First few turns reminded me about the course and also why it is so important to pre-ride the course (which I didn’t). I was hanging with the front guys, lost them half way through the first lap and then just blewup half way throughthe second lap. I had a headache so bad that I was straining my eyes to focus on the down hills. One of the guys in my group fell here and broke his helmet. He is okay, but a reminder as to why we wear helmets and why I needed to focus so intently on the course—nearly impossible with my head pounding. I will save you the effort. I finished 8/9 and the only guy I beat was in the med tent getting looked at with his broken helmet.
Top 10 Signs that You are finishing DFL (Dead Last) in your group (some of these I made up, some really happened to me today.)
The water hand up station is closed prior to your last lap.
When you finish, the photographers have already uploaded their pictures for purchase.
The results are posted before you finish (this actually happened today).
They ask you if anyone else is on the course when you finish.
The race organizers wonder how many course flags you picked up on your way in.
Neil Sharphorne claps and says, “way to go old timer”!
The leaves have changed and they ask if you want a hunter’s safety vest for your last lap.
Your Gel Shots shelf life expires while you are riding.
The team sponsors change during the race.
10. The end of winter party starts just as you cross the finish line.
I decided the Wednesday of race week to sign-up for the 10k race. It was my forst 10k running race and with the goal of an Olympic triathlon distance this summer it was a perfect time to see where my pace and endurance levels were at.
The morning of the race was chilly but turned out to be great once we started running. The course is fast and perfect for setting PR’s. It was great to see the team there leading us out onto the course. Just prior to the start I was able to take a picture of the team volunteer’s and thank them for coming out and volunterring their time.
The start of the race was on the Lakeview HS track. We went 3/4 of the way around the track before heading off onto the strret. As a tech consultant, I have been trained to plan “go-live’s” and I treat race days in the same manner. Pre-race checklist, estimate race time based on training times, etc. For this race, I was planning on a 9 min mile pace. In order to help me stay on pace, I set a 10k workout on my Garmin 910 to keep a pace between 9:00 and 9:05. From the start of the race my watch was alarming to let me know i was heading out too fast. I was at an 8:23 pace as i was leaving the track to head out on the road and managed to start slowing my pace.
As i made my way around the course, I was hoping I was not annoying other runners with my watch alarm. I was maintaining a a faster pace than what i had set but I was feeling comfortable and strong in the run and made it a challenge to stay under the targets I had set in the watch. As we made our way back to the HS, I got a photo opp from Nikki Elder (Thank you) and got encouragement from our team of riders.
As it turned out, I finished second in my age group. I missed the award ceremony because it was opening day for Avery’s LYA team. It was a pleasant surprise to receive a medal in the mail about a week after the event. My kids thought it was pretty cool!
Male 35 to 39
Total
PlaceNameCityBib NoAgeOverallTimePace
1 Eric Greene Battle Creek MI 159 39 2 46:15 7:28/M
2 Robby Robertson Battle Creek MI 116 37 18 53:53 8:41/M
I was anxious to see how my off-season training was going to pay off this year. 2014 officially marks my 3rd year in the world of triathlon. To-date, I have only attempted sprint distance, but with help of Adam D, Mike W. and RJ, I am aiming at an Oly this summer. Having never used a wetsuit, I decided to bypass Seahorse and “tri” the Double Time, trusting the water temps would be warm enough to go sans wetsuit.
As any team member with children will attest, finding time to train can be a challenge. I made a conscious decision to dial back some of the early morning workouts this winter (i.e. Masters Swimming) and concentrated on biking and run training. For me, I could easily hit the treadmill and rollers at home after the kids had been put to bed and it fit around my dynamic work schedule. With that said, I was a little worried about my swim time heading into the event…not from the standpoint of finishing the swim, but from a pace perspective. Pre-race, I had jitters fluttering through my head like “Please let me swim in a straight line. Remember to pick your head up and sight the buoy. Remember coach said to picture your arm reaching over a barrel and let your hand drop 6” under the water before starting your pull, etc.” As you can imagine, I was glad when the horn finally went off and all of my nerves and jittery thoughts went flying out of my head! I found my pace where I felt I was not fighting the water and my energy level was comfortable.
Once out of the water, it was a jog to the transition area making sure to avoid rocks with my tender bare feet. First transition of the year was a little clumsy as I could not, for the life of me, get my jersey on. After a quick check for shoes, helmet and sunglasses (post jersey debacle) I was off.
