JAMAICA TRIATHLON RACE REPORT - 13 NOV 2011

Rose Hall, Jamaica Triathlon weekend 11-14 November 2011, November, 16 

(WITNEESSSS THE FITNEEEESSS)

Marius and I at race registration

My equipment all set up in the transition zone

 

3 Triathletes from the Cayman Islands namely Henry Streather, Johan Heath and Marius Deysel decided to partake in the 4^th annual Jamaica International Triathlon event held in November every year. The website for the event can be found here http://www.rosehalltriathlon.com/

To our knowledge, this was the first year that triathletes from the Cayman Islands travelled to Jamaica to compete in the triathlon in Rose Hall. Going forward it would be great to have more international and Jamaican triathletes compete here in the Cayman Islands. The Cayman Islands and Jamaica Olympic and sprint distance triathlon events were only held a week apart from each other this year. The timing thus works really well as one could be dedicated to one training program and do two very scenic events within 8 days of each other. For triathletes keen to take part in the 2012 Cayman Islands Triathlon, you can find the details here:

http://www.caymanactive.com/triathlon-races/ci-triathlon

Synopsis of the Jamaica Triathlon course

We all thoroughly enjoyed the course. Unfortunately Henry got a puncture during the early stages of the bike course. The Jamaica Olympic distance course was definitely tougher than the Cayman Islands course as the bike distance measured 43km in Jamaica as opposed to the standard 40km. The run course was also significantly tougher than the Cayman 10km run course (Further details about the run course can be found close to the end of this race report).

The Swim & race start:

The 3 triathletes from the Cayman Islands

The race was scheduled to start at 7am on Sunday morning the 13^th of November. It did not take us long to remember that we were in Jamaica and that we were on “Jamaica time”, no problem mon. The race officials started the race at 7:20am and we were off for our 1.5km swim. It was a rather interesting swim as we darted off on a straight line into the sea swimming 750m out to the furthest buoy and swimming perpendicular to the shore. It got rather choppy close to the reef which was very near to the turn around point. I got a huge fright about 350m out into the swim. I saw a big black object moving around in the corner of my eye, initially thinking it was a shark. No one told us that they were making a documentary of the race so it ended up being a scuba diver taking video and photos from below.

 

Similar to the Cayman race a week ago I led the swim for the first 700-750m and then got overtaken by Ben Greenfield who eventually won the Jamaica triathlon and also very recently won the M30-34 age group at the ITU Long distance triathlon world championships held in Henderson, Nevada. As Ben came past me at about the 800m mark I decided to slip him in order to conserve energy. My plan was to overtake Ben about 100m from the swim finish but it required too much energy knowing that we had about a 300-400m uphill run towards T1. I exited the water about 3sec behind Ben. At this stage I don’t think Ben was aware that I was doing the full Olympic distance tri, I got the idea he thought that I was doing it as part of a team.

Exiting the water a couple of meters behind the leader

With my heart rate beating at about 175bpm I exited the water and proceeded uphill to T1 just behind Ben. I noted that Ben decided to swim with a Neoprene suit.

Swim split results: I recall looking at my stopwatch as I exited the water and noted a time of 23min (Similar split to the Cayman triathlon from a week before). My swimming times have definitely slowed down compared to 2009 and 2010. I attribute this to the decision I made in 2010 which was to swim less and run more. Checking the official online race results my time was 26:13 for the swim which included the time for the +-300-400m uphill run.

T1: I had a fairly quick transition (2^nd fastest overall) and overtook Ben in T1 as he took extra time to take his Neoprene suit off.

The bike course

As one exits T1 you proceed up a very steep hill in order to exit the hotel property in order to get on to the main road. As I overtook the leader in T1 I lead the race for about the first 3-4km on the bike course. The bike course consists of 2 laps which are not of equal distance. After reviewing my Garmin file I noted that the bike course end up measuring 43km which is what another triathlete measured as well.

The bike course can be described as fairly flat with rolling hills which makes for a fairly fast bike course but as the road runs parallel to the shore the head and crosswinds during certain sections of the bike course made it rather tough.

About to enter T2

Bike split results: I end up posting a bike split of 1:09:30 for the 43km route which equated to an average of 37.1 km/h about 1km/h slower than my bike split average for the Cayman triathlon.

Marius Deysel did exceptionally well on the bike course posting the 5^th fastest split of 1:14:37 and this only in his 2^nd Olympic distance event.

T2

Nothing much to report on in T2, just the usual.

The run course

Exiting T2

Wow, where do I start with the run course. The run course could more accurately be described as an “Xterra off-road trail run”. Due to the fairly tough nature of the run course I would describe the Jamaica triathlon as a hybrid triathlon, somewhere between an Olympic distance triathlon and an Xterra triathlon.

As one exits T2 you proceed downhill on the same 300-400m section you head up with to T1 after exiting the swim.

Once you get down to the beach approximately 0.5km is spent running on beach sand which was rather exhausting. After about  1km from T2 you proceed through a gated area into an off-road section where most of the run course takes place. It rained quite a bit throughout the night before the event which resulted in puddles and muddy sections on the run course which had to be navigated.

As with the Cayman Triathlon I found the last half of the 10km run very tough, predominantly due to the heat and humidity. I started walking through the aid stations to drink water and just trying to cool down by pouring water over me. As the run course is a two loop run course it was nice to be able to see fellow Cayman triathletes and friends Marius Deysel and Henry Streather (After puncturing Henry decided to complete the run course as training for the Cayman Islands half marathon taking place on the 4th of December 2011 – www.caymanislandsmarathon.com

Run split results: I ran about 4min slower in the Jamaica triathlon than what I did in the Cayman triathlon a week earlier. The run course was obviously tougher than the Cayman triathlon due to the off-road nature of the run course and I felt more fatigued than the weekend before. I end up posting the 3^rd fastest run split of 48:49. As usual, I end up losing most of my time to the leader during the run. I conceded about 6min to the leader during the run. Congrats to the overall race winner Ben Greenfield for running a 42min 10km on that tough course.

Overall race summary:

Posing for a pic with my wife after finishing 2nd overall in the olympic distance

All and all the 3 Cayman triathletes really enjoyed the course. We felt that the organizers of the race did a great job of keeping us safe during the swim, bike and run. We were relieved when we heard on the Saturday before the race that the bike course would be closed off  which protected us to a large degree from the vehicles on that main road running between Montego Bay and Rose Hall. One area I feel where the race organizers can improve on for next years event is to notify the triathletes by way of email or the website as to whether bike check in would be mandatory on the Saturday before race day. I was not too happy when I only found out on the Saturday afternoon at the race briefing that I had to have my bike checked in by 6pm.

Taking some time out a couple of hours after the race.

 The course descriptions on the website could definitely be scanned in/posted in higher resolution as the maps were way too small to read online. The course descriptions on the website should also be aligned with the actual routes on race day.

Thanks Jamaica for an excellent long weekend filled with adventure and a great triathlon experience.