Superfrog Success

I'm sitting in the San Diego Airport (again) waiting for my colleague, Todd Carver, to arrive from Denver. We will spend the day on the US Navy SEALs Amphibious Base working with an elite athlete core of SEALs on their individual bike fits. Elite Bicycles frame builder and master fitter, David Greenfield, is also on hand conducting top notch fits.

Yesterday was the culmination of my early season winter training at the Superfrog 1/2 triathlon in Coronado. Coronado is 5 or 6 miles south of downtown San Diego and although it is now predominately a tourist trap, it is also the home of the NSW (Naval Special Warfare) Community. The half-ironman, the Superfrog, is the longest running long distance triathlon in the world and the SEALs are deeply embedded in the history of triathlon as some of the very first competitors.

This year, I raced the Superfrog individual event and Emily was the swim leg of a very strong relay team. Her cyclist was Swedish uber-biker, Bjorn Andersson, and her runner was a local San Diego Kenyan, Okwaro Raura. They ended up winning the relay in 3 hours, 42 minutes and change, over 10 minutes ahead of the second place team. As a bonus, Bjorn's bike split was a mind-numbing 1 hour and 59 minutes over the 56-mile bike course. He was flying which says good things about his winter training. Now that splits have been verified on Superfrog's website, www.superfrogtriathlon.com, it shows both Okwaro and Bjorn demolishing previous course records on the run and bike.

The last two Superfrog races, I ran into race day mishaps including a run course navigational error (i ran off course while in the lead and was DQ'd) and last year a rear cassette rattled loose. My goal this year was to have a solid, and god-willing, a mechanical-free race.

Rumors floating around the transition before the race pinned the water temperature in the Pacific at 57-degrees, so I wore two caps, and felt quite comfortable throughout the two lap swim. I even opted for a pre-race warm up and felt fine. This kind of makes me think the water was in the low 60's. Anyways, my friend Dean Cummings was at the starting line and instructed "no mechanicals" this year and I was happy to oblige!

I exited the two loop, 1.2-mile swim in second place, roughly one minute behind Aussie Luke Bell and just ahead of Chris McDonald. Chris and I exited transition together and took off after Luke. This was the second race I've done reading power wattage now, and I forced myself to pace the early miles at nothing over 340 watts. Because it was a four-loop bike with numerous out-and-back sections, we would have plenty of time to gauge ourselves against Luke. Chris and I have similar riding styles and effectively pushed each other so we caught Luke after two laps.

The rest of the bike was uneventful and my average wattage over the 56-miles was 325 watts, with an average speed of just under 26 m/h. At the end of the third lap, Chris told me I almost dropped him, so the fourth lap I picked up the pace and that dropped Luke off our pace. Exiting transition together with Chris, we had 30 or 45 seconds on Luke.

The run at Superfrog is 90% sand, both along the beach (hard-packed) and through the SEALs training ground (soft-sand). I dropped off Chris' pace in the first half-mile and Luke passed me around that time. I had no illusions of hanging with them, but wanted to stay conservative and hope they had gone out too hard and underestimated the toll that running on sand puts on the body. Two miles into the run, Luke pulled up with what looked like cramps, which he later mentioned was a slightly pulled muscle. It must have been OK as he finished the race. Chris meanwhile extended his lead. At the end, after 13.1-miles of painful sand running, I crossed the line in second place in 4 hours 2 minutes, over six minutes behind Chris, who won in 3 hrs 55 minutes.

It was a good day for the Finangers. Unfortunately Emily wasn't able to defend her two consecutive individual Superfrog wins, but an injury limited her to swimming on the relay. This race is a staple on our yearly schedule as the organizers run a Wildflower-like grassroots race with the best cause I could imagine - proceeds and donations go to helping children and wives of fallen SEALs. This year, with the introduction of a $10,000 prize purse, same bigger names in the sport came out of the woodwork. In the Olympic Distance, SuperSeal event, was Jordan Rapp and in the Superfrog 1/2, Bjorn Andersson, Chris McDonald, Renata Bucher, and Luke Bell all took part.

Cheers,
Lars

Chris, Bjorn, Jordan and Lars recovering with Normatec MVP after the race