Race Report: TriRock Clearwater

Pre Race

This past weekend I raced TriRock Clearwater. I planned the race because my wife, who works for Team Challenge of the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation, had to work the event with her team. I had been assisting with coaching the National Capital Region team and so it made sense to tag along and do the race.

I signed up for the sprint as this was theoretically a vacation and I didn’t want to deal with the longer distance. I had also never done a true ocean swim before. I know that technically Clearwater is not on the ocean but on the gulf. However, it’s still a large body of salt water with waves, rip currents, marine life, etc so it’s an ocean swim.

We did a practice swim with the team on Saturday morning. I was working with one of our newer swimmers in the water getting used to the swells and waves. We were about 200m or so off shore when I saw a fin in front of us. Being me, I grabbed her and we swam back toward shore. I was 100% sure we’d be attacked by a shark.  Fish (and people!) are friends not food.  As we were swimming back, I realized it was a curved fin, meaning dolphin, not shark. Whew.

Most of the rest of Saturday was checking out the expo and hoping the weather would hold out.   They were calling for rain from 3pm until about 8am on race morning.   I was hoping it would just rain quickly on Saturday and get it out of it’s system.    Turns out that those up in Orlando doing Disney’s Wine and Dine Half Marathon (10pm start on Saturday) got the brunt of the rain during the race. 

Race Day

The race start was not even a quarter mile from the hotel. We were right on the beach and were able to wake up and walk right out to transition with over an hour to spare until the official start.  I had one of the first racks out of the swim in and the person to my left didn’t show up so I had double the room in transition.  It was not raining but the ground was still wet from the rain overnight.   I lowered the PSI a little in my tires to around 105 just in case it was slick on the course.   After checking with all of the rest of the Team Challenge group, I headed down to the beach for the start. 

The race was a time trial start so each wave lined up and then they released people two by two. Needless to say, my wave was the 8^th and final wave. They advertised a 7:20 sprint start. The first wave of the sprint didn’t go off until 7:35 and I got into the water around8:10. That was a lot of standing around on the beach.

We did see a small pod of dolphins swimming in the middle of the triangular swim course. They were following the jet skis and boats of the beach patrol jumping and playing like it was a huge party. Good thing is where there are dolphins, there are usually not sharks.  

Swim (9:03)

The swim was 500m in an offset triangle. This triangle was inscribed inside the larger triangle for the Olympic distance. It was low tide so you could stand all the way to the first turn buoy at 200m and then could stand for the last 100m or so of the race. Basically, if you didn’t like to swim, you would only have to swim 200 meters across the one side of the triangle. I know that I swim faster than I can walk in water, so I chose to swim until I couldn’t swim anymore.

The surf was a bit larger than I expected due to the weather system that had rolled through the day before. There were swells of 1.2-1.5 feet although it seemed a little larger. To surfers, that’s flat but to those of us used to swimming in lakes and bays, it was like swimming into a boat wake.  When you rounded the first bouy, you were swimming directly into the swells (they didn’t come in perpendicular to the shore but at an odd angle). You ended up having defined peaks and troughs to navigate breathing and sighting. After rounding the second turn, the current pushed you back toward the shore.   Many people stood up and walked, which made it hard not to run into people when you were trying to swim past.   But at least I didn’t get attacked by a shark.

T1 (2:48)

It was a long run up the beach to transition.   There were some large puddles in the transition area from the rain and I gladly used them to wash sand off of my feet.  

Bike (41:22)

The bike course was one single loop across the causeway to Clearwater proper and then back to the beach barrier islands. It was mainly flat except for the three causeways that you had to traverse. The steep sections were about 6% grade for a quarter mile or so. It did throw many people off who had to stop and walk up these sections. Luckily, it was nothing more than the Naval Academy bridge here in Annapolis, so I was used to the up and over climb.

The flat sections featured some pretty nice pavement.  Fortunately, the pavement was now dry.  Unfortunately, there were many draft packs set up where people were grouped closely in a line.  This made passing a little harder, having to pass six or seven people at the same time to get out of the passing zone.   I also realized that having started nearly last in the field, I would have to pass a lot of people from the previous waves.   I just tucked myself into aero and kept going. 

The final three miles had a moderate northerly headwind about 10-15 mph which was unexpected but manageable.  As we came back toward transition, the course got more crowded as the run course and bike course shared a road. 

T2 (1:53)

T2 was uneventful.  I changed shoes. 

Run (22:49)

The run was a pancake-flat course that looped around the beach area and then out-and-back on the flat portion of the first causeway. It took me about a half mile or so to get into the running rhythm. I just couldn’t get the legs moving the way I wanted for that first stretch. After the first mile though, I was able to increase my pace and hold it around a 7:00/mile pace.

 

I felt bad for the Olympic racers as they had to run up and over the causeway.  The sprinters turned around and had a ¾ mile straight leg to the finish area. 

Overall (1:17:57)

I placed 4^th in my AG (45^th overall) and missed the podium by just around 1 minute. This would have been three podiums in a row. Not too bad for a vacation race. I didn’t expect to come this close given that this was a larger race than my previous two, with a much more competitive crowd.

 

This was a great race venue and a well-managed event.   The finish area was good and the course support was equally good.   They could have used a few more volunteers in the water but with all of the beach patrol out, it never was unsafe. 

 

And with that, my 2014 season comes to an end.