2 race reports (long with lots of pics)

Triathlon Forum
1

So tri #2 and #3 of the season are down (#3 and #4 ever). All short ones so far, doing my first Oly distance in June, San Diego International on the 26th

GCC Tri: 400m swim, 12 mile bike, 4 mile run: First pool swim tri and proved very interesting. Very low key even, oriented toward families. There was a kids tri, adult du, and adult tri. The adult tri was the last even of the day, and we swam slowest to fastest…um, what, slowest to fastest. Yeah we had to enter a swim seed time, and then left 15 seconds back. It was a mess, but I guess they do it that way so that people finish closer together overall…didn’t quite work out that way though. We swam in the pool that I practiced in with my club team for 15+ years, so it a cool “reunion” of sorts.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v650/bcreager/triathlon/GCC%20Tri%20%204-24-05/GCC_swim.jpg

Getting ready for the swim, that’s me in the black top and bottoms, my brother is in the water already right in front of me (this was his first tri!)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v650/bcreager/triathlon/GCC%20Tri%20%204-24-05/GCC_Bike.jpgHere I am getting on the bike…this is my first tri with my new bike, worked out great

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v650/bcreager/triathlon/GCC%20Tri%20%204-24-05/GCC_Bill_run.jpg

Here I come in on the run, feeling good and glad to be done, was starting to heat up. Finished in 1:05, I’m finally getting the hang of this stuff. Run actually felt good, still slow though. Was second in my age group, and 8th overall

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v650/bcreager/triathlon/GCC%20Tri%20%204-24-05/GCC_Brent_run.jpg

Here comes my brother, finishing strong with a 1:12 for his first ever! Nice job Brent

Xterra Spring Sprint Tri: 400m swim, 9 mile bike, 3 mile run: Let me just say this first, Koz Enterprises puts on some killer events. Very well organized, tons of volunteers out on the course directing, and not confusion…well done. First tri I ever did was the event these guys put on in Oct, same distance. My time was 1:06 for that one, and I was unemployed for the 2 months before…so had lots of training time. My goal of this one was to be under 1 hour

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v650/bcreager/triathlon/Xterra%20Spring%20Sprint%205-1-05/SDSprint_before.jpg

Pre race, hanging with my dad as mom takes a pic

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v650/bcreager/triathlon/Xterra%20Spring%20Sprint%205-1-05/SDSprint_preswim.jpg

Getting ready for the start

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v650/bcreager/triathlon/Xterra%20Spring%20Sprint%205-1-05/SDSprint_swim.jpg

Leading the swim, everyone got a good draft of me

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v650/bcreager/triathlon/Xterra%20Spring%20Sprint%205-1-05/SDSprint_swimexit.jpg

Coming out of the swim, had one guy sprint by me at the end, I didn’t want to crack too soon though, so he beat me to the transition

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v650/bcreager/triathlon/Xterra%20Spring%20Sprint%205-1-05/SDSprint_bike.jpg

Off on the bike…wait, that guys coming straight at me, YIKES! Guy lost a shoe and did a u-turn, right in the mount area!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v650/bcreager/triathlon/Xterra%20Spring%20Sprint%205-1-05/SDSprint_bike2.jpg

Heading out for lap two…good pic mom! I can use this as a “rate my position” pic sometime.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v650/bcreager/triathlon/Xterra%20Spring%20Sprint%205-1-05/SDSprint_run.jpg

Down the home stretch…GO GO GO!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v650/bcreager/triathlon/Xterra%20Spring%20Sprint%205-1-05/SDSprint_finished.jpg

Finished and enjoying some tasty Smart water…I didn’t feel any smarter though, but 0 brain power times 100% improvement still equals 0 brain power.

Finish time: 54:50…holy crap, I destroyed my goal time, SWEET! Must be doing the right training, and I finally raced smart too, didn’t die on the run. Good motivation to keep with the training program. First full year of tris is starting off good…looking forward to the oly distance races later this year…now if I could just turn into a runner…hmmmmm…

-bcreager

2

Nice report, good pics, thanks.

3

congrats on the two tris, and way to go w/ the demolishing of the goal time! awesome. tried to do the first tri of the season last weekend, due to thunderstorms, lightening, etc… the swim and bike were cancelled, leaving us to run a quick 5K in the downpour. no good. glad you have been able to get the first several of the season under the belt.

wdrhoads

4

NICE BIKE! I just bought one too. Sweet ride, eh? It’s super fast, and the color is the coolest part!

5

love the bike, fit me really well. I was riding a 57cm lemond road bike that I had for 5 years (before I knew what the heck fit was), and hated it. It wasn’t even close to fitting me. Got a 54cm in the Felt, fits good. Makes me want to go ride more.

