Timberman Sprint

Actually, they kind of posted results (the searchable version) but not sure when or even if they post the full results of the sprint.  It seems like they don't spend a lot of time on the sprint logistics post race. 

I liked the "check out stand" where you could give your number and get a time and overall standing for each leg though.

Me too. Overall, it was a great race and I was surprised that 1464 participants entered. I had no idea that race was that large. I look forward to it next year except I hope they don't force us to register on a Friday again.

The Friday registration is par for the course for Ironman events.  I wonder if they are trying to phase out the sprint because it is a pain to get up there and register and have to stay over the night before for a sprint, not to mention it's $$$.

But I do love the venue and it's a great course.  I'm lucky to have a cottage up there so it's my weekend training ground, so I imagine I'll be doing the sprint or the half as long as they keep coming back.

Anyone else notice the swim being long?  Like, REAL long? 

It's impossible to really sort the results right now but there were just 26 sub-9 swimmers this year, whereas last year there were 232 sub-9 swimmers.  I was 53rd in the swim (9:30), last year 53rd would have put me at 7:37, which is almost exactly what I was expecting.  It was an absolute shock coming out of the water and seeing 9:XX on the clock, my family spectating said they saw me shake my head as I came out of the water. 

I can see a swim being off a little, maybe 20m, give or take.  But based on a 7:37 to 9:30 split at ~1:34/100m, we're talking about 120m long, that's HUGE.  It bothered me the whole race and even after getting the results I was pissed about the swim, couldn't figure out why it was so poor...turns out it was just an incredibly long course.  Anyone else see this with their times?

Yes, the swim was long this year.  Last year, we walked out to almost where the first buoy was this year.  Last year the lake level was way lower, so maybe this year was the "typical" distance, I don't know.  But I swam a 10:23 at 2:08/100 per the official results, and I know from feel that my actual pace was quite a bit faster than that.  Everyone was 1.5-2 minutes slower overall this year.  FWIW, the timing mats were in different places as well.  Last year the bike mat was where you mounted, this year it was where you left transition.

Your swim time was smoking anyway, so the longer the swim the better for you!  And if I read your results right, it couldn't have bothered you much since you won your AG.  Awesome race.

Thanks Warren, it turned out to be a great race, my whole family's up there for the summer so I get alot of training on the course and have a huge cheering section--that always seems to help! Congrats to you as well, great time, I can only hope I'll be that fast in another 18 years!

Anyway, glad to hear others had the same feelings about the swim, looking at results it seemed something was way off but I wasn't sure if other people were way behind their swim expectations as well.

If your overall time was the same as last year, you should have placed much higher.   I think for those who are pretty seasoned and not making dramatic yearly improvement, times were about 1 1/2 minutes slower this year so add 1:30 to last year's time and see where that would have put you this year, or take 1:30 off this year and see where that would put you last year.

Short course nationals were the same weekend, so some may have gone to that.  Though the very top was the same as last year (I think the same guy won), it does seem like a lot of that next tier didn't show up this year.

Having never entered this race before this year, I can't compare it to previous years but I, too, felt the swim was long.

My normal 0.25 mile time in the pool is around 7:45. My swim time for this race was 11:30 which put me 310 of 1464 overall and 41 of 189 for my age group. But to go from 7:45 to 11:30 for only a 0.05-mile distance increase didn't seem plausible.

I was really psyched about that time, though, as it's only my 4th OWS ever and I'm making huge improvements in swimming.

I had the exact opposite problem in the Clough Tri. My normal 1/2 mile pool time is 16:22-ish yet the Clough 1/2 mile time was 14:12. The Clough distance must have been shorter than 1/2 mile. Given that, should I be psyched I shaved 6:47 off the 0.50 mile time from last year??? I'm going with "heck ya!" on that!