I was planning on making it down there to spectate, but got in later last night than I’d expected.
Perfect weather for racing though.
How did it go? Was there space to pass on the bike course? Was it a sea of purple? Any good RRs from any STers?
-charles
i too got in a bit late - 12:30 am from a transatlantic flight between london + new york, preceded by a 350 mile drive in the UK, 3hr sleep and a funeral, and followed by a drive back to philadelphia. i raced anyway. and flatted on the 2nd bike loop. i was there to make top 50, not to finish, and didn’t have a new tube on me (an oversight of the morning mental haze). i walked back to the start and cheered on people in my tri club including my wife (who lost 1st place F40-44 by 8 seconds). a bit frustrating for me but a gorgeous day to be out.
the course seemed pretty negotiable to me - i was in the 5th starting wave. no sea of purple, but plenty of TnT’ers (and lots of others) out having a wonderful day. sorry, no actual results yet. i know that the fastest AG time was about 2:01.
hmm, not a good RR but thats all you get for now 
I had an OK race. Swim was pretty solid (5th OA). I was very pleased with the bike considering how crowed it was out there. I started in wave #9, and probably ended up passing an average of a person every 5 seconds (or less!!!) the entire ride. That certainly makes for taking corners slower and taking them with non-ideal lines (10th OA). Unfortunately I took about a half bottle of water while going up the final hill at mile ~23.5, and that came back to kick my butt on the run. My stomach would completely lock up with cramps any time I attempted to run hard. The run was a mix of jogging and walking for a 43:xx. I was bummed out about the run, but it was a good way to learn the lesson not to drink anything in the last 20 minutes of an Oly distance race on the bike. Still managed 25th OA for the day, so not too shabby 
In the end, I think it is a great race; however, the congestion on the bike course was a bit of an issue. With that said, super crowded bike courses are expected for such large urban races. All in all, a good race, and I hope to come back next year and put a complete race together.
Notables:
-ST’s John Kenny, an avid PowerCranker and amazing open water swimmer, finished 6th overall with the fastest swim of the day despite not wearing a wetsuit. He beat my training partner Chip Berry for the top swim split, and my friend Chip was able to wear a wetsuit! Nice swim JK!
-17 year old Phenom Andrew Yoder was 7th (I think) overall. I believe this was his first pro race, and he was second to T2, right behind none other than Craig Alexander and just AHEAD of 2x 101 Champ David Thompson. Watch for great things from him.
-Looks like BarryP put togher a good race with an awesome run (we could expect no less…)
i suspect that steve back (2nd OA amateur) appreciated your solid swim, since he was announcing plans to find and draft you for that portion of the race. apparently he felt that you’d be moving at the right speed
i generally found people much more “keep to the right”-aware than last year. i only had to “on your left” one time to actually get someone to get out of the way, rather than just as a courtesy/safety call. the distribution of fast cyclists was pretty wierd this year. on my first loop i came across hardly anyone moving at a “fast” pace, but as i started loop 2, there suddenly seemed to be more of them around, possibly from the younger male sections starting late (like yours). last year, i was trying to catch and pass fast cyclists all the way around on both loops.
i generally found people much more “keep to the right”-aware than last year. i only had to “on your left” one time to actually get someone to get out of the way, rather than just as a courtesy/safety call
That’s funny, because I thought it was much much worse for that than last year. I felt like like half of the racers were riding in the middle or left even when they weren’t passing. I said “on the left” to one guy who was so far on the left that I couldn’t pass him legally. When he didn’t move I said it again, he said, “I heard you the first time” and still didn’t move over! First loop wasn’t too crowded, but the second loop was bad. I added an extra .2 miles to my ride (25.2 total on my computer) from all the extra weaving around people. I did see some TNTers riding side by side on the left side of the road together, but for the most part they were pretty good and it was the AG men (from what I witnessed) if I had to pick a group that seemed to be breaking the most rules.
My race went pretty well. Not great but good. 5th female amateur overall, same as last year. Not quite as fast as I probably could have gone and only second in my AG, due to my poor navigational skills on the swim and holding a little back since I have AG nationals next Saturday and I need to recover quickly. I don’t know how I ranked in everything. My swim was 25:40 something, bike was 1:10:something-slower than last year from extra passing and maybe more wind this year?, run was 41:37-better than last year, but not as fast as I can run. The 10k seems like it should be fast. But with the grass section and a few minor inclines and that long straight stretch in the sun, it was a little harder than it looked.
