Race Report: Boulder Sunset Triathlon

Last race of the season!?! There is a slight possibility that another race could pop up on the calendar unexpectedly, but as of now, I’m beginning the process of shutting things down and starting off-season work.  Boulder Sunset was a good way to close out the year.

Pre-race

The 10am start allowed plenty of time to sleep in and leisurely prepare for the day.  I ran into Liz West at packet pickup the night before and saw her and several other BTC racers before we kicked off.  Liz and I have only raced once early in the season and I knew it was going to be tough staying in front of her.  Right before the gun to start the men, she come running up to remind me “I’m coming after you!”

Swim

The swim started with a beach run in and for once I was able to stay with the main pack for about the first 250m and maybe a little longer.  I found a few good drafting partners but still managed to take the long route due to problems balancing my stroke and poor sighting.  Though I have a long way to go, I’m pleased with another swim PR of around 35 minutes.  Really need to get with a swim coach for stroke technique help.

T1

Pretty quick here, but did almost topple over getting out of the wetsuit.

Bike

Having ridden this bike course several times in races and training, there were no real surprises here.  I felt pretty flat, though looking back (and checking strava) I put in one of my best efforts to date despite losing power at the end.  NP was 210w for the first half and 191w for the second half to my threshold of 235w landing me at 85% FTP.  This is well short of my target of 90%FTP.

T2

Had a fast T2, but it was a little too fast.  I forgot to grab the ice bags in my cooler and forgot to get a drink from my icewater bottle. Doh!

Run

The run was hot, but it’s a course I’m run tons of times.  I never found the speed I wanted, but was happy to keep it steady and still have enough for a strong kick at the end of the race.  The best part was watching the battle between Liz and Elena.  Each time I passed, they were about the same distance apart, but the last time through, Liz was looking focused and Elena was looking strong but was about 1/2 a mile back.  with 1.5 miles to go.  If she lit the jets, should could have made it interesting, but there was no catching Liz at that point.

Post Race

I was pretty disappointed by my time at first having set the goal for 2:30, but considering the heat and that we were back on the full olympic course (instead of the construction shortened version we’d been on all year) I’m ok with the finish.

After the race, I met up with the BTC crew and got to celebrate all the podium finishes and other strong showing by a great club!

Final Results:

  • Swim – 35:08
  • T1 – 1:51
  • Bike – 1:18:14
  • T2 – 1:09
  • Run – 53:30
  • Total: 2:49:52

Another interesting item to note is that despite hydrating my brains out, I still dropped 10lbs during the race (I weighed in at home pre and post race).  I’m back up to where I should be, but that explains how I was feeling after the race.

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