- Morning, Trainiacs.
It's a race day.
(upbeat music)
Super safe.
So, race day, Olympic distance race at Bird's Hill Park.
This is where vast majority of races happen,
and I've probably done this race five or six times.
I don't know if I've ever done the Olympic here.
MTK is in behind the camera,
and I'm maybe hoping to get on the podium
with a 2:10, 2:15-ish kinda time, we'll see.
(upbeat music)
Oh, oh wow, oh wow, that hurt.
Didn't feel very pleasant at all.
Like, you may notice that I'm in a new kit,
and as much fun as that race was and all
for a little bit of speed, we aren't training
for Olympic distance triathlons.
We are training for a Half Iron Man triathlon,
so while that speed was good and all, I wanted to ride home,
but the wind was gonna be dead into me.
Now, this isn't gonna be a very exciting ride,
just kind of low intensity, whatever my body feels like,
but we'll talk about the race.
Alright, so the gun goes off and instantly,
a pack separates and it's basically our old swim pack,
it's Christine, it's Pat, it's Andrew Pickarall,
it's Mark Fornyay, it's Craig Finley.
They go out and instantly, they have room on me,
and I'm probably about 10 meters in behind
and then 15 meters in behind, and then 20 meters in behind
until just halfway past the second lap,
I had no sight of them, there was just one other guy
that was swimming, taking a line fairly wide,
so I didn't follow him and I just
took a direct line of a swim.
This is what you might be wondering about Tower 26.
The swim time was not super fast,
because talking with a few people,
the course might have been a little bit long,
somewhere around 1600 to 1650 meters,
but what I wanted to look at was my average 100 meter split
was 128, faster than anything I did in Austin last year,
faster than the Olympic distance race that I did
to prime up for Austin last year by about five seconds,
faster by a ton from Campeche last year.
Hello, Tower 26 Games. (grunting)
So, I get out of the water, seventh place,
one person just in front of me that entire huge swim pack
that worked together, three four minutes up on me,
but with the Tower 26 deck-ups,
with the running and the deck-ups,
I got out of the water fresh and ready for my bike,
and instantly, boom, started gaining.
So I passed the one guy that was right next to me
and we end up kind of seesawing back and forth
throughout the bike, but eventually, I pass him.
I pass Christine McKinley, I pass Craig Finley,
and I start putting a fair bit of distance into them
and setting myself up for a good run.
Let's give you a little bit of stats on the bike,
bang on 40 kilometers in an hour, one minute, 57 seconds,
average speed of 38.8 kilometers per hour,
just under 24 miles an hour, normalized power of 254 watts.
So I'm coming off the bike now having passed
three people over the course of the bike,
and I'm not in fourth place, but I can't even
see anyone that's up in front of me.
The first chance I get on this meandering,
very hilly course, I see that I'm somewhere around
90 seconds down from both Andrew and Mark Fornyay,
and I look at my watch and I'm doing the math and I'm like,
"Oh, okay, I need to gain 10 seconds a kilometer."
And the next time I see 'em, I'm like,
"Alight, Andrew's pulling away, Mark's coming back,
and I need to gain seven seconds a kilometer,
and then six seconds a kilometer,
and then five seconds a kilometer."
And at the next aid station I'm like,
"Oh, okay, I need four seconds per kilometer."
And at that aid station, Mark Fornyay stops,
and at that point, there were four kilometers left.
I was just barely on the edge of thinking
that I might be able to chase him down,
but I was hurting bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad,
and he stopped and I was able to bridge up.
He started running right along side me.
I snapped the elastic and gained on him
throughout the rest of the race.
Finished the race in third place in 2:11:24.
A little bit of running stats for ya,
9.95 kilometers, transition typically comprises
all of the 10 K in a 4:13 per kilometer pace,
a 6:40 mile, and a whole hell of a lot of time spent
fighting cramping.
(groaning) Whoa, whoa, whoa.
But overall, it felt good, very, very good.
That is a hilly, tough course.
Nobody sets real world records there, so to go 2:11:24
on an honest course, I'd say that's a PB.
Like, my actual Olympic PB is a 2:04,
but the bike was three and a half, four K short,
so that tells me that everything's clicking.
Going pretty well for Half Iron Man Coeur d'Alene.
Now, just gotta get a little bit of volume in the legs,
we'll be good.
Thanks so much to MTK for getting all that footage.
She's got a knack for getting good visual.
Wow, I was impressed with that.
And thanks to all the Trainiacs for reaching out,
saying hi, cheering me on, all that stuff.
Super crazy motivating, even though all you might get
when you're like, "Taren, go!"
is like (gasping)
It still hurts for me, really, really hurts.
(upbeat music)
Holy crap, that was hot.
Look at me, looks like I just took a shower.
Before we go, few random fun facts.
First, the 51 Speedshop aerobar extensions
worked like a charm today.
Second, these enormous boxes might be the funnest thing
that I will ever unbox, considering that it's summer
and it's got up to about 28 degrees in here
and that these are an air conditioning unit.
And third, with regards to the Triathlon Taren Podcast,
Gwen Jorgensen and Patrick Lemieux,
thanks for being on the show.
(cheering and applause)