Lake James Triathlon

Perfect day for a race! And a great place to have it! Many improvements from last years race, not the least of which was about 8 degrees cooler. I had a terrible swim, my sighting was quite bad. And on the last 300 meters I couldnt see a darn thing because of the sun. Should have worn my tinted glasses, but they tend to leak...

I came out of the water fourth in my wave and jumped on my bike. After a couple miles I felt great for some reason. This was a lot of the same roads as the May Day biathlon a few weeks ago, in which I felt awful on the bike. I averaged about 2 miles an hour faster today than I did in that race. This was a very challenging course, but man was it beautiful!

I came into t2 with what I thought was a pretty good lead, and stretched it out some more on the 3.2 mile trail run. It felt like a completely different race from last year. Shady and cool. I crossed the line first, and coming a few minutes behind me were Aaron Major and Kelly Droege who fought it out for second and third, with 21 seconds separating them! Karen Brazinski took the women's race, congrats to her. Thanks to all the sponsors and volunteers, it was a great day at the lake. Also, thank you cycle wright for the first place awards! This is a fantastic course, hopefully more people will join us next year!

Shout out to Pat Rimron. Sorry you were not able to race man! I have a feeling it would have been a close race between us, as it always is!

Knoxville Rev3 Half Ironman Triathlon

Rev3 Knoxville was a great venue and I had a spectacular time racing there this past weekend. The temperature was a perfect 60 degrees and the fore-casted rain held off for both the Olympic distance and Half Ironman races.  Rev3 puts on a top-notch race & I would highly recommend their race series to others looking for a well-organized, family friendly and fun experience.

To my surprise I ended up having a fast race on the tough swim, bike and run courses and placed 1st in my Age group and 9th female overall!  To read about some humorous highlights of my race experience, visit our sponsor  - FastPivot's website, to read the article written and published by Jonathan Poston. 

St. Anthony's Race Report

May 1^st 2011, at 4am I awoke and starting moving around.  Transition opened at 4:45 and would close at 6:45 before the pro start at 6:50.  Even though my swim wave was not scheduled till 8:45 I had to go and set up transition before 6:45.  We left our beach rental for the 15 minute drive to the race site at 5:00am.  I wanted enough time to determine whether I would race with the Renn Disc I recently received.  When we got there the wind was howling and the event organizers had decided to move and shorten the swim course due to conditions on the water.  The swim course was moved half a mile north to a more protected beach and the distance was shortened to 1000 meters.  I was glad I got there early as I did not want to try and ride a disc for the first time in winds gusting up to 20 miles per hour.  I went to transition with deep dish in hand. 

Arriving in transition was a bit surreal. I had never been in a race this large. 4000 triathletes signed up for this event and were all moving in and out of transition pumping tires and readying their sites.  At that point I realized I had not brought rubber bands for my new aero bottle to attach to the aero bars.  I had to go back to the car and get zip ties to secure the water bottle in place.  When I returned and was in transition setting up my water bottle I heard the announcer over the speaker say 3 minutes till you are locked into transition.

6:45 I went to the exit of the swim to watch the pro waves exit the water.  Still 2 hours till my wave.  Andy Potts was first out of the water followed closely by Cameron Dye and Matty Reed.  It was awesome to see these guys come flying through.  By the time my wave started they would complete the course in roughly an hour and forty minutes.   After watching the pro’s and the first couple of waves exit the water I went over to the swim start area and watched a couple of waves starts.  I then went and waited in line for the ceremonial bathroom stop and proceeded into the water to warm up.  I swam inside the perimeter of the course for about 500 yards for a warm up and exited the water to see my training partner Brad Miller line up for his start. 

10 minutes till my wave, my age group 40-44, had 3 waves of 150 athletes each.  I lined up in the coral and took a seat at the front inside and waited, 5 minutes to go we entered the starting coral.  I lined up inside and at the front.  1 minute… then the horn went off.  Running into the water I was around 3rd and immediately opened a gap on the field.  When I rounded the first buoy I was at least 20 yards ahead of my wave.  About 1/3 of the way through the swim I encountered traffic from the wave that started 5 minutes in front of me these were guys in my age group and I had already made 5 minutes on them.  Feeling good I quickly moved through them.  Before I knew it I was approaching the final turn.  As I got close to the final buoy the water became significantly rougher and sighting was difficult.  I rounded the last buoy and headed to the beach. 

