Tragic death of fellow competitor in Philly Sprint Tri

Derek Valentino, a 40 year old father of two and first-time triathlete died during the swim portion of the Philly Sprint Triathlon Race.  This is a tragic event for his wife, his two teenage boys, and their extended family and I wanted to express my personal condolences as a fellow participant.

As a fellow first-time triathlete in the same race, this hits pretty close to home.  His wave started just a few minutes after mine, meaning I was likely still in the water when he ran into trouble.  Given how slow I was, he could have been quite close by indeed.  I found the large number in our wave and the close spacing of the waves meant you were constantly bumping into someone through pretty much the entire distance.

On the other hand, I remember feeling that there were quite a large number of boats, kayaks and individuals on floating platforms watching over the swimmers and saw one swimmer who was in difficulty receive quick assistance, so I have no reason to suspect that there was any failure on the part of the organizers of the race.  Indeed, the very rare occurrence of fatalities (1.5 per 100,000) during Triathlon tend to occur during the swim, and most due to heart related problems, some due to overexertion and others due to unidentified pre-existing conditions.  Like anyone who has competed in a mass swim start, I can vouch for the extreme stress involved in the start and the chaotic nature of swimming with so many others.

The Philly Tri organizers were appropriately cautious and cancelled the swim in the Olympic length race the next day.  I can imagine that competitors in that race must have felt ambivalent about this decision, on the one hand sympathy and caution and on the other a desire to complete the race for which you spent months or years preparing.

Regardless of the cause of death, this is a somber reminder to all to push ourselves within reasonable limits and listen to our bodies and to pay attention to the welfare of fellow athletes.  For the vast majority of triathletes, this is an amateur pursuit, one to be pursued with zeal but also within reason.

 

Philly Tri: The ugly

5 Lessons Learned

1. Stay away from weird-strokers—breast strokers, side strokers, and other freak strokers with their frog kicking legs and flailing arms. Once you get caught behind one of these listing ships, you need a burst of speed and you need to give them wide berth to get around. I have one word for you weird-strokers: crawl baby crawl!

2. Swim straight, stupid: I zig zaged my way down the course. What’s that boat doing in my way—oops!

3. Tri does not recognize Indy cred: Riding a fixed gear bike in a Tri means the torturous drip of riders on bigger gears passing you by with occasional moments of glory as you muscle your way up steep hills because you have to keep your cranks moving. Everyone is too blinded by the latest Cervelo airfoil passing on the left to be impressed by your minimalist ride.

4. Not enough endurance training? You son are jogging the run—an ignominious end to a decent race. The wall came for me 2 miles early, run pace: 7:59. By comparison, my last mile in the MARATHON was a 7:20!

5. This bears repeating: If you spend the swim on your aerobic threshold, and repeatedly spike up to it on the bike, the run will suck.

Goals for the future

1. Have a strong all-around sprint tri. That means regularly training all three sports, including multi-sport days. I will emphasize open-water swimming skills, cardio endurance, some speed work and light weights.

2. Start training with a Tri-club.

3. Reward myself with a nice road bike.

Philly Tri: The bad

I got beat, roundly beat, by my training partner. It wasn’t luck or skill, he’s been serious about training and I haven’t. I paid for the two weeks where I didn’t train much for work and vacation—I simply didn’t give the Tri the same devotion I did the Marathon. The times tell the tale, although it could have been worse:

Total Time: 1:48:02

Place: 68/133 in my age bracket--just missed 50%

Swim	00:24:02
Trans1	00:03:21
Bike	00:54:43
Trans2	00:01:25
Run	00:24:29
Swimrank	927
Bikerank	767
Mph	16.4
Runrank	244
Pace	00:07:54

Training Partner Time: 1:41:59

A good training partner lets you know how much he could have beat you, by telling you after the race that he smoked a cigar and drank the night before the race—yeah that burns. My claim to fame, and only shred of dignity was a 15 second win on the bike, where my ride was clearly an advantage in the gimp race between my fixie and his alley salvage mountain bike. This close outcome insures an arms race going into our next Tri, and by my logic, the bike I buy has to (again) be faster than the bike he buys to have a chance to win at least one leg of the race.  

Philly Tri: The good

Mission accomplished: completed the 900m open water swim with enough left over to finish the bike and run. Five Eight months ago I couldn’t swim more than 50m without stopping, clinging, and gasping for breath. To the JCC enforcers who helped my swim cardio and rhythm, to the support staff who took the class with me and still swims faster with no training at all, and to my training partner who meets me out swimming 3 times a week, and got dared into the whole Tri thing in the first place, thank you! An open-water 900m in 24 minutes is an accomplishment, for me anyhow.

Good training plan: without my focus on the swim, I would not have made it out of the water let alone having anything left for the rest.

Good race plan: hydration and eating was great, my heart rate settled down on the bike, and transitions were quick and smooth. Except for the tired walk out of the water, I even jogged the transitions.