Dirty Tri 5/21

[jodemeister]

Thinking of doing this one next. (http://www.uphillproductions.com/DTDefault.html) The Canyon Park venue is great for this as you never leave the peninsula it's located on. I hear the Madrone trail is a lot of fun too.

Info from Trifind.com:

Sunday, May 21, 2006 ::: Canyon Lake, Texas: The Dirty Tri
The Dirty TRI ::: Swim 1500 meters, Mountain Bike 14 miles, Trail Run 6.2 miles
Dirty TRI Sprint ::: Swim 750 meters, Mountain Bike 7 miles, Trail Run 3.1 miles
Start Time: 8:00 am
Location: Canyon Park, Canyon Lake, TX
Phone: (512) 797-7581
email: elena@uphillproductions.com
Register On-Line At: uphillproductions.com
# Course Info: Off Road Triathlon SWIM: The open water swim section will take place in Canyon Lake
# BIKE: The trail is about 7 miles in length with lots of tight turns, some gentle climbing and some rocky sections. It crosses the main road on several occasions and also weaves through the many primitive campsites on the peninsula. The trail is not overly technical but it is not a fast ride either.
# RUN: The run course will hit the more technical portions of the trail, then head north along the shoreline of the lake. Be prepared for anything on the run course!

[joetoeclips]

For the dirty-tri, the trail is ridden backwards from the "normal" direction

[druber]

Hmmm....

Pretty good chance I'll join you on that one. That seems more up my alley with an mtb/trail-run rather than roadie stuff.

Olympic distance?

[jodemeister]

Hmmm....

Pretty good chance I'll join you on that one. That seems more up my alley with an mtb/trail-run rather than roadie stuff.

Olympic distance?
That's what I was thinking. The swim wasn't bad at all.

And how many MTBers do you know that like swimming and running competitively?

It's been my experience in adventure races and dirty dus that you get a lot of inexperienced MTBers doing these things. So your chances of a good result go way up if the trail is a little technical. The biggest issue is getting past them on singletrack.

Of course I'm conveniently ignoring that I suck at running.

[druber]

That's what I was thinking. The swim wasn't bad at all.

And how many MTBers do you know that like swimming and running competitively?

It's been my experience in adventure races and dirty dus that you get a lot of inexperienced MTBers doing these things. So your chances of a good result go way up if the trail is a little technical. The biggest issue is getting past them on singletrack.

Of course I'm conveniently ignoring that I suck at running.

Yeah...getting around them is quite a challenge. Fortunately, I'm a pretty decent swimmer so hopefully I'll be towards the front going into the bike leg.

Running is definintely my weakest area. I need to work on that if I get into doing tris.

eric

[jodemeister]

info and reg page is up now. (http://www.uphillproductions.com/DTDefault.html)

[carney]

I just might try the sprint distance for this...looking over vacation calendar now...I should have plenty of vacation for this.

heh, might scare some: from top of registration page (sprint)
The Dirty Triathlon - XTERRA USA Championship Series Race
7500m swim/7 mile mtn. bike/5k run
5/21/06 - 8:15am start

that's a LONG swim

[TechniKal]

I did this event last year. Fun and well organized, as are all of John Hill's events. The course was challenging - especially the run. It's a real 10k on real trails. The swim course was a bit long, too... I'd do the bike and run if someone wants to swim (assuming they allow relays).

[carney]

. I'd do the bike and run if someone wants to swim (assuming they allow relays).

they have registration for 3 person relay

[jodemeister]

i'm hosed - wife's gonna be out of town and i have to hang with the chilluns.

unless they want to come down to the event with me....hmmmmm...

[druber]

i'm hosed - wife's gonna be out of town and i have to hang with the chilluns.

unless they want to come down to the event with me....hmmmmm...

How old are they? Can they hang out by themselves or do they need some supervision.

If old enough, maybe they could volunteer or something.

I'm pretty excited about this event. I think it will be fun.

eric

[jodemeister]

How old are they? Can they hang out by themselves or do they need some supervision.

If old enough, maybe they could volunteer or something.

I'm pretty excited about this event. I think it will be fun.

eric
They're 13 & 15 - girls. I asked them last night about going to the event with me and they seemed intrigued. So I may do it after all.

[druber]

They're 13 & 15 - girls. I asked them last night about going to the event with me and they seemed intrigued. So I may do it after all.

My wife and daughter (2 yo) will be there. If you would like somebody to keep an eye on your kids or if they would just like somebody to hang out with, my wife would be glad to do it.

-eric

[jodemeister]

I decided not to do this - haven't been able to run much or swim at all and i'll be out of the country all next week getting back Thursday night. Jet lag and lack of training are not good ways to prep for such an event.

[druber]

Well...I am officially signed up for this tri.

Looking forward to it.

[jodemeister]

Well...I am officially signed up for this tri.

Looking forward to it.
so how'd it go?

