Ironman Wisconsin Race Review 07/24/2008
EveryMan Rating: 1 Brewskis Rating Scale (based on the amount of beer needed after race) The Race: This race (over the past three years), unlike any other North American Ironman in recent history, has been defined by the weather. 2005 --- So hot that you could fry an egg on your disk wheel, and so humid that you could poach the egg simple by standing over it and wiping your brow. 2006 --- So cold that for the first and only time in Ironman history the Coke provided on the run was actually cold, and so rainy that the aid station volunteers did not need to fill up the water cups, but just let mother nature fill them from the great water hose in the sky. 2007 --- Pretty near perfect conditions except that the clouds did block out the gentle and warm sun in the mid afternoon for a few fleeting minutes. 2008 --- ? You'll have to take this review with a grain of salt as I raced IMMOO it in 2007 and my experience was most certainly and all together different from those who raced in 2005 and/or 2006. In any Ironman race the weather is always the silent and often critical variable that either makes or breaks a race. For me in 2007 the weather Gods smiled and I swam in a dead calm lake, biked under a gentle sun, and ran with the aid of fluffy cloud cover. It just doesn't get much better and you can read my race report HERE and HERE. The Racers: Let's face facts. On the whole when it comes to IM race weekend we Ironman racers tend to be a nervous, selfish, self-absorbed, worried, tense, gitty, confused, slap-happy, eager, crabby, panicked, terrified, and about a hundred other emotions that can drive your average hotel concierge bonkers. What makes IMMOO such a great race can be summed up in two words: the "Volunteers" and the "Locals". It is the volunteers and the locals that make this race so special. Unlike any other Ironman race that I've done, it is these folks that will bring the smile to your face when you arrive in Madison. The fine people of Madison really treasure this race and it shows. It shows in the TDF like gauntlet of fans that line streets in Verona between the first and second bike loop. It shows in the thousands of spectators that crowd the streets near the capital building as you exit the transition area. It shows in the thousands of students that get drunk in the racers honor as you run through the University area of Madison. But mainly it shows in the hundreds of volunteers and locals that never cease to smile from the moment that you register to the moment that you cross the finish line. This is a race that's much loved by the locals and so by association are the racers. This is especially important when you are having a bad moment or two as you will certainly have before, during, or perhaps after the race.
Two-loop swim in Lake Monona in downtown Madison. For me the Swim was by far the worst part of the race. Not because: - The swim was cold: It wasn't, the water was near perfect for a wetsuit swim. - The swim was rough: It wasn't, the water was glass-like calm and very easy to sight the big buoys. - The swim was confusing: It wasn't, the course is two big and lazy loops that I could swim in my sleep. No, the real problem with the swim is that it is perhaps too easy. Here's a fun fact that you may not know. The average IM swim is about 1:20 to 1:25 in duration. So if you happen to swim the 2.4 miles in about an hour and twenty minutes you are right in the heart of the biggest IM bell swim curve. This means that you have the most athletes around you trying to get to the exit of the swim. In fact you, and several hundred others, are one big rat moving down the stomach of the snake toward the end of the swim. For me this meant that I was was unable to get one clean swim stroke during the entire swim. Some of you may think that I'm exaggerating a wee bit here, but I'm not. Everywhere I tried to swim I hit somebody or somebody hit me. I could never get into a comfortable swim rhythm, and I paid the price by having my slowest IM swim of my career. But that's not what cost this race a perfect No-Brewski rating. What cost the race the perfect score were the hundreds of "athletes" who cut the corners and the fact that the race officials did nothing about it. I know that it may seem reasonable to cut the inside of buoy when you are with hundreds of other athletes heading for the same corner, but when you do this seven times at seven buoys (the first time by a few feet until you are cutting buoy corners by yards) you shorten the swim from 2.4 miles to 2.0 miles. And that's cheating plain and simple and a DNF no matter if, how, or when you cross the finish line. More importantly, in my book, when the race organizers look the other way when hundreds of athletes cheat, the cost is a perfect Everyman No-Brewski rating for the race.
Unlike any other race I know of IMMOO is held in and around the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center in Madison. This means that transition (the changing area at least) is inside a carpeted and air-conditioned building while the bikes are waiting for you in the outdoor parking garage. Monona Terrace was designed by Frank Loyd and it is pretty spectacular (at least as convention centers go). Because of the unique design of the convention center you get to run up and bike down these large spiral parking ramps coming and going in and out of transition. You also get to change in the cooled and carpeted rooms of the convention center with comfy chairs and plenty of transitions volunteers, snacks, and drinks. I saw more than my fair share of athletes who were having a hard time leaving the cool confines of T2 for a late afternoon marathon. The Bike: Image for a second a giant lollipop. There is of course the stick and the round sugary part that you lick. That's pretty much what the IMMOO bike course looks like. You fly down the spiral parking ramp out of transition and head out to the town and hills of Verona. Once you get to Verona you bike around two big and hilly loops(the sugary part of the lollipop) and head straight (the stick) back into downtown Madison. Out of all of the long triathlons I've done this is probably the one that is most suited for a regular road bike. The only part where you really get the benefit of the areo bars are on the straights heading to and from Verona. The loops around Verona are wildly hilly and you are rarely ever in the areo bars as you are either climbing, or turning, or descending too fast around corners to be in the classic areo position. What makes the hills around Verona challenