the bike, since the air temperature would be warm enough to be comfortable without them.

We made our way down a long dusty hill to the water and prepared to race.

Swim

Due to Covid restrictions the swim was a time trial start with one athlete entering the water at a time. Athletes would also be responsible for seeding themselves with faster athletes going first.

This is a GIF of the actual race start

The benefit of the TT start was that Chris and I could start at almost the exact same time even though we were in separate age groups. The downside was that it would be much harder to find a group to draft with and it would be impossible to identify competitors within our respective age groups.

After about 30 other athletes had gone, we ran in the water and started our swim. The first minute of a triathlon swim always feel unusual. After months of build-up and weeks of pre-race nerves, you are, all of a sudden, racing. And no matter what your brain is telling you about the length and difficulty of the day ahead you can’t help but feel “hey this isn’t so bad”.

I swam 100 yards and thought “hey this isn’t so bad”. I looked down at my watch and saw that I had done the first 100 at 1:30 yard, which was above my planned pace of 1:35/100 yards. And then I made a left turn at the buoy and proceeded to do some of the worse sighting of my triathlon racing career. I’m not sure what I did wrong exactly, but I think my lack of time in the water meant that I was favoring my right pull and I found myself constantly correcting to get back on course.

Some truly bad sighting added an extra 200 meters to my swim

Throughout the swim I managed to get on a couple of other swimmers’ feet and draft for a few minutes, but I never got into a comfortable rhythm. As I reached the second left turn, which was roughly the half way point for the swim, I looked down and saw that I was over 19 minutes for the swim. This was much higher than I wanted to see. My sub-5 race plan required me to finish the swim in about 35 minutes, and I was already 3 minutes off that pace. I felt I hadn’t slowed down that much from my fast first 100 yards, and I certainly didn’t feel that I was swimming close to a 40 minute pace. But rather than risk my whole race, I decided to hold my current pace for the rest of the swim.

On my way back to the swim start, I looked to my right and saw a familiar face. Rather, I saw a familiar wetsuit. Chris wears a surfing wetsuit for his triathlons and I spotted it to my immediate right. I got a look at the person wearing this wetsuit and confirmed that it was my key competitor in the race. We swam side-by-side for the rest of the swim and came out of the water within five seconds of each other, setting up an exciting bike ride.

My time on the swim was just under 40 minutes, which felt disappointing at the time. To break 5 hours with this swim, I would need to have an exceptional bike ride. But rather than crushing myself on the bike, I decided to stick to my original pacing plan and focus on beating Chris.

We found out later that the swim course was about 10% longer than it should have been (2.1k vs 1.9k) which added about 4 minutes to our swim times.

• Tom Swim: 39:57 (53/165)
• Chris Swim: 40:02 (55/165)

Bike

The Poconos bike was a two loop course which took place mainly on a smooth winding tow path. The first 15 miles of the course were a gradual downhill, which would make it easy to get comfortable after the swim, while also making it hard to hit power targets (it’s harder to hold a higher power while descending). After the gradual descent, there was a wall-like climbs with maximum gradients of 15%. We’d hit this wall two times (once per loop).

Using Best Bike Split I had put together the following race plan:

• Gradients of -3% or lower: Easy/rest
• Gradients of -3% to 2%: 170 watts
• Gradients of 2%-5%: 220 watts
• Gradients of 5% or higher: 250 watts

This was my first time trying a variable pacing plan. In all of previous triathlons, I had picked a target wattage for the ride and tried to stay as close as possible to that number regardless of the slope of the hill I was on. The thinking behind this plan was that lower variability in power output maximizes work for a given level of effort. And this is true on a perfectly flat course. But this approach resulted in some very slow climbs which probably left some major time on the table. More recent thinking has moved towards pushing harder on climbs when speed and air resistance are lower and extra watts can translate more directly into speed. If I could stick to the BBS plan, I would average 180 watts for the ride with a normalized power of 196.

Coming out of the swim, Chris and I ran about 200 yards up a steep hill before getting to our bikes. Chris managed the transition about 11 seconds faster than me and was on the bike course first.

Fierce

Miles 0–14: 23.4 mph/161 watts/91 rpm/144 bpm

I got in aero position right away (well after the photo above was taken) and settled into pushing about 150 watts at 90 rpm. Due to the steep descent over the first five miles, I wasn’t able to hold much more power. Chris built a small lead on me, but I made sure to keep him in my sights the entire time. His bike was the only one with a rear light on it which made it easy to spot him from far away.

