Michigan's Triathlon and Duathlon Championship (Page 2)

i am planning to do the spooky sprint du. you tellin me kensington's hills are huge????? i am new to this but it takes me 55 minutes to do the ride at plra. i can usually ride about 16 mph and this course was tough for me. maybe the kensington race is too tough...

thanks. i am excited and look forward to the feeling of accomplishment as i cross the finish line.

Kensington has some steep hills but they're not huge. The weather at that race last year was perfect and the foliage was great. If you get a chance to drive through the park before the event then do so. The run course is mostly flat. There is one hill at the end as you turn into the Maple Beach area but other than that the run course is nice with some paved path and a lot of grass.

This is my first season of racing so I haven't done the Great Pumpkin. Just checked out the website and it looks like a good race so I may sign up for it yet.

The hills at Kensington aren't too tough, but definitely some of the tougher ones I've ridden around here. As a comparison, I did the OLY bike loop at PLRA in 84 minutes, carrying an avg speed of 17.6. I do the Kensington sprint loop in about 45 minutes carrying an avg speed of 16.5. So it's not too much different than this course, but there are a few hills there that will make you work!

The nicest thing about the Carl's Family tri run course was that the last 1/2 mile was down hill!

thanks for the info. assuming i survive the race tomorrow i will start training at kensington.
molly

Stopped by and picked up my race bag.

Bib# 321
Will be set up in the third bike rack from the Bike In/Out on the Oly side. I've been getting good spots for the bike in/out all year. Hopefully I'll remember some of your descriptions.

Old Guys 40+ Olympic will be starting things off at 9am! I enjoy being in the first wave. Didn't pay attention to the rest of the waves, but the Olys then sprints, with the last wave starting around 9:40 something or another.

did you see totals? How many Oly, how many Sprints, how many Dus? I'm just trying to get an idea jusrt how many crazy people will be out there with us freezing in the morning.

Also, just curious.. do you know the other wave sections? Are they just age by event or are they also splitting us up by gender?

thx!

bib #76 for me and not a bad placement in the transition area either. nice for a newbie.
there are several waves. all the long course men first, i didn't notice if the long course women go then too or not, then sprint women by age (<35 then >35y) then men then relays.
the water felt warm but the air was really cold. too bad we can't tri in our parkas
good luck!

So, how did the race go. I couldn't join you guys --too far a drive with the fam and the race bank acct is down to two nickels. Gotta save for next year. It was SOOOO COLD over hear in GR-area --how was it for the race --interested to hear!


Edited by grlawguy 2007-09-16 11:36 AM

MollyO, I saw you on the return leg of your run as I was heading out on the Oly run. You looked as though you were working hard and concentrating and I was just trying to stay alive and working on a PR, or else I would've made an arse of myself and said hi, and you would've thought I was a lunatic

The race wasn't to bad, but it was a cold morning. Had lite frost on my windshield when I left home at 6:30. My biggest shock was how much the water had cooled off in just a week or so. I thought the lake would hold the heat a little better, but I guess the cool air temps affected it more then I realized. It was probably the coldest swim I've done since Lake Huron in June, and by far my coolest tri swim ever. They said it was around 68, there seemed to be some other spots that were cooler though.

Legs were a little cold on the beginning of the bike, but didn't affect me to bad. After the first 15 minutes on the bike I didn't even notice the cool temps. Otherwise I enjoy cooler temps then the hot and humid stuff in the summer.

It was a nice event, glad I did it! Finished around 2:41 which beat my Oly race time in August by 13 minutes. Really would've liked to break 2:40, but I'll get it next year, then onto 2:35 and better.

Now for some cold Labatts and an afternoon of football, and take it easy for a few days before I even consider doing anything to exert myself.

Hoping everyone else had as good as day! It was a great finish to my year of Tris after not doing any in 17+ years.
Steve

Edited by dayooper951 2007-09-16 12:50 PM

Steve,

Thanks for the post. I wanted to do the race, but as I mentioned....

Congrats on an awesome race time!

i wished you would have said hi! i loved it. every bit of it. i had done the bike and run portions a couple of times in training and beat the pants off my training day times. the swim was another story. i was over confident since i am a great pool swimmer and within a very short time i was belly up gasping for breath. the cold water, my asthma, the wetsuit and my first time in open water all coalesced to create the first panic i have ever had in the water. i literally thought i wasn't going to make it. i slogged through for a while on my side and back and breast stroking it and finally near the end of the course could start my regular freestyle stroke again. i was out in 14 minutes and had expected to be out in 8-9 (yikes). the bike however went really well and i even passed some of the folks who had beaten me out in the water. i transitioned again and headed out for the 'run'. i walked off and on for the first half of the course and then did a slow, determined run for the rest to finish about 4 minutes faster than i had expected (i didn't have high expectations :-). overall i was thrilled with the experience and my performance. i will do these again and again. wow.

i am doing the spooky sprint in a few weeks....any takers?

glad to have my first race under my belt.
molly

Good job everyone who made it.. it sure was cold, but after the swim, it was fine! Hope everyone had fun!

