The Cayman Half Iron Distance Triathlon

This blog entry serves to provide more info about the Cayman Half Iron Distance Triathlon Training event being held at the Reef Resort in East End on the 22nd of April.

The main purpose of the event will be to provide triathletes in Cayman an opportunity to participate in a half iron distance triathlon event without flying off island. It will also serve as an excellent training opportunity for triathletes competing in the Florida 70.3 on the 20th of May 2012 and upcoming full Ironman events such as Ironman Texas also being held in May. For newcomers to the sport of triathlon this will also be a great opportunity and challenge to do a triathlon longer than the olympic distance on island in a more informal setting in order learn from before tackling your first official off island half iron distance event.

The event will consist of the standard half iron distances which are as follows:

* Swim 1.2 miles

* Bike 56 miles

* Run 13.1 miles

 The training event on the 22nd of April will be open to individuals and teams. We will also have an aquabike option for those triathletes who are either injured or not interested in completing the run section (half marathon) of the course. The aquabike event will thus consist of a 1.2 mile swim followed by a 56 mile bike ride.

As it is getting hotter and more humid by the day as we approach summer we would like to start the event as early as possible on the 22nd of April. Sunrise will be at 6:03am on the 22nd of April. We are thus looking at starting the event no later than 6:10am. Due to the early start triathletes are encouraged to stay over at the Reef Resort on the evening of the 21st of April. The Reef Resort is offering discounted rates (CI$108 for studio apartments) to triathletes staying over at the resort. Please use the discount code "half ironman" when making a reservation. On the 24th of March there were approx 15 rooms still available at the discounted rate. There will be a pasta party on the evening of the 21st of April . A training event briefing will be held at the same time as the pasta party on the 21st of April. More details regarding the training event briefing to follow.

Course maps for each of the disciplines have been created and links to these courses can be located below. To keep things easy the swim, bike and run will comprise of two laps each.

The link to the 1.2 mile swim course can be located here:

http://www.walkjogrun.net/members/gctri113

The link to the 56 mile bike course can be located here:

http://connect.garmin.com/course/848350

The 13.1 mile run course:

http://www.walkjogrun.net/members/gctri113

In order for the safety of the participants and volunteers we will cap the training event duration at 6.5 hours. We would thus like to communicate to all participants that we will stop the training event from 12:30pm onwards as it will be just too hot and humid.

In order for the organisers to get an idea of how many triathletes will be participate in the training event please click on the "Attend" option for the page created for the event which can be located at http://www.caymanactive.com/triathlon-events/viewevent/251-the-cayman-half-iron-distance-triathlon

If you cannot take part in the event but would like to volunteer then please email us at gctri113@gmail.com

How to download and convert a course file to your Garmin Forerunner

The Cayman Islands Off the Beaten Track race (www.offthebeatentrack.ky) is fast approaching with only two days to go.

It is usually just before this race that runners are interested to find out how to convert and upload route maps with GPS data points from www.walkjogrun.net. to their Garmin Forerunner watches.

In order to be the fastest team for the Off the Beaten Track event a team needs the fastest runners with the best navigation skills. Runners basically have one of 3 options:

* Memorize the course;
* Print a copy of the route map trying to read it while running; or
* Downloading the route leg from www.walkrunjog.net to your Garmin Forerunner GPS device

Here are the basic steps required to upload and convert a course file to your GPS device for the Off the Beaten Track event:

1. Choose the map for your relevant relay leg you are running from the following link:
http://www.walkjogrun.net/members/otbt2012

2. Click on route actions and select the "Export" button

3. Save the file in GPX format.

4. As Garmin Training Centre reads course maps in the TCX format you will have to convert the GPX file to "Garmin Course TCX" format by using the following website: http://www.gpsies.com/convert.do

5. Once the file has been converted to TCX format import the file into Garmin Training Centre. If you have not installed Garmin Training Centre for your forerunner as yet then it can be downloaded from the following link: http://www8.garmin.com/support/collection.jsp?product=999-99999-04

6. Once your forerunner is linked and paired with Garmin training centre you can import the TCX file into Garmin Training Centre:

7. Once the course shows up in Garmin Training centre you can hit the "upload to device" button which will then upload the course to your GPS device.

