Anyone race this it weekend or today?
I actually felt like a bit of a slacker for doing only the half IM. I take my hat off to the TTT finishers. Mother of god, what a bike course…
Anyone pick up the dollar bill at about mile 55 of the bike?
Anyone pick up the dollar bill at about mile 55 of the bike?
funny you noticed that too. i didn’t, but i’m from canada, so that was like $5 to me!
i did the 1/2 too. that was the toughest bike course i’ve ever done in any race. the run was pretty tough too. at one point i was walking up one of the steep hills watching a couple of guys *running *about 50 yards ahead of me, and they weren’t getting any further away!
very tough course, but a lot of fun.
congrats to all the triple t finishers! quite an accomplishment indeed. i can only imagine how those guys must feel tonight having tackled those hills all weekend long.
Hey Guys,
Congrats on your finish of the Little Smokies! I was in the solo division of the Triple-T and came home strong on the 1/2 IM today to pick up 5th overall for the weekend:) That was absolutely an epic course today. I though for sure I had gotten throttled on the bike course with my 3:13 split! Well, when I got to peek at the results afterwards, I was something like 7/8th fastest! There was only 1 team that broke 3:00, that’s sick!
No excuses for next year, sign up for the Triple-T! Everybody needs to try it at least once:)
I had the same thoughts on my bike split. I was practically depressed with my 16.6 mph average (I av’d over 21 at GBC last year), but looking at the overall results I see that, comparatively, it wasn’t all that bad.
Long climbs, short climbs, steep climbs, shallow climbs, straight climbs, switchbacks… we got it all. And uphill both ways!
I did the 1/2. Wow, unbelievable bike course, and the run was a sick joke after the bike. According to my Polar S710i, the bike had 4045ft of climbing! The first climb into the forest was 500ft alone! There was another 840ft of climbing on the run. Who puts turnarounds at the bottom of climbs?!?
Did anyone else have the bike course measured long? I had it at 58.4 miles.
LOL
I was wondering how you would react. You slammed that course. Very nice. I did it last year with simply finishing as the only thought. I told some of the Trikats about the course and they just looked at me like I was twisted. The descriptions in this thread make me smile. So who is going to put an event together in the BIG Smokies?!?!?
cya Sunday.
Did anyone else have the bike course measured long? I had it at 58.4 miles.
I had it a bit long too. Most folks I spoke with after had it around 58M.
g
I just spoke with Eric Fernando and Cheryl Klotkowski who both did the event and had fine performances (as usual).
They mentioned the difficulty of the course and also pointed out the stand-our performance of solo racer Sean Tyrrell (tyrrell99 on this forum).
As you already know, Gordo was superlative at this event. Very impressive. Interesting event.
Did anyone else have the bike course measured long? I had it at 58.4 miles.
I did, but thought it might have been because - like a supreme dipshit - I shot past the turnaround on the out-and-back and rode about a quarter to a half mile before I began to wonder why there were no longer any cyclists coming back the other way. For my trouble, I got an extra hill thrown in. In the end, I really don’t think it made that big of a difference (maybe a tick on my avg speed, but I still won the XL1 division).
I am capable of laughing off something like that, but the guy who followed me sure was pissed off!
Who puts turnarounds at the bottom of climbs?!?
there were a couple of things i had problems with on this course (like aid stations running out of water on the run, no sports drinks at most of the run aid stations, having to stop and refill bottles on the bike). and people were complaining about 3disciplines races?! i feel bad complaining about it, but when you’re promised something before a race, you generally expect that that is what you will get. no?
Did anyone else have the bike course measured long? I had it at 58.4 miles.
i had it at 94.86km, which is roughly equal to your 58.4 miles.
Yep, noticed the dollar bill on each loop. Nice place to put a buck on a rather steep climb. Some people will do anything for a joke 
I had a blast racing four races in three days. Rooming with gordo is always entertaining and educational. Great effort all you TTT and Little Smokies finishers.
Hello,
I did the solo TTT. Very enjoyable in a sick sort of way. I may do it again next year, mainly because I think you learn a lot from the experience. Lesson one pace yourself in the early races,
Lesson two low, low gears. For a stand alone 40 k time trial I’ve done 55 minutes and for the half IM in this I had a 39 tooth chainring and a 27 tooth cog with 700C wheels, still not low enough to get up the hills without frying your legs.
