Yesterday was the big day for The Manlius Formation (the triathlon relay team, not the website). It was an absolutely beautiful day, although a little hot for the run, and we had great fun.
It was a little tight with well over 600 people[1] entering the water, but it went pretty smoothly.
Here we are, all smiles after the race. Check out the Skinnyman 2009 gallery for more photos.
OK, so you may recall that I challenged my teammates to better their times by 10% over last year’s times. Well, the results are in, and they’re mixed.
It seems that any part of the race I was involved in got slower! That’s right. Slower.
First a quick primer for those who need a lexicon refresher. A triathlon consists of five segments in the following order:
1) Swim leg
2) Transition 1, or T1. This is the time between the triathlete coming out of the water and leaving on the bike. In our case, it includes handing off the timing chip.
3) Bike leg
4) Transition 2, or T2. This is the time between the triathlete coming back from the bike and leaving on the run. Again, this is where the timing chip gets handed off.
5) Run leg to the finish
As the swimmer, I was involved in segments 1 and 2. As our cyclist, Chris was involved in segments 2, 3, and 4. As our runner, Kath was involved in segments 4 and 5.
Here are the results compared to last year:
Swim: 3.7% slower than last year. I was about 33 seconds slower on the 800 yard swim. While I’m disappointed about that, it was still a beautiful swim. The water was crystal clear and calm, the buoys were easy to spot, and it was generally pretty open despite the large size of each swim wave.
T1: 1.79% slower than last year. It took 57 seconds for me to cross into the bike corral, give the timing chip to Chris, and Chris to leave the bike corral. Last year it took 56 seconds. Clearly Chris leisurely loped his way out of transition, otherwise we would have beat last year’s time.
Bike: 10.5% FASTER than last year! As the only team member to meet the 10% challenge this year, Chris improved his average bike speed from 17.1 mph last year to 19.1 mph this year. Huzzah, Chris!
T2: Chris and Kath improved the time to hand off the timing chip and start the run from 45 seconds last year to 40 seconds this year, an improvement of 11.1%. Go team!
Run: Kath knocked 4.2% off her run time this year. Good stuff!
In the end, we shaved 6.1% off last year’s total time. Not bad.
In closing, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the amazing exploits of one Dan Magee. His race featured a blazing bike leg – matching Chris at 19.1 mph – and he averaged 7:13 on the run to finish 174 out of 615 (and 14 of 46 in his age group). Way to go, Dan!
So what should we look for next year? Kath has hinted she may want to swim, so you may see yours truly out of the water and in his running shoes next year…
- 615 individual participants and 20 relay team swimmers [back]
