FastSplits Winter Triathlon

It was a qualifier for the world winter tri championship in Germany. We just went for the heck of it.
5.0K Trail Run
7.5K Mountain Bike
6.0K X-Country Ski

I managed to finish in under two hours and even beat a few other people. It's a golf course in the summer and a X-ski place in the winter. It was about 18°F when the race started and the most challenging part of the whole experience was trying to pin my number on my shirt with my fingers too cold to work the safety pins.


The running on snow wasn't bad as it was mostly packed down and even where it was not packed down it was only a few inches deep. I wore regular running shoes and had no problem.

On the other hand biking on snow was a bit hard. I had let half the air out of my tires before the race to get more traction, and I knew I would be in low gears, but that first of three laps around the bike loop was really tough. I had to dismount about 10 times on the first loop becuase I got jammed up in the snow. By the second loop I had sort of learned to manage the snow and was only off the bike a few times after that. My friend Eric is an excellent mtn biker and never came off the saddle once. I had two technical issues on this portion:

1) the cuffs of my fleece pants kept catching my bike.

2) the cap of my water bottle froze solid and I was REALLY thirsty and water station had closed when running was done. I finally unscrewed the whole top and drank out of it like a cup as much as I could while riding an easy section and then threw it away. I was quickly thirst again but just had to tough it out the last hour of the race.

I got smoked on the X-country ski portion. I need to actually learn to do it. People were effortlessly ski-skating past me while I was laboriously poling myself along. I can ski-skate on downhill skis but every time i tried it on the x-c skis I just stumbled. Need to learn that kind of thing before the race starts.


The course was flat and not scenic. I finished in 1:43 which was about an hour after the winner. So maybe I missed the party but from what I could see of the apre-ski scene it was bagels, bananas, and some brownies and since we were all soaked with sweat and it was freezing cold out people didn't stick around. If there was an awards ceremony I didn't see it. Also they didn't post the times for us to see, though they did get them online fast. I might do it again if can learn to x-c ski fast.

Last three races

Since Greenfield I did these three races:

1. DW Field Kayak Tri in Brockton, MA
2. Mud, Sweat, N Gears offroad duathlon in Ashland, MA (2nd time here)
3. and today I did the Tully Lake Kayak Offroad Tri in Royalton, MA

The kayak tri's were a blast. They were both in beautilful locations. I will definitely try to get to both of them next year. The Tully one was incredible. It was very long, bigger than a sprint race. It was all offroad with single loop kayak, single loop run, and single loop 7.5 mile ride. Today was their first annual. I did it in about 3:02. The run and ride were very technical. It was unusual doing the ride last, after the run, but it was necessary for some logistical reason. I have several blisters on my hands from the 5 miles of kayaking, which included pulling my kayak over a beaver damn. I drove up with Jordan whose bike seat broke a few miles from the finish line but he did okay anyway. We rented kayaks from Rodney at Flaggs Fishing in Orange... very cheap and they delivered and retrieved them. But they were wide, slow kayaks and somehow I need to find a faster boat for next year.

I have pictures from all these races here.

Greenfield Lightlife Triathlon

Green River Triathlon, my 1st INTERNATIONAL* distance race.

Up at 4am, shower, fill water bottles, raisin bran, apply sunblock (in the darkness of night!) put equipment in the car. I was already completely packed and my bike (an old Univega 10-speed with the clipless pedals from my Mtn bike) was alread on the bike rack and ready to go. Brought a cup of tea to drink on the ride.

4:45am on the road. No traffic at all and drove fast the WHOLE way, 2 hrs on mass pike and I91. Very easy and pleasant drive as the sky got bright.

Arrived with enough time to park, register, set up transition area, get in line for the head, and do a test swim in the river. It was warm and I put on my shortie. There was a sprint and Long race. they started together. The sprinters did shorter part of the river, less laps on the bike course, and had thier own run course. Both races started together at the same time, same place, which seems weird but worked out well.

Swim 0.63 miles,

There was the usual chaos but since we started chest deep and the water was clear and shallow it was very safe. Actually it was too shallow my fingers were hitting the bottom in certain parts which I did not like. Some racers used their feet on the bottom at certain parts which pissed me off. I did my best to swim a straight line but the river curved and so did I. There were several 'waves' grouped by colored swim caps but I couldn't tell how I was doing during the swim. Too much splashing. The whole area is green grass, no sand anywhere, which made the first transition very simple. I thought I swam well and was surprized to get to T1 and see most of the Long bikes were already GONE! What the !!!!??? these guys are fast!

