This was my first time competing in the Purdue Boilerman. Overall I loved this race and would definitely do it again. It is much more low key and laid back than many races and is only 25 bucks. No timing chips, no split times. just racing. awesome.
Got there the night before (after DJing a friends wedding!). Hung out with some friends at Purdue and then made our way to the campsite/racesite. Got the tent set up with no complications and was sleeping by 12:30. Rained lightly but stayed dry and cool inside.
Race Morning:
Rolled out of bed at 7 am for the 9am race. Usually I get up much earlier but I was literally a one minute walk to the transition area. It was awesome. Hit the portapotty and went and picked up my packet and got body marked.
Found out it had become a USAT race so I had to shell out 9 bucks. Luckily I had cash on me or I would have been in trouble. I didn’t mind that it was USAT but I wish they would have emailed all the registered participants and let us know what to expect. Got marked and reserved my spot on the rack. I had a friend doing the race for the first time so I helped him adjust his rear derailler and set him up on the rack next to me.
Took a nice warmup jog, again hit the portapotty and took my 1/2 tab of immodium. I haven’t had a problem with my intestines since I started doing this at the beginning of the year.
Got my wetsuit on and went down to the lake.
THE SWIM:
I swam a lot this summer in NZ but hadn’t been swimming since getting back to the states. The water temp was around 67 so it was perfect for my wetsuit. swam a super slow 28 minutes but the gravel pit was an awesome swim location and it was great to be swimming on a cool fall morning more suited for a 5k!
T1: long grass run up on a good incline to my bike. opted to put shoes on at waters edge b/c there were a lot of woody plants sticking up through the grass. It had been mowed sharpening them to points. Small chance they would have cut my feet up but I race for fun and didn’t want to chance a DNF for something stupid. t1 wetsuit came off awesome though I think I am going to get a zipper added to my top for piece of mind. hopped on my bike and went!
BIKE: was nervous I would be too cold but realized I was fine. Was really excited to test out the flashpoint 60s my friend from zipp loaned me. They are awesome! Bascially 404 non dimpled rims with a slightly lower quality hub and spoke than the 404s. I would think they would compete very favorably with the equivalent HED wheels. Plus, they are clinchers. In an ideal world i’d love to run tubulars but I really can’t afford to shell out 80-150 dollars per tire for each mishap. Plus, all of jens and others posting about rolling resistance shows that it takes quite an expensive tubular to out perform a Michelin pro race 2. The wheels were great, very stiff and I could hear the whirring sound as I sped out of t1. at the first turn a guy flatted on his tubulars and I was again glad for the flashpoints. It would have put me in a bad mood to be out 80 bucks instead of 3. (also, I am a tube patcher. there, i admitted it). At the 2 inch lip of ashpalt that caused the flat the guy in front of me launched both bottles! I dodged them both but realized I had launched half the gatorade from my aero bottle. crap. I was making pretty good time. There didn’t seem to be too much drafting except for one guy on a relay team who probably didn’t know the rules. I put in a ton of work on the bike and was looking for a PB but it was so windy there were times I was in my small ring on the flats! I was getting discouraged till I realized I was reeling in people on the flats. I have a pretty aero position on my p2sl and the flashpoints were giving me a huge advantage. I kept aero the entire ride and just accepted that it was going to be a very slow ride but I would have a high relative placing. Finished up a dissapointing 1:15 (a personal worst by far!) but felt very strong.
T2: uneventful. had to pull my orthotics out of my bike shoes and put them in my run shoes which always adds 10-20 seconds.
RUN: my favorite. took some water and set off picking off runners on the three loop trail course around the lake. The trails were awesome ranging from grass to two track to gravel road. My favorite tri run I’ve ever done. Went steady and passed a number of people. Encouraged a lot of the athletes out there and as I started lapping slower runners reminded them to run the tangents which a lot of them started doing and really appreciated the advice. finished a solid 38 minutes but I think the run was short. I woudl guess i ran more like a 40 minute 10k pace.
Overall: 2:26. Had some pizza, watermelon, banannas, and gatorade and hung out with my friends. My buddy who was racing for his first time did 2:42! He’s a fast running but rode a road bike with no aero bars and the bike brutalized him with the high winds.
I would recommend this race to anyone who wants to get out there and race without all the hoopla. If you want a championchip race with no twists on race day, look elsewhere.
I think that the flashpiont 60s are an awesome race wheel for the rest of us MOPers. It really doesn’t make sense to spend that much money on tubular tires, the majority of which won’t make you any faster than your clinchers. If we raced for a living like Rappstar we’d have dugasts but we don’t. I like the idea of getting a flashpoint built up with a powertap b/c then you’re really not losing hardly anything at all to a 404 (b/c the hub would be the same and the rim is very similar). If you get really fast or really competitive you could add latex tubes and a custom cut disc cover from wheelbuilder and have a very similar wheel to the new clincher disk.
All in all a great race with great wheels and most importantly great friends.
Thanks for reading,
Dan