I was wondering if anyone going to effingham would be interested in meeting saturday for a short lake swim and bike ride to loosen up the legs. Let me know if you are interested, maybe we can find a place to meet at that park.
I’ll be there Sat. morning although I’m not sure about my schedule yet - 8 AM would be a good choice though. I’m most intersted in scouting the steepest hills to see what the bike is going to be like.
BTW, did you see on the race web site that wetsuits will be prohibited, they reported that the water temp is 84*.
Email me at t.l.j@sbcglobal.net if you want to try and meet, and we can coordinate and exchange cell phone numbers if necessary. I think there are at least a couple other ST’ers out there, send me an email if you want to join in.
Thanks for the wetsuit info… That’s a bummer, one of the reasons why I am doing this race, to try stuff out for IM, like a new long sleeve wetsuit! I will be driving up saturday morning, so I can’t be there at 8am… Maybe if you guys meet later… We can also drive to bike course to see what it’s like! I will e-mail you later this week:-)
That’s going to be a very warm swim! I’ll be there Saturday and I am game for checking out the lake and riding a bit. I’m also driving up that morning and probably won’t get there until early afternoon.
84!! damn, my pool doesn’t get that warm. what is this, a swamp?
So is packet pick up at 5? Maybe we could meet before, swim/ride/check out the course and end up with picking up our packets… Just a thought:-) I am going by myself, would love company!
Not a swamp, but a VERY shallow lake. I don’t think there is a thermocline (sp?) anywhere in it!
Marisol - If packet pick up is at 5, how do you feel about a ST get together at the beach at 3:00? That should give us plenty of time to swim and check out the bike course and then get our packets.
Packet pickup is only on Fri night or race morning. Sorry but I won’t be around much, I’m doing this race instead of Lubbock because I’ve got family in Flora, Ill. Besides, I saw your picture on the other thread and the last thing I need is for my wife to see me hanging around another tri-babe.
ha ha, very funny! I am very harmless and respectful of married guys, she doesn’t have to worry about me! So packet pick up is really friday? So, stl_triness, I think 3 would still be good, where should we meet? I know there is another guy also interested…
So how’d everyone do? I dont think we could have asked for a more beautiful day for a half IM. I’m quite pleased with my first experience at this distance…and man…talk about value! The $/mile really can’t be beat ($90 entry fee!)
Nice race… The director (Becca) tried so hard… Yeah, they ran out of water and no one was handing the cups but it was good. Couldn’t believe the prize money : 1000$ for the first and I think 500 and 300 for second and third. I got FOURTH… This is the first time ever, that I was racing thinking about money… Went from being second on the swim to thrid on the bike and fourth on the run… Still a good race tough! I don’t like that kind of pressure 
Oh wow, I think I remember seeing you on the run then! The third place woman was cooking on the run…she passed me with about 2 miles to go. If it makes you feel any better, I remember you passing me on the swim!
I really liked the “grassroots” feeling of the race, but I feel bad for the people who were out there with no water…I guess it paid to be up front. You could tell the RD’s gave everything they could. If they hit all the areas they fell short on this year, this could be an awesome race in 2005.
good job. did your aerobottle splash? lol
yeah, she was cooking… All my hopes for me were gone when she passed me at mile 2 on the run. That was tough! I was really hot… How can you see people passing on the swim? I had nobody to draft of… Did you think the swim was long? Were you happy with your race?
Acually, I listened to you guys, bought a jet stream just for the sponge and stuck it in my profile bottle. Awesome!!!
Well, I was in the first wave with the dark blue caps and the women were wearing the yellow caps so when I felt this enormous wake and saw a yellow cap streak by for the second time it must have been you (Lauren was the first one). I had some other men to draft of, but it is something i have not perfected…getting better though. I felt like the swim was 200-300m long and afterwards the RD said, “it was maybe a tenth of a mile long,” which I still think is being conservative. I also clocked the bike as being 4 miles long (though I also heard .5, 1.5, and 1 miles long…I need to recalibrate my computer me thinks) but hey, I figure we’re getting our money’s worth. The run course was spot on though
Overall, I was very pleased with my race. It was my first shot at HIM distance and, for various reasons, I rode my bike for 45 minutes and ran for 30 minutes in the week leading up to the race but I think all that rest paid off. The swim time was initially dissapointing but I felt like it was long so whatever, the bike (usually my strongest event) had it’s ups and downs so I tried to take advantage of my ups as much as possible and use my downs to suck down more fuel. The run was steady and I simply tried to defend my position as I saw the next guy in my AG 4 minutes back at the turnaround (was 6 min back when I got off the bike…he unfortunately had some stomach problems on the run 
but ended up finishing strong). So I got 23rd OA and 3rd AG so I am pretty happy with my maiden voyage on this distance. I was real worried about proper nutrition prior to the race but here is what my mobile buffet included, for anyone who cares:
BIKE
4-5 aerobottles of water
2 bottles w/ 2.5 servings of accelerade each (one sip every 4 minutes and a two swigs of water to wash down)
1 Clif bar 1 hour into the bike
1L of water from my camelback
RUN
1 Hammer gel heading out of T2
half a cup (or bag in some instances) of water at each aid station (walked)
half a cup of water on the head
1 gel every 2 miles (i dunno if this was too much but I felt good and didn’t want to fall apart with 5 miles to go and with a ~100 cal/min burn rate I figured it was prudent)
EDIT:
My right arm, below the elbow, started cramping up on the run. I think if I had maybe brought some endorlytes with me this could have fixed that, but I figured the accellerade had plenty of electrolytes…I dunno. I’ll try them out in training before my next race
POST-RACE (is it possible to get fatter after a half IM)
6 pieces of pepperoni pizza
1 Banana
2 Turkey on honey oat subs, hold the cheese, on the ride home (gotta love the 2 ft longs for 7.99 deal at subway)
In conclusion, a beautiful day for a race and for an innagural race i thought it was very well executed. (And just to get all the slowtwitch religious fanatics goin, there was this ENORMOUS steel cross…about 100 ft tall about 2 miles down the highway…only in the middle of Illinois…as opposed to in Chicago…would you see something like that, so I took a picture )
wow… you drank way more than me on the bike… maybe that’s why I was dehydrated!! I saw you on the bike, you passed me:-)