KS 70.3 report cards

Some great performances out there today. Team Banana Hammocks got 3rd in relay division. I was keeping pace with them until the run :P. I PR'd my 70.3 distance by over 18 minutes even though I cramped up on the run, went from 17th in AG to 37th. I had a great swim and a great bike. I thought I was holding back enough on the bike, I was wrong! Weather was great, water felt like it was right about 75, air temp was in the 60's when I started.

No Yellow Brick at the finish and I didn't see a single Tutu There was a yellow brick path at the swim exit. And now Oz characters at the finish, boo. Otherwise volunteers were abundant and did a great job.

Ah but the yellow brick road had, wait for it. . . . wetsuit strippers! There were only 3/4 volunteers doing it but most of the people exiting around me didn't use them. When I exited (and this was awesome) someone unzipped my wetsuit for me and then I rolled on my back for the stripper to whip my suit off of me.

Race day performance by the race staff was awesome, best in the four years I've done it. At mile 15(?) of the bike the Silverback staff were out sweeping mud off the road left over from a farm vehicle (it did occur at almost the same exact location as the oil spill incident of 2010 - conspiracy theory). I liked the attention to detail/improvements: sign holders for the wave starts, straw/hay laid out in the grass to soak up the mud from previous day's rain, etc. And, of course the volunteers all rocked.

Ended p posting a 25 min course PR.

Edited by Barkeep 2014-06-09 12:05 AM

I think I was spoiled with this being my first 70.3 experience. I did not use the wetsuit strippers but I did enjoy running the yellow brick road. And yes the volunteer crews on the bike were a amazing. But where I was truly impressed was the amount of aid stations and the abundant choices you had on the run. I started cramping almost right off the bike and the first aid stations saw that and shoved some pretzels at me saying it would help. This was also my first mass swim start and I got to experience getting kicked pushed grabbed and all! I saw I loved this race would be an understatement. And I beat my goal time by 13 min!

Sub 5, great race Mike!

This was my first 70.3 and i have only done one sprint before this, so i wasn't sure what to expect. i was aiming for under 6 hours but i'll take the 6:15 min specially since i crashed on the bike.

I definitely need to work on my run speed ( i was never a runner and i hated it...lol).

I was a little bummed that i couldn't figure out where was Jayhox camping spot to meet some of you guys, maybe next time.

This was a fun ( although not when i was doing it).

I had a GREAT day. Had several good beers with great company, worked on my upper thigh tanline, cheered on tons of great athletes, and got on an IM podium wearing MINIMAL clothing. And I mean minimal....

Oh yeah, the swim went okay... PR by nearly 11 minutes , but that wasn't too hard considering I had to sit and drink beer the rest of the day, as opposed to hammering for 56 miles and suffering on the run...

Congrats to everyone that finished. It was a fantastic day!

This was my first 70.3 and i have only done one sprint before this, so i wasn't sure what to expect. i was aiming for under 6 hours but i'll take the 6:15 min specially since i crashed on the bike.

I definitely need to work on my run speed ( i was never a runner and i hated it...lol).

I was a little bummed that i couldn't figure out where was Jayhox camping spot to meet some of you guys, maybe next time.

This was a fun ( although not when i was doing it).


i dont know how to post the results but here is the link
http://tracker.ironman.com/sportstatsv2/ironman/index.xhtml?raceid=...

Due to injuries, I was unable to race, but I have a volunteer report. A friend and I worked in T1. We did wrist band checking and helmet/line checking before bike mount. The race directors (a guy name Glenn was one of them) seemed very accommodating to people that were late and/or forgot to do stuff. There was a TON of carnage from people trying to do flying mounts, especially when those attempts were made with like 10 people at the mount line. FWIW, maybe about half the male pros did a flying mount, and almost none of the women did.

Once our shift was over, we walked up to T2, right as pros were coming off the bike. When Rachel Joyce got off the bike, she was a couple feet off the leader, and I thought it was game over, but Ruth Brennan Morrey held her off. Her sister and daughter were at the finish line, and it was neat watching them cheer Ruth on.

It was cool seeing the race from a different perspective. Hope everyone had a great day!

did you camp?

This is a race report that is a little different, but it is kind of long.

