ShawnB
07-19-2009, 08:51 PM
The last Olympic I did was Black Diamond in 2005, so I was looking forward to trying the distance again.
Overall, I give the ChelanMan events a thumbs up. This year it was blazing hot but the Half IM folks took the brunt of that - man they get the Tough Guy awards! That aside, detting up to Chelan for a weekend in July just isn't that bad. :)
ChelanMan is one of these grab bag events - they have a sprint, a tri-it, an oly, a half, a 5K, a 10K, and half marathon going between Sat and Sunday. So even though the tris aren't that big, there are people everywhere. This time in bright yellow tech-t's.
The race organization was pretty good, no complaints there.
The main plus from this race though is the SWIM. Oh, man, what a dream. And, really, for a guy with a cycling background and suspect swimming skills, I never thought I'd say that. Unbelievablely clear water, and a buoy line the whole way. Just put your head down and go for it.
Anyway, they send us off and I start swimming along. Where did all these people come from? The "1500m" memo didn't seem to get out to a lot of these guys because they went out really fast and then kind of came to a screeching halt. With the clear water though, it was much easier to navigate than most races - I could actually pick lines to squeek through. This made the swim go fast as I just picked my way up the line around people the whole way. When we caught the slower Half IM swimmers, again it was nice to be able to spot them from a ways away and decide how much room they needed. :) I was 25th-ish out of the water.
I spent the usual time doing the GET OFF ME dance with my wetsuit. I used to be good at T1.
Chelan has a nice Oly bike course. No real climbs but very rolling which makes it hard to get into a rhythm. But it's over quick. Someday I'll figure out how to get rolling better - getting warmed up and comfy is always a struggle. At the turn around, it looked like I was about 6 minutes down on the lead guys. Geez. I was about 15th at that point and there was a pack of 5 or so not too far ahead of me so I made that my goal. When I caught one guy he decided I was his ticket back. I let him know that I was okay riding by myself and he can hang back a bit. That seemed to fix the problem.
Finally, out to the run, which starts out with kind of a nasty climb then heads out pretty much flat on the bike course. I had put in an order for 6:30 miles, but unfortunately 6:30s were all out of stock and I had to roll 6:50s instead. At this point the Half Marathon was rolling so there were lots of runners out there. Figuring out who was part of my race helped keep me busy. At the turn around, I had counted 10 people ahead of me - which seemed right based on the bike. I caught 2 more guys, got passed by one guy, and then passed by the girl who won the woman's race (Kim Pancoast) like I was standing still. It was just starting to get high 80s when I finished, I was glad to be done when I was.
Anyway, I must have thought some of the folks were Half Marathon people because I ended up 14th overall, and 3rd in M35-39. That works just fine.
Dad did great as well - coming in under 3 (2:57), exceeding his expectations across the board, and having a great time - and getting 3rd in his AG as well! He's locked and loaded for Troika. It was a lot of fun to race with him.
And as always, it was great to see fellow VO2'ers out there as well. Looking forward to Troika!
Overall, I give the ChelanMan events a thumbs up. This year it was blazing hot but the Half IM folks took the brunt of that - man they get the Tough Guy awards! That aside, detting up to Chelan for a weekend in July just isn't that bad. :)
ChelanMan is one of these grab bag events - they have a sprint, a tri-it, an oly, a half, a 5K, a 10K, and half marathon going between Sat and Sunday. So even though the tris aren't that big, there are people everywhere. This time in bright yellow tech-t's.
The race organization was pretty good, no complaints there.
The main plus from this race though is the SWIM. Oh, man, what a dream. And, really, for a guy with a cycling background and suspect swimming skills, I never thought I'd say that. Unbelievablely clear water, and a buoy line the whole way. Just put your head down and go for it.
Anyway, they send us off and I start swimming along. Where did all these people come from? The "1500m" memo didn't seem to get out to a lot of these guys because they went out really fast and then kind of came to a screeching halt. With the clear water though, it was much easier to navigate than most races - I could actually pick lines to squeek through. This made the swim go fast as I just picked my way up the line around people the whole way. When we caught the slower Half IM swimmers, again it was nice to be able to spot them from a ways away and decide how much room they needed. :) I was 25th-ish out of the water.
I spent the usual time doing the GET OFF ME dance with my wetsuit. I used to be good at T1.
Chelan has a nice Oly bike course. No real climbs but very rolling which makes it hard to get into a rhythm. But it's over quick. Someday I'll figure out how to get rolling better - getting warmed up and comfy is always a struggle. At the turn around, it looked like I was about 6 minutes down on the lead guys. Geez. I was about 15th at that point and there was a pack of 5 or so not too far ahead of me so I made that my goal. When I caught one guy he decided I was his ticket back. I let him know that I was okay riding by myself and he can hang back a bit. That seemed to fix the problem.
Finally, out to the run, which starts out with kind of a nasty climb then heads out pretty much flat on the bike course. I had put in an order for 6:30 miles, but unfortunately 6:30s were all out of stock and I had to roll 6:50s instead. At this point the Half Marathon was rolling so there were lots of runners out there. Figuring out who was part of my race helped keep me busy. At the turn around, I had counted 10 people ahead of me - which seemed right based on the bike. I caught 2 more guys, got passed by one guy, and then passed by the girl who won the woman's race (Kim Pancoast) like I was standing still. It was just starting to get high 80s when I finished, I was glad to be done when I was.
Anyway, I must have thought some of the folks were Half Marathon people because I ended up 14th overall, and 3rd in M35-39. That works just fine.
Dad did great as well - coming in under 3 (2:57), exceeding his expectations across the board, and having a great time - and getting 3rd in his AG as well! He's locked and loaded for Troika. It was a lot of fun to race with him.
And as always, it was great to see fellow VO2'ers out there as well. Looking forward to Troika!