After we turned left into the tow path, I noticed that a small group of cyclists had gathered behind Chris and were illegally drafting. This would make it harder to attempt a legal pass since I would have to push hard enough to pass five cyclists at once, but I decided to pull up to the group and try a pass anyway. I increased my effort by about 30 watts and slowly started to close the gap. I reached the group after 5 minutes and put in a hard effort to pass all five of them. As I rode by I yelled that they were illegally drafting and making it really hard to pass.

As I pulled away from the group, I saw that Chris was going with me (at a legal draft distance) and I knew that he would probably put in an attack on the upcoming climbs.

Miles 14–16: 9.1 mph/217 watts/82 rpm/156 bpm

The major climb was even steeper than I expected, and as the road pointed up, all of the cyclists were starting to bunch up with a few were even riding side-by-side. This made it hard to ride a steady pace since I kept catching cyclists having to overtake them, but before long Chris and I had pushed past most of the cyclists on the road. Chris then made an attack and started to put some time into me, but I never lost sight of him on the road. For the duration of the climb, I was able to stick to my plan, holding 220 watts on the lower grades and increasing to 250 watts when the pitch got steep. Thanks to the 11x32, I was able to average around 80 watts for the entire climb, and I never dropped below 60 rpm. I came to the top of the climb within about 30 seconds of Chris and with my heart rate under control. I wasn’t looking forward to doing that climb again, but I felt good knowing what to expect.

Miles 16–26: 19.5 mph/164 watts/89 rpm/148 bpm

The next 10 miles were a series of rolling hills with no net elevation gain. I was able to put out decent power on the climbs but struggled to get my power and heart rate up on the descents. I believe this segment was where I started to fall off of my race plan, if only slightly; I should have been closer to a 175 watt average at a HR of 155, but i was at 165 watts and 148 bpm. Nevertheless my average speed of 19.5 mph was good given the 500 feet of climbing, and I kept Chris within 100 yards of me for the 10 miles.

Miles 26–39: 23.3 mph/151 watts/90 rpm/142 bpm

We made a very long steep descent and then turned back to the tow path for loop two. The steep descent was sketchy with a steep crown on the shoulder and several cars passing us, so I never felt safe getting into aero and pedaling. Instead, I sat on my handles, held my brakes, and pushed when I felt safe.

Back on the two path, I saw that Chris’ pace was slowing and decided to make a pass that I hoped would demoralize him. I made a push, made a pass, and then three minutes later he passed back. We then traded the lead many times over the next five miles.

Looking back at my data for this section, I should have pushed the gradual descent harder than I did. I averaged only 151 watts for this section and let my heart rate fall towards recovery levels. I think I was too satisfied with the fact that I was keeping up with Chris and fell off my race plan as result. I probably could have finished 2–3 minutes faster if I had put in a bigger effort on this section.

Miles 39–41: 9.2 mph/219 watts/83 rpm/159 bpm

When I passed Chris around mile 34 he turned said, “well that’s the race”. And that was probably true. Unless I blew up spectacularly on the run or had a mechanical issue on the bike, there just wasn’t enough time for Chris to build up the necessary distance to survive the run. But he didn’t stop trying. At the base of the climb he pulled away from me very quickly. He later told me that he was got up to over 700 watts on these sections because he knew his only hope was to demoralize me on the bike enough to gain major time on the upcoming descent.

But I was able to put in a steady climb that limited my losses. Looking at the numbers now, I’m pleased to see that I averaged more watts at a higher cadence than my first ascent. My heart rate did get away from me a little towards the end of the climb, getting as high as 171, but I knew that I had ridden conservatively enough so far that I could afford to burn a few matches. As I reached the top of the climb, I shifted to an easy gear and spun my pedals for a few minutes to slow my heart rate down and prepare for the rolling hills back to the start.

Miles 41–54: 19.8 mph/159 watts/89 rpm/147 bpm

I was able to get my heart rate under control pretty quickly and rode a very controlled ride to the finish. Probably too controlled: the 159 watts that I averaged for the last 13 miles should have been closer to 175. But my speed was looking good, and I decided to close out conservatively to leave as much as possible for the run. Somewhere among the rolling hills I rejoined Chris and even made a pass. In the last mile, I sat up and spun at a high cadence to get my legs ready for the run, while Chris made a push through the bike finish, beating me on the bike leg by 16 seconds.

