just back home from the race. according to wife, who is usually good with names, Thompson and Bentley. may take a little longer than usual to see the posted results, as there was a chip snafu. seems several of the first umpteen folks (i.e. mostly pro) came across the mat and their chip said they were someone else. Bentley was one of them I guess. some chip outfit I've never heard of...not ChampionChip. first time I've ever seen the race folks program the chips "on the fly" the morning of the race. you walked up with your race #, they tapped it into a keyboard, waved it over a magic mat, and said "you're good to go". since the snafu happened to a bunch of folks I discount the whole fat-fingering possibility. maybe it was unique to the pro ranks though. I dunno.



fast course, fast weather, fast times. new course records. don't know that they are, just that they were set. more evidence of a fast day: for as dismal as my training has been the last couple months, I had expected to call 5 flat a really good day. 4:49 is rather better than that. All hail Coach Mike Plumb, baby!


Carl

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Carl Matson

David Thompson won the men's with a new course record, Lisa Bentley the women's, also a course record. Big Zach got fourth and ran a 1:18 1/2 marathon. I'll be interested in hearing how accurate he thought the course was. I ran a 1:22, with a 1 minute pee break included, shocked the crap out of myself. It was a great day for a race.

You are correct, she didn't race. I was bummed, but I had a great day so that made up for it.

Awesome job for DKT! His breakthrough year continues!

Thompson threw down an astounding 3:51!!!! Craziness, imagine what time will do to those legs. He slaughtered the bike in a 2:06ish, somewhere just over 26mph average.

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Ride it like I stole it.

Results are posted on the Spirit of Racine website if anyone's interested.

Carl,

It affected a lot of athletes and most of the top amateurs/Elite AGers. I hope HFP figures it out. People were telling the HFP people doing the CHIPS in the morning that their # didn't match their name, etc., but the HFP staff (at the chip desk) told them that was OK.

Don't get me wrong. The race was awesome and HFP did a great job, but they need to correct the problem before the post final results.

Who bikes 2:06 and follows it with a 1:18, thats pretty sick.

There are a still quite a lot of times with no name assigned to them That's kind of sad for a race that is supposed to be the elite long course championships...

I agree with everything you said, but thought I would add a few comments.

Swim was choppier than last year and it seemed longer. I wonder if it was short last year.

Crowd support seemed a little bit better than last year. That might just have to do with the improved weather. I did like the thunder sticks that Noodles & Company gave out. It is no substitute for cow bells, but it gets the kids more involved.

Kudos to HFP for redesigning both the run and bike course. Much improved!

Aid stations had more variety, although sometimes you had to grab what you wanted. I found bananas on the bike and run. Full bananas on the bike is tough. I felt almost perverse jamming a banana into my face.

The infinit was very, very watered down. I prepared a mixture according to directions for my initial bottles and the stuff on the course tasted light-years apart.

5:06 PR on a borrowed bike(hit by a car the week before)

I would love to threepeat Racine, but I plan to be in Placid.

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Swim - Bike - Run the rest is just clothing changes.

Overall I thought it was a pretty good course. A great setting to start the race for sure and a good slog through the sand to T1. I didn't understand using Infinit since the whole premise of Infinit is that you customize it. I am a big user of it, but I thought that was a bad idea. It didn't seems to go over very well.

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http://bigisland-will.blogspot.com/

One of the bottle of Infinit I got on the bike was also very watered down, but the other two were fine. And the Infinit I got on the run was fine too. The only thing I had a problem with on the day was the plastic cups on the run. I would much rather have paper cups as they are easy to fold into a spout and get the liquid down. Other than that I thought it was a great day and a great race.

Dan

I am a aid station walker.

I had my process down. Cup of ice - cup of infinit -- combine and shake lightly. Drink and throw ice in back pocket.

The run aid station Infinit was closer than the bike aid stations, but no where near the strength of Infinit's HFP formula, which is BLAM strong.

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Swim - Bike - Run the rest is just clothing changes.

As far as the run being accurate...I am pretty sure it was b/c I felt like was running fast and not too sluggish on the run versus Muncie last weekend where I ran a 1:21 something and felt really sluggish and was battling the heat.



David Thompson is going to be a badass if he goes up to IM...he has a fast bike and is obviously a solid swimmer and runner.

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I biked the run course Saturday evening, and Sunday morning for a warm up. According to my bike computer it was within spitting distance.

Can someone explain to me why the timing chips are not given to you when you pick up your packet? This is a fairly well run race on a good course, but for the 2nd year in a row I was very disappointed and frustrated with the timing chip process. Saturday I waited in line for 45 minutes to get my race packet and then waited again for 30 minutes on race morning to get my timing chip. It would seem more efficient to me (and consistent with most races) to receive your chip when you pick up your packet. Lining up for a timing chip on race morning adds unecessary stress -- you already have to deal with setting up your transition stuff, body marking, the usual long porta potty lines and a 1 mile walk down the beach for the point-to-point swim.

HFP does that for the timing chip at all their races AFAIK - this is the first time I've seen them have any problems with it.



I arrived at registration at around 1:00 on Saturday and had no wait for my stuff - my brother-in-law did not go until around 6:00 and had to wait for an hour.

If that is how they run their races, I think it's very inefficent. This is my second experience with this timing chip process and both times it was big hassle on race morning. Totally unecessary.

never tried Infinite yet, so there was no way I was touching it yesterday. agree that the customization factor makes it a somewhat silly choice for "generic" on-course water alternative. I was happy taking drags of Carb-Boom or Gu off my flasks and chasing with plain ol' water. that and a couple of e-caps during the bike.



Carl

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Carl Matson

Do you know how long it takes to code the transponder chips to each athlete before the race? For a race of only 400, It can take hours. And then you need to take into account "bagging those chips" as well so they get to the correct athlete. That alone can take you a day to complete. I cannot even imagine doing that for I believe 1600 athletes for the 1/2 alone?

Helping out the timing crew for Ultramax events has given me a new perspective into how much time and effort goes into chip timing. Its not as simple or easy as you think. Handing out chips the morning of the race is actually more efficient and saves hours of work. I don't know why they had problems yesterday but take it easy on the timing crew. Its the most stressful job to have come race day...

Other races seem to think it's worth the extra time. If it was really worth doing it the HFP way, the huge marathons would do it that way to...imagne the savings for 40,000+ chips.

The results they have up are still not correct, I know for sure they are missing at least a few athletes completely...

Why bag the chips? Do the same thing you do on race morning -- big board peg with timing chips on a board -- just do it the night before at packet pick up. Have it as a part of the line, pick up number, cap, t-shirt, goodie bag, TIMING CHIP. Done.

I don't know of any other race that does it the HFP way.

Lots of races do it that way.

You forget your swim cap race morning? No big deal...
You forget even your race number morning of? Not a big deal...

BUT forget the timing chip, and that is a much bigger problem... Lots of bigger races have morning-of chip pickup.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

well mr david thompson did not dissapoint - 26pmh? can u say 2:06, followed up by 5:50s on the run? Since every other sport in mn sucks nationally (ok uofm hockey is ok but you have to deal with the hair), it's good to see one of our own doing real well on bigger and bigger stages.

about the time chip thing - most half-IMs are not cheap, so if it does take a day to stuff chips then they should just get more volunteers to help. Whenever u do a marathons you get it the day before and that's for thousands and thousands - it shouldn't be any different for triathlons.

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//semi retired - old school = http://www.iwilltri.com //