My goal was to avg at least 20mph on the bike. That quickly went out the window as my Garmin 910 was only displaying my overall time in the multisport mode so I decided to just go by feel but lucked out finding another rider to pace/race with. The roads were surprisingly smooth so it was easy to get into a good cadence. I dropped into the aero bars and began playing a game of “leap frog” with the other rider. Each time we leapt passed each other one of us would shout something positive to the other which was fun! While we were not racing under USAT rules, I still purposefully avoided drafting 1) because I thought it would be good practice for any USAT sanctioned races this season and 2) in my mind it seemed more like “fair play” to avoid the draft in a race. We caught a few riders on our way around the course (again I tried to say something encouraging as we passed by…probably a Pavlovian response I have picked up from Trizelle training). I had to keep a mental check not to drop into heavier gears as I knew I would have nothing left for the run if I did.
A quick check of my overall time on the way in from the bike and at 45 mins, I realized I was not going to make my goal time I had set for myself. Once I was off the bike, my legs were feeling heavy but I tried to keep my biking partner in my sites for as long as I could. In my mind, I was sure I was running a 10 min/mi pace. Just when I started wondering where the turn-around was, I got a mental break when a road raging motorist started honking his horn and yelling at all of the runners on the course with expletives and in no-uncertain-terms, to get off the road. To be honest, it was nice to think about something other than how tired my legs were getting. As I neared the finish, a quick glance at my watch gave me the inspiration to pick up the pace. I finished in 1:12 which was a PR by at least one minute.
Post-race, I got to explain the jersey to Cara Smith from Trikats. She had seen the jersey’s at events but my team training kicked in and I explained what WSI stood for and and snuck the jersey into a Trikat team photo. Turns out, I knew my bike course pacer. It was Scott Miller from Agility Physical Therapy (turns out we had done the same sort of thing at the Cereal City Tri last year). My race time breakdown is pictured below.
Melting Mann March 9th 28/14 mile Gravel Road Race
Dilan and I started the race year out on a very cold day in March at the Melting Mann race. I did the 28 mile loop and finished 6th of about 25 guys or so in my bracket. Dilan dominated the youth field and beat most of the adults on the 14 mile course.
Dwight and I raced Potato Creek on Sunday 06/01/2014. It is one of our favorite mountain bike trails. (Potato Creek is located in North Liberty, IN. about 12 miles southwest of South Bend) It is fast flowing single-track with about 8 miles of fun whoop-di-doos and rock gardens. It also flows through open fields and has some fast, sandy corners that can be challenging! I love it because there really is not any climbing!
We arrived a good hour and a half early to cheer on Cylone and warm up. During our warm up Dwight couldn’t resist the concrete drainage ditch on the down hill and needless to say he had a couple scrapes starting the race.
Dwight per-race scrapes…April Parrish and Dwight Denisiuk My pre-race jitters…
We raced sport class so we had 2 laps, approximately 16 miles with temperatures in the 80’s. Believe me, you felt every degree when we hit the open field and there was just sun and sand!
I did my usual mingling before the race but was disheartened that one of the girls who I raced against at Bendix seemed to completely snub me when I said “hi.” Maybe she didn’t hear me or was having a bad day, but oh well, I guess I was there to race and not chit-chat (besides, that got me a little fired up and eager to hit the trail). There were only four of us racing Sport women, the official category has ages from 0-99, but out of us girls, we were 19-40 yrs. I was the oldest and these chicks all had 29-inch tires! Out of the girls, I had my eye on who I thought would be the strongest rider, so my strategy was to let her lead and hopefully wear her out or try and keep up!
We took off as a pack through winding, grass fields before we hit the single-track. To my surprise, there was more screeching of brakes through the downhill than what I would have expected with the caliber or women that were racing that day, but oh well. Entering the single-track I was sitting in third place. I knew the racer in front of me and she made the first move and asked to pass the lead rider. I chimed up to make that two passing! Well the leader got over to let one of us through, but that was not me! Her bike came back on the trail and ended up cutting me off. I asked her three more times to pass, finally I said, “I need to pass! You might be stronger on the hills but I have better technical skills.”
We reached a sandy climb enough for both of us to go through and of course everyone knows you do not take the middle of a sandy climb right? Well… she went up the middle and I called, “on your left” she reared to the left. I was forced to the left, just skimming a tree stump. I have never been so fired up during a race before, so that really got me going!
YAY! This race I remembered to look ahead while going through the rock garden ~ improvement!
A little while later I saw the winner and gave her a shout out that she was awesome and rocking the trail. I counted 15 second from her spot but that must have fueled her, because I didn’t see or hear her again! I came in second but excited to report… I beat the next closest rider by 8 minutes! I guess in this case, my little tires were helpful on the corners.
~ April Parrish
April Parrish~ 2nd place
Dwight Denisiuk ~ rocking his kilt on the podium…
Dwight had a great race as well; he came in 2nd place single speed. It is hard to beat the locals, but we give them what we got!
