Jeremy started out with the fast guys and tried to hang on. He looked down for his first mile and saw 6:03. Yikes! He was back to T1 pretty fast, even faster than I'd anticipated.

Standard relay du T1. Incoming runner holds bike; outgoing cyclist grabs chip. Final Stretch got new chip straps and the velcro is strong. Hard to get them off.

Nothing really.

I jumped on the bike and it was on! I thought (and I was wrong) that I was the first relay bike out of T1, so I wanted to open as big a lead as I could. Not really knowing much about our competition was kind of tough. I figured that Steve, the guy I'd talked to about cyclocross, was going to be a threat since he looked like a serious cyclist, so I didn't want him to catch me too early. The first two women passed me about 4 miles out and many people passed me on the whole ride. Not like last year when I was making up time from my slow run. This time I was out with the fast people. The wind was annoying going out, but I knew that it was at my back so I would have to battle it when we turned around. I was right. Wow, the wind and the spray off of the very-close semi's was pretty dangerous. Around mile 9 the guy in front of me (maybe a quarter mile up) was thrown off the road. He thought he caught the edge of the road, but it looked like a gust hit him just the wrong way and the bike whipped out from under him. Crazy! He did finish, although with lots of blood. That made me ride a bit more cautiously from there on in. Still, I was trying to beat my goal and last year's time, so I kept hammering away at it. In truth, I was pretty glad to see the last stretch of road into T2.

Not much. Not sure I could have gone any harder.

Muddy mess coming into T2, so I stopped instead of jumping off. Then had to jump the river separating the course from transition. Standard du relay T2. Incoming cyclist tries not to pass out; outgoing runner grabs chip and dashes out.

The course was wet and slippery. Hard to run fast when the feet are sliding around. Jeremy was in that dead zone between the fast people and the rest of the field so he was by himself for a good deal of this run. He finally caught up to a guy and they sprinted it out at the end for a great finish. If the line had been another 500 ft, Jeremy would have passed him. Still a great job for our runner!

Nothing.

I took the bike back while Jeremy was running, so we didn't have to worry about anything after he finished. Then I stood around and chatted. Didn't have to wait long to see him finish. After that, we found some food. Mario had the good planning sense to bring some veg burgers to put on the grill which saved us from eating mustard and relish on a bun like last year. Then we stood around for another hour or so until awards. It was a lot of standing around. Jeremy and I ended up 2nd in the relay division, beaten out by 2 young (but pretty cool) dudes. I'm good with that since there's no way I'm going to be faster on the bike than some young guy. TriRochester had a great showing with many top 3 finishes. Way to go, everyone!

Falls Du Club Results 30 April, 2011
Individual Overall (of 141) AG Place
John Freemore 13 3/15
Andrew Galbus 26 3/9
Linda Griebenow 100 4/9
Dan Harke 10 1/10
Marie Harke 44 2/13
William Hogan 72 6/7
Katharina Hopp 41 1/13
Dawn Johnson 112 8/8
Kelly Manship 99 9/13
Mario Minelli 4 1/7
Kelle Peterson 49 3/13
Laura Wyttenbach 70 3/8
Relay Teams Overall (of 13 teams)
Pattie & Jeremy Ekman 2
Josh & Melissa Weigel 5



Crappy weather again.


Good job, Final Stretch! Love the big mile marker flags on the bike course. I'm not sure how you got them to stay upright, but they were pretty cool. Nice to see Denise and Steve today too!