thats right i did a mini triathalon and had kicka$$ time. i competed in this event last year with the wife but she wouldnt bite for this years event. i called a friend from high school and she said yes. we were to compete as a co-ed team in this 18.5 mile event. there were three disiplines. 4 miles by canoe followed by a 2.5 mile run and finally a 12 mile mtb portion.
last year i did this triathalon as a finale to all of the rehab i was doing as a result of an mx injury(ruptured achilles). last yrs goal was to finish and we did with a time of 3h36m. we took third in coed but then again there were only three teams. we finished 29th out of 32teams in the overall standings.
this year i started training in november to get a good mileage base. ive always had endurance but struggled with speed. it wasnt long before i was up to 7 mile runs albeit at a 10min miles. i put time on the bike and towards race day i spent time in the kayak working out my arms.
race day was satuday with clouds and wind in the forcast. stephanie(my new teammate) got to the house at 5 am and we made our way to race registration. we set up our bikes and equipment in the transition area. just like on tv!! :laugh: we loaded up in the event van to take us to the starting point 4 miles up river. steph was getting nervous and i was getting excitied. the wife and son(video cameraman) showed up at the starting line to see us off.
the start came in heats of 5 canoes at a time every two min. we were scheduled to go in the fifth heat. our heat came up and our strategy was to get the canoe in the water without getting wet. the gun went off and AVERAGE JOE AND JANE(thats our team name) took off down the steep bank at a good clip. my gps popped out of my pocket on the way down and steph grabbed it as i hauled the canoe to the water. she hopped in and off we went. there were 4 coed teams in our heat with one of the mens team. we beat the mens team but were behind 3 other coed teams. we soon got into a rhythm and started making ground. we came upon the first coed team within a mile. they were all over the river. as we came upon them the female held up her broken paddle. i told her it was her lucky day as i pulled a paddle out of the bottom of our boat and tossed it to her. i had gone to the pre race meeting and asked if we could bring our own paddles and i got a yes. so i brought my kayak paddle so i could do both sides of the boat if steph needed an extra stroke or two to keep the boat straight. it worked like a champ. before the race, we picked our canoe and as an afterthought, i tossed in a regular paddle in case the kayak paddle didnt work out. that coed team was glad i did :) . we asked for a 30 sec headstart in jest and kept on paddling. i used the gps to keep us on pace. we started passing some of the mens teams but couldnt see the other two coed teams in front of us. the river was really low with little flow. there were some technical sections as far as needing to thread the kayak through snags and partial log jams. that is were we found the second place coed team. he had hopped out of the boat in water that was over his head in an attempt to get their canoe over an underwater tree. he managed but then he had to swim to shallow water to get back in the canoe. we flew over the same snag with some nifty strokes and weight shifting. they came after us but in the next snag they got sideways and dumped again. we paddled harder than ever looking for the first place coed team. we passed some more mens teams but never did see the 1st place coed team. at the four mile mark we pull out of the canoe and switch to running gear. our "fans" were telling us that we were in second and four min behind. we finished the canoe portion in a little over an hour.
as we hit the trail my thighs were tight. in training i had been using my kayak which requires you to sit flat. in the canoe, i was having trouble getting a good drive on the paddle from the seated position so i got on my knees and braced my legs against the sides to get much better power. only problem with this technique was that my legs werent used to this for an hour. i always dread the run portion anyway. steph told me she could do 8 min miles but i knew i was only good for 9:00s. i was afraid that my lack of speed in the run would hurt us. seems like the further i run the easier and faster it gets. problem is it doesnt get easier to run until mile 2. the run is 2.5 :eek: anyway we hit the trail i was glad that she wasnt feeling frisky after the canoe and we maintained an agonizing but slower steady pace. then it happened, the third place team passed us in the run in good form. i started making excuses for us. yeah, both of those teams are 15 yrs younger than us. steph and i are 39. some of the mens teams we passed on the river pass us on the run. we get down a bit but decide not to push it because we both were pretty good on the bike. we make it back to the transition area and mount up on the bikes.
our "fans" tell us we are behind the second place team by 4 min and about 10min behind the leader. we take off into a 25 mph head wind :think: we shoot for an 11 mph pace. not one mile in i get the start of a leg cramp in the back of my leg. not the hamstring but just to the outside of it behind my knee. i tell her to go on and i would catch her. i am panicking because i know if it does cramp hard one time it would do it the rest of the ride. i get off the bike and do every stretch i know but cant find one for that particular muscle. im cussing the kneeling in the canoe again eventhough i knew it helped our performance. i remount and take off after steph. i catch her 2miles down the trail. nobody else has passed us but then again we havent caught the 2nd place team. i lead and steph tells me should can go faster. i let her carry pace. the bike portion is 6 miles out and back. before the turn around area you can see the people on there way back and figure exactly how far behind you are. unfortunately, we see the first place team 1/2 mile from the turn around which makes it a mile lead. good thing was that the second place team only had a 1/4 mile lead. at the turn around we had the wind at our back for the six mile stretch home.