It is a nice race. My favorite part on the bike is riding past the art museum. I just wish there weren’t so many people out on the bike.
I rode the course to look for my buddy that was doing it and it looked very very very crowded. I figured since it was 4 lanes across no one would care about the left most lane, but there were numerous cases were there were people 4 or 6 people across on kelly drive. I love riding around in the city but it look a little congested for me. Especially since it is way over a hundred bucks.
i suspect that steve back (2nd OA amateur) appreciated your solid swim, since he was announcing plans to find and draft you for that portion of the race. apparently he felt that you’d be moving at the right speed
That was the plan. Steve is my athlete, and I told him to get on your feet, Flanagan, since you are nice enough to let us know just how fast you are in the water (Actually, though, I don’t think he saw you at the swim start…I could be wrong through, we only spoke briefly after the race).
Sorry to hear about your stomach, though. That sucks.
Philbert
that sucks. i remember the ‘top 50’ goal from your earlier sig file. oh well.
*That’s funny, because I thought it was much much worse for that than last year. I felt like like half of the racers were riding in the middle or left even when they weren’t passing. I said “on the left” to one guy who was so far on the left that I couldn’t pass him legally. When he didn’t move I said it again, he said, “I heard you the first time” and still didn’t move over! *
yup. That sounds a lot like a ride around the art museum loop!
That was the plan. Steve is my athlete, and I told him to get on your feet, Flanagan, since you are nice enough to let us know just how fast you are in the water (Actually, though, I don’t think he saw you at the swim start…I could be wrong through, we only spoke briefly after the race).
Sorry to hear about your stomach, though. That sucks.
I lined up way left. Not sure why, but it seemed the other speedy guys in our wave lined up way left. The swim dog-legged to the left, so I think my line was actually faster too. He is more than welcome to hang out on my feet…no worries there. Thanks for the condolences regarding the 10K shuffle; however, its always good to learn something at each race. Unfortunately, I seem to have my best “learning experiences” when I do something really stupid regarding nutrition/hydration. One of these days I will run out of lessons to learn
Great race for Steve. He looked great as he ran past me…I think I was walking, how embarassing.
Yes, the weather was just about perfect. Hard to get a much better day in Philly in late June. Sun was still hot when you were out of the shade on the last 5k of the run, but nothing like it could be.
Maybe the real swimmers could comment on this, but it seemed to me that after you hit the bridge your best line was to head straight to the turn buoy. The other markers seemed to follow the bend in the river and hook from right to left for a longer distance. But at least when I was there (5th wave), I seemed to be the only one taking this line. So even if I was right, I may have given up whatever gain I had in navigating to losing any draft.
As expected, the second loop of the bike did get much more congested. I felt like I was yelling “on your left” or “ride right” quite a bit. (As I registered my kids for the fun runs and duathlons on Sat, the girls working the table were laughing at Lars during the pre-race talk for telling people to ride to the right and pass on the left–figuring that’s just common sense. I told them they’d be surprised.) Anyway, as noted, that’s at least partly expected on a course like this with 1500+ on it. And other than the number of people on it, this is probably one of my favorite bike courses. Just a lot of fun to ride.
My race went well overall, but I’d like to rent BarryP’s legs for my run. That’d be enough to get me past 5 of the 6 in front of me in my AG.
Yesterday was a really nice day. Weather was just perfect for this race.
I will say something. Chip Berry was in my wave and man he took off. Me and one other guy stayed with him for the first 500 Meters but after that I just decided to let him go. He was tearing it up out there. Very fast swim. Very nice guy too. I had a nice conversation with him at the awards as he was 1st in my Age Group and I wound up taking 2nd.
For me, all in all, this was my first OLY and I though I did ok. Only thing I learned was a 55/42 Front with and 11/21 in the back, with absolutely no hill training as my focus was Eagleman, is not a good idea on this course. Didn’t really scout the course until the day before. I figured that it would be relatively flat as it was in the city. I was thinking more Kelly Drive, West River Drive type roads and less Fairmount Park, huge hills. A few of those hills proved to be a real bear with my gearing.
2:06:02
2nd M30-34
4th Amateur Overall
23rd Overall
All in all a good day as I was sick the day before and really haven’t been focused since Eagleman.
It was a really perfect day to race. Temps in the mid-70’s, no humidity, no wind.
