Scott B and I competed in the Ottawa Early Bird tri today.
There were super sprint, sprint (500/20/5) and “long” (500/30.5/5) options. We did the long. The start is TT format at the Carleton University pool. 5 lanes of 50 meters, go up one side, down the other side, pop under the lane marker and repeat 5 times for 500, walk on the pool deck exit, and then run around 700m to T1. Out of T1, the bike is 3x5K out and back on Colonel By drive beside the Rideau Canal. Pancake flat aside for a single rise of around 300m in length at Bank Street. The run is along the canal 2.5K out and back.
Scott and I were using it as a tune up for Mooseman in 2 weeks. This morning I was up at 6 am, got on my bike at 6:45, rode for an hour to the race start, got there with around 20 minutes to spare before the swim start.
In the swim, they spaced us apart by 15 seconds, so plenty of spacing. I seeded myself in the 8 min zone and it worked out perfectly. Scott started 1 person ahead of my and immediately opened a gap. I held around 1:32 per 100m for a while and then croaked…time at mat was 9:04 and included exiting the pool and walking off the pool deck and exiting. Swim time was under 8, so I guess it took me forever
Onto the bike I swear everytime I looked at my SRM the wattage was 270-300W, however on each lap my average was 252W, which is right around 4W per Kg. Scott was pulling away every so slightly at each turn. I started seeing way too surges above 300W, but that’s OK…I wanted to experiment and see if I could go a bit hard and still run OK. Bike time including Transition and long run to T2 was 53 minutes. My SRM says 48:28 for 30.5K, ave watts 252, max watts 483 (accelerating out of one of the 5 U turns). The turns really drop the average wattage, cause you spend 10-15 second per turn decelerating and coasting.
Into T2, Scott had around 30 seconds on me. I figure I had to make up 15 second due to swim start spread to “virtually catch him”. But Scott is flying and the gap is staying constant, even though I am running around 3:50 per K. Well, I figure this was as hard as I could go as I felt like I was going to implode…gradually Scott comes back a bit…then I see him “looking back”. Rule number 1 of “leading” is to never look back. It gives the chasers “hope”. Eventually I did catch Scott, but he had a good pacing going.
Final run split was 18:57.
But no, riding 4W per kg and running sub 19 was not good enough to win my age group. Check out the results…7 of the top 10 are over 40, and our 45-49 was stacked. My buddy Rob McCulloch, closing in on 50 was amazing. Rob’s been National Amateur Champ with an Olympic tri PB sub 1:55 (back in the day), but was top 5 just last year at Savageman…the guy can move! Anyway, I had fun chasing Scott today, and we saved the “smack” for the course, vs online!
Amazingly Scott went faster than me on 20 less watts…OK, my watts were SRM, his Powertap, but man…I gotta check my rolling resistance and aero position!!!
1  Garrett DE JONG Carlsbad Spring ON 233 1:17:56 Men 20-24 1/4 1/54 1 7:46 1:34 1 17:21 3:29 3 52:50 34.6 2  Rob MCCULLOCH Ottawa ON 267 1:19:36 Men 45-49 1/10 2/54 8 8:43 1:45 3 18:08 3:38 2 52:45 34.7 3  Kevin WILLIS Ottawa ON 288 1:19:48 Men 50-54 1/7 3/54 22 9:50 1:58 6 19:05 3:49 1 50:55 35.9 4  Devashish PAUL Ottawa ON 271 1:21:55 Men 45-49 2/10 4/54 13 9:04 1:49 5 18:57 3:48 5 53:55 33.9 5  Scott BOYD Kanata ON 221 1:22:44 Men 40-44 1/9 5/54 7 8:39 1:44 15 20:26 4:06 4 53:39 34.1 6  Kevin MALLOY Stittsville ON 264 1:23:05 Men 40-44 2/9 6/54 10 8:47 1:46 2 17:31 3:31 8 56:49 32.2 7  Chris BELAIR Summerstown ON 217 1:24:03 Men 35-39 1/11 7/54 28 10:15 2:03 4 18:31 3:43 6 55:18 33.1 8  James YOUNG Ottawa ON 290 1:24:05 Men 45-49 3/10 8/54 3 8:10 1:38 9 19:43 3:57 7 56:13 32.6 9  Jeremy SAUVE Ottawa ON 276 1:25:12 Men 30-34 1/5 9/54 4 8:26 1:42 8 19:33 3:55 11 57:14 32.0 10  Robert DEVIDI Ottawa ON 236 1:27:46 Men 45-49 4/10 10/54 9 8:44 1:45 27 21:54 4:23 10 57:08 32.0
Next week Ottawa half marathon, the week after that Mooseman for the big smackdown with kdw!