2014 Philly TriRock Triathlon 1

Today I took part in the 2014 edition (10th Annual)  Philly TriRock triathlon.  Its very popular ( 1000’s of participants ) regional triathlon held in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, PA. The race has two races, Saturday the shorter Sprint and Sunday the longer Olympic.

Day 1: Sprint

The Sunday Race features a deep pro-field and is the highlight of the event.. This would be my first year here so I decided to do both events… Ironman Champion Chris McCormick was doing the race as well mostly in a ceremonial fashion as he’s gearing up for next weekend’s Challenge Atlantic City 140.6.
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SWIM (800 meters)

The swim is in the Schuylkill River and is one of the most well marked swim course, with numbered buoys lining the swim route. This swim is all down-river so navigation even without the buoys is a breeze, no turns just swim straight. I was in the last wave..uuggh, but the time-trial start made it easy and very little contact on the swim.. I kept a steady pace throughout and navigated the plethora of colored caps on my way to swim exit…

BIKE (15+ miles)

Out of the water more or less on target and onto the bike course, I stubbed my toe in T1 as I was running for my bike.. I grabbed the bike and after a short run out, got onto the street the ride started. This is a two-loop bike course, and featured rods all throughout Fairmount park on both sides of the river. The course has a couple of dreader 180 deg turn around points, plus some mildly technical sections , no real climbing other than a mile rise when you head onto the bridge to cross the river..

Begin in the last wave the course was crowded.. even though it sa closed course no cars, when you have several thousands of bikes whizzing around , you have to be just as alert, as the speed differentials between the riders can be dangerous if someone swing out quickly. Overall I managed an ok pace for the bike, again I held back out of an abundance of caution on some of more crowded sections of the course, but still did the majority of passing..

The ride went pretty well a couple of back and forths, but most of the faster traffic as ahead of me because of my wave start.. After the second loop it was one more 180 turn into T2

RUN (3.1 Miles)

I streamed into T2 along with the other riders, nothing special to report here, just racked my bike and on with my running shoes..After a short stint on the park grass, it was all road . I managed to maintain a brisk pace for myself, while being helped along by some faster runners.. Mile 2 took forever to appear, but once it did you can start hearing the crowd / announcer noise up ahead and being only a 5k it was time to give it some gas…

As I approached the finish, everyone kicks it up a notch,About two hundred yards from the finish I got into a foot race with another competitor, who dropped me in the last 50 yards, but I had a short respite when another competitor I just passed joined the fray and I managed to hold him off.. That made for a fun finish..

Time-wise I missed my goal of sub- 1:30 by a few minutes… I was happy with my run performance.. but felt I could have hammered more on the bike..

source: http://www.athlinks.com/Athletes/113429838/Race/187372203/Details

Grabbed some quality post race food,relaxed and just enjoyed the Tri-rock atmosphere, it is part concert after all. Trirock Series puts on a class a event, I did Trirock Asbury park and this larger event was just as well run.

Day 2: Olympic

I DNS’ed.. I was completely unable to sleep until about 4:30a the alarm went off at 5 and I made an immediate decision, I had  no interest in racing today and back to sleep… I was already having a headache from forcing myself out of the 10 minutes of deep sleep.. and decided to pass on the Olympic tri… Racing should be fun.. and when it begins to feel like work.. Ill pass and race another day.. the lack of sleep… left me completely demotivated…  I do need to figure out my pre-race sleep issues, I have never been able to sleep well before races….this was the first DNS because of  sleep… I’ll be back next year and do the double..