Spectator at First Triathlon: Observations

I volunteered at HFP Racing's Deer Creek Pineman on Sunday, September 19. This was my first opportunity to see a triathlon in person, and I was looking forward to answering a few questions. I don't think the views of an spectator are all that original here on BT, so I think I'll just post these in my blog, or maybe as a Tri Talk thread. Wherever you read these thoughts, please consider that they are just thoughts; I don't have an argument I want to make here, so nobody start getting too defensive.

I'm a pretty methodical person in most things, and I very much wanted to do some investigating and gather some evidence before sinking too much more time, energy and money into this sport. In ascending order of importance, my questions to be answered were: (1) Is it possible to train for and race a triathlon without spending an arm and a leg? (2) Is it possible for me to race a triathlon and have fun without embarrassing myself? And finally, (3) Do I really want to do this?

The Pineman

After contacting the race director by email to arrange for a volunteering assignment, I got up at 5AM Sunday to drive to the race, just south of Columbus, Ohio. The drive was fine until the last 30 miles, when all of the cars on the road were covered in a thick, white fog. Everyone slowed considerably. I was a bit lost; eventually I just decided that I'd follow a Jeep with a Cervelo on the back. Had to be a tri guy. The fog made me a bit late for the 7AM volunteers meeting, so I had to scramble a bit to get hooked up with the volunteer groups, a mixture of Boy Scouts and college students raising funds (HFP paid a small fee to the organizations in return). I think I was the only singleton volunteer; nobody quite knew what to do with me, so I just started to walk around and find work for myself.

I started off by bodymarking. Apologies to folks whom I made flinch because my hands were absolutely freezing. Now that I mention it, apologies to those whose bodymarkings I screwed up -- I think that my numbering style was too rounded, too cursive. In the future, I'll adopt a more angular, digital style for my bodymarking.

There was a lot of excitement in the bodymarking/chip pick up area. Lots of triathletes were asking me questions about the course and the race that I could not possibly answer, never having been at a triathlon before and not knowing a damn thing about this particular race. I talked to quite a few people while marking, met some elite athletes and a lot of age groupers. The highest age I wrote was 57, the lowest was 19. There was a lot in between.

The only disturbing thing that happened was that a triathlete was a bit unhappy when I said that I was going to write her race category on her right calf, as I was told to do with everyone. She was a first-time triathlete and an Athena racer, in the category that HFP calls "Built2XL" but marks on the race bib as XL1 or XL2 or XL3. She wasn't real happy to have extra large written on her body, and told me so. I said something about, "Yeah, you have XL written on you, but you have XL written on you in a _triathlon_." I said that it wasn't absolutely necessary, and after seeing the mistakes in bodymarking that some of the boy scouts were making, I thought it would be fine to write anything that she wanted. But she decided it was okay, and "XL" it was.

The first wave start was supposed to be 8:30, but the fog was still real thick by that point. They started to go into rolling 15 minute delays, at least three full delays (and possibly a fourth, I'd lost track at that point), eventually rearranging the swim buoys to form a course much closer and parallel to the beach. By that time, of course, the fog had burned off, making the changes moot.

The volunteers were actually kindof grateful for the delays, though, because we could not for the life of us figure out the traffic pattern for the race. We didn't have a map, and there didn't actually seem to be a map on paper or anything else. The race director sketched out the traffic flow a couple of times, and we finally figured it out; the real problem was that ALL the traffic into and out of the parking and transition areas would have to funnel through a single, two lane entry/exit. So swimmers would come up from the beach, through T1, hop on their bikes, accelerate about 100 meters, turn 180 down another lane of the parking lot, accelerate about 100 meters, make another 180 turn, and accelerate another 100 meters straight through the previous point where they had flipped the first 180 and then out onto the course. Returning bikers would shoot straight through that previous choke point, either peeling off to T2 if they were only doing the short length, or again turning around 180 to head out again for lap 2. Now here's where it gets interesting: runners would now be heading out onto the course through the same choke point as returning bikers, outbound bikers, and eventually returning runners. At one point in time we had outbound vehicles filled with completed elite short-distance triathletes, incoming cars (and an RV) filled with lost tourists looking for the beach, ambulances, motorcycles, outbound and inbound runners, elite cyclists inbound at high speed, struggling bicyclists outbound at slow speed, a couple of elderly bicyclists just trying to find a place to bike, dogs, mopeds, park rangers in golf carts and guys with jog strollers. It was a zoo. I'm happy that no one was injured, and it seemed to go just fine, but I hope that not all races have that kind of traffic malfunction. It was just too dangerous of an intersection, and I spent the next five hours waving an orange flag and yelling, trying to keep people moving in the right direction.


Question 1: Is it possible to be a frugal Triathlete?
Answer: Yes and no. There was every kind, quality, and price point for equipment on display in the transition area. There were guys in swimsuits riding mountainbikes, and guys in Desoto wetsuits riding Felts and Cervelos and Lightspeeds and Quintana Roos and Fuji and Cannondales and god knows what else. I saw plenty of entry level road bikes, with and without clip-on aero bars. I also saw Hed wheels and zips and aero-disc wheels and Huffys and Raleighs and one bike that I swear was on set for the filming of "Breaking Away".
In summary, I'm thinking that I could prepare for and race triathlons with a minimax outlay of $1000 (minimizing cost while maximizing the utlity and quality of new equipment, including entry-level road bike, pedals and shoes, wetsuit, jammers, food fuel and accessories. Yes I know you could do it for cheaper with all used equipment and ebay and your mom's old bike, but just go with me here.)

Question 2: Is it possible for me to race a triathlon and have fun without embarrassing myself?
Answer: Mostly yes. There seemed to be an unusual number of happy faces on the racers -- except for the elites, who were deadly serious. I'm pretty fit right now, and I've been running and swimming and biking for a bit now, so I think that I could be FOBOP or BOMOP fairly quickly if I can work on my swimming and get used to bricks. So I would most likely be happy with my ability to do a sprint distance tri immediately, extending to oly distance within a season or two.
The only "partly no" answer comes from the number of DNF folks coming through the choke point where I was directing traffic. The Athena racer I mentioned before came through pretty late in the afternoon, walking next to her bike, which had a few busted spokes on the rear wheel. She was pretty unhappy and upset; she'd been walking her bike for quite some time, since no one was really out there on the course -- and apparently those who were out there weren't stopping to help her. I wanted to help her, wanted to encourage her to walk her bike in and run the rest of the course, but I didn't really do it. I wanted to tell her that I was too scared to be out there on this course; though I'm a (relatively) young man and pretty damn fit, I was too cautious to sign up for this race -- but she had the courage not only to sign up as an Athena, but to sign up for the "Half" Pineman distance -- a half ironman, 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run. But I didn't say any of this, and I regret it.

Question 3 Do I really want to do this?
Answer: Yes, with caveats. I think that seeing this triathlon helped me to understand what my goals are in triathlons. I'm not training to race; I'm racing to train. In other words, I don't want to win races; I want to have the dedication, drive, and interest to train nearly every day of my life. I want to have a varied, regular workout routine. I want to want to work out, and having a different thing to do -- running, swimming, biking, strength training -- is the best possible way to have that. Having a race to train for is good in that it gives me that extra little reason to get out of bed and run. That's enough for me.
So I want to rein in any excessive competitiveness, or the desire to buy stunningly expensive pieces of gear just to shave a few seconds. I'm going to need to remind myself to have fun on race day, and to choose races that have a place for me.

But given those caveats, I'm in. Let's tri.