8. If you have not had much prior experience using Garmin Ant Agent and Garmin Training Centre then the above process can be frustrating.

Hopefully the above explanation makes sense and will help runners to successfully upload Garmin course files to their GPS devices.

Which triathlon distance is the right distance for you?

I was supposed to get up at 5:15am this morning to do my weekly long run but decided to sleep in.  At about 5:30am, I realised it is just not going to happen. I could not fall asleep again so I decided make some coffee and do my weekly blog. Yip, one of my 2012 new year's resolutions is to blog at least once per week.

I recently thought of doing a quick analysis on a  % basis of the swim, bike and run components across the 5 most popular triathlon distance events which can be seen below.

A full list of the various triathlon distance events can be found on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triathlon

TRIATHLON DISTANCE ANALYSIS

If swimming is your strength


If you are a strong swimmer you would gain most advantage over your competition in the sprint and olympic distance events. The swim component comprises 2.91% of the event which is about 1% more than what it is in half or full ironman distance events.

Being a strong swimmer you could further increase your advantage over your fellow competitors by choosing triathlons which are likely to have non wetsuit swims. Wetsuits tend to give weaker swimmers more  of an advantage than strong swimmers as it corrects some of the buoyancy issues weaker swimmers typically experience.

Stronger swimmers also tend to open more of a gap over their fellow triathlete competitors in choppy to rough open water conditions which are non wetsuit swim events.

The bottom line is, if you are a strong swimmer you are likely to perform the best in relation to your competitors by competing in non wetsuit sprint or Olympic distance events where swim portion has choppy to rough open water conditions.

I learnt this lesson when I competed in the Ironman 70.3 Augusta, Georgia event in September 2010. This half ironman event is known to have one of the fastest swim courses on the half ironman circuit. The swim is basically a 1.2 mile downstream wetsuit legal swim in the Savannah river. Even though I placed 5th in my age group in this swim, the time I gained over the strong cyclists and runners was marginal as the current and wetsuit legal aspect of the swim propelled them downstream.

If biking is your strength

Looking at the table above it is evident that you are likely to gain more of an advantage over your competitors by competing in half or full Ironman distance events where the cycling component makes up nearly 80% of the event.

You could even put in more time between yourself and your competitors by choosing half and full Ironman distance events that has very hilly bike courses such as the Ironman 70.3 in East London, South Africa or Ironman Lanzarote in the Canary Islands.

If running is your strength (Then you are lucky)

Well, if you are one of the few triathletes who has been blessed with elite running talent then you are most probably already winning races or placing very high in your age group.

As can be seen from the table above, the running component remains fairly consistent over the 5 different race distances. You would have a slight advantage though by competing in the ITU Long distance triathlon event where running comprises 19.48% of the total race distance.

If  you are a strong runner and train in fairly hot and humid conditions you could even create a bigger gap between you and your fellow competitors by choosing triathlon events where it is likely to be very hot and humid during the running part of the event. Events like Ironman Louisville, Ironman St. George and Ironman Lanzarote would suit the strong runner that can cope with hot and humid conditions.

That is all for now, till next week.

Cayman Islands half marathon race report

As some of you may know, I did not do much running at all growing up. I was introduced to the sport of swimming by my Mom at the age of 5. My Dad introduced me to cycling from about the age of 7 but I never got real exposure to running as a sport except for the odd cross country race in primary school and high school.

 

I ran my first half marathon here in the Cayman Islands at the end of January 2008 (Stride against Cancer) with my friend Terry in a time of 2:07. I attempted the 13.1 mile event after only 2 months of training and clearly recall that it was about a 90% effort for me to run this time as I did not have much of an aerobic base.