Lesson three, learn to swim (well). More than any tri the swims here matter. It adds up to a ironman but with 3.3 miles of swimming, most of it while fatigued and no drafting (they set the TTT participants off one at a time for the swim).
Most impressive things I saw, Gordo with a smile on his face the whole way, looking comfortable with a time that damn near would have won the little smokies, one on the teams in contention for the top prizes had a guy running the whole way pushing his teammate on the last day, the guys in the draft legal bike hammering on the bike (and I’m not sure why, all you do is tire yourself out, while your competition gets a free ride - but then again they didn’t seem so tired for the run), and last but not least the team with two women and a dude with the two women who had never done a tri before - ouch, but they smiled through the whole thing.
Shawn Tyrrell
Dollar bill, what dollar bill? At the end of that bike all I could see was my tongue hanging down to my chin. I was so glad to get off the bike that i didn’t notice all the steep climbs on the run until the second lap. Then my quads reminded me of what pain(but the good pain) really is.
Congratulation to all the TTT’ers. Awesome accomplishment.
the bike had 4045ft of climbing! The first climb into the forest was 500ft alone! There was another 840ft of climbing on the run. Who puts turnarounds at the bottom of climbs?!?
Actually, I believe Gordo drove the course and measured with the altimeter (sp?)- at 6,000 feet of climbing - 500ft more that World’s Toughest 1/2 Ironman- I’d be curious as to how the runs compare? That climb in the forest was aboslutely awesome!! and we even got to do it twice!!
I would highly recommend the event - the only bad part on the race’s side was running out of liquid for a little while on the run. They did recover and send more up on the run though. You couldn’t ask for a better environment to get back in touch with your tri-self. The best part of the weekend? Massages followed by soaking in the cold creek. Absolutely awesome.
In defense of HFP, I know that their volunteers stiffed them on the final day, probably due to weather! So the race staff that should have been running more goodies to the aid stations was busy keeping intersections, etc. monitored. As far as the refill stations go, that was in the confirmation and I was prepared by having a bottle marked and on the table at the turnaround, maybe took 5 seconds to slow down and grab it. I hope they don’t change the bike course for next year. That course was epic and it wouldn’t be nearly as tough without the out and back section. It was also very cool to see your competitors.
Did the Little Smokies (3rd in my AG). The bike leg was insane. I spoke with someone else who’s altitude gismo said 6,000 ft of climing. I train in the Ohio Valley where there are no hills. Rude awakening! The run was a slog through the mud. And the race was cheap compared to others in its class.
It would be nice if more race directors replaced “flat and fast” with “ungodly hilly and slow.” The feat of conqeuring a difficult course can be more memorable than another PR. (Just ask my quads!)
Limited water and a poorly identified bike turnaround notwithstanding, my hat’s off to HFP Racing.
Yeah, I did not know until I spoke to one of the HFP guys yesterday about the problem with the volunteers on Sunday. But I really didn’t notice any lack of support during the race (yes, they did run out of fluids for about 30 mins or so at two stations during the run, but I thought they were on top of it and got those stations reloaded pretty quickly. Luckily it was already raining and not too hot out there).
Consider all that can go wrong in putting on - for all intents and purposes - four races in three days, with the high level of support they gave the athletes (like feeding them and providng massages, etc). So the fact that they came out on Sunday and had to staff the course with their “Plan B” - and that I never really noticed the difference - is really a testament to how well they run races.
As for the course… well, there were no false expectations that this wouldn’t be a tough one. One thing’s for sure: I know I’ll be ready for anything else I face this season.
On another note, I would like to tell those of you who didn’t stick around for the awards ceremony that you really misssed out. They had tons of free stuff to give out! I came home with a new Rudy Project Helmet, Koobi Tri saddle, 2 jugs of Hammergel, and 1 cannister of Perpeteuem energy drink (maybe 200.00 worth of goodies!).
Hey … that was us!
Anyway, I want to thank all of the TTTers for making my newbie teamates feel welcome. They were VERY intimidated on Friday and flat out scared after we drove the bike courses… but they gutted it out and despite some bike mechanicals on Sunday, finished … slowly but OK. By the end of the drive home they were already talking about next year … hmm. I think they may be hooked.
-Tim