American Triple T Race Report

Two weeks ago I checked an endurance event off of my bucket list: The American Triple T. For those who don’t know the format, there are 4 triathlons in 3 days:

• Friday prologue: 5:00 pm “super sprint” 250m swim, 6k bike, 1 mile run
• Saturday: 7:30 am Olympic distance tri & another Olympic distance race at 3:00 pm with the event order as bike-swim-run
• Sunday: 7:00 am half Ironman distance triathlon
• Total distances: 5,250m swim, 110 miles cycling, 27.2 miles running

All events have time trial starts, with participants starting in pairs every 3 seconds. The races all took place from the same transition area in the Shawnee State Forest in southern Ohio: Plenty of hills. You might even call them mountains (the Little Smokies).

My goal was to treat it as a training event, trying to build mental & physical strength for Ironman Lake Placid. I wanted to dial in my target Ironman paces and not race so hard that I couldn’t recover quickly for nine more weeks of training. I wanted to run the half marathon on Sunday in less than 2 hours. I figured that few would be able to do that and, if I could pull it off, it would be a good sign that I have proper paces dialed in.

As you might imagine the event was very tough. The cycling courses were all challenging, with more than 9,000 feet of climbing and some technical descents. The same run course was used for every race. It consisted mostly of hilly fire roads with broken rocks and dirt footing. Just like an Ironman, there were plenty of athletes walking the last several miles of the final race. I was able to maintain consistent pacing in all three sports throughout the weekend. I came within a few seconds of negative splitting the final 13.1 mile run [beat my time goal by 7 minutes!]. My nutrition plan was solid and, overall, I think I’m in good physical and mental shape with only seven weeks to go until Ironman. My total time to complete the event was 12:13:32.

The most difficult aspect to the weekend (other than driving home!) was staying hydrated and maintaining proper electrolyte levels. I got a little spacy after the second Saturday race and really had to focus on getting rehydrated and replenishing electrolytes. Everyone’s motivation to race was pretty low by Sunday morning! I particularly enjoyed the old school feel of the event: Very little commercialism, a small field (432 registrants, less than 400 finishers), and excellent race organization. If you’re into the long course triathlon scene, this is a must do event.

My Triple T week was a big one – 10 km of swimming, 130+ miles in the saddle, and 37+ miles of running. I’ve never worked that much running into an Ironman training week, and my feet let me know it. After a full week of recovery, during which I cut training volume in half and took two days completely off, this week was rock solid. I’m feeling very well again.