i tell steph that we need to pressure the 2nd place team early. specifically, the female team member. teams have to finish together. this makes the weaker member the target. i told steph to do what she could but if we make a run on them to blow by them to demoralize them. about that time another coed male flys by us but his partner never shows. steph gets on the little gear and cranks. we are carrying 13-16 mph. we start zipping by some mens teams again. we see them and they keep looking back. it doesnt take long and with 4 miles to go we pass the coed 2nd place. we peddal hard than ever and they never give chase. we knew we were in second on our heat but with a two min head start on the race clock with a heat of 5 more coed teams behind us. i remember seeing one coed team fairly close behind us at the turnaround. we keep on flying and feeling pretty awesome. we come into the finish line with a time of 2h28m.
i come into the transition area and pull a spode move. i launch a wheelie and carry it for 25 ft or so. just one more peddal i thoght. one too many as i looped out. thought process said just slide off the back.......my brain failed to realize that my feet were in the straps. :laugh: . i hit the deck hard but laughing at myself. i dont usually have the peddal straps installed. my body didnt think it was funny as i landed on my tools in my camelbak.
steph and i are high fiving and generally patting ourselves on the back for a job well done. family and friends were in attendance and they showered us with waytogos. we wait for final postings and its official. we took second place out of 9 coed teams. we were 8 min off the winning coed team and only 1m15sec ahead of the third place coed(they were the ones that were in the heat behind us). just looking at the board we beat 3/4 of the mens teams. we probably finished top 10 overall out of 68 teams. fastest team finished 2h12m
they have an awards ceremony and we go up to accept our trophies. most teams stay and cheer the winners. i must say i looked really spiffy in my fox gear during the race. we got our picture taken and i went home looking for some ....no a lot of ibuprofin. funny thing after one of these things is that your body is tired but your mind is wired. you would think sleep would be easy but its not. feels like you have had a major caffeine high. overall, i was really pleased with our results. we outperformed a bunch of younger teams and was surprised at how many mens teams that fell victim to AVERAGE JOE AND JANE. not a bad day for a dirtbiker!
last year i did this triathalon as a finale to all of the rehab i was doing as a result of an mx injury(ruptured achilles). last yrs goal was to finish and we did with a time of 3h36m. we took third in coed but then again there were only three teams. we finished 29th out of 32teams in the overall standings.
this year i started training in november to get a good mileage base. ive always had endurance but struggled with speed. it wasnt long before i was up to 7 mile runs albeit at a 10min miles. i put time on the bike and towards race day i spent time in the kayak working out my arms.
race day was satuday with clouds and wind in the forcast. stephanie(my new teammate) got to the house at 5 am and we made our way to race registration. we set up our bikes and equipment in the transition area. just like on tv!! :laugh: we loaded up in the event van to take us to the starting point 4 miles up river. steph was getting nervous and i was getting excitied. the wife and son(video cameraman) showed up at the starting line to see us off.
the start came in heats of 5 canoes at a time every two min. we were scheduled to go in the fifth heat. our heat came up and our strategy was to get the canoe in the water without getting wet. the gun went off and AVERAGE JOE AND JANE(thats our team name) took off down the steep bank at a good clip. my gps popped out of my pocket on the way down and steph grabbed it as i hauled the canoe to the water. she hopped in and off we went. there were 4 coed teams in our heat with one of the mens team. we beat the mens team but were behind 3 other coed teams. we soon got into a rhythm and started making ground. we came upon the first coed team within a mile. they were all over the river. as we came upon them the female held up her broken paddle. i told her it was her lucky day as i pulled a paddle out of the bottom of our boat and tossed it to her. i had gone to the pre race meeting and asked if we could bring our own paddles and i got a yes. so i brought my kayak paddle so i could do both sides of the boat if steph needed an extra stroke or two to keep the boat straight. it worked like a champ. before the race, we picked our canoe and as an afterthought, i tossed in a regular paddle in case the kayak paddle didnt work out. that coed team was glad i did :) . we asked for a 30 sec headstart in jest and kept on paddling. i used the gps to keep us on pace. we started passing some of the mens teams but couldnt see the other two coed teams in front of us. the river was really low with little flow. there were some technical sections as far as needing to thread the kayak through snags and partial log jams. that is were we found the second place coed team. he had hopped out of the boat in water that was over his head in an attempt to get their canoe over an underwater tree. he managed but then he had to swim to shallow water to get back in the canoe. we flew over the same snag with some nifty strokes and weight shifting. they came after us but in the next snag they got sideways and dumped again. we paddled harder than ever looking for the first place coed team. we passed some more mens teams but never did see the 1st place coed team. at the four mile mark we pull out of the canoe and switch to running gear. our "fans" were telling us that we were in second and four min behind. we finished the canoe portion in a little over an hour.
