I’ll be one of the triposers off this forum racing the Peterborough Half Ironman this weekend. Hope to see some of you folks there. Come and track me down and speak to me if you have a chance. I’ll be writing a piece on the event for xtri.com, and would like to hear your story.
If you need to figure out what I look like, click on the pic link off this article http://www.xtri.com/article.asp?id=1231. I’m the middle guy.
Dev
Hmmm…poser I guess…since I sport a really high end bike but don’t place in the top of my AG at some of the bigger races. I’ll be doing the sprint race myself. Been a long time since I did this one…hopefully the other races I’ve done so far won’t have burned me out too bad. With a first name like Dev you shouldn’t be too hard to find on the list. See you there perhaps.
Hey Dev…how do I access the pic link?
never mind…finally removed my head from my butt and fingered it out
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We’re all posers…unless we are in the Hellriegel-Larsen-Macca group on the bike, the rest of us are just pretending ! I figure if Macca rides a Kestrel and so do I, I must be a poser as he tends to win more races in a weekend than I have won in a lifetime ! See you out in Peterborough !
for slytriguy
my good deed for the day…
I’ll be there but I’ll just do the sprint. A friend of mine is doing her first triathlon and asked if I would do it with her. Not sure what the point is since we’re in different waves anyway, but I thought about that too late. This is going to be interesting since I have just been doing a lot of running and not much else since IMC.
Rather than call myself a poser I prefer to call myself a mere mortal triathlete trying his best with what genetics and training I have and can accomplish.
but prolly a poser. if poser = chick on old cervelo with wheels worth more than the rest of it.
i’ll be finishing the 1/2 round about the time you guys are heading home. it’s going to be a long day for me.
k
Good luck, KDM
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I was in the company of greatness today and didn’t know it until just now. I had Gerard in my age group…I coulda been parked right next to him and never knew it. I see I was able to outsplit him in the swim but he more than made up for it on the bike and run. What a dood. Wish I had known sooner…might have introduced myself and appologized for making disparraging remarks about his bikes;-) Good job out there today Gman.
Great race Dev -
Overall place/Overall time/Name/AG place/AG/Number/AG swim/Overall swim/Swim time/Per 100m/T1/AG bike/Overall bike/Bike time/Speed/T2/AG run/Overall run/Run time/Per km:
21 4:39:00 DEVASHISH PAUL 5/62 G 154 11 82 32:20 1:37 0:45 8 44 2:32:19 35.5 0:47 5 17 1:32:52 4:25
ccy
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I was out for a fun-and-fitness ride on the bike course at Peterborough( rode out to the 40K mark and turned back). A beautiful bike course I must say! I was able to see most of the field. Rode almost all the way back into T2 with the, I’m guessing, the upper mid-pack(2:30’ish bike splits??) and there did see to be some groups forming, but this was mostly on the uphills. Front and back of the pack was very spread out.
I say this with the utmost respect, but I witnessed what I am now seeing more and more of - triathletes who have no idea of how to ride a bike. Some basic bike riding skills would go a long way to making it safer for everyone out there.
i too found the drafting quite bad - tons of packs pass by me (just about everyone passed me too 
i had a friend pass me on a descent and have 3 guys draft her up the next incline (for about 5’) until the next hill. i also noticed a ton of blocking and riding on the left. i think i counted 7 people being paced on the run too and one chick had her boyfriend riding along beside her passing her water, gels etc. when i went by her i asked him why he didn’t hold an umbrella up for some shade for her too. that probably wasn’t very nice eh?
oh, and congrats Dev on a smokin’ run and to everyone on a good race.
k
There was lots of drafting out there, particularly around the 2:35-2:50 range. At the end of the awards, the head ref announced something that appalled me (the behaviour, not the ref):
There were a group of 12-18 riders (depending on whom you spoke to) that were drafting in a pack. The marshall rode up to them, and told several to stand down for a penalty. None did. Again, he told them to stand down for penalties, and none did. So apparently he marked down their numbers, recorded their names, and in future OAT races, if their names show up, and they misbehave even once, they will be DQ’d (i.e. no penalties). Un-freakin-believable.