I had a blast with Team Banana Hammocks and doing the relay. For those that didnt know the story, jlpete98, m.a.burghart, and myself planned to go camp out and watch Jayhox earn his spot to Worlds. I fell into a free registration about three weeks ago, so we decided we could join in on the fun and do the relay. None of us had ever done one before, so we figured we could still be a part of the race and be able to watch a lot less suffering.

Our goals were to have a fun weekend, possibly podium, and not let Jayhox beat us to the finish line. He started 8 minutes behind us, so essentially he could not beat us by more than 8 minutes. We also named ourselves The Banana Hammocks and decided to wear speedos during the race(except Pete on the bike for obvious comfort reasons). Pete and Mark managed to get their hands on some,but mine was delayed and never came in the mail. Unable to race in them, we decided I would buy on eat the IM store and we would wear the to claim our award.

We were able to go have lunch at Free State and started drinking. We went to the campsite set up camp and kept drinking beer. Pete forgot his bike shoes, luckily Mark was on his way up and could swing by and grab them. We went to 23rd street brewery scored free dinner since they messed up our order and drank more beer(we still had to pay for the beer). Back to camp and stayed up way to late talking and drinking.

Barely slept at all, and was woken up at 4:45 to the guy on the speaker telling everyone it was a wetsuit legal swim over and over and over again.

I dont think any of us ate breakfast. Maybe a power bar and some gatorade. Mark was swimming and figured he would be done for the day in 30 minutes, so no big deal. I figured I would eat my left ver pizza from dinner that Mark and I stashed in the cooler from the night before.

5:45ish we headed down to swim start since we really didnt have transition to set up but we had no idea how the relay hand off would work. Figured things out pretty quick and we were ready to race.

Mark was swimming and for some reason the relays started in about the 6th wave with the females 29 and under. He looked like he fit right in. He figured he would swim a 30-32:30. He said it got pretty crowded and he caught the wave by the second buoy. He was either 3rd or 4th out of the water with a 31:30 so right on schedule.

Pete was waiting in the staging area and was talking to the other bikers. There were some hard core guys in there waiting in full kits and aero helmets. He looked relaxed and ready to go. I dont think Mark knew what to do, but he got up there and handed over his chip and Pete was off. Pete had a goal of 2:35-2:45. Mark and I headed back to camp to relax and eat breakfast.

While we were waiting I knocked down 3 slices of left over pizza(bad idea, do not do this) and we decided to check the results. First thing we noticed is that Mark swam well, for thinking that he hadnt, and we had a 3-4 minute lead on Jayhox. The next thing we noticed was that Pete was already at the 24 mile bike split and he and Jayhox had crossed at just about the same time. Pete was riding great and had taken over 1st place in relay division.

MArk and I decided we better make our way up to T2 and figure out what I was supposed to do. We got to watch the pros come in and start the run which was pretty cool. Then I went over to the tent and waited for Pete. I saw Jayhox and Reece come in about the same time and knew Pete wouldnt be to far back. Talked to a couple of the other guys that were doing the run part of their relaysand knew which ones would be able to out run me.

Pete came into transition in first about 3:30 behind Patrick and I thought I could make up 5 minutes on him on the run. He was also about 10 seconds ahead of the second place relay. I took off way to fast and dreaded the pizza. I knew the guy behind me was there and he said he would run under 90 minutes. I knew I was in trouble. He passed me at about mile 4 and I figured I could cruise in and hold second place since I wasnt feeling great. With about 4 miles to go the really fast guy I was worried about started creeping up on me. I tried to hold him off, but he blew by me at 11.5 and he ended up running a 1:24. We ended up 3rd in the relay.

As far as Jayhox goes, I was only able to put a minute into him, so I never caught him. We take credit for pushing him to a course PR, a run PR of about 3 minutes, and a spot at worlds.

After we finished we headed back over to the campsite to drink more beer and watch the other racers. True to our word we headed up to awards and, when they called our name, we dropped our trousers walked up on stage in our jerseys and speedos. Got a great reaction from the crowd.

it was only a matter of time...

Yeah, we were camping. Were you the guys next to us, near CG3 B24? If so, I see that you were on Team Banana Hammocks...thanks for not wearing those around the campsite.

excellent report! great job everyone!

Well done everyone!

Reece: Glad to hear you made it safely to the starting line.

As for Team Banana Hammock, had Apolo Ohno not been racing in Boise you guys would have no doubt been the lead Facebook story today for Triathlete Magazine ;-) Well done.

Yeah that was us. Sorry for the late night, and thanks for volunteering!