Lessons learned: Swim faster

bike 30 miles,


The bike was four laps of a 7.4 mile loop. It had some huge hills. At one point we go over a covered bridge by a beautiful dam followed by a super steep switchback road. My old ten speed does not have a very low gear so this hill was torture. I wanted to ride the whole thing no matter what and refused to walk my bike up this nasty hill all four times but I think it may have cost me in overall time. I had to stand on the pedals which wears me out fast. I've never biked more than 13 miles before so this was a challenge. I got through it but it is clear to me that I REALLY need to do some long road biking if I am to ever do this race again. I suspect a better bike wouldn't hurt either. I had a baseball cap under my helmet and regretted that every time I went fast enough to crouch into an aero position. The brim blocked my view! When I started the 4th lap I saw people running ALREADY! Again, what the !!! ???

Lessons learned: No visor, or use removable visor. Also pin my number wider across my shirt or it becomes a little parachute. I need some long ride training.

run 7.2 miles.

Yikes, this is a long run. The scariest part was that it was the SAME course as the bike trail. So I had to do the bridge hill AGAIN... on FOOT! I managed to run the whole thing but again, it may have been smarter to have walked the hill. I pushed really hard to pass some guy the last couple of miles but it turned out he wasn't even in my age group. My back hurt the whole run, especially at the begining. This never happened to me before but another racer told me she had the same thing that day and it has nothing to do with running and that it was actually caused by not being used to long BIKE rides. I guess biking uses some back muscles. Who knew? Right before the race an experienced racer saw I had no socks and said that's fine for a sprints but i'd get blisters in the Long race. By mile 5 I could feel the inside of my right foot starting to chafe away. I won't make that mistake again.

Lessons learned: Wear socks. Don't drink TOO much water on the bike cuz you have to carry that in you for the run.

I finished in 3:33:35 . Smooth sailing the whole way. Not to say it was easy. It was NOT. But the weather was decent (hot but dry) and there was water and gatoraid available frequently and people offering to hose us down as we went by. And none of my equipment malfunctioned. The scenery was beautiful and even in the exhaustion of the race I still noticed how nice that was.

I placed towards the very end (of the people that managed to actually finish) and was surprized by that. I thought I would do a little better. Then I found out that the Long race was actually the CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP race. Which explained why my competitors had uniforms on. The non clubbers were probably expected to do the Sprint race. These guys were WAY out of my league. I got trounced by the other 46-49ers but I beat a couple of younger guys and that always makes me feel good. The bike picture above shows the medal we all got. It says "To finish is to win". So I won. Where's my cash prize?

My goal was to finish un-injured and, if possible, to not walk my bike or walk during the run portion at all and I did all that. I enjoyed the race and would do it again (maybe not if its' the club championship, though). It was well run and this is their 24th year doing it.


Post race

I ate some lasagna and drank water and watched the awards ceremony. I convinced some club directors to promote our Hale race in exchange for a registration discount.

I was so tired it was hard to drive back. I spend some quality time with my backyard hammock and just chilled the rest of day. I managed to stay awake til 9:30 pm.


* I thought this was an 'OLYMPIC' distance race but it turns out the bike and run are way too long and the swim is too short. So they call this an 'International' or 'Long' triathlon.

Cohasset Triathlon

1st pic: Pics from Capstone. 2nd picture: That's me in the blue shirt in the center. 3rd is us trying to look like the winners, 4th pic is the super-nice banner I was greeted with from the kids when I got home.
5th pic is Eric,



I did the Cohasset Tri this morning. I've done some tri's and duathlons but they were all offroad. This was my first road triathlon. I went down there with Eric who also had not done one. There were 700 people and it was very well organized, which was impressive since today was the first time they have had the event.



The 1/4 mile swim was not what I expected. I thought it would be ice cold ... in the low 60's or so, but it was much warmer. I didn't really need a suit but wore my shorty for the bouyancy. Most people wore full suits covering arms and legs, which were un-needed and cost them time at t1. The guy next to me sprayed Pam on the outside of his suit ankles so it would peel off faster. The difficulty in the swim was from the chop and all the swimmers. They had 6 mass starts; 3 for men, 3 for women, by age. I was in the 2nd group and started at the back of the center of the pack. There was the usual tussle in the beginning but not bad. After rounding the 2nd and last buoy I got boxed in by swimmers and had one guy practically swimming right over the top of me. I probably kicked him ten times but he still didn't seem to realize i was there and kept interfering in my stroke. Maybe he was also boxed in. I finally had to breast stroke for a few seconds and let him pass. The whole swim was rough in that i could not get a good stroke going and kept inhaling water. This despite practice swimming in the ocean three times in the past month.

The transitions were made easier by the fact that there was plenty of room between bikes. It felt strange to do transitions in a parking lot since i'm used to doing it in the sand. I used a water bottle to spray the sand off my feet.

