Nation's Triathlon, Bike Drafting

Don't forget, relatively flat course as well ........ at least it is not multi-loop!!

Its gonna be a cluster f-ck.  Glad I didn't actually have to pay to enter this one.  I'm still going to do my best and represent Gu in a professional and respectful manner (I have a sponsor entry which I am very grateful for no matter what!!), but the race is gonna probably be a disappointing one from the amount of people in the field.

Oh well, everyone has to race in the same conditions.  Suck it up, be courteous and put out the best effort that the course and field allow you to do.

That sounds annoying.  Have fun with that.  You need a slow lane, a travel lane, a passing lane, and a fast lane to make that one fun.  You won't even be able to pass because the people passing will be blocking the people trying to pass them....watch out for accidents out there.

Ha, that's how I felt about the National Marathon.

Yup, I'm racing National.

I'm kind of a big deal.

I did the race last year and did not see a lot of blatant drafting, just riders sorting their way through the course.  The problem is when a rider stays put behind another and then folks bunch-up to form a peloton ... or when someone is sucking the wheel of a rider pulling their way through the course (a la IM Florida).  Understanding how crowded the course is, I doubt that the officials will cite riders unless the rider is using another rider for their advantage.

Great race, great course ... and believe it or not the roads were actually pretty smooth. (Not the WDC I grew up in with Mayor for life Barry.)  That said, PEM Sports - the race management company - is getting to be the poster child of why USAT ought to create some field size limit as they tend to let more than the maximum participate (see: New Orleans 70.3, Augusta 70.3 and The Nations Triathlon as prime examples).

Except last year there were 2400 entrants.... this year there are 6000!!! I've completely scrapped any idea of a time goal for this race, and will just go out and enjoy the ride, and try to stay safe on the bike course. It willl also be interesting to see whether they will ACTUALLY be able to get swim waves of aprrox. 200 people into the water and started with 3 minutes between waves. I probably wouldn't have signed up if I had known ahead of time the race was going to be this big. TOO big, IMO.....