Here’s a post from our local Ottawa TriRudy website.
Timberman 70.3 in beautiful New Hampshire is a great event for anyone who doesn’t mind a little road trip (6 hours from Ottawa plus whatever curves the border crossing and Montreal traffic throw your way).
The race is extremely well run. The scenery is beautiful, the volunteers and spectators are fabulous and the competition is intense. Post-race food is great, complete with free beer and pizza, and the swag bag was huge. The swim in huge Lake Winnipesaukee was in clear water, but a bit on the rough side. The bike course is challenging – first 20K are very hilly, not unlike a loop in the Gatineau Park, next 50K are relatively flat, and the last 20K are very hilly again. Cool, breezy weather made the bike course even more challenging, but helped with the run conditions.
One look at the awesome bikes in the transition zone and you realize this is no poor-man’s event. Lots of disk wheels, Zipps and aero helmets. The pro line-up was impressive with Simon Lessing, Bjorn Andersson, Michael Lovato and Spencer Smith (in full pink outfit including bike) duking it out for the men and Desiree Ficker, Kate Major and Karen Smyers for the women. The out-and-back bike and double out-and-back run courses allowed opportunities to see these guys in action. Also inspiring to see Team Hoyt competing and the opportunity to witness the phenomenon close-up.
While training for Timberman I was reminded of the importance of taking care of all of the little details necessary to be properly trained. Without paying proper attention to stretching, strength work or massage therapy, I paid the price back in July and developed an injury involving glute muscle/sciatic nerve pains during and after run workouts. Fortunately these didn’t appear while swimming or running, so I was able to keep training those while cutting back the run training to almost non-existant. Thanks to my massage therapist for some great treatments and teaching some stretching and strength exercises which helped to recover from the injury just in time for the race.
With the lack of run training, I realized that this would be more like an aquabike/shufflefest race for me. I was disappointed with the swim as it was a few minutes slower than planned (was it long?), but I was happy with a 2:51 on the bike with a 31.5 kph average. Heading off on the run I had no idea whether the injury would return or not. The lack of run training reared its head and there were more walk breaks than desired. But thankfully it was a totally pain-free run, with great thanks to my massage therapist.
There were about a dozen of us from the Ottawa area that made the trek to Timberman. Congrats to Cathy Bodnoff for winning her age group – no small feat at that competition.
I did the sprint, and have done the half. Its the best around, hands down. Keith, you can’t sleep you got your Texas race in only a few weeks, I know becasuse I just finished a plan for an athlete of mine that is going down there to race. You can sleep in the winter, like a bear. Btw I loved the long sleeve wicking shirts.
I also did the 70.3 and in general I agree with you. How far off do you think the swim was? Also I did the Ottawa half marathon in the end of May and really liked the area. Whats the best tri in the Ottawa area? Tim
I’d guess the swim was about 100 metres long. This is based on talking to a few others after the race who were also a few minutes slower than expected. But then again, it could just be that I swam that extra distance due to poor sighting.
There are tons of tri’s in the Ottawa area - many of them put on by www.somersault.ca. I’d say the best is coming up on Sept 1 - they have Iron distance, half Iron and sprint. I’m considering the half, but may just volunteer if I don’t feel good to go.
I was a bit slow as well, as were some of my friends. Im usually a 27-28 min swimmer, and I swam 30min. A few of my friends that usually swim 25-26 min were even slower than me! Maybe Im just getting fast. Some think it was long, I’ll blame the waves/chop that made it tpough coming back into shore.
I was about three minutes slower than expected as well, but I think a lot of people swam a bit off course when we turned towards the sun. I don’t know if it was long or that we all just swam more than we needed to because we couldn’t see a thing.
This could also be true. I couldnt see a thing once around the firt turn bouy. I barely sighted. I got into a good pack, and prayed that whoever was doing the navigation was on course.
I did the same, and the people I was drafting off of ended up going off course. I was like 100 yards to the right of the pack when I realized it. Thank god I saw the kayaker when I came up for a breath as I was sighting every 20 strokes, seeing nothing, and assuming the pack leader knew where he/she was going.
I think it was more the chop/difficult sighting. They checked the distance six or seven times that morning and I know I had some real problems sighting, especially after the first turn into the sun.
You guys are making me feel (at least just a little bit) better about my crappy swim split now.
I’m not savvy enuff to say if it was long or not, but I can easily imagine it being “long” (aka - slow) by virture of difficult sighting after turn 1, and a bit of chop (although I at least imagined that I was kinda bodysurfing it at some points, but I was probably just delusional) coming back home.
Agreed about the surprise w/ the chop. I went around the bouy and it was like “where the hell did THAT come from??” It was like we went around a peninsula into open unprotected waters suddenly.
Kinda bizarre.
But hey - no complaints from me. Did you see the water the day before??
Holy Poseidon Adventure, BatMan!!!
The chop the day before was a little much. I stayed in a house about 800 yards down the shore (right of the start line) and swam the morning before. Swimming into the chop wasn’t really my idea of a good time.
I was surprised as well. I could kind of feel myself bodysurfing the waves coming into the last turn bouy, so I was getting a little worried it was going to get rough. We all like to comfort ourselves by saying the course was long, but I think it was the conditions, and the only thing that was long was our swim times.
While there was a bit of a chop out there, this year’s swim was placid compared to last year – with the 3-4 foot waves and the wind blowing. Anyhow, I have to agree that you are making me feel better about my swim time that was about 5 minutes longer than I was expecting – partly because I swam the turns a bit wide, even still I was puzzled at how long it took since I really felt good in the water.
It might have been a combination of a bit long, poor sighting due to the sun on the long second leg and the chop. I was 5 minutes slower than Mooseman (and I cramped with about 200 yds to go in Mooseman).
Other than that the whole day was first class. KJ is an awesome race director.
I was depressed comparing my time to Mooseman 2006 which was 3 minutes faster than Timberman 2007. But likely it’s not so much that I sucked at Timberman, but more likely course differences, as you’ve all pointed out the chop, poor sighting and maybe a bit long.