The shortened swim was a disappointment of course. It was actually pretty fun to swim in the waves (mostly rollers really). The bummer was the extra 500m of running on the beach. David Forsee and Eric Hendrickson both passed me running up to T1.
Hendrickson rode like a madman. We had a strong headwind heading out and he was just hammering. Tom Linck caught me pretty early and we were back and forth the rest of the way. I thought we were going pretty fast, but we couldn’t gain any ground on Hendrickson.
Tom and I started the run together and he gapped me pretty quickly heading up Mulligan’s Hollow (brutal hill). Hendrickson was coming down the hill when Tom and I started up. Forsee and another athlete missed the turn off for the hill and had run down to the harbor before turning around and going back to run it. I kept Tom in sight for the first half of the lap, and then reeled him in by the end. His achilles was bothering him so he had to take it easy. It looked like I had gained some time on Hendrickson, so I kept running strong, but I didn’t want to risk blowing up in the heat by going too hard. I was closer still at the turn around, but I was running out of real estate. I was worried that he was just loafing it, and would take off if I did get close. I kept pushing and got within a couple of minutes of him by the end. Afterwards, he said that he was hurting pretty bad.
Hendrickson was a very nice kid from Minnesota. His father lives right on the bike course in GH, and he was in town for a few days, and was prepping for IM KY.
Forsee was running really fast, but made another wrong turn on the island. He missed a section during the first lap, but ran it twice on his 2nd lap. He definitely would have been in the running for the win without his navigational errors.
All and all a great race. The run course was less convoluted than last year. The bike was a real challenge with the wind. And some day people will realize that if you are going to race in the GREAT Lakes, you better be prepared for some waves.
I was the other athlete that ran down to the harbor before doing Mulligan’s Hollow. I ran at least a 1/2 mile and then stopped and turned around. That was about the end of my “race” and just ran it in. I shrugged it off. It was more or less my fault for not checking out the run course on Saturday.
Forsee was running strong. Real strong, but he wasn’t going to make up that kind of time on Hendrickson. Navigational errors or not.
Yesterday I experienced one of the most disorganized races ever-Grand Haven. There were 3 races going on at the same time. This made it very confusing for a lot of the participants, me being one, and the volunteers. When I exited T2 I knew I had to run up a hill but wasn’t 100% which direction to go. I told a volunter that I was doing the half and that I needed to run up some hill. She directed me in the wrong direction. I asked a few others and they told me the same thing. After about a 1/2 mile of extra running I knew they were wrong because I hadn’t run up a hill yet and was getting further away from the area that I knew it was in. Plus, suddenly I was ahead of 2 people that I hadn’t passed. So, I turned around and found the damn hill myself! Later, I skipped a portion of the run. Again, I realized this when I was suddenly ahead of a person that I hadn’t passed. On the second loop I did this section twice to make up for the mistake. In hindsight, if there had been a volunter at this crucial section it wouldn’t have happened. There were plenty of volunteers for the race but they weren’t in the right locations and/or didn’t know the course. Yes, I should have not totally relied on them, but when you are doing a race for the first time this is hard. Also, Race Directors shouldn’t expect participants to memorize every turn, especially for 70.3 miles. This is what volunters are for-to assist us directionally challenged people. This race definitly needs to work out some bugs. It would have been so easy for someone to intentionally cheat on this course. Timing mats weren’t at turnarounds… I know that I wasn’t the only one that went off course and heard a lot of other people complain about how confusing the course was and how the volunters didn’t do a good job. Don’t get me wrong, we wouldn’t have races without the help of volunteers and I realize they aren’t paid. I am very grateful for them. Though, this dosen’t mean that we should expect this crap. I traveled 240 miles to do this race and spent a lot of money to do it. I expected more. I doubt I will ever do one of 3D’s races again. I suggest 3D mark the course better and better course educated volunteers in the critical areas of the course.
Pretty typical of 3D events. They are good people, but try to do to many races at once, always something not quite right. Why was the swim shortened? I was in Saugatuck and the water wasn’t that cold.
It wasn’t cold, especially with wetsuits. Rather, it was a little wavy but only close into shore. It would have been tough for poor swimmers. Personally, I thought it was fine. We had to run almost a mile to T1, which is unusual. Though, being an above average runner, I welcomed it. Usually poorly run races don’t cost as much, but not this one.
There were some waves and there was rip current near the pier where the swim exit was supposed to be. The moved the exit farther south to get away from the pier.