Stats for the full ride:

• Speed: 19.8 mph
• Average power: 168 watts (180 goal)
• Normalized power: 184 watts (195 goal)
• Average cadence: 85
• Average heart rate: 147

Race stats:

• Tom Bike: 2:43:31 (22/165)
• Chris Bike: 2:43:15 (21/165)

Run

If you’ve read this far, the race probably sounds a lot like Iron War: two competitors going neck and neck for an entire triathlon in a battle to the death. Only, unlike iron war there would be no great showdown on the run. I knew that my run fitness was much stronger than Chris’, and all that I needed to do was run at my goal pace in order to win comfortably. Of course, I could always run into stomach issues or some kind of injury, so I remained focused on executing a consistent half-marathon to finish up the race.

Miles 0–2: 7:40 per mile/153 bpm

The first two miles of the run were on a combination of grass, trail, and gravel. I have very little practice with trail running and have gotten hip injuries in the past when running on softer/slipperier surfaces, so I was paying close attention to where I stepped and holding my pace a little below what I knew I could do.

After a mile of running I passed Chris for what I thought would be the last time. However, I needed to deal with an issue that had been slowly building since mile 40 on the bike: I really had to pee. With my all-liquid nutrition plan and temperatures in the low 60s, I hadn’t sweated much and my bladder was increasingly uncomfortable. I knew that if i didn’t deal with this, it would start to affect my pace, so I pulled over to a porta potty, where I attempted to set a PR for expelling urine from my body. After about 20 seconds I rejoined the course and saw that Chris had passed me back while I peed. I quickly closed the gap and made what I hoped would be the final pass.

As I passed him for the final time, I turned and said something to the effect of “good luck”. I don’t remember the exact details of the exchange, but the implication was clear: a gap that had never been more than 100 yards for the last 56 miles was about to get much bigger.

Miles 2–6: 7:26 per mile/157 bpm

If you need to explain the concept of “rolling hills” to a friend, consider showing them the elevation chart for this run. Miles 2–6 took place on the shoulder of a road that was always going up or going down. It was a relief to be on a more familiar surface, and I increased my pace by about 15 seconds per mile. Annoyingly, the road had a major slope to the right which started to cause me some foot and hip pain, but the new shoes had my legs feeling much fresher and bouncier than I expected to feel at this stage in a triathlon.

Around mile 3, I took a non-caffeinated Maurten gel. Overall my stomach was feeling good but not great during the run, and I managed to drink water at every aid station.

There was a turnaround at mile 4 where I saw that I had put about .14 miles into Chris. This was less than I expected, but given the fact that the gap was growing, I felt increasingly good about my A-goal.

Miles 6–13: 7:37 per mile/160 bpm

At mile seven, I ran past the start of the race and saw that my total net time for the race was around 4:22:00. This meant that I would need to run the final six miles of the race in 38 minutes (6:20 miles) to break 5 hours. At this point, 7:30 miles were feeling pretty tough and so I made a decision to reset my B goal to breaking 5:10 and hold my 7:30 pace for the rest of the race.

I regret this decision. Going into this race, I had decided that I wanted to test my limits and see if I could set a PR for the 70.3 distance that I could be proud of for the rest of my life. I’m not sure that I’ll ever have the combination of age, training time, and fast course that this opportunity provided, and I should have made the most of it. In the heat of the moment, I stepped up to the abyss looked in, and took a step back.

Later, I would find out that I missed the podium for my age group by two seconds. This is one of the many opportunities I missed out when I made the decision not to push the second half of the run. The more haunting what-if that has stayed with me is the general question of what I could have achieved if I had given everything I had for the last six miles of the run. I’m disappointed that I will never know.

Mile 13: 7:09/166 bpm

Let’s end on a more positive note, shall we? For the final mile of the race, I did my best to put in a big push to the finish. My final pace of 7:09 required a major effort due to much of the last mile being on a trail with a big climb coming into the finishing chute. I was happy that I was able to finish the race strong, and I felt as good as I ever have at the end of a 70.3.