I worked as a volunteer; I worked in Body Marking until 7:00AM (race start, but there were still people flying down from the parking area at Memorial Hall at 7:05 - dudes?), and then went over to the “Hot Spot” on the run course. If you raced, it was the little wooden ramp-up where you crossed the walkway on West River Drive, then stepped down off the curb on your way to the Art Museum. I was in the road with the orange flag, black backpack, and a bad attitude. Why?
Job “A” was to make sure that spectators and pedestrians stopped and waited when runners were crossing the walkway. I had a team of three volunteers to do this - one to spot when a runner was coming, and one on each side of the path to be sure we physically stopped people. I was there in the road to keep an eye on everything, then make sure you didn’t miss the curb (and also to make sure you went towards the Art Museum and NOT the finish line, you sneaky b@stards…) This, for the most part, went very well.
My bad attitude came from Job “B”, which was keeping recreational cyclists from riding through the finish line. You see, West River Drive is normally closed on the weekends for cycling, running, rollerblading, walking, and the like. When there’s a special event like this race (or a rowing regatta, or dragon boat race), sometimes the usual local riders get torqued. Yesterday, they were especially torqued.
I counted over 200 (yes - TWO HUNDRED) individuals that attempted to ride past me, and ride THROUGH the finish line. I would see them coming, hold my hands up in the universal sign for, “slow down, please…” and try to warn them, “Road’s closed for the race - you can ride on the path over there…” While most would nod and say, “Thanks…” while leaving the road, those that didn’t? Hoo, what a show!
One guy rode right at me, yelling, “Don’t make me crash.” I yelled back, “Then stop and don’t make me crash you.” Another one tried the ‘Ride right at Bob’ move, then screeched to a halt, his front wheel about a foot from me. I didn’t move and said, “Hi! Nice to meet you. You racing?” He said, “No.” I told him that with the finish line there he couldn’t ride on…but he could use the walkway to get past…at which point he freaked out and just turned around, swearing. “YOU GUYS NEED TO PUT SOME F*CKING SIGNS UP!”
He stormed off, and I yelled, “I guess you didn’t see the 2,000 people running there on the left? You need a sign?”
Don’t even get me started on the one guy that got past me and rode through the entire finish at 10mph - faster than I could run. I’ll share that one in my next column - Attack of the Morons.
Hope you all enjoyed your day of racing! I have to say, I had a great time volunteering. I want to be back in the same spot next year; I’ll have 12 months to come up with more material, and a big, foam baseball bat.
Hurricane Bob
It was a great day for racing, and I had a pretty good race for me. Funny you mentioned the recreational bicyclists. When I was storming through one of the intersections after one of the fast downhills (maybe the last one before the art museum?), the volunteers were having trouble with them as well, and barley cleared the intersection before I and a few others came though at about 35 MPH. I guess a group of them tried to all cross at the same time, and barely made it. Other than that it was a great race. Thanks for volunteering; I would bet you did not hear that enough yesterday.
Slower than U
I thought I had a pretty solid first big race of the year. The swim felt pretty slow for me actually… Yes, the fastest course was to go directly from the bridge span to the triangle buoy. I wish there would have been a lead kayaker though as I didn’t hear any course instructions. Of course, I missed the pre-race meeting Saturday night because of the 20 mile backup on 76E. Anyway, I’m still trying to perfect my T1 with powercranks. I don’t know how Courtney Ogden gets leaves the shoes on his bike… it’s a tough thing to do. The bike was solid, but not great. I thought the course was more spread out than I remembered from last year. Some of the left turns were wide open because people were riding all the way to the right on a 4 lane road. Some of the technical descents the better of me. This is one of my weaker points… estimating speed and when/how hard to brake. On one turn, I forgot to lift the inside leg and almost wiped out at 30+ mph. My run leg felt great, which was my biggest surprise of the day. I set a PR by over a minute with a 35:02 (although my watch said under 35-). Considering I haven’t been running much at all, I’d say the PC claims to increase running speed are worth considering. I spent most of the run reeling in Yoder for the 5th spot. He had a very impressive race for such a young guy. I was in 5th place right at the 6 mile mark and was feeling solid about the $250 prize. Then, the guy who ran 32:xx blew by me. I never ran so hard in my life, but I didn’t have the legspeed and finished 4 seconds back from the prize money. At any rate, it was a solid race for me anyway…
sw: 17:51 (1)
bi: 1:00:38 (8)
ru: 35:02 (9)
Total: 1:56:17 (6th) - only about 4 minutes behind Craig Alexander.
