DC Nation's Triathlon Water Temp (<78F on 9/8)

I swam the Potomac at the dextro energy tri (same exact swim course as Nation's) and found that it was fairly pleasant, even with a relatively fast current 2 days after a rain storm. One thing I did notice was that on the return leg, i.e. downriver, the current seemed to drag me out to the middle of the river and I had to keep correcting to the left on that leg. For some reason I would swim along for a while, sight, and be staring at Virginia. Just something to keep in mind.

I'll be there for the practice swim on Saturday if anyone wants to meet up and feels like tolerating my slowness...

The RD will fish around in the water to find a cool spot so they can make it wetsuit legal if it is even remotely borderline.

Plus it is going to be relatively cool this week (and has been the last two weeks) and it is raining all this week.

I almost willing to lay big money down it will be wetsuit legal.

Forgive my ignorance (and being too lazy to research this myself), but if the race is not wetsuit legal, does that forbid everyone from wearing a wetsuit, or only those who are interested in making the podium? I don't mind being a little warm.

I'd be down for the practice swim if the timing is right, particularly if my wetsuit is verboten. I haven't been in a river in a very long time.

Sound off if you'be there this weekend.  I've gotten myself a case of the dreaded PF and will be bowing out during T2, but I do have a new hawaiian shirt for the bike.

Hopefully the rain doesn't cancel the swim, they had to watch that last year from what I remember due to runoff.

Also, yep they will find a nice shady spot under a bridge or something to measure the temp...

Lots of  BTers doing this TRI. 
I'm all for meeting up.

I'll be the guy who looks like the guy in the photos on my profile. ...
Seriously though, where when. I'm in.

** This is not an official race website, and this temperature may not reflect temps on race day, at the race area**

Wow, the water temperature has dropped from near 80 to just below 70 in a week. This morning's water temp at the Little Falls pumping station (which is NOT the race site) is 21.1 C or 69.8 F. The water temp was above 26C about a week ago!

Water flow has dropped overnight to about 1600 cubic feet per second. Water flow spiked yesterday from about 1400 cubic feet per second to above 2000 cfs, but even this level is relatively low. The meadian reading for this date is 2490 cfs, so it should be calm and no detectable current.

Otherwise the weather looks perfect tomorrow. Remember how crazy hot is was last year.

WHOOOOOHOOOOOO see you tomorrow.





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Did the practice swim today and the water was perfect! See you all tomorrow!

I'm 491.

Wow that took way longer than expected, and that transition area is HUGE! Everyone have an excellent race.

2:48 and change. Lousy swim (~32). And SEVEN minutes in transition (4+3). But that was a fun race. Holy cow it was a big transition area. See you guys next year!





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Re: "Took way longer than expected" .... Heathen ie Hawaii-man did you stay in DC? Or drive down before? I would not want to try that same day drive before the race .....

Edited by jsselle 2009-09-13 4:30 PM

2:52 and change here...

HORRIBLE swim. Got kicked in the first 100m and lost my nose clip (yeah, yeah, I know). Spent the next 15 minutes or so panicking and learning how to breathe without it. Seriously didn't have a rhythm back until I made the first turn. Sucked. 37:00.

Killed it on the bike. 372nd of 3933. 22.0mph average. Beautiful course. Just wish I'd kept a better rhythm on the outbound leg of Clara Barton on the false flats/hills.

The run is where my lack of high-volume training started to show, so I just kept a nice doable pace and finished in 1:01:10. Not spectacular, but the tank was pretty empty, so survival is good.

Sorry I didn't get to meet you jsselle... heathen and Carl, a pleasure as always.

"372nd of 3933. 22.0mph average." - Pete

"We're not worthy" - Scott

"Lost my nose clip" - Pete

"Hells' a noseclip?" - Scott

Edited by jsselle 2009-09-13 7:48 PM

nice work guys. i was way behind you, but it was my first tri ever and i didn't respect the training process nearly enough.

I survived and did better than I should have or expected to.

On no swimming for 2 months I still was able to go evenly and stay on course fairly well.  Time was right around where the best I could hope for - 33 minutes (I suck normally, but compound that with no training and it makes it worse!).

On no cycling for that same amount of time I was able to click really well and the course suited my strengths with riding.  1:03:03 (23.6) and 11th in AG on the bike - around 70th overall for bike split.  Really happy with the ride as I had no expectations of being even remotely close to a decent split!

Run suffered as a result though.  Barely broke 45 when on a flat course like this I should have been below 42.  No complaints though.  Still top 50 for run split in the AG, but pace really fell off in the last 3 miles and I lost quite a few places in the last mile.

2:24 for time.  Can't complain as my heart seemed to work okay (didn't take my medication in the morning as that seems to really screw up any exercise afterward).  We'll see how I recover this week as I have to do it again next weekend in Bethany Beach at the Make A Wish tri!

Great job out there everyone!

^^ Congrats! Good to know you're back at it. And you almost beat the mayor!

Well, I think I accomplished my mission of making everyone else feel better about their equipment and conditioning. Not being able to do the run (PF) meant I finished my race around the same time as the elites and the cadets.

The frustration of Saturday made me nervous about how things would go on race day, but I have to say that I was impressed at their ability to manage 4500 people in a race in such a small area, especially with 86 million protesters on the Mall on Saturday.

I didn't run into any unfriendly atheletes (except the guy who spit at me on the bike, but I'll call that an accident), and quite a few very friendly and encouraging people.

And Pete...where did you go? We were chatting and turned around and you had vanished.

Recovery ride on the B&A trail today, anyone?

I've beaten him in every other race in shorter distances - often by a lot.  So that doesn't bode well for my abilities yesterday.

Yeah, sorry--I left to make a phone call, and I lost you. Of course, I think there's a 1-week window for post-race beers...

Funny you mention the protest-- Fox News was calling it 2 million protesters--there's no way in hell. They estimated 2 million for Obama's inauguration and that was filling the entire Mall with wall-to-wall people AND overflowing into the side streets. Looked like a couple hundred thousand at most.

Edited by DrPete 2009-09-14 10:21 AM

YES, pre-race is a challenge cluster-foxtrot when you throw in packing, parking, bike drop, DC traffic, political rallies, and everything else. I learned my lesson last year (finally had dinner at 10PM ughhhh) so I was pretty organized this year ... left frederick just after 1PM Saturday, and still did not make swim practice.

Did you guys see that there is an early registration process for 2010 Nation's for "alumni"? There is a link on one of the emails the race organizers sent out after the race. I registered today ... race organizers do not offer refunds, but they do offer deferrals (to following year, I guess) so I went ahead a dropped the $160 for next year.

Also, early registration is offered to 2009 race alumni only, but I bet anyone could follow their nose and figure out how to register...

And I think Columbia has a new mid-summer sprint on the IG course starting next year, right? Anybody heard this? So that makes Frederick 1/2M, Columbia, Eagle, Rocky Gap Xterra, Columbia Sprint, and Nations. For Nation's I gotta get faster on the bike. 19.1MPH is poking compared to you guys. 364 days to go....

On a side note, I'm loving the claims that there were 2 million people on the mall for that tea party thing. I think the final estimate was 1.3 million for Obama's inauguration and the entire downtown was crippled. This went on like it was no big deal.

The only reason I did Nations was because Gu (my one sponsor) gave me a free entry.  I wouldn't have done it otherwise.  But it was not a bad race and was a decent course and I think they handled the large amount of people fairly well.  I'd recommend it to anyone interested.  Just wouldn't pay out the kind of dough to enter it!