Theory of relativity in terms of temperature...there always seems to be a lot of chatter about how cold the water is at Cd'A but when it's choppy and there are ~2700 people in the water temperature seems to drop down the priority list. Also, I think it maxed out at 80 degrees on the run and lots of folks from the northwest spoke of how hot that was - guess it's been a cool spring up there.
On Saturday while racking my bike I saw stumbled on this... road bike, no aerobars, a GPS taking up space to one side of the stem and a reflector taking up space on the other side of the stem....so how to affix the PowerTap head unit??Hmmmmmm???
Speaking of "~2700"...I heard officials make statements like "over 2200 athletes" and I saw in print "2200 athletes". Then I saw several numbers on the course that were in the 2700 range. Why the reluctance to simply state clearly how many people are registered or how many people start or how many people finish? I'd love to hear the thinking behind minimizing the real number.
Speaking of numbers....I saw this bike in transition as well: 12 gels on top tube. That's 1320 calories of potential knee rubbage. In full disclosure this guy rode past me on one of the climbs during the second loop, it was near mile 80 and he still had 8 gels on the top tube.
Speaking of climbs....we need a clearly define terms for hills on a bike course. The term "rollers" is used frequently to describe the topography at Cd'A but I think "rollers" are the smaller things like you might find at Vineman - while the Coeur d'Alene bike course isn't littered with mountainous sections there are still some climbs that aren't exactly rollers.
Another bike I saw in transition had these blocks of fuel on the top tube. My buddy Konrad was with me and he quickly verbalized his stream of thinking..."they're like bricks"....."maybe he's a mason"...."Mr. Gorbacheve, tear down that wall". That still has me chuckling.
Also, those are the Tacx bottle cages which always seem to me to be just slight bigger than normal cages (they may in fact be the same size but they look bigger) and in them are Arrowhead bottles that are a touch smaller then normal bike bottles so there is electrical tape around the top of the bottle holding 'em into the cage.
Saw a guy in an Elmo costume doing the race - that comment I made about 80 degrees being not all that especially hot - if you're in an Elmo get up, I think it's like racing IM China at 120+.
I saw a guy really pushing the limits of the "no bare torso" rule. He was racing in a red shirt with no arms, no sides and cut short - it was basically a long dickey that would flap in the breeze and briefly reveal his chest and back.
The pavement on that course is ~99% perfect. It's such a joy to race on a billiard table.
Coeur d'Alene seems to be like Penticton and other towns that are the perfect size for such a race: big enough to provide the services & volunteers (excellent by the way) but not so big that most folks don't know the race is in town. A really good venue.
Ian
Ian Murray
http://www.TriathlonTrainingSeries.com
I like the pursuit of mastery
Twitter - @TriCoachIan