The 12.5 mile bike was smooth, from Cohasset to Scituate to Hingham and back. We shared the road with cars at many points but there were cops and volunteers everywhere doing a great job. The bike course is smooth and mostly flat, with mile markers. I used my mtn bike with road tires and I was passed by a few road bikers and passed a couple myself. I passed a few mtn bikers as well. I was passed by a few elite women who had more than made up for the 10+ minute headstart us guys had.

T2 was a peice of cake, needing only to drop my helmet and gloves, and swap from bike shoes to running shoes.

Now the run. Man i was beat, my left calf was cramping badly and I had to stop and stretch it for 30 seconds after running a 1/4 mile. I jogged the whole 5k at a steady and not too fast pace. It was brutally hot. Some water station was actually giving out some sicky sweet drink that seemed like they were playing a trick on us. I tried to go faster several times but just didn't have it in me... just stayed the course til the end and ran hard the last 1/4 mile and it definitely hurt.

My time was about 1:28, putting me in the middle of the pack (I'm happy about that believe me) and Eric was about 1:15 and finished in the top 100. All in all a very good race. I grew up in Cohasset and it was nice be doing something like this there.

Race results are here.

I just heard that someone died during the race during the swim. I didn't realize any of that during the race or the after-race awards. That is really sad.

Some races coming up for 2007

Here's what's caught my eye so far. Most of the tri's are on-road but none of them are pool swim:

6/24/07 I REALLY wanted to do the Garnet Hill Xterra. Also, the Webster on-road Tri is the same day. However, I have conflicting plans and will be drinking beer on a beach in Maine that weekend.

7/8/07 Cohasset Tri sold out but I put my name on the waiting list and after a few days got in! -- Update: Did it, time was ~ 1:28 !

7/15/07 Old Colony Tri (road tri. olympic distances)

8/11&12/07 This is the Stoaked off-road tri weekend. They have kids, sprint, and Xterra races. Xterra distances are basically the offroad equivalent of Olympic distances.

9/9/07 Of course I'll be doing the Hale off-road triathlon on 9/9 and my kids will be doing the Youth version of the race later the same day. The Hale people are great and I help them out with some of the tech stuff like online registration and such. It's a really fun race for off-roaders or families.

9/16/07 Dover Sherborn onroad tri

9/23/2007 Jordan brought my attention again to the DW Fields Tri in Brockton, a 14.5-mile bike , a 1.7-mile canoe/kayak, and a 10K run. There is no swim.

9/30/07 I did the Mud, Sweat, and Gears off-road Duathlon last year. Will do it again definitely.

10/28/2007 onroad Halloween Wrentham Tri

I'll probably tweak this list as I actually decide what i'm going to do. Please email me (or better yet POST) and feedback you have on these races.

Myles

More kinds of races

Haven't written in a year but just in case anyone is still checking or has an RSS feed...

Doing exclusively off-road sprint tri's has been too limiting, especially since there is only one in Massachusetts and probably four in all of New England. You can double those numbers if you include duathlons and Xterras but it's still just too narrow. So, I decided to widen things up a bit and look at other kinds of races. I've already done two 10K races. Not trail running just plain old 10K's on the road. I did the Cohasset 10k about a month ago and the Ramble 10K in Dedham, Ma a couple of weeks ago. It's not the same as running in the woods but you know what, it's not that bad. Also it gives me a chance to run with my wife since she's been doing 5k and 10k's for years. Yes she kicks my butt out there but hey, I'm new at this.

I'm also looking at xterras, mtn bike races, on-road tri's whatever. Know of a good race? Let me know. This year there are some GREAT new sites for finding events and such. You are no longer limited to FIRM and Active's crappy sites. Here are some innovative sites:

runningInTheUsa.com (fantastic site for all kinds of racing events)

mapmyrun.com (aka mapmytri.com) (clever and improving rapidly)


triMapper.com (very clever site. Allows search by type of tri including off-road vs. on-road. But poorly maintained)

OneMillionRevolutions.org (I stumbed on this one while looking at the Cohasset Tri site. It seems to have all the USAT sanctioned races mapped out. You can search by state and date. Lots of local tri's in there!)


I've added these links to the right margin of this page quasi-permanently.

Off-road multisports in MA 2006

Note that there are hardly any off-road multisports in New England. The only one's I've found so for 2006:

• 7/23 ME Thompson Lake Xterra .8k swim,20k bike,5k run
• 8/12 NH Long Trail STOAKED Xterra .5mi Pond Swim, 8.5K MtnBike, 4K Trail Run
• 9/10 MA Kids2Camp race at Hale in Westwood (which I am helping organize)
• 9/23 MA New Balance thing in Douglas*
• 10/1 MA Mud Sweat N' Gears Duathlon in Ashland

*I think you'd need to do the Friday training camp too if you don't know anything about navigation.