[druber]

The race went pretty well. Here is a write-up that I emailed a friend of mine (long). If you just want the results/summary, scroll to the end.

"Sunday was race day. We woke up at 5am to drive down there for an 8am start time. The timing worked out perfectly. The race was set up so that the olympic distance (me) did two laps of each (swim, bike, run). The sprint racers only did one lap of each. Olympic starts out first.

Swim:
The water was a pretty comfortable 73 degrees. I wearing a set of tri shorts (shorts you can do all 3 events in). A bunch of people were wearing wetsuits though. Evidently they help bouyancy and make you faster. Anyway, we start off and the pack quickly separates. I was swimming right next to another guy and we were essentially tied for second. One dude just took off like the rest of us were swimming backwards (turns out he won the whole thing).

For some reason, I couldn't see anything out of my goggles. I think I got some sunscreen in them so it made everything really blurry. They were using these little yellow bouys for course markers. I could not see them at all without taking off my goggles. Instead, I just swam right with the guy next to me. About midway though the first lap, I decided that I really needed to be able to see. I stopped and took off my goggles and cleaned them out. This was a mistake because I still couldn't see the bouys with them on and now I had separated from the guy that I was swimming next to who could presumably see.

I put my goggles back on and started swimming again at this point. I was now in 3rd place, but I still had a couple of body lengths on the next guy. Unfortunately, that changed as I kept having to stop and take off my goggles to see where the bouy was. By the end of the first swim lap, the guy in fourth had caught up to me. Cortney said she could see me swimming way off course, then stop and adjust my goggles, and then start again. Anyway, with the guy in fourth caught up, things were a little easier because I just started following him. :)

So as we are coming up to the start line to begin our second lap, I hear the starting horn go off. They had just started the sprint racers! Great, now we have to swim through a pack of swimmers. For the swim, they require everybody to wear swim caps with colors indicating their race group. The sprint racers were mostly wearing yellow. So, imagine this...you can't see very well and your looking for a yellow bouy among a see of yellow swim caps. Not good.

So I'm trying to swim with the guy that I finished the first lap with. I lose him in the pack of sprint racers. I just start weaving my way through the other racers hoping that the majority of them know where the bouy is since I can't see at all. By about 2/3 of the way through the second lap, I have passed most of the sprint racers. The final stretch of the swim is the easiest because you can glance up and see throngs of people at the start/finish line so you don't have to look for a bouy. I finish fairly stongly and head for the transition area. At this point, I think I am in the 4th - 6th place overall, but I have really no idea since you couldn't see if/how many passed you in the sea of sprint racers.

Transition 1:
I'm pretty slow in the transition. There are several people that pass me while I am struggling to get my shoes on. I don't know how they go so fast there. I finally am ready to ride so I suck down a GU and head out.

Bike:
I'm huffing and puffing from the swim/transition and I start out riding really fast. I get about a mile in before I realize I need to back off. In that first mile, I pass a bunch of people that passed me in the transition plus some of the sprint folks that finished their swim before me. After easing off, I maintain a fairly constant pace. Every now and then I come across a rider, but that is fairly infrequently.

We are riding the trail backwards from the usual direction. It definitely does not flow as well in that direction. Right near the boat ramps, there are a couple of places where you make a sharp turn and immediately have to climb up some jagged rocks. If you're not expecting it (which I wasn't), it is nearly impossible to down shift, turn and make the climb. Other than those (two?) spots, I did not have any trouble cleaning everything. There were a couple of spots where fatigue/sloppiness prevented cleaning of some basic trail features, but nothing I *couldn't* do.

At the tail end of the first lap, you pop out on the road and hammer down to the transition area to cross the timing mats before heading out for the second lap. I'm glad I remembered to put replace my bashgaurd with my big ring. As I pass the the transition area, I hear Ella yelling "Go Daddy, Go!" That got me smiling.

Right at the beginning of each lap was a short steep hill. I forgot that I was in my big ring and downshifted the rear to a low gear. Somehow, this caused my drivetrain to completely lock up. I hopped off my bike, discovered the problem and quickly fixed. I ran up the hill and started off again.

The first section on the ride is the part right by the marina that had some nice embedded rock, some of which is pretty technically challenging. I had no problem getting through the technical parts, but then right at the end, I was turning and hit an embedded rock. I flipped over the handle bars. I was not injured or anything so I hopped up and started riding.

The second lap was pretty uneventful. I occasionally passed a couple slower people that were still working on their first lap. I also began to notice that my arms were getting pretty scraped up because the limbs were cut for riding the trail in the other direction.

During the bike portion, I passed a bunch of people and had one guy on a red Santa Cruz Superlight pass me. He was moving pretty quickly. I have no idea of his was doing a sprint or olympic distance.