Chris came in a full 11 minutes later, setting his own PR, but coming up far short in his quest to be the first Knight brother across the line. He will have some serious soul-searching to do if he ever hopes to beat me in a long course race.

Stats for the full run:

• Pace: 7:38/mile
• Average cadence: 166
• Average heart rate: 161

Race stats:

• Tom Run: 1:37:43 (19/165)
• Chris Run: 1:48:53 (46/165)

Full race stats:

• Tom: 5:06:41 (23/165)
• Chris: 5:17:23 (32/165)

Evaluation

I’ll finish with an evaluation of the race course and my performance.

The Course

Swim: Lake Wallenpaupack was beautiful and the perfect temperature for racing. There were plenty of kayakers, and the TT start, while annoying, was well executed. However, adding an extra 200 meters to the swim course is a major faux pas. This is not the first race I’ve done where the swim course was completely mis-measured, and this mistake makes it very hard to compare your results between races. (Score: 7/10)

Bike: This bike course was scenic, had most high road conditions, and relatively few cars. The tow path was especially enjoyable with big winding turns providing beautiful views of the local ecology. The 2,500 feet of climbing provided a challenge, but the suffering never felt gratuitous. The one downside is that the course was completely open to traffic, and on more than one occasion, my interaction with cars forced me to slow down or speed up. (Score: 8/10)

Run: This run course was a weird hybrid of trail running and road running. The trail running wound it’s way through multiple campsite and was slow and a little nerve-wracking. Once out on the road, the visual appeal of the run dropped significantly and the steep left-to-right slope on the road was punishing on the feet and legs. There was little shade and on a hotter day, this could have been a punishing course. Double out-and-backs aren’t super popular among triathletes, but I appreciated the ability to track progress of my competitors. And the finish on a track in a football stadium was unique.(Score: 6/10)

Logistics: This race was well-organized and affordably priced. Packet pick-up was easy, the race morning was well run, and the course was well-marked. It was easy to get to the course from NYC and local lodging was great. My only complaint is that they didn’t allow us to rack our bikes the day before the race, pushing one more logistical detail to manage on race morning. (Score: 9/10)

Overall Score: 30/40

My Race

Swim: This was my worst swim at a 70.3 by over five minutes. It didn’t help that I went in with such limited training and that the course was 10% too long, but no matter how you slice it, this was an underwhelming performance in the water. With pools in NYC starting to reopen, I hope to never post such a slow swim time again (Score: 6/10)

Bike: I set a 16 minute bike PR, which is fast, even if you account for the fact that the course was two miles too short. But I came in 12 watts under my goal and probably left 3–4 minutes on the table that could have gotten me to my sub 5 hour cycling goal. Still, my new approach to pacing seemed to work well, and I’m looking forward to using this approach in future races (Score: 7/10)

Run: I held a steady 7:30 pace through the entire run and my last mile was my fastest of the day. But, as with my bike, I can’t help but feel that I could have gone faster and gained at least 1–2 minutes of time on the run. (Score: 7/10)

Overall Execution: I missed my pacing goals for each of the three disciplines but only by a little and achieved my A-goal and C-goal for the race. I managed nutrition well and avoided over-cooking the bike as I had done in multiple previous 70.3 races. While I’m disappointed in my discipline-level performances, the overall result is one of my best outcomes in my triathlon career. (Score: 8/10)

Overall Score: 28/40

In conclusion

At the start of the race, I set out to beat Chris, break five hours, and set a 70.3 PR. As you know by now, I crushed Chris and came within 6 minutes of breaking the five hour barrier. I also set a PR by 8 minutes. Although that comes with a major asterisk since the bike course was short, the extra 200 meters almost cancel this out, and I feel that this was almost certainly my best performance on a 70.3 course. Even better, I know where I went wrong, and I’m confident in my ability to learn from this race and improve in the future.

• A-goal: Beat Chris ACHIEVED
• B-goal: Break 5 hours NOT ACHIEVED
• C-goal: 70.3 PR ACHIEVED

What’s Next

I’ll be racing Savage Man in September, facing off against Chris again. This course is much tougher with nearly three times the climbing as the Poconos. As such, I’ll be setting any time based goals and focusing 100% on beating Chris.

Then in November, I’ll be running the NYC Marathon with a goal of breaking three hours. I’ll share updates on each of these events and my training for them on this site.