Once I hit the beach there was a half mile run to T1. After passing what seemed like 100 people on the run to T1, dodging a volunteer, and running past my bike in transition this took more than 4:00 minutes.  Now out on the course I had been worried about traffic on the course and it was challenging to maneuver but it felt like it was helpful with all the wind.  Early in the bike I had one guy come around me and I moved into position 3 bike lengths behind him.  He was a strong cyclist and was accelerating hard out of every corner.  We got into some traffic in the corners and he got away from me.  This was probably just as well because I was really pushing to keep in contact with him.  I was pretty confident that I was 5:00 minutes ahead of him anyway as no one in my wave was anywhere near me on the swim exit.  For 25 miles I passed a steady stream of people on the bike course continually letting them know I was on their left.  A couple of corners were tricky especially with the traffic. I actually touched a pedal down in one corner near the golf course about half way through the course.  Additionally, I came up on a couple of cyclist fairly quickly and had to maneuver abruptly.  I settled down enough at the end of the bike to GU and have a couple of sips of water. Water had been tough during the ride; I had a hard time swallowing more than a sip or two at a time and ended up spitting a lot of water out and on my bike. Completing the bike there continued to be traffic going into T2.  I was in and out of T2 fairly quickly and out on the run.  I remembered to try and push the first mile to hopefully get my legs going.  The heat was a big factor though and I had not been able to eat and drink according to plan on the bike.  I think I was able to drink most of one bottle before refilling at the water stop, but had most of the water in my bottle entering T2. 

On the run I continued to pass many people and held my own getting passed by only 3 people in my age group. These were the people in the wave ahead of me that I passed on the swim and held off on the bike.  Coming into the finish I came up next to a guy just before the 6 mile marker and started to sprint.  We took it all the way in the final .2 miles.  When I came around the corner I was psyched to see the race clock reading under 4 hours.  My goal time was 2:05 which would have been 4:00:00 on the race clock and when I rounded the corner the clock read 3:57:00.

I crossed the finish line and was handed a cold towel and stood under a hose.  Thanks to the volunteer who took off my timing chip while I sweated all over her.  I had time to find my family and friends and then waited in line for my results.  I went to the results tent, told them my race number and they printed out a receipt.  I finished 1^st in my Age Group by: 46 sec with a 2:03:01. Other AG results 1^st fastest swim, 4^th fastest bike, 22^nd on the run.

I wanted to first Congratulate my wife Leah who won her age group in the Meek and Mighty triathlon on Saturday, and thank her for all of her support this past week. Wyatt Miller (Brad Miller's son) also won his age group at that race. Congrats to my training partners, Brad Miller 35-39,(who took 1^st place in his age group by 11 minutes) and Joe Miller 55-59, (who came in 10^th in his age group). We now have 2 weeks to claim our qualifying spots in Des Moines for the 5150 World Championships.  All in all it was still a great start to the 2011 race season and even better to get a win in the process!

Spring Fever Olympic Distance Triathlon 2011 - TN

Daphne post race - Spring Fever Triathlon 2011

Well, I ended up starting my triathlon season a little later than I had intended. The Paris Mtn. International distance triathlon set for a few weeks ago in April was cancelled due to bad weather. So I spent the last week or so scrambling to find a comparable race in the area. I really felt like I needed a race to "get back in the triathlon swing of things," especially before my Half Ironman on May 15th. 


I was excited to find the Spring Fever Olympic Distance triathlon this past weekend in Tennessee. I figured it would be a great race to put all the elements together before my big event in a few weeks. I signed up for the race and then realized I better find out how cold the water is, since I have a A-Fib that is effected by extreme temps and I have a sleeveless wetsuit. When I found out that last week the water was only 58 degrees, I started contacting some of my triathlon buddies to see who might have a long sleeve westuit that I could borrow. A friend of mine put me in touch with someone who works for CTS and they had a small BRAND NEW Ironman Phantom Aquasphere sleeved wetsuit that I could borrow. This wetsuit totally rocked! It was made of some incredible fabric and I was blown away at how great it felt in the water. I would highly recommend this suit if you are looking to purchase one anytime in the near future. 

Yes, this is the water we swam in...
and those are cups floating
 amongst the sludge or whatever it is...
 During the 1500 meter swim I was convinced
 I was getting ecoli, fortunately no signs of it yet!

