Bonelli Olympic Distance - Peter Noyes

Peter Noyes

Here goes my first stab at writing a race report. The particular race in question is the Bonelli Olympic Distance, a local triathlon that also doubles as our club's annual Championship. I am 3 weeks out from my first HIM in Austin, so I really wanted to use this race as a tool for testing race execution where possible. I woke up at 4:00 AM, had 32oz of Green Machine smoothie, a banana, and a cup of coffee. Everything worked according to plan, I dropped a deuce within 30 minutes of waking up. I relaxed for a bit and then headed out the door at 5:30 AM with the wife and kid, right on schedule.



My swim wave was at 8:00 AM so I sipped perform up until 7:00 AM. Right at 7:00 I also had a PowerBar. At 7:30 I had a vanilla PowerGel and some water. I had a lot of lofty goals for this race. I am relatively new to triathlon and I had seen huge training gains over the past several months. However, I should have remembered that this is really only my 2nd real triathlon, and in the first my open water swim did not go so well. Unfortunately, my second open water swim did not go well either, perhaps even worse.

300 yards into the swim I panicked. I had experienced some contact, the sun was blinding me as I was trying to sight, and I think I started out way too fast right in the middle of the pack. I stopped dead in my tracks and had a million thoughts racing through my brain and my heart rate was probably at max. I seriously considered quitting. I finally calmed myself down and talked myself into finishing the race. I still had to stop several more times. Once I hit the halfway point I finally calmed completely down and settled into a rhythm. I finished the last half of the swim strong. My swim split was 36:25 (rank 184/241), I lost about 6 minutes do to panicking.

I was very happy to move on to the bike. T1 was a bit slow (2:49), something to work on in the future. I started easy on the bike, drank some perform and settled in before pushing. The bike course is 3 loops with a total of 2000ft of climbing. I ended up passing a lot of people on the bike. I stuck to the nutrition plan, I drank a whole bottle (24oz) of perform and had another vanilla gel about 20 minutes in. My heart rate averaged 160 on the bike, which for me is the high end of Zone 3. For Austin I will have to dial that down just a bit. My bike split was 1:18:17 (19mph, rank 44).

I felt really good coming off the bike. T2 was 1:25, which I am happy with. I took the first mile at around a 7:30 pace. After the first mile I had a latte gel. I was hoping to pick up the pace but the course is much more hilly then I remembered. I decided that I would be happy with low-mid 7s so I stuck with it. There were not too many people around me on the run, but I did pass a handful. I had another gel at mile 4, not quite sure if I needed it, but I did it as a test for Austin. I finished the run feeling strong with a split of 45:43 (7:22 min/mile, rank 25).

My total time was 2:44:39 (rank 46, 6/19 in age group). In the end I am happy because my first Olympic was 2:52:53, and it was basically the same course. Of course I would have liked the swim to go better, but I am am proud that I talked myself into finishing. I actually thought about the whole EN mantra of staying in the box while I was out there. It was a great day, almost 40 people from my club raced, and we had a great BBQ after. It was also wonderful having my wife and son there to cheer me on.

David Leventhal

Peter- Nice first race report!! I think it's great that you had this opportunity three weeks out from Austin. Sounds like you did a solid job of composing yourself in the water & finishing strong...and IMO it's better that it happen in that race then in Austin. Sounds like it was a really good learning opportunity for you and now you know that you've got what it takes to get through the swim...gotta remind yourself to not start off too fast & wear dark goggles to help lessen the glare of the sun. I agree that you'll probably want to keep an eye on the HR during the bike at Austin - don't want to get burned for the run.

Joe Matchette

Good work Peter. You say your T1 was slow -- how did it compare to others'? Bottom line though is that you persevered through some adversity and finished the day strong. WTG!

Peter Noyes

The fastest T1 was 1:18, well over a minute faster than me. There were lots of people with under 2:00 in T1. I lost time because I didn't sprint coming out of the water to my transition area. I am feeling much better after everything, I got right back in the pool the next day and had a solid workout.