Waconia Tri!

My favorite race to love and hate :-)

Good luck!

Just to make sure you open ALL THROTTLES !!!
No resting on bike.

last weekend the waconia water was 72 but after a week of 90s might heat it up.  I am still crossing my fingers on wetsuit legal.  Although no wetsuits for all would prolly benefit my placement.  

we will see how much resting the bike gives me.  

 Similar. My parents are on the other side of Waconia so I'll be staying with them the night before. It's maybe 5 minutes away.

Waconia is a relatively large lake and usually takes a while to warm up in comparison to the other local Tris. I'm thinking we'll be fine to wear wetsuits.

For 1/2 miles, I'm thinking of going w/o wetsuit.
Not sure how many minutes it would save me vs time stripping it off.

Wear a wetsuit if the water temperature allows, no question.

A wetsuit will make you ~10% faster in the water (give or take a few percent obviously), so that's :07/100 if you're a 1:10/100 swimmer, :09/100 for a 1:30/100 swimmer and :12/100 for a 2:00/100 swimmer.  If stripping a wetsuit adds more than 10 seconds to your transition you're doing it wrong.  That puts the breakpoint for wearing a wetsuit somewhere between 100 and 200 yards for most people.

You allow only 10secs to get the wetsuit off?
That 12secs saving for 2min/100yds will be great for me.

Sure.  Strip it to the waist while you're running out of the water.  Then it's just a matter of pulling the legs off when you're at your rack.  I actually thought 10 seconds was a little conservative.  I'd bet I could do it in less, although to be honest I've never had it timed so I'm guessing a little.

Even if it takes you 30 seconds to get out of the suit, that still only pushes the breakpoint out to the ~250 yard range for most people.  And just about anybody should take way, way less than 30 seconds to get out of a wetsuit.

Do you know much about the bike course? I'd been meaning to go out and ride it, but with my schedule and the ridiculous weather, I never got there. Hilly? Flat? Thoughts?

This is my first Tri ever! You guys are freaking me out!

Swim: choppier than some lakes, even on a calm day. There were one or two years where it was pretty bad, relatively speaking. Kind of weather dependent. It's a big box (the swim course...the lake itself is a big bowl, hence the chop). On the upside, the water is often pretty warm.

Bike is rolling. Standard MN countryside. Used to be some bad pavement sections, but I think all of those have been fixed. No weird turns or jots or freaky sections.

The run is oddly difficult, IMO. Maybe it was b/c it was always ended up so it was my third race in like 13 days...but that hill at the cemetary, and then in town were just rude.

did the course last Friday - was remembering a completely different course than this one so I was UNpleasantly surprised by the hills. 

There was a bit of a headwind heading into Meyer, but then once you got on Hwy 7 you had the draft from the semi's going by until you turned off back towards the lake.  Water was 72, and not much chop at all. 

There is a detour if you're heading out west on 5 from the cities when you get to Victoria.  Allow about 10-15 extra just to be on the safe side with all the tri traffic heading out. 

Check people's race reports to get a feel for the course.

I was there in 2009...and one of the chumps who had to swim the full course :D It was stellar.

Good job today, folks!  It was nice to meet you, Tonya, as well as seeing some old friends.

Fortunately the lake was flatter than usual.  Did that make up for the tough bike and run?  Phew, it was a hot day and I was only watching.