Swim: I got in the freezin' water with my amazing wetsuit and put my face in the water and wowsers it was shockingly cold! I started the swim with the under 40 gals and we made our way across the murky lake through a cove and around to the other side of the lake. It was hard to figure out where to go, the buoys were really balloons and some girls were going inside the buoys and some were staying outside of them. I tried to draft off of two girls for a bit but they didn't seem to be going the pace that I wanted to go so I went past them. Prior to the swim, all the TN girls were talking about this one swimmer girl that was "gonna be the fastest one out of the water..." I was tickled when I spotted her and past by her on the swim too. So I kept a nice steady pace throughout the swim. I felt really good, got in a nice rhythm and just kept at it. I ended up getting to the shore first, and since I was the first female to come out of the water, I didn't have any other girls to see where I was supposed to go. So I stood up on some rocks (later to find out that in between the rocks was a small path that you were supposed to run through to get out of the water, but I didn't see it when I was coming out of the swim), and it was all I could do to keep my balance. They were sooo slippery and my feet were aching badly from stepping on them trying to get out. Finally, I reached the shore and started trying to get this wetsuit off as I was running. That didn't work out too well so I got to my spot in transition and had a tough time getting out of the suit. Then I stood there for a bit (I think a bit stunned from the cold water and my feet were throbbing from the slippery rocks) and tried to get things in order to get on the bike. I swear that transition was the longest one I probably have ever had. 


BIKE: So I climb on the bike and I hear this guy yelling to the girl getting on the bike beside me, that she is in first place. I was thinking, yea not for long chicka! So I blazed past her on the bike and never saw her again. I actually only saw one person ahead of me on the bike and that was my fellow Asheville Tri Club member Frank Melvin. I had him in my sight for the first 4 or so miles of the bike. Then we got to a spot where we made a right turn but after that right turn there was an arrow on the road going straight and then another one on the road in red going to the LEFT. I was trying to recall from the race meeting if they said what color arrows we were supposed to take... but I couldn't remember them mentioning this. So I saw that Frank went straight thru the green arrow. After a few minutes, I didn't see him anymore and I didn't see anything on the road and I just had a really weird feeling that this wasn't the right way. So following my intuition, I turned my bike around and went back to the girl that was standing on the one corner. I yelled to her, "Which way does the Olympic route go? Straight or LEFT? She said, LEFT on Butternut, buttercup" (or whatever the name of the road was). So sure enough I had made a wrong turn. I felt bad for Frank, who was long gone by that point... So I got on the "Butternut" road and high tailed it outta there. It was non-stop hills (my Garmin at end of race said 1700' elevation change), which I typically prefer and like.. but I am finding them difficult on my new tri bike. I actually let out a laugh going up one steep one... it felt like I was pulling a car up the hill on the back of my bike. The downhills were FAST and FUN but they really weren't noticeable until the last few miles of the race. I never felt like I could get in a rhythm or groove on the bike and the front of my quads were killing me!


Run: I got back into transition, not sure if I was still first female in the race, with my wrong turn but as I started running I didn't see any girls pass me on the 2 loop course. I saw 2 girls come in not far behind me after the bike leg. One of the girls looked like a strong runner and I was right about that. So the first mile, as with any triathlon, I was just trying to get my legs under me to cooperate. They really weren't that shot and my quads were actually thanking me for using different muscles during the run. I started passing guys on the run and kept picking up the pace I was going along. I really wish that they would have had mile markers on the run (and the bike) for that matter... I had no idea how I was doing with pacing with my Timex watch and no markers. I was just winging it and going by effort. I got in a good run rhythm... just felt like I could keep that pace for a long time. I noticed as I did different turns and loops during the run that the "runner girl" was gaining on me. I was holding her off but her pace was definitely quicker than mine. Coming into the last 1/4 mile, I could hear her huffing and puffing and panting behind me, I was thinking to myself that I definitely wasn't making myself hurt like that... so she went past me and I hung on her heels for a bit but she kept picking it up. She ended up coming in :10 in front of me for 1st place. I took 2nd place and was pleased with that results for my 1st triathlon race of this year and with my kinks and mishaps. I feel a lot better going into the Knoxville Half IM in a couple weeks. I feel ready for it now and was glad to have had this experience as a tune up race


Just wanted to give a special thanks to Hearn's Cycling Shop (our great bike sponsor), I realized I had a 23 cassette on my tri bike on Saturday before the race and so I took my bike in and a 25 cassette and they got me hooked up for the race. Also, wanted to thank Tracey with CTS for lending me the awesome Ironman Aquasphere Phantom wetsuit, it really was absolutely amazing in the water. 


Stay tuned for more race reports from the rest of the team!