Honu 2025 race report, part 2

Long course triathlon is not a good spectator sport. For the first hour you watch a gaggle of swim caps navigating the course, then they all get on their bikes and ride off, out of sight. A few hours later they return, change into running gear, and disappear once again. 

Pattie, bless her heart, always comes to watch me swim, then walks back to our condo to wait for me to finish the bike. Since her mobility is still a bit challenged, we agreed she would just walk out to the road and wave as I headed into T2 rather than come all the way back to the hotel. Maybe she had a premonition as to how things would turn out.

I knew that at my best I would be close to the swim cutoff time of one hour and ten minutes. In previous attempts I went out too hard and kept going as hard as possible, which set me up for a lousy bike and a DNF on the run. If I were to have any chance at finishing I had to keep the intensity in check, without exceeding the time limit.

Based on a number of recent long swims, I knew it would take me about ten minutes to settle in and another ten until I was pulling smooth and strong. On Friday I swam the start and decided the first left turn buoy would be around the ten minute mark, so I expected to feel discombobulated until then. Bobby McGee likes to say “Let your run come to you.” Same thing here. Expect to feel weird, be patient, stay calm, breath well, and start to look for smoothness after that first turn.

That part worked perfectly. My data shows I took eleven minutes to get to the first turn. Good guess! My heart rate was a little high but that would be nerves. I was already drifting left a little and had to correct to get around the first turn buoy; shades of what was to come. I was passing swimmers who were doing the breast stroke. One was on her back, but not actually doing a back stroke. I think she was just floating.  Others were thrashing. I felt fine. Smooth and starting to pull stronger. I could see the line of yellow buoys that we were supposed to stay to the right of, and I did fine with that. Next came the first right turn, then the second. This is where things went off the rails.

The return line was marked by orange buoys. We were supposed to stay to the right of those. I was having a Dickens of a time seeing them. Every time I sighted, all I could make out were jet skis. Eventually a pleasant young woman on a paddle board came alongside and started correcting my line. She kept calling out encouragement, which was helpful.

I can see in the data where I stopped to look for the line of orange buoys after the second right turn, at 36:24. I stopped even longer around the 44 minute mark. That was when the paddle board lady tried to straighten me out. I see two more points like that, where I came up for a long look, trying to pick out the big red turn buoy from among an armada of jet skis. Looking into the morning sun, everything was in silhouette. I couldn’t see the buoys until I ran into them.

Once I got around that last turn buoy I could see the finish. Even so, I kept drifting to my left and over a shallow reef. I felt as though I was aiming wide to the right, crabbing against the current, but could not get away from that reef. That is when a jet ski came alongside and told me my time had expired, which came as a shock. I was starting to feel tired, but nowhere near exhausted. I really thought I was going to finish. 

I had a welcome party at the beach, the dreaded “grim reapers” who tell you your day is done and take your timing chip. One was the race director herself. The other was part of the medical team and was concerned about how I felt. I smiled and said I felt fine. Just disappointed. 

As I gathered my transition bags and the bike and started walking home, I wondered if I had really been sandbagging. My plan was to start easy then push it after halfway. Had I been cruising? Later that afternoon I glanced at the data and realized that in fact my heart rate had been as high or higher as it ever gets during a normal swim workout. When I wear my Form goggles, which display heart rate live, I usually see something between 120 and 140 bpm. In this race I was going much harder than that, and yet I finished without feeling dead. How was that possible? Approaching and after the last turn my heart rate averaged 190 bps, with a peak of 203 bpm. I can’t recall the last time I saw anything like that. It could not have been my old friend SVT, as if that were the case I would have had to stop entirely. I recall something my cardiologist said, if I can still run, I’m fine. The best explanation is that I was working really hard.

I have included here a summary of my swim, arranged in fifteen minute blocks, along with a map from my Garmin.

So far, my take away from this race analysis is that I need to improve my form, to reduce drag. Next, I need to  improve the efficiency of my pull. It’s easy to get your heart rate up just flailing your arms around in the water. I need better technique, and the way to improve that is more time in the water.

What about sighting? I recall that when I was first learning to swim I worked exclusively in the pool. My sighting was non-existent and I zigged zagged all over. Now that I only swim in the ocean, my sighting technique is reasonably good. I do pull to the left. That combined with difficulty seeing the buoys may have been my undoing.

Every athlete knows this old tried and true adage, never use gear on race day you have not used in practice. I swim at Ala Moana in the morning. Through the winter I start in the dark, with the sun rising only near the end of the session. In late spring I start just after sunrise. For that reason I use clear goggle lenses. After my cataract surgery I was so stoked that I did not need corrective goggles, I splurged on a really nice pair of Roka X1 goggles with mirror lenses. Wonderful fit. In time I realized they were too dark for those morning swims, so I went back for another pair of X1s, with light or clear lenses. All sold out. I bought a pair of R1s but they didn’t fit my face. Anyway, I took along the Roka X1 goggles and gave them a try on Friday, but decided not to use them because I had not swam with them in over a year. That decision may have cost me the race.