I had a pretty good race. Everything came together pretty much as expected. My swim is still pretty average, but I expected as much as I really haven’t worked on it this year. The bike is showing steady improvement, finishing 126/1500+ (top 8%, my previous best was top 11%) and the run was pretty solid, completing the 10K in 36:22, fastest in my AG, 2nd fastest amateur, and 14th OA.
I was proud of everything given 2 months of LSD training. I started hitting the hard stuff in about 3 weeks.
11th/172 AG
69th/1500+ OA
27:53 (408), 1:09:04 (126), 36:22 (14) = 2:18:16 (69) → PR by 17 minutes!!
-Looks like BarryP put togher a good race with an awesome run (we could expect no less…)
Nice race Mike. I only hope that some day my run becomes less noticable (because I’m swimming and riding faster), but I do enjoy the looks I get when I run by someone at ~1 minute/mile faster ; ^ )
Though its probably the same look I have when I look up and see people on the beach 1/4 mile in front of me.
I didn’t think your attitude was bad, I thought you were too friggin’ funny! I was the guy you were talking to at the end of the day in the blue Descente top whose GF was a volunteer with you.
Thanks for volunteering!
By the way you are all too fast and I need to start training again. I have been fighting ITBS since August and hadn’t run more than a mile at a time (and not at all since February) until I jogged a 5k 2 weeks before the race. Add that to the separated shoulder in March AND the fact that I was slow before…
2:54:05 - JUST squeaking into the top half overall
Steve
I thought I had a pretty solid first big race of the year. The swim felt pretty slow for me actually… Yes, the fastest course was to go directly from the bridge span to the triangle buoy. I wish there would have been a lead kayaker though as I didn’t hear any course instructions. Of course, I missed the pre-race meeting Saturday night because of the 20 mile backup on 76E. Anyway, I’m still trying to perfect my T1 with powercranks. I don’t know how Courtney Ogden gets leaves the shoes on his bike… it’s a tough thing to do. The bike was solid, but not great. I thought the course was more spread out than I remembered from last year. Some of the left turns were wide open because people were riding all the way to the right on a 4 lane road. Some of the technical descents the better of me. This is one of my weaker points… estimating speed and when/how hard to brake. On one turn, I forgot to lift the inside leg and almost wiped out at 30+ mph. My run leg felt great, which was my biggest surprise of the day. I set a PR by over a minute with a 35:02 (although my watch said under 35-). Considering I haven’t been running much at all, I’d say the PC claims to increase running speed are worth considering. I spent most of the run reeling in Yoder for the 5th spot. He had a very impressive race for such a young guy. I was in 5th place right at the 6 mile mark and was feeling solid about the $250 prize. Then, the guy who ran 32:xx blew by me. I never ran so hard in my life, but I didn’t have the legspeed and finished 4 seconds back from the prize money. At any rate, it was a solid race for me anyway…
sw: 17:51 (1)
bi: 1:00:38 (8)
ru: 35:02 (9)
Total: 1:56:17 (6th) - only about 4 minutes behind Craig Alexander.
I don’t know how anyone does it (transtions at T1 with shoes on the PC’s - people have enough trouble doing this well with regular cranks on the bike). Maybe Courtney will pipe in here) well either. Maybe I can make this suggestion. Put the shoes over the saddle and run to the bike mount spot, then put the shoes on and take off. You have to put the shoes on somewhere, which should take the same amount of time whether it is at the bike rack or at the mounting spot.
And, I can see where a course with technical descents may not be the best course for PowerCranks, at least until one has figured them out. They will give you a lower center of gravity but they feel really strange, as everyone (at least the everyone in the PC universe) knows.
I think your result is further support to what I have been saying for a long time, that the PC triathlete really can cut way back on their running and still run really well, even setting PR’s (we hear reports like this all the time). The only question is how much can they cut back. That will probably depend upon the athlete.
Solid race. Congratulations.
Bob,
I saw you and the guy at the finish line. I was the one who talked to you while walking back, saying something smart ass like “what, you are going to interrupt that guy’s ride for a stupid tri?”. Wish I had known you were a regular ST’er.
I saw alot of that while spectating at the bike exit from T1, and on Saturday during the sprint. We volunteered for that and the kids tri, and people didn’t care that there was a race going on, just didn’t want to be inconvenienced.