Observations from lake stevens today (no RR)

Triathlon Forum
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Nice event, as usual, with cooperative weather, except for a little fog. kind of tough to spot the buoys in it, but the underwater line, and small buoys made navigation no problem. so, just some random stuff…

the shirts are yellow and slightly gaudy. will Slayerhatebreed send me $10 to ease my pain?

looked down on the swim, and thought…“wow, that guys feet look like they’re on backwards. am i seeing things?” finally, i looked up, and saw he was doing backstroke. did the whole thing that way, no goggles, reasonable pace (38 or so mins)

at least 3 tour de france-like dog sightings (i.e. unleashed). nasty crash on 1st loop when a guy hit one of them (young black lab) at high speed, one of the fast parts. the athlete was moving, but the ambulance was required. dog was fine, being held by a sheriff volunteer on lap 2 at least.

lots more unshaved male legs than at prior HIM’s i’ve been to. competent, fast guys on good equipment, too, didn’t have the “noob on a mtn bike or road bike” look about em.

lots of fast chicas out there!

when you exhaust your repair supplies, and have yet another flat, you will get passed by a LOT of people who won’t give you a glance in a competitive race like this. Thanks to the U-dub tri club guy who was nice enough to pull a Becca Keat with the C02.

lots of women in their 50’s + out there, hanging tough. and Madonna Buder (sp?), of course, doing the same.

saw one P4. turned in a respectable 2:34 or so, but no T2 or run split for him.
the only possible conclusion? the P4 causes DNF’s.

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Obs from a spectator: (arm is still in a sling from 12 screws in the clavicle).

The fog was pretty cool. Delayed start by 10 mins.

What was up with Madonna’s bike split, a 24.xx mile an hour average? I can only hope to be her age and be able to average 24 on that course.

Gambles CRUSHED it with a sub 4, almost 9 minutes between Symonds.

Watching Lavelle and Wurtele duel it out for most of the run before Lavelle turned it up a notch was a lot of fun!

The “shuttle” from the highschool to the race location was one way. They ran until 6am and did NOT do a return trip! WTF!

Heard about the dog/rider crash. Understood he was doing 50 mph downhill when the dog came out of nowhere…OUCH!

There were a couple “chicas” on road bikes without cages even. That must have been a brutal bike.

When I asked Becky how the bike course was, she said something like, “it was brutal”.

Dave the announcer guy was really cool to chat with. Funny guy!

They needed more volunteers all over.

Fun to watch, can’t wait to do it next year!

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Great course, great race.

The fog was pretty cool, though the 10min delay didn’t do a thing. We just started swimming in the general direction we knew the buoys would be. The steady stream of AGers ahead was a pretty good indication for where to go.

A group of 5 or 6 pro women went off course and got chased down by kayak. See results, they ended up with 34+ min swims.

Looked like plenty volunteers to me.

But speaking of dogs … this lady tossed a full bottle of Gatorade to the side, the bottle bounced off the curb and rolled right into my path as I was passing her. Managed to avoid hitting it with the front tire but bounced over it with the rear. I’d say that was a close call. If I hadn’t been in a hurry I would have had some choice words for her.

The mandatory briefing is a PITA … especially if you get there 2min after it starts, they won’t let you in and the next one is two hours later. Mind you you can’t use the time to drop off your bike because they won’t give you your race number. That’s just a bit more anal than I can handle.