Chisago Lakes Sprint Triathlon - Triathlon


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Chisago City, Minnesota
United States
Midwest Sports Events
65F / 18C
Overcast
Total Time = 1h 59m 11s
Overall Rank = /
Age Group = 45-49
Age Group Rank = 5/35
Pre-race routine:

Packet pickup the day before--good thing because it was insane the next day. Stayed overnight in Forest Lake at Country Inn and had a group dinner (19 of us) at Za, an italian restaurant which was pretty good. Lots of water. Back to the hotel and in bed around 10. Up at 4:30 am since the start is 7 am. Ate a Clif bar (Black cherry almond--yum and OJ both of which I brought with me) had a 1/2 cup of coffee which I rarely do in the am but it was already made. Got there around 5:30-ish. Ate a banana about 1 hr before start.
Event warmup:

Walked about a mile from my parking spot, crowded even that early. That was warmup since it is nuts--32 waves with about 50 people in each= 1600. About 6 inches of space in transition but at least it was marked with our numbers. Set up, got wetsuit, and got out of there. Hit the porta-johns--not enough of them, long lines. Then 15 waves before the sprint ones started.
Swim
  • 10m 35s
  • 580 yards
  • 01m 49s / 100 yards
Comments:

Lots of chop and I drank a lot. Foggy start and it was hard to see the course. An out and back. I am kind of pissed--the swim must have been longer than 440 because there is no way my pace was 2:24.Even if I veered off course, there's no way I'd have been that slow.
What would you do differently?:

Nothing. I was smart this time and positioned myself right in front. I went out first and fast. Dolphin dives and swam as soon as it was deep enough. Swam right until I touched the bottom. No one even touched my feet and I was definitely moving good. Lake: warm,lots of weeds. I'm guessing the temp was closer to 79 than 74, but whatever.
Transition 1
  • 03m
Comments:

I suspect this is one of my better T1s and it was kind of a long distance between transition and in and out.
Bike
  • 1h 15m 14s
  • 25.2 miles
  • 20.10 mile/hr
Comments:

My computer was working and I kicked my ass to average 20 mph. By comparison with other participants, the course was 25+ change.
What would you do differently?:

Nothing I worked hard, great mental and physical effort.
Transition 2
  • 02m 3s
Comments:

Got elastic sports laces. Good move
Run
  • 28m 17s
  • 3.11 miles
  • 09m 05s  min/mile
Comments:

I had planned to kick my own a** in this race and so I went out rather fast. Major cramping in both quads and my hams felt bad.
What would you do differently?:

Time to start working on my running as I have on swim and bike. Now if I could just stop getting injured. Next day I can feel a strain in the inner thigh when I straighten my leg--thinking its quads, maybe the gracilis or semitendinosus. Icing now.
Post race
Warm down:

Walked around a bit. Ate a granola bar and some cookies, water, gatorade. Had a massage. They brought in students who needed to get their hours (read: free)and unfortunately I had one who was not terribly aggressive. SHould have stretched since I could feel the hamstring after I got home from the long drive. Hung out and watched the Half Iron come in and took pix of friends.

What limited your ability to perform faster:

I was really happy with my performance. I really pushed it in swim and bike and if I hadn't been cramping I wouldn've done it in the run--still I did the best I could. So I'm happy with it. My AG place was really good. Gotta work on the run and do it in a way that minimizes injuries to do any better.

Event comments:

Not too well organized, maybe because there were so many participants. Crazy at check-in, not enough people to mark and to hand out packets. Tiny transition area which was confusing about where the bike and run out were and because everyone had so little space there was crap in the way. IMO, they accepted too many participants. 50 people per wave and 32 waves = 1600. Two massage therapists after the sprint.
Drafting occurred during the bike--a large group that was working together. No penalties assessed in the results. That is not good.
They must have ran out of flags and cones and at the finish people went running the wrong way because they had the path go over grass and it looked wrong since there was a nice clear path that wasn't blocked off that also looked like to went to the finish line. A bunch of us stood there to point people to the right direction until someone found a Midwest Sports person and asked them put a barrier to direct people properly.
Dangerous at points on the bike because there weren't enough officials to watch for cars and they came close--I almost got sideswiped by a truck who didn't want to wait to turn on to the road and was frustrated by there being so many bikers.
Food was quite limited--and pretty sparse for the HIM folks.
Add that to the incorrect distances and I won't do the sprint again. I had fun as usual but there are so many great, local short-distance duathlons and triathlon that are super-well organized and staffed such as Heart of the Lakes, Apple, even Graniteman that I can easily fill my season with good races. I'm racing against myself so it is important to have accurate distances. There are few HIMs in the state and this is the only one in the middle of the season, so I can see why people would race that. But I suspect that there will be others soon and that competition may help make this a better race.




Last updated: 2011-02-06 12:00 AM
Swimming
00:10:35 | 580 yards | 01m 49s / 100yards
Age Group: 9/35
Overall: 0/
Performance: Good
Suit: Vortex 3 sleeveless
Course: Definitely longer than 440 yards. Someone on BT used a Garmin and said it was .33 mi (580 yds) which makes my split seem more in line with what I usually do. They need to measure better.
Start type: Wade Plus: Waves
Water temp: 78F / 26C Current: High
200M Perf. Good Remainder: Good
Breathing: Good Drafting:
Waves: Navigation: Average
Rounding: Good
T1
Time: 03:00
Performance: Average
Cap removal: Good Helmet on/
Suit off:
Wetsuit stuck? Run with bike:
Jump on bike:
Getting up to speed:
Biking
01:15:14 | 25.2 miles | 20.10 mile/hr
Age Group: 5/35
Overall: 0/
Performance: Good
Wind:
Course: I know for sure that they way under-estimated the bike distance. A bunch of us looked at garmins, computers, etc and came up with 25.1-25.3. No excuse for that. Serious drafting by one local team--think they were doing the HIM. Calling instructions to each other. I told Midwest sports and they said people were penalized on the bike. But a look at the results shows no one was penalized in either race.
Road: Rough Dry Cadence:
Turns: Average Cornering:
Gear changes: Good Hills: Good
Race pace: Hard Drinks: Just right
T2
Time: 02:03
Overall:
Riding w/ feet on shoes
Jumping off bike
Running with bike
Racking bike
Shoe and helmet removal
Running
00:28:17 | 03.11 miles | 09m 05s  min/mile
Age Group: 14/35
Overall: 0/
Performance: Average
Course: An out and back flat course except for the curvy hill at the end.
Keeping cool Good Drinking Just right
Post race
Weight change: %
Overall: Good
Mental exertion [1-5] 5
Physical exertion [1-5] 5
Good race? Yes
Evaluation
Course challenge Just right
Organized? No
Events on-time? No
Lots of volunteers? No
Plenty of drinks? Yes
Post race activities: Below average
Race evaluation [1-5] 2