as we hit the trail my thighs were tight. in training i had been using my kayak which requires you to sit flat. in the canoe, i was having trouble getting a good drive on the paddle from the seated position so i got on my knees and braced my legs against the sides to get much better power. only problem with this technique was that my legs werent used to this for an hour. i always dread the run portion anyway. steph told me she could do 8 min miles but i knew i was only good for 9:00s. i was afraid that my lack of speed in the run would hurt us. seems like the further i run the easier and faster it gets. problem is it doesnt get easier to run until mile 2. the run is 2.5 :eek: anyway we hit the trail i was glad that she wasnt feeling frisky after the canoe and we maintained an agonizing but slower steady pace. then it happened, the third place team passed us in the run in good form. i started making excuses for us. yeah, both of those teams are 15 yrs younger than us. steph and i are 39. some of the mens teams we passed on the river pass us on the run. we get down a bit but decide not to push it because we both were pretty good on the bike. we make it back to the transition area and mount up on the bikes.
our "fans" tell us we are behind the second place team by 4 min and about 10min behind the leader. we take off into a 25 mph head wind :think: we shoot for an 11 mph pace. not one mile in i get the start of a leg cramp in the back of my leg. not the hamstring but just to the outside of it behind my knee. i tell her to go on and i would catch her. i am panicking because i know if it does cramp hard one time it would do it the rest of the ride. i get off the bike and do every stretch i know but cant find one for that particular muscle. im cussing the kneeling in the canoe again eventhough i knew it helped our performance. i remount and take off after steph. i catch her 2miles down the trail. nobody else has passed us but then again we havent caught the 2nd place team. i lead and steph tells me should can go faster. i let her carry pace. the bike portion is 6 miles out and back. before the turn around area you can see the people on there way back and figure exactly how far behind you are. unfortunately, we see the first place team 1/2 mile from the turn around which makes it a mile lead. good thing was that the second place team only had a 1/4 mile lead. at the turn around we had the wind at our back for the six mile stretch home.
i tell steph that we need to pressure the 2nd place team early. specifically, the female team member. teams have to finish together. this makes the weaker member the target. i told steph to do what she could but if we make a run on them to blow by them to demoralize them. about that time another coed male flys by us but his partner never shows. steph gets on the little gear and cranks. we are carrying 13-16 mph. we start zipping by some mens teams again. we see them and they keep looking back. it doesnt take long and with 4 miles to go we pass the coed 2nd place. we peddal hard than ever and they never give chase. we knew we were in second on our heat but with a two min head start on the race clock with a heat of 5 more coed teams behind us. i remember seeing one coed team fairly close behind us at the turnaround. we keep on flying and feeling pretty awesome. we come into the finish line with a time of 2h28m.
i come into the transition area and pull a spode move. i launch a wheelie and carry it for 25 ft or so. just one more peddal i thoght. one too many as i looped out. thought process said just slide off the back.......my brain failed to realize that my feet were in the straps. :laugh: . i hit the deck hard but laughing at myself. i dont usually have the peddal straps installed. my body didnt think it was funny as i landed on my tools in my camelbak.
steph and i are high fiving and generally patting ourselves on the back for a job well done. family and friends were in attendance and they showered us with waytogos. we wait for final postings and its official. we took second place out of 9 coed teams. we were 8 min off the winning coed team and only 1m15sec ahead of the third place coed(they were the ones that were in the heat behind us). just looking at the board we beat 3/4 of the mens teams. we probably finished top 10 overall out of 68 teams. fastest team finished 2h12m
they have an awards ceremony and we go up to accept our trophies. most teams stay and cheer the winners. i must say i looked really spiffy in my fox gear during the race. we got our picture taken and i went home looking for some ....no a lot of ibuprofin. funny thing after one of these things is that your body is tired but your mind is wired. you would think sleep would be easy but its not. feels like you have had a major caffeine high. overall, i was really pleased with our results. we outperformed a bunch of younger teams and was surprised at how many mens teams that fell victim to AVERAGE JOE AND JANE. not a bad day for a dirtbiker!
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