I got it more for the parts. I like the way ti bikes ride, but didn’t want to drop that much cash on a fully loaded tri bike. So got the Felt with excellent parts and a good frame, then hope to upgrade the frame some time next year.

VERY fast bike, been nothing but impressed so far

-bcreager

6

What cranks are those?

7

Compact Truvativ Carbon Rouleur
http://www.sram.com/en/truvativ/road/cranksets/rouleurcarbongxp/compact.php

Has a hollow BB too, not sure which though…have to check the Felt site see if its listed there.

I like them so far, very stiff. Not much to compare them to though, the only cranks I have ridden are Shimano 105 from 5 years ago and Ultegra from the last couple of years.

-bcreager

8

That was my guess, but I couldn’t be sure from the photo.
Soooo…how long until race Wheels?

9

Thanks for bringing us along! The two of you almost colliding onbikes looked like a joust until I read the caption.

10

Jousting! I like it! That could be just the way for us slow bikers to make up time on a turnaround! Would you have to carry your lance on the run?

11

Did you “special order” the compact cranks? And what chainrings did you get? Any particular reason you went with the compact cranks instead of the spec crankset? And do you have the standard Dura-Ace front derailleur?

Thanks and congrats on some good racing. You look pretty powerful on that bike.

12

The bike mount area at any triathlon HAS to be the all-time best place to stand to watch any triathlon if you like to really laugh or cry. The stuff you see going on in this area can be absolutly over-the-top. It’s like people have tossed, reason, sanity, calmness and organization completely out the window all at the same time all in an effort to save what . . 2 seconds. I mean, check the no shirted guy out( That’s a DQ right there isn’t it), breaking his balls on the red bike, nearly taking out our author, with his one shoe flying 10 feet through the air while he does a U-Turn!! Incredible!

Fleck

13

I agree.

Just another reason why people should cyclocross race!

BTW - What’s the deal with tris with pool swims. How does that work? Does someone count laps? Is it a dive start? How many per lane?

14

the 54cm I got was all standard…didn’t special order any of it, here’s the drivetrain:

Dura-Ace Front & Rear Derailer
Compact Truvativ Carbon Rouleur
FSA MegaExo Bottom Bracket
Dura-Ace 11-23 Cassette

When I was trying bike, I fit pretty good on 3 of them: Felt S22, Litespeed Tachyon, and a QR (can’t remember the model). I was most comfortable on the S22, but liked the Tachyon the best. So, I went for more comfort and killer specs. I don’t know how Felt does it, but the specs of this bike is CRAZY!

There are only 2 parts that I don’t like, the brake levers and calipers, both are Tektro. The levers seem to flex alot, and can’t get the brakes adjusted right, they alway seem to be too loose. Easy to replace though.

I was goign to go with compact either way, even if I had to upgrade. Coming from a triple crank road bike, I loved to spin on the hills, like 100+. More of been a wussy then trying to spin. All the regular doubles I rode seemed “wierd” to grind up hill. My knees and legs are alot stronger now though, so regular cranks might work good. They gave me knee pain before (I didn’t pedal very efficiently either)

-bcreager

-bcreager

15

Itching for race wheels BIG time right now…but, also wanting another road bike, so hopefully by end of summer I’ll have:

http://www.reynoldscomposites.com/Cirro-SVKOM.asp

or

http://www.evertibikes.com/falcon.htm

Ok, now I just drooled all over my keyboard. In the mean time I took the decals off the velomax wheels it came with so its more “stealth”

-bcreager

16

Great photos and a fine report. It makes me want to race even more!

17

I don’t see how you could be weak on the hills, based on the run picture of the second race. Dude I wish I had quads like that. I blame it all on my parents pissy gene pool. Congrats on the races, like the bike too.

18

Not always…

seen in an aquathlon…400m swim, 5km run…
some guy head out for the run with an 8 bottle fuel belt…all full…

on the way back someone yelled at him ‘hey dude, you forgot your camelbak!’

19

Well, you never know when the bonk will come on in a race that’s 25 minutes long!!

Fleck

P.S. That may have been the same nutrition “expert” who was lecturing me for about 45 minutes, while waiting with my girlfriend at the bike check-in at IMFL last year. This guy had it all figured out. I just let him ramble. It was good entertainment if nothing else. He seemed to know it all. Bumped into him at the awards dinner. He bonked hard, early in the run and had drop out!

20

that’s probable from all the big gear low cadance stuff I’ve been doing to work on strength…makes those legs burn! Good results so far.

One problem with having quads like that, my legs rub together when I run, so I can’t run in the speedo type tri gear, which is fine. But when training, if I don’t wear the right shorts, I get MAJOR chaffing!

Thanks for the compliment!!!

-bcreager