Drafting is one of the plagues of our sport, unfortunately. And it happens throughout the race. Whatever happened to this being an individual sport? I mean, how different is drafting from cutting a corner on the swim, or not going to the full turnaround on the run? Cheating is cheating, as far as I’m concerned.
Preachin’ to the choir…
ccy
Missed this one along with Muskoka since my wife is still suffering from her calf injury. We haven’t done anything since the Peterborough du back in late May. She’s doing the women only tri in Kincardine this weekend. It’s just a super sprint so it will be a good test to see how she holds up. This injury has been with her almost two months. All that really leaves for us is Kingston, Coburg, Brockville and Ottawa. If she’s still injured I’ll end up doing those by myself but it won’t be that much fun without her. We’ve also got a century ride lined up in August. Been kind of a lousy year so far. I can only imagine how bad it must be for someone who trains all year for a single IM and then gets injured. This is bad enough.
No one showing up for a half Ironman is a poser in my book.
ccy, here is my race report that I sent to a local online forum. Here it is:
Peterborough is always a tough race. In the words of race ogranizer Mitch Fraser, “I try to create conditions as close to Kona as possible in Ontario”. It was our first “hot day of the year”. There were lots of dudes melting down in the heat. Except in my age group. It was stacked with a bunch 9 hour Ironman studs. Steve Bentley, 9:08, Allan Faulds 9:27, Marc Flageole from Montreal 9:40 and Richard Isnor, 9:44. I had some serious competition…
Swim
600 person mass start, first turn at 475 meter. It was insane at the turn buoy. I made the critical mistake of starting wide to the right, and got on a good draft but when I made it to the turn, we were 10 abreast and I had to swim 15 m passed both turn buoys. Dumb strategy. Should have started on the inside like LP and taken a straight line. The swim is 2x1K loop, so on the second loop I swam on the inside and my second swim split was 15 min even. First split was just under 16. I thought the swim might be a bit short, but all the top studs like Isnor and Eric Roy were in the 27 min range, so it must have been the huge 600 person draft pulling people to quicker swim times. We had a huge long run to the transition. They changed the set up from last year. By the time I got to T2, is was just over 32. I had some of the fastest T1 and T2 transitions of the day…free speed. I was satisfied with the swim
Bike
I never got going in the bike. I’ve never been in a tri where I passed pretty well no one on the bike. It sucked. Why ? I’m not sure, but I think I figured it out on Monday morning on an easy 25K recovery ride. I had changed my cranks for my trip to France last weekend and put on a 50x34 set with a different Q factor. I had to readjust my cleats a few times on the previous weekend’s ride to get them dialed in, but I think on the last adjustment I did not tighten the cleat very well as on the way home from work on Thursday, the left cleat moved, when I had to do a sudden emergency exit. I tightened the cleat later, but I think it moved forward at that point. I really should have checked it out, but I was not doing any riding between Thu and Sun, so I never did, assuming it was Ok. Anyway, for the whole ride I felt that I was pushing the pedals with my tippy toes with the left leg and could not get any power to the pedal. I was unable to do my usual "stomp on the pedals ". Around 30K into the bike I kind of figured out what was going on, so I decided to go as fast a possible at 95-105 RPM, fuel up for the looming “meltdown run” and see if I could run fast off the bike. Realistically though, I was really dissapointed in this as I had felt that my biking was really gettting stronger in the past two weeks. On Monday morning, when I rode, I moved the cleats back…and I had power again. I could stomp on the pedals. Goes to show you that you really need to be thorough !
