Minneapolis Tri : Getting Caught

Last year when I won my AG at Maple Grove, I looked back at the times and noticed that basically I came out of the water just far enough ahead to hold off the hoard. For this race when I looked at the results I wondered, when did these people catch me?

So here's my look at it - I just tracked the top 10 finishers. Also, for the sake of clarity, I am wording this as if we had a mass start. The reality is that we did not start at the same time, so there are people who finished ahead of me in the results, but actually crossed the finish line after me.

Swim

I exit out in front by 14 seconds. I know I am ahead because I didn't see any black caps in front of me.

T1

I have the 7th fastest T1
I exit T1 10 seconds behind someone, and 23 seconds ahead of the next guy.

Bike

I have the 3rd fasted bike split.
I'm 1:52 behind the guy in first. and 1:16 ahead of the guy in 3rd

T2

9th fastest.
I'm 1:58 behind the guy in first and 37ahead of the guy in 3rd

Run

I have the slowest run leg by 2:11. That means that every single person put at least 42 seconds PER MILE into me.

Here are the standings heading into the run

Bib	Time back
3837	0
Me	1:58
3844	2:35
3817	3:10
3809	5:28
3840	5:42
3812	5:44
3835	6:12
3794	6:26
3830	9:19

So here's the interesting part to me. When did these guys "pass" me. Some of them literally passed me, a few did not. Take a look at that list, I end up in the 8th position. That means that people who are 4+ minutes behind me make up all of that over the course of a 5k. Here's a rough estimation of when all this went down. For the sake of ease, I'll just assume a relatively flat pace, which probably isn't accurate - but this does reflect actual results. I end up in 8th with about 1/10th of a mile to go, and the two guys not listed end up less than 1/10 of a mile behind me.

0.4 miles 3844 runs past - I'm in third
1.6 miles 3817 runs past - fourth
2.3 miles 3840 runs past - fifth
2.7 miles 3830 runs past - sixth
2.8 miles 3835 runs past - seventh
2.9 miles 3809 runs past - eighth

Thoughts

Transition time is interesting, if I could have dropped 35 seconds over two transitions I would have been 5th, like last year. Dropping 35 seconds gives me an average time in transition.

If I could have mustered 8:40's instead of 9's I would have finished fourth. 8:40 still has me with the slowest run split by a full minute.

If I could do both I would have been third.

Actually after writing this, it was helpful to look at the entire race. Do I need to work on the run? Probably, but I could also use to work on transition too. One of the things that struck me when I was watching the pro men race is that they came out of the water in a clump, and Cam Dye (the eventual winner) ran past 3 people in transition.