Redmond Reporter Article on 2-Time Seafair Triathlon Winner

This article came out in the local newspaper while I was somewhere in Oregon or California.  Luckily I was able to find it in our recycling bin when I got home.

Click on the image below and it should blow up to a large enough size to read.

BRI Triathlon at Seafair

Yesterday I successfully defended my 2008 victory at the Benaroya Research Institute Triathlon at Seafair.

It was fun to get to race locally for a change – no flight, no rental car, and no packing and shipping my bike.  I got to see a bunch of friends at the race and they got to see me race for a change, too.  My dad also watched the race.  (Mom got a pass b/c she’s out of town visiting the rest of the family.)

I introduced myself to Jim and Greg Wolfe before the swim start.  One or both of them swam for UW and last year they both outswam me, so my goal was to draft a Wolfe for the whole swim.  Jim got away early – apparently I wasn’t the only swimmer who wanted to be on his feet – but I was able to find Greg instead.  We swam side-by-side to the first turn buoy and then he accelerated a bit and I settled in behind him. I was working pretty hard just to maintain contact a lot of the time but I stayed right on his feet until the final 100m and exited the water about 20 seconds faster than last year.  A good start.

I was the fastest through T1 and got on the bike first.  I put my head down and just tried to maintain the fastest pace I could.  I knew that Ben Collins’s course record would be tough to catch but I wanted to give it my best shot and see what happened.

As I slowed down for the bike turnaround at halfway I heard a disturbing sound and my front wheel started wobbling quite a bit.  My first thought was a broken spoke but the wheel was wobbling quite a bit so I jumped off the bike to check it out.  Sure enough, that’s exactly what it was.  So I jumped back on my bike and started wondering what my currently likelihood of a catastrophic crash now was.  I was still leading the race but rider #2 wasn’t all that far behind and the turnaround.  Could I soft-pedal back to transition and try to win on the run?  Would I lose another spoke the next time that I hit a bump in the road?  I tried to control my speed over the bridge as I weighed my options.  I went very conservatively down the steep, narrow trail which connects the bridge tot eh rest of the course.  I didn’t want to torque the damaged wheel too hard.  But I heard a volunteer say “nice job, guys” and assumed that meant I had company.  So I went back to working pretty hard for the last four miles and jumped off the bike with a very small lead.

I was so psyched to have made it back to transition without further mechanical issues that I really took off fast on the run.  I maintained that momentum for most of the 5k and clocked a sub-17-minute split, which is my best yet at Seafair.  I think I was around 17:15 last year.

Splits:
Swim: 9:26, fifth behind the Wolfes and two guys in later waves.
T1: 0:54
Bike: 30:50, including the stop and the soft-pedaling. 19th. Ouch.
T2: 0:51
Run: 16:56, second behind a relay runner.

Total Time: 58:57 … about a minute and a half behind Ben’s record … maybe next year we’ll have a showdown!

There is a short write-up about the race at: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009501256_webtriathlon20.html

Full results are at: http://racecenter.com/results/2009/res_st09.htm

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

Yesterday I finally won the BRI Triathlon at Seafair after five years of trying.  4th in 2004, 3rd in 2005, 2nd in 2006 and 2007... like I said in my Lake Stevens write-up, racing locally is lots of fun b/c you see a lot more friends and family out there.  Plus since this race was part of Seafair there was a good deal of press coverage.  There are some photos on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer website, an article in today's digital and paper Seattle Times, and a short bit on yesterday's KIRO-7 newscast (I'll post a link once I can get one).

My swim felt a bit sluggish yesterday, partially due to the presence of the very fast Wolfe brothers.  I don't know them well enough to know which one was in my start wave, but he sat behind or next to me for about half the swim and then ate my lunch in the second half as he put about 20 seconds into me.  Luckily I still have those really fast ITU-inspired transitions and I started the bike in the lead.

There was a bit of a headwind on the way out so I was straining against the gear just a bit.  But this meant that the way back was really fast.  I had fun in the I-90 tunnel, greeting the oncoming cyclists with a collection of whoops and whistles...  the echo was quite entertaining.

My legs felt great on the run but my stomach was a bit disgruntled.  I think that my bike beverage was a bit too concentrated...  and perhaps my HR just never got low enough for any digestion to occur!  Such is the nature of a one-hour race...  But I kept the pedal to the floor as much as I could and finished with a respectable run split that was a touch slower than last year.

The post-race was lots of fun.  The top three guys got to do a little promo spot about Seafair for KIRO-7, and I also got interviewed for the Seattle Times article.  I felt like a real big shot!

After the adult race was over we all got treated to the PCC Kids Triathlon.  If you have never seen a kids triathlon, I highly recommend that you check one out.  Fun stuff!  It's great to see the diverse collection of bikes in the transition area.  Replace carbon wheels and aero tubing with a beach cruiser and a handlebar basket and you start to get the idea.  Some 24-inch wheels, some 20-inch wheels, some the next size down.  We counted at least ten kids keeping their bike helmets on for the run ... and a few still had their swim caps! 

Finally at the awards ceremony, we gave two of the Seattle Seahawk "Seagals" the honor of standing with me on stage for a photo op.  Lucky gals, eh?