Race Report - Philadelphia Triathlon 2008
Last Sunday I raced the Philadelphia Triathlon, an Olympic distance event, run almost completely in Fairmont Park in Philadelphia. I had signed up for this race last year, but wasn’t able to go as my father was in his final days. He died the Monday after the race last year, so this race was going to be dedicated to Dad.
I drove to Philadelphia on Saturday morning and went to register, check out the transition area and go to the pre-race briefing. Fairmont Park is beautiful although the amount of local traffic getting there was just amazing! The Schuylkill River that we were going to swim in was as smooth as glass. The weather was beautiful, sunny and warm. The forecast for Sunday, however, was for showers in the morning and thunderstorms!
I met up with quite a few Terrier Tri teammates for dinner near the hotel we were all staying at. Houlihan's probably doesn’t provide the best pre-race dinner, but it was close and convenient!
In the morning a friend, Amy and I drove down to transition – it was warm and muggy, but it wasn’t raining yet. The race was to start in eleven waves with two or three hundred people per wave. I was starting in wave eleven – the very last wave! That gave me plenty of time to get myself prepared, but it was going to mean a lot of traffic on the bike course.
The 1500 meter (nearly a mile) swim course was a point to point course. We took a bus to St. Joe’s Boathouse about a mile up the Schuylkill River where we were to start. The swim takes us straight downriver back to transition. I watched wave after wave start and still had plenty of time. But just before 7 AM my wave got called to the dock and we jumped in. There was no noticeable current (unfortunately) and the water was warm and fresh! I’m used to racing in salt water. It still wasn’t raining yet.
We spread ourselves out across the start line which was marked by two orange buoys. They counted down, and we were off! I tried to get into a rhythm and keep thinking about my form. I seemed to swim along one guy for a long time and we both kept crisscrossing paths. I kept an eye on the buoys to make sure I stayed on course. This river apparently gets used a lot by rowers. There were a lot of skulls or sweeps (long row boats) at the Boathouse, and there were lane markers on bridges and even some strung across the river!
I believe that this is the first time that I swam under a bridge during a race. The Columbia Bridge is an old stone bridge and we swam under one of its arches. After the bridge we went another couple of hundred yards and turned right towards the small beach on the side of the river. They had folks there to help us out as it was pretty steep and rocky. I looked over my shoulder and saw swimmers still I the water, so at least I wasn’t the last one out!
I ran to transition trying to get my wetsuit off and really struggle with it. Again! When I got to my bike there were not many bikes left, so my swim was obviously pretty slow. I got my shoes and helmet on and headed to the other end of transition to start the 24 mile bike course. Oh, and it still wasn’t raining!
The bike course looked like it was going to be pretty flat. It’s a two loop course combining very flat Martin Luther King and Kelly Drives with “four short technical climbs and descents”, as the website describes it, to break it all up. I thought that it would be a pretty fast course.
It was fairly fast, but as I suspected it was very crowded. People are supposed to keep to the right and pass on the left. But people were all over the road, and sometimes you just couldn’t get by people. Especially on the climbs which has lots of turns. But I did manage to get by a lot of people. On the first loop only about four or five bikes passed me, but I let them go – they were younger than me and they would have been on their second loop.
Towards the southern end of the loop we got pretty close to town and had a really nice view of the Philadelphia skyline. Then there was a pretty steep downhill just before the end of the first loop. Fortunately it’s the only road I recognized and I knew that there was a sharp turn at the bottom. Apparently there were a few crashed there. I got through it fine and started my second loop. I heard the team coach, Robert, cheering me on as I went by. The second loop was much less crowded as most people were now already on the run.
At the end of the bike I got ready for the 6.2 mile run. It still wasn’t raining! The run course is extremely flat – there couldn’t have been more than ten feet up or down for the whole thing. Since I hadn’t been doing a lot of running lately I expected to be pretty slow on the run. I paced myself and seemed to be able to keep up a reasonable pace. Only two people passed me, but when you start at the back, that isn’t saying much!
I managed to pass quite a few people on the run but really felt exhausted. I hadn’t run this hard for this long in four or five months! The run course is basically two out and backs. First we headed north for about a mile and a half, turned back around and came back to transition. Then we headed south for another mile and a half, turned around and headed back to the finish line. As I started the second out and back I passed a cheering bunch of Terrier Tri teammates!
By the last couple of miles I was really getting tired, but it was only a little further. When I passed the 5 mile marker I tried to imagine where I would be in Central Park a mile from finishing a run. It would be Cat Hill. Here at least I didn’t have a hill to climb!
Anyway, I finally reached the finish line. My watch said 2:36:57. I was really hoping for better than 2:30 so was a little disappointed. But considering how little running and swimming I’ve been doing lately it wasn’t too bad. I ended up being 17th out of 91 in my age group. I had the 7th fastest bike split in my age group (21.6 mile an hour average), and my run was just under an eight minute a mile pace.
There was a familiar name ahead of me though. My cousin Steve’s old college roommate, Nace, is in my age group and was in third place. He was way ahead of me!
So it was a fun race, and it never did rain. Not the best result to dedicate to Dad, but not too bad.