Transition 2:
I did much better than the first transition. There wasn't anybody within minutes behind me on the bike, so I wasn't at risk of being passed. I changed shoes and grabbed a GU and a mini cliff bar and started to run. I sucked down the GU as a left the transition area. Oh yeah...Ella decided to come help me in the transition area. She crawled under the fencing while Cortney was chatting with me and Ella came running to me. Cortney quickly ran around the fencing and grabbed her though.

Run:
The run course consisted of a short loop in a field followed by a long loop on technical singletrack. Olympic distance had to do each loop twice. They had a drink station set up between the two loops plus another one mideway through the long loop. Each time past a drink station, I'd grab a cup of water and a cup of gatorade. I'd pour the water over my head and drink the gatorade. It is really hard to drink gatorade from a cup while running. I got it all over my face/sunglasses/jersey.

I was pretty tired at this point and I was just trying to keep moving. I knew I would be ok as long as I didn't start walking. I could tell that I had a pretty good lead over the next place person since nobody entered the transition area while I was in there. Still, I am a terrible runner so I knew that it wouldn't be hard for somebody to catch up and pass me.

The run was fairly uneventful. Coming out of the second loop on my first lap, the volunteer said 'looking strong' as I passed her. I told her she was being awfully generous. At that point, I felt like I was just shuffling my feet and I was only halfway done with the run.

On the first loop of the second lap, some guy blew past me like I was standing still. He was the only person to pass me during the run. I found out later that he was an olympic distance racer, but he was still on his first lap.

The finish for the run involved running up a short/fairly small hill to the finish line. At that point, the hill felt like a mountain. It seems like all races end on a hill. Why do they do that?

There was nobody within sight of me at the finish, so I just jogged it in and head for the snack station. Cold gatorade and a handful of M&Ms. Mmmm....

Results:
I ended up getting 7th overall and 3rd in my age group. I was pretty happy with that. Even with my troubles on the swim, I don't think I could have improved my position by much. I don't think I was really that close to the guy in front of me.

The guy that got 6th overall was 50 years old. I hope that I am half that good of shape in twenty years. The guy who won it all beat me by ~30 minutes. Holy crap that guy is fast. He had a 3+ minute lead over the rest of the field coming out of the swim. Turns out I was chatting with the guy before the race. I asked him if he had ridden here. He said no and asked me how it was. I told him that if he didn't do much mountain biking he might find it challenging. He replied and said he didn't do much biking at all. The bastard killed the whole field and he 'doesn't do much biking at all'. Freak. :) "

Results, including splits, have been posted since I originally wrote this email.

7/47 Overall
3/8 Male, 30-34
5/47 Swim
31/47 T1
6/47 MTB + T2
19/47 Run

Yes...I obviously have to work on my transitions and my run. Overall, I am pretty happy with the results. The time between me and the 2nd place swimmer was <1 min. I should have beaten him.

Couple of additional notes:
The guy who was the overall winner had a 7 minute lead after the swim (I actually beat him by 2:30 on the bike though :) ). The guy who passed me on the run like I was standing still maintained a 6:06 min/mile pace through rocky/hilly terrain. Given another 2 miles or so he would have passed me

I definitely want to do another one.

[TechniKal]

Great job! Being able to run the whole 10k is a huge accomplishment in an event as hard as the Dirty Tri...

[rugger]

Thanks for that update. I have been somewhat interested in the 'adventure tri' like this. I suck at running, and like biking, really see running on a road as pointless and boring, so a trail run would be a step up.

Is there a good site that lists the 'Drity Tri' type racing events.
Any good resources for preparing for such events, etc?

Thanks again, interesting read and congrats on a solid finish.

Eric

[carney]

Thanks for that update. I have been somewhat interested in the 'adventure tri' like this. I suck at running, and like biking, really see running on a road as pointless and boring, so a trail run would be a step up.

Is there a good site that lists the 'Drity Tri' type racing events.
Any good resources for preparing for such events, etc?

Thanks again, interesting read and congrats on a solid finish.

Eric

don't know too much, but there's usually a few 'dirty du's' going on (run, ride, run, on trail). this was the first 'dirty tri' i've seen since last year when I did a first tri. Really wanted to try this one (the short distance) but had medical issues keep me away from most strenuous exercise. there's tons of books about preparing for tri races but one I enjoyed and would recommend to a beginner is 'Slow Fat Triathlete' by Jayne Williams. Lot's of good info for a beginner without all the technical training stuff I saw in most other books.

[druber]

Occasionally, I peruse www.slowtwitch.com. I think there is a lot of info there, but I haven't really sifted through it all.

As for dirty tri's, the one I did is the only one I know of in Texas. There are a couple in AR and LA.

You can find more info about the xterra events at http://www.xterraplanet.com/.

After looking at the website I just posted, there is a race in two weeks in Arkansas. Find info here http://www.dltmultisport.com/DLT2006/DAWG/.

If somebody wanted to head up there, I'd consider splitting gas/hotel costs. My wife will be out of town, so I'm somewhat free to do what I want.

-eric