Steelhead 2011 (Page 5)

lol. nice!

and my Garmin was accurate to the second! Even with puching start/stop late/early... just worked out perfect

weird.

Didn't do the race, but there is a fair number of us Coasties up here in Michigan that do tri's!  Have fun with your October race, and hopefully your screenname becomes irrelevent soon! (MK2-->MK1!)

First, congrats to every for completing there first ever IRONMAN69.1! I was disappointed that the RD did not have the true Du backup plan.  They did a few years back when they canceled the swim, why not this year?  Oh Well.  I am not much of a distance runner, but I would have preferred a short run to start... it would have helped spread out the traffic a bit on the bike too.

Rubeone, I was in and out of transition all morning, really, just standing there when they started to send off the amateur.  Sorry I missed you.

I had a really good bike split.  I killed the start, passing as many people as possible in the first mile and destroyed that short hill that looked like people were barely able to climb.  I get into a very comfortable groove and just pedalled, through the wind, with a low HR.  Passed a lot of people, stayed aero, cruised up and over hills, and finished at an average 23.74mph (2:21:31, 19th in AG).  I could have gone a lot faster, as my computer said I averaged about 25mph up till MM45, but I backed it off going over the rollers coming down Blue Start highway to save my legs for the run.

The run started off great...holding my 8min/mile pace that I was targeting, but then slowed as my legs started to fatigue at about mile 6 or 7, and then my lower back started to give out around 9.  I had a much better effort than last year (my run-walk-stretch routine that gave me a 9+ min/mile pace), only having to walk 3-4 times at aid station to make sure I swallowed my fluids.  The last 4 miles were super tough for me since I only complete 2 runs all training of over 10 miles.  I clinched my teeth for the last 2 miles until the finish and crossed at 1:49:12 averaging 8:20/mile, which is OK for me.

My overall time was 4:13:16, which would have put be pretty close to my target time of 4:45 if we had the swim (I should have been able to finish the swim around 31mins), but I guess I will never know. 

I finished 31 in my AG and 266 OA.  Not bad since I was undertrained due to 10 weeks off from a broken arm, and only really able to train seriously starting in early June. 

Jon Ruud

I felt great for the entire race.  It was my first half iron and definitely my first 69.1  As I keep saying, I wish we could have swam, but it was really ugly out there.

 I'm not quite the beast that LBJ is, but I'm happy with my results.

I saw no referees out there (though my wife said she saw 2 people in the penality box off the bike, so I guess they were out there).  I wish they were out in the back roads cuz I saw a lot of people riding on the left, without passing.  I know the road are rough, but you got to at least shoulder check and get out of the way, especially when I start yelling on your left to pass. 

I even had a guy who I was passing, try to pass someone in front of him at the same time, and without looking, moved to the left 6th as if he was doing an evasive maneuver and nearly took me out.  Granted, I did not say on you left when I passed, since I was already 6ft to his left....

Also, I saw a lot of pelotons and pacelines out there... and surprisingly, a group of females who started after me pass me, at mile 50 or so, absolutely flying, basically in there own little paceline.  Yes, they started behind and finished a head of me, but they sure were working together on the bike.

I'm thinking about getting one of these!

http://www.cafepress.com/+691_sticker_oval,282376688

Yeah, I definitely followed the letter of the law with entering the draft zone and passing in 20secs to my advantage, but even at 4 bike length/7m, you still could a) catch a slight slipstream b) pace the person in front of you.

Man, I need to start running with yeats and jazz!  Jazz, did you get the 70.3 World Championship slot?  I was noticing that some AG's only had 1 slot (I think the 40-44 male slot had 4). 

Thanks, but hopefully it will be MKC after the next service wide!  I've been a first for a while, but have this same username on serveral forums so figured I'd keep it going.

Had a chance to meet fellow BT'er Rick at Steelhead.

Great pic. Thanks for posting it

Best part is that we finished with the EXACT same time :D

Jumped into this race late and signed up last Sunday for a good training day. One of the pleasures of that was starting just before the relayers went off. Somewhere around 8:50am. Will say I was very unimpressed to see at about 5 miles in the pros coming back and after the first 5 or so, there was two major groups together in packs of about 10. The first group had about 6 of the USA Pro Tri guys together with the second having Lovato, Reed, and a couple other big names. Maybe legal drafting in the second group but the first group was blatant as he!!.

Overall still a fun time. Sad to see what has happened to Jean Klok Park. Haven't raced there since 08 and what  a shame to kill that beach for another freakin golf course.

Watched a story on MSNBC's Rachael Maddow show about it (granted very one sided politically) but it seemed like they pulled the wool over the people in getting this passed through. Did have some hilarious stat about how the average income of Benton Harbor residents was 20 or 30 some thousand a year and the membership was around 5 thousand.