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 Swim
Comments: The course was one long out-and-back with a counter-clockwise turn at the end. That's not ideal for me, being a right-side breather with an inclination to pull to the right, as the buoys would always be on my left. The start was also narrow and I didn't have much choice but to start toward the inside of the group, so I got boxed in right from the beginning in a relatively slow-swimming group. Fortunately, the 64-degree water never felt that cold. But as I feared, I wound up swimming all over the course, constantly zigzagging right to left and never finding a decent pair of feet to follow. The course felt long, probably mostly because I added an extra 300 yards to it with my "creative navigation" and I wasn't altogether too surprised to see my exiting was over 30:00-- that qualifies as a minor disaster for me. I also nearly bit it standing up on the boat ramp exit as my right calf immediately cramped up. Apparently, my Brett Favre-like approach to off-season training for my swimming had come back to haunt me a bit. Still, I was amazed to see I finished middle of the pack in my AG. What would you do differently?: I would actually swim three times a week, like regular triathlete-folk.  Transition 1
Comments: Rank: 4/12 This felt like it to me a short eternity, so I have no idea how I ranked 4/12 in my AG. Exiting the swim, my fingers were completely numb so I couldn't even feel my helmet strap to find the pinchers that un-clasp the strap. I finally gave up and put on everything else, then came back to it. I seriously thought this took me 5 minutes and had ruined my race. What would you do differently?: I would wear electric hand warmers on the swim. Hmm, maybe that isn't such a good idea.  Bike
Comments: Unlike with my swimming, I've actually been training my biking pretty hard. So I expected and wanted to hammer here. However, 6 or 7 miles into the course, I felt like I had been pushing uphill the entire way. My speed was down and it felt like I was putting in far more effort than I should be on what seemed like a flat course. It was at this point that a racer pulled up alongside me and decided to start a conversation. He asks me how fast we're going because his computer is out, so I tell him and make the comment that the whole course feels uphill. He tells it's because to this point it HAS been uphill, that it's basically all uphill until the upcoming turnaround. That was helpful. What WASN'T helpful was the 5-minute diatribe to follow in which he gives me an in-depth description of the course, the injuries he's had this season, his outlook on his beloved Chicago Bears, a recent argument he had with his wife, the names he's considering for the dog he's going to get one day and a few other topics before finally moving on ahead of me. It's the, of course, when I see the USAT ref on his motorcycle pull up alongside me and write my race number down... sure I find after the race I've been penalized for being "overtaken". You see, apparently it's MY fault for holding my consistent pace on the far right side of the road and having Talkative Tom roll up alongside me and tell me his life story. Yeah, like I'm taking those two minutes. As a small comfort, I re-passed ol' Talkative Tom a short while later and never saw him again, leaving him to inflict further penalties on slower racers. In fact, I was only passed by two cyclists all day, including-- I hate to admit-- djdavey around Mile 5 of the bike. All in all, I felt I delivered about as strong a performance as I'm capable of on the bike. I'm kinda surprised and disappointed that it was only good enough for 7/12 in my AG. But it was pretty clear form the results this was a fast field. What would you do differently?: Maybe drop the 10 extra pounds I'm lugging around on me this season. Transition 2
Comments: Rank: 9/12 Once again, I struggled with my cold, numb hands to get my running shoes on, even with Speed Laces in my shoes. I also had a hard time with the strap of my Garmin. What would you do differently?: Warm my hands on the toasty thighs of fine Cuban women. But the, I'd have to be in Cuba for that.  Run
Comments: This is a great run course and I should have been able to run it faster. My training hasn't been bad lately, but I should probably be more focused as to what I want to get out of each workout instead of just going out and running, as has been my habit lately. The course is entirely in the protected area of the park, much of it on a nice paved path, through the woods. For much of the course, I couldn't see anyone either ahead of me or behind me and that probably worked to my disadvantage as I really like pushing myself to catch people. Dave met me a few hundred yards from the finish and ran beside me almost to the end. I'd call it a solid performance and one to build on as I now enter running season. What would you do differently?: Be more focused in my run workouts. Post race