After 20 years in triathlon, perhaps you get a bit complacent with your gear and just ‘wing it’ cause you have done it so many times. Bad idea ! Final bike time was 2:32. I was hoping for more like 2:28. My only consolation from Mitch Fraser was that this year’s bike ride was 5 K longer than last year (ie last year was 85K, but a bit hillier). Guys like Allan Faulds were ~4 min slower than last year. Still, anything slower than 2:30 was unacceptable.
Run
By the time the run came along, it was getting close to 30 degrees (or so I am told), hot sun, not an ounce of shade on course and the light wind on the bike had died down. My legs were OK given the lame bike ride and high RPM riding. I had my best run of the year, passing tons of dudes (of course, when you pass no one on the bike, you pass lots of dudes). I came in at a high 1:32. This was the 17th fastest run split of the day, in a stacked field that had over 15 dudes that have gone sub 9:45 at various Ironmans. I did suck up the pain on the run and was on the verge of blowing up at all times. This was the perfect example of pulling out a good race from something that was going downhill in a hurry. I passed the final 35-39 year old with 200 m to go to sneak onto the 5 man podium and get a plaque for my effort. This was a race that proved the theory that if you do the mileage and believe in yourself, even when things are going bad, good things will happen. NEVER GIVE UP AT ANY POINT IN THE RACE>
As expected, the aforementioned sub 9:45 studs all beat me. Guys were croaking all over the course. It was stinking hot. Final time 4:39.00, 21st overall. Arguably my worst time in years, but based on dudes like Eric Roy going 4:30 even, I can’t complain. I’ll be back to Peterborough next year. I need to get some revenge on that bike course.
Next up, no racing for 5 weeks then:
Thousand Island, Ottawa Half Ironman, Duke Half Ironman (NC), Westchester NY tri, Ottawa Fall Colours Marathon (5 races in 7 weeks) YIKES !
Allan Faulds was totally studly, spanking everyone in our age group with an incredible 1:25 run split when only 7 guys went sub 1:30 on the run. He snuck into the top 10.
To reconfirm my status as a triposer, I am now going to drop some cash on Guru Trilite in Aug. Now I will be one of those true posers with a Kestrel Road bike (that I currently race on) and a Guru Tribike. I really don’t deserve to have two bikes until I can break 2:30 again in a half Ironman !
Dev “triposer” Paul
Dev,
Congrats on a good race, which it sounds like you had, despite not being totally psyched into the bike. That run course is rough - relentless hills and/or radiating heat from the asphalt!
ccy
The Peterborough race again proved to be tough as they get in southern Ontario. Peter Phillips was absolutely incredible with his 1:16 run split on that hot and hilly course. He should be ready for an awesome ironman in Wisconsin.
Dev Paul is to be congratulated for being the fastest guy in the race with downtube shifters which he stated as a goal prior to the start. Being old-school doesn’t seem to hurt his performances much. Once he becomes a “poser” with that new Guru it will be interesting to see how the “technology leap” works out for him. Maybe he’ll have to spend some really big dollars on a titanium cogset to save 20 or 30 grams to get that sub 2:30 bike split next year in the hills
I started the bike in 21st position and came off the bike around 25th and got caught by one group of 4 that were working “together” a little too closely for my liking but other than that I didn’t see much pack riding until after the turnaround when it seemed like there were big groups that would have come out of the water together in the 35-40 minute range. The course is pretty rolling and despite the large field, should have been able to spread out a lot better. The problem occurs when someone goes by and a rider jumps onto the wheel and then they go by another rider who sees some cheating and figures it is ok to join in. I personally don’t know how anyone can feel good about their race knowing that the result that was achieved was not really of their own doing.
As for drafting being related to ironman slots … I checked the Trisport site and only 18 of the 20 IMC slots were claimed … shows that going to Peterborough and finishing is probably the easiest way into ironman Canada.
I stayed at the camp site after the race and rode home this morning and we were all fortunate to not have the wind blowing from the southeast as it was today (I live 92k from the park and had to ride south and east the whole time!) or the bike splits would have been much slower on the way out.