Fast forward 4 years later which gets me to the Cayman Islands half marathon which took place on the 4th of December 2011. If you live in the States or ever consider a vacation in the Cayman Islands then I can highly recommend entering for the Cayman Islands half or full marathon. Further details about the event can be found at http://www.caymanislandsmarathon.com/.

Since December 2008 I have used the Cayman half as a benchmark to measure my running fitness from year to year and to determine to what extend my running has improved. I ran the half in 1:38 in Dec 2008 and 1:33 in Dec 2010. I was thus eager to improve on my PB of 1:33 in the 2011 Cayman half event.

A couple of days before the race my friend Marius suggested to me that I should try and run without my heart rate monitor and Garmin GPS watch. I was a bit skeptical at first but just decided to leave my watch at home on Sunday morning. Thanks for the tip Marius, it worked.

 

I ran based on how I felt (Level of perceived exertion) and tried to stick with Conrad and Neal going out as I knew they were capable of going sub 1:30 and even faster. My goal was to get as close to 1:30 as I could if not 1:29.

With my wife who also ran the Cayman half

I felt pretty strong going out and ran my 10km PB time of 42:50 in the process. I definitely ran out about 1min 30sec too fast. I dropped Neal somewhere before South Sound dock which was a mistake. Neal, I know you must have thought what a crazy move as you came past me close to the turn around point and there was no way I could keep up with you on the way back.

 

It was tough heading back as it was very windy at stages going up South Sound and Walkers road. 

Crossing the finish line in a time of 1:31

About 1.5 miles before the finish I saw Ray in the distance and was closing in on him. I managed to catch Ray in the last mile and was very happy with my 8th place overall out of 515 runners. I placed 15th overall in the 2011 race and was thus happy with my new PB of 1:31 and higher overall placing.

 

 I joked with Ray after the race as I mentioned to him that Sunday's win was for the Augusta half ironman in September 2010 as Ray beat me by about 40sec in the Augusta race in 2010.

 

I have signed up for the Miami half marathon on the 29th of January 2012 and my goal is to train smart during the festive season to be able to run a 1:29 for this race. Further details regarding the Miami half and full marathon can be found here http://www.ingmiamimarathon.com/

Reefathlon Race report - 29 November 2011

The Reefathlon is definitely one of my top 5 favourite events on island. The timing of the Cayman Islands Triathlon, Reefathlon and Cayman Islands marathon worked really well this year compared to last year.

Just before the race start - Photo courtesy of Clement Reid


For those not from the Cayman Islands a more detailed description of the event can be found on the website: Reefathlon Event description

Basically the event comprises an all out 19 mile [30km] cycling time trial. Here is a snapshot of the route map posted on the website by the Cayman Islands Cycling Association:

Last year the Reefathlon was scheduled the weekend before the triathlon which is when most of the triathletes start tapering. Competing in the Reefathlon shortly after the triathlon this year was ideal.

I have pretty much been tapering since the 30th of October as I competed in the Cayman Islands Triathlon on the 6th of November and the Jamaica triathlon on the 13th of November. I thus felt confident going into Sunday's 30km time trial as the 40km bike leg in both the Cayman and Jamaica Triathlon's prepared me well for Sunday's all out 30km TT.

My good friend Marius and I shortly after finishing the 30km TT in tough windy conditions

 Of the four Reefathlon TT events I have competed in over the last two years I believe that Sunday's event definitely had the windiest conditions which made for a tough race. I could feel that halfway into the TT my legs were burning so I did not feel too confident being in the lead as time trialing is Jerome Ameline's strength. Jerome did 42min flat for the Reefathlon in May of this year which is a superb time.

I was aiming for a time of 43min and expected Jerome to beat me due to his time trialing strength. At the end of the day I managed to beat Jerome by just 6 seconds which I was very happy with as this is the first time I have won the Reefathlon TT event.

Coming around the bend at Frank Sound Junction - (Photographer: Clement Reid)

 I would like to say a big thank you to the race photographer Clement Reid for being able to use his photos on my blog entry. Clement's website can be found here http://clementreid.com/

Having a chat to my friend Marius and my wife Jana just after the race.