I had a blast! It was my first real tri after doing several dus and now I don't know if I will du again... too much fun tri'ng. The water was chilly. Thank goodness for wetsuits. I managed to not run into any swimmers ahead of me and was able to keep a good pace/stroke. I even navigated well considering that I usually zig-zag a bit. I did head inward (where the lifeguards were hanging out) after I made th second turn but I managed to get back in formation.

The bike was good but there was a ton of traffic. Often, I had to coast behind cars trying to get around bikes.

I was in the Sprint, men 35 and over wave.... anyone else in that group hear the swimmer calling for help? He was about 30 feet behind me. I stopped and looked back. There were a few guys around him. My wife told me that the jet ski came over and gave him a tow back to shore. I hope he was ok.

I'm sure glad it warmed up and was sunny. I had brought tights to were on the bike and was glad that I didn't have to pull them over my wet legs. Getting my socks on was enough.

I haven't downloaded data from my HRM yet so I don't know what my times were.

I heard that there were about 500 people in all, from something like 17 different states and 4 other countries. Pretty cool!

Cheers and I'm glad everyone had fun!
- tom

That's awesome! Glad everyone had fun and that the course worked out! I was a little concerned about how traffic would be on the bike with that many riders. Was it too much congestion? Sounds like everyone made it though, despite the chilly temps!

Tom, what were your thoughts about the bike course compared to Kensington? Just curious if you had the same read that I did.

I'm in for the Spooky Sprint! Not much of a runner, I'd rather swim 1500 meters than run 5k, but what the heck, I should be able to tough it out! Let me know if anyone wants to go ride the course anytime soon. The website says it's going to be the same course they used for the Carl's Family Tri earlier this year. I ride that course about once a week so I'm pretty familiar with it.

Brad

Edited by bckirkland 2007-09-16 7:24 PM

Hi Brad -

Same feelings here on the bike course... rollers not hills. Kensington's hills are tougher. The only reason I came up from the aero bars on hills was because of traffic. There was a lot of vehicle congestion in some areas. Particularly where White Lake road comes into Andersonville Road. Cars 20-30 deep waiting to get through. A number of us (including me) road through most of that area on the yellow line (yes, down the middle of the road). Just had to take that area slow.

There were a number of other areas where 2-5 cars got bunched up trying to get around bikes. You'd just have to get in line with them and go around the bikes in turn. Otherwise you'd be riding alongside them and get stuck behind the slower riders until they passed them anyway.

I only did the sprint so I don't know if the traffic was an issue past that.

Other than that, the venue is great. Lots of parking close to the S/F, wide beach with clear water. The run course was also on a road but it had much much less traffic. They had plenty of volunteers and police out on the road course. There just happened to be a bunch of traffic.

i am doing the spooky sprint too and really am a slow runner.....oh well....i am going out to ride the kensington course this friday morning since i have the day off. any takers?

I'm 50-50 on doing the Spooky Sprint this year. After having done a tri, I'm not sure I want to do Dus any longer. I too am a really slow runner and I ride at Kensington often enough that the course isn't drawing me in as new experience.

Even if I don't do the event, I might be able to meet up with folks going to Kensington for a training ride.

A while back I posted a map that I made of the Spooky Sprint course. I also sent the high res version of that map to Kenny at 3D and he said he intended to use it this year. If you can't find the post here let me know and I will post it again (after I find it )

Tom, that doesn't surprise me about that traffic. It gets busy around here starting around 9:00 Sunday mornings, which kinda surprised me that they chose to start the race at 9:00 as opposed to 7:30/8:00 to avoid some of that. Maybe next year they will. I was trying to think about how they could differ the bike course to avoid that but given M-59 is just south of the park, there probably isn't a better alternative. Hopefully they get a better handle on it next year. Other than that, from what everyone has said, it was a good race which is cool!

Molly, I may be able to ride the Kensington course Friday morning. Gonna have to wait to see how the week goes before I schedule it off. I'll keep you posted.

Here is the message thread that I posted the map for the Spooky Sprint / Great Pumpkin Du. The Long course Great Pumpkin folks did two loops of the same course.

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp...

Man, I could've used that map before the Carl's Family tri, that's for sure! Nice job on that!

I agree about the traffic, but thought overall it was a great event. But, it was my first Tri so I don't have much to compare it to. Congrats to all who raced today.

The results are up on 3D's site.

http://www.3disciplines.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_vi...

that's a better map. start is at maple beach or the parking lot?