Warm down: At the finish, Dave and I had nice conversations with a girl (Kristi) we both met out on the run course and Eric, the college student from Des Moines we invited to join us at dinner the night before. What limited your ability to perform faster: Lack of focus in training. Event comments: This was a top shelf event. It was extremely well-organized, there were almost too many volunteers, and the venue at George Wyth State Park is terrific. The goody bag was also great, with a high-quality long sleeve tech shirt, nice mesh race bag, flashlight, insect repellent, coupons and other goodies. They thought of everything. My only knock on the race was the post-race food, which consisted of a dry and tasteless turkey sub and some choices of fruit or granola bars. With the high standard they had set with nearly everything else, I expected more. As far as my own performance, as much as this race was ripe for me to set a PR, I didn't deserve it. This has admittedly been a season in which I have pulled back on my training, and it showed in my results. This year, I'm fine with that. Next year, I hope to do better. Last updated: 2010-09-22 12:00 AM
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United States
USA Triathlon/Perigrine Charities
65F / 18C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 53/106
Age Group = M 40-44
Age Group Rank = 8/12
With stops, it's a 5+ hour drive to Waterloo, IA, from Milwaukee... and I had to make the drive with djdavey. Luckily, I was able to keep him mostly occupied with shiny objects and by pointing at the cows along the way. When that failed, I was forced into conversation, which centered mainly on why Earl from Earlville couldn't get along with with Gilbert from Gilbertville or Walter of Walter's Residence and made them form their own towns.
We got into Waterloo on Saturday and set up the booth to show and promote "The Distance" at the race expo, and the time passed relatively uneventfully except for the fact the weather grew progressively colder and rain-ier as the day went on. Temps were in the 50's at best and the water temp in the lake was posted at 64 degrees. We weren't sure at all what race day would bring.
During the Expo, a guy came up and introduced himself as none other than jdwright from BT and Dave and I had the chance to have a nice long chat with him-- it's always great to meet another BT'er, especially when you're far from home! The next day, while waiting for the swim start, we'd also get to meet Noz, who proceeded to be first out of the water in his Sprint wave by about 50m.
After the Expo, we headed to the local Italian restaurant (there aren't may to choose from in Waterloo) and had pasta. We recognized a young solo racer from the Expo, so we invited him to join us for dinner. He turned out to be a great college kid from Des Moines doing his first tri, so we took him under our wing, filled his head with nonsense (along with perhaps one or two actually useful tips) and had a strange conversation involving vampires. You know, typical kind of stuff.
Then it was time to stop at the "Kum & Go", which oddly was not the name of the local gay bar, and head to our hotel, where no cuddling or spooning took place, much to Dave's undoubted disappointment.
Thanks to crack directions provided by the GPS function of my not-so smart phone, which wanted us to cross several lakes and forests, we got to the race venue a little later than expected. Luckily, my plan of lying to Dave and telling him the race started at 7am instead of the actual 7:30am start left us enough padding to negate the difference.
Because it's so late in the season, we arrived in near total darkness although we could still make out the steam rising from the lake which seemed eerily reminiscent of the closing scene in "Friday the 13th" when Jason rises from the water to machete the female lead. Little did I know at that time, that scene would be appropriate foreshadowing of my own swim experience in the race.
The race venue and organization throughout the race experience were absolutely top shelf. The RD had thought of everything-- right down to providing mini-flashlights to racers to help make their setup easier in the morning darkness. The entire transition was also lit up just like Ironman and there were plenty of volunteers on hand to personally check-in racers and direct them to their transition spot.
The only downside of the small transition area (the entire race only had 330 participants, split between Oly and Sprint distances) was that because of its situation on a boat ramp it really wasn't possible for racers to get in a warm-up swim after the race had begun. That kinda sucked for us in the Oly waves who would start a half-hour after the first wave, especially with water temps in the low 60's.