Topeka Tinman Triathlon - Short Course - TriathlonShort Course

Mom and Dad showed up right as Lori and I were lining up - that was cool because I kind of thought they wouldn't make it in time to see us start.

OK our swim start was a huge cluster-F. There were about 40-50 women in my start, mixed age groups. After the heat before us went, the dude made some comments about the course, blahblahblah. Then nothing for like 2 minutes. All of the sudden, he says "1 minute till start, get crossing that timing mat ladies" - so we do. The dude seems stressed... "30 seconds, let's go let's go" - I am not near the mat yet. When I cross, I heard him say "10 seconds..." and I just started running. Said good luck to Lori and got up closer to the front when the gun went off. There were still about half of the girls behind me crossing the mat when the gun went off. Weird.

I am always caught off-guard by the swim start. I am a swimmer - it's by far my strongest sport. But as soon as I hit the water, my breath kind of gets knocked out of me. I was breathing EVERY stroke, which bothered me. About halfway through, I settled down a bit by breast-stroking, but never passed the pack in front of me (it was only a 300yd swim, so hard to do anyway). Becuase I didn't pass anyone, I thought for sure I was dragging @ss, and was really suprised to see the improvement in my time from last year. YEAH!!

Not much, after seeing my time.

2006 Swim - 6:17 / 2min 05sec pace
2007 Swim - 5:44 / 1min 55sec pace

I ran the entire hill up to my bike - I was really out of breath when I got there. My Dad was right there saying "GO LISA GO!" - It made me smile. Made a note that Lori's bike was still there and said a little prayer that she was okay out there in her first open-water race.

Socks, bike shoes, helmet, sunglasses, bike, GO LISA GO! Got to the bike out at the same time as 3 other girls, kind of a bottle neck getting out. Clip-in went perfectly. Out on that first stretch we came to almost a complete stop because of traffic and just a bike bottleneck. It annoyed me and I made a comment out loud. The girl behind me was like "it's okay!" and I thought no, it's not... this is affecting my time! But yeah I should have probably just been more patient.


Nothing!

2006 T1 - 2:27
2007 T1 - 2:11

WOW. The bike this year was overwhelmingly better than last... probably because I had a crappy bike last year and hadn't ridden more than 9 miles in one sitting. With my longest ride being 28 miles this year, I had a ton of confidence in myself.

The only glitch was that my chain was on the little ring to begin with (since it had fallen off getting it into the car), and I couldn't for the life of me get it to switch over to the big ring. On about the sixth try it gave, and I actually yelled "WOO HOO" really loud a few times. I had convinced myself I'd be riding in the little ring the whole way.

I felt awesome. I was cruising up and down the rolling hills and I really, really enjoyed the bike. It was over way too soon (did I just SAY that??). I kept looking for Lori to pass me (because the bike is her strength), but she never did. Still hoping she was okay out there.


Start in the big ring.

2006 Bike - 36:30 / 13.55 mph
2007 Bike - 28:24 / 17.41 mph

Ran into my rockstar rack space - this is where it really paid off. If we'd have been further towards the lake it would have easily added 30 seconds to this transition. Thew down helmet/sunglasses, ripped off the bike shoes and started putting on running shoes. I was SO glad I had put Speedlaces on my running shoes! Allthough I did have to sit down because my left foot was not cooperating. Took 2 sips of Gatorade before heading out.

Nothing at all. This transition was awesome.

2006 T2 - 2:35
2007 T2 - 1:14

My Dad was there again to see me start the run. I remember saying "here we go" before I left transition, and off I went.

About 15 seconds into the run, I felt my right calf tighten up. NO, no no, no, it cannot cramp up - my calf muscle has never ever cramped in my entire life, why would it cramp now? It cramped. I had to stop and stretch it out. Twice.

After the cramp went away I felt good. Slower than I wanted, but good. I kept playing rabbit with a guy who would stop and walk, then run as soon as I passed him, funny.

It really lifted me up to see Tom on his way back in - he looked awesome. He yelled "HEY SEXY" and gave me a huge high five. Awesome. I saw Lori after the turnaround and gave her a high-five... I was glad to see she was there and hadn't had any major problems.

A funny: the guys at the turnaround aid station were handing out water saying "Steamy hot chocolate! Right here!" oh that was cruel. It was hot out. I guess later they were calling it "gin and tonic."

I finished really strong for the last 1/2 mile. Little did I know that my time was not recorded when I finished.

I hear salt helps with the cramping, so maybe I need to look into that. Obviously I also need to do some long bike/run bricks.

2006 Run - 34:14 / 10:42 pace
2007 Run - 30:29 / 9:48 pace

Found Tom, Mom and Dad and we all waited for Lori to come in. Drank a real Pepsi and tried to eat an apple, yuck. Lori came in about 8 minutes later, I was so proud of her.

Hung out in the awards ceremony shelter and talked with LindaKC. It was funny, my Mom thought we had known each other for awhile, and was suprised to find out that was the first day we'd really met in person. Funny how online friends work.

I kept looking for my times in the posted results but they were not there, neither were Tom's. Then we find out that the left-side timing mat at the finish line was manfunctioning for about 20 minutes... of course that was when both of us crossed. So when we talked to the timing guy, we technically came up in his system as a DNF. Needless to say we were furious. This guy was so nonchalant about it, it was infuriating. He kept asking "do you know who you finished around? Did you get their race numbers?" Um yeah. I'm finishing a personal victory here, I'm going to take down numbers of people around me finishing. Yeah, I always make a note to do that. WTF.

I ended up giving him an estimated finish time of 1:10 (all though I could have said ANYTHING, WTF?), but I knew I was faster than that. I asked how I could get my money back and he directed me to the KLM race director. We were pissed and tired and just decided to load up the car. I will write a nasty-gram later.

Side thoughts on the issue: Why wouldn't the timing officials A) make sure the mats were working properly? B) Not realize they weren't working for at least 20 minutes? You'd think that when people were crossing and times weren't registering they would immediately see the problem and fix it. Apparently not. C) HAVE A MANUAL BACK UP??? Most races have people at the finish line writing down the order numbers come across. Or have a time clock at the finish line. Or have you rip off the bottom strip and give it to a volunteer so they can order the finishers. NONE of those things were in place.

The worst part about it was that the race officials failed to make any acknowledgement of any kind about the mistake. They handed out awards (to some who probably didn't deserve them) as if nothing had happened. Also, Tom had a conversation with a dude who's time WAS properly recorded and should have received an age group placing, but didn't. So even with the unofficial times and information they had in-hand, they STILL were making mistakes. Unbelievable.

Anyway...

We bee-lined to the nearest Chipotle and gorged ourselves, YUM-O. When I got home I went to my parents house to see the time stamp on my Dad's camera at the finish line. There I found out I crushed my time from last year by 14 minutes. Go Lisa!


A calf cramp on the run... that's about it.


Please see my race report for details on the mess KLM made of this race. I love this course and this race, but the fact that the finish line timing mats were BROKEN and they did not realize or fix it for at least 20 minutes - and handed out awards based on unofficial and knowingly imcomplete finisher information... makes me seriously reconsider ever doing another KLM event.