People in Boulder are Fast

On Father’s Day I participated in the Boulder Sprint Triathlon - 0.5 mile swim, 17.2 mile bike, and 3.1 mile run.  I say participated rather than raced, because after a few miles on the bike I really wasn’t racing for a position.  This was a marked contrast to my previous triathlon in Auburn.  I was out of the water in a good time, but I went backwards on the bike and run.  I am satisfied with my splits and overall time, so I can only conclude that people in Boulder are FAST.  My brother also offered a unique perspective, “enjoy your last year in the fastest age group for triathletes.  Remember, old triathletes don’t retire, they move on to Ironman.”

I got into Denver on Friday night and stayed with my employer and the owner of the company, Terry.  On Saturday I rented a bike from Boulder Bikesmith, and then we went to Boulder Reservoir to check in and do a pre race workout.  It is amazing how many bike shops there are in Boulder.  A City of about 100,000 has around 19 bike shops!  Some cities that size in Northern California only have one bike shop.  I rented a Giant Defy.  It was a nice bike, and my only complaint is that it didn’t have aerobars.  After our workout, we took the kids to Subway for lunch and hung out at the community pool all afternoon.  After a late afternoon nap, we had a great dinner with grilled chicken and several types of pasta salads.

We were up early on race morning to be at the venue around 6 am.  The Boulder Reservoir is a nice venue for triathlons with great views of the mountains; easy access to rolling bike and run routes; and lots of room for parking, transition racks, spectating, and vendor tents.  The racks were organized by number, and I selected a position with good visibility near the swim in and run out.  This event was huge, and quite possibly the largest triathlon that I have participated in.  There were 134 finishers in my age group, over 600 males, and about 1,200 finishers total.  They started the event in a wave format with eleven waves, each starting 5 minutes apart.  I was the third wave.  Terry started 30 minutes after me.

As I stood on the beach watching the first wave once again I witnessed a large group of swimmers going off course.  The course was a rectangle, and they started out cutting the corner and turned the course into a triangle.  Eventually they figured out their mistake and had to go back to the buoy they skipped. There is an interesting article and quotes in the Boulder paper.  I guess they didn’t pay attention to my last post.

My swim was good.  I repeatedly bumped into people that were swimming towards the wrong buoys.  The most interesting part came on the inbound leg, when the pack I was in suddenly encountered several swimmers from the first wave who were bobbing along.  We were swerving all over the place trying to avoid them.  I came out of the water feeling fresh for the run to T1 in 14th place in my age group.  My swim split was 12:09 with an average pace of 1:22/100 yards.

I easily found my spot in T1 and I was off on the bike.  The bike course was rolling through the countryside east of Boulder.  I really missed not having aerobars on this course.  I got passed by a lot of people in my age group on the bike.  I had the 59th fastest bike split in my age group with at time of 51:14 and an average speed of 20.1 mph.

I flew through T2 and started the run.  The run was an out and back on the dirt road that runs along the reservoir levee.  I tried to gradually increase my pace during the run and basically sprinted the last quarter mile.  I finished the event feeling like I might vomit which reminds me of an article I read in Triathlete Magazine.  Several people in my age group passed me on the run, but not as many as on the bike.  My run split was 26:05 and my pace was 8:24 min/mile.

I ended up with a time of 1:33:33; 74 of 134 in my age group; 263 of 632 males.  Results are here.  Analyzing the results, I can see that my brother is correct – the 35-39 age group is fast.  In the 30-34 age group my time would be good for 37 of 84, and in the 40-44 age group my time would be good for 50 of 115.

Pictures are here by Action Sports International.

After I finished, I went to the Left Hand Brewing Company beer tent and slowly enjoyed a nice ale while I waited for Terry to finish.  His wave started 30 minutes after mine, so I had some time to relax and contemplate one of the many benefits of being a triathlete - beer at 9 am.


After Terry finished, we collected our gear, returned my bike, and went back to his house. We all ate a late breakfast together, spent some time relaxing, then left for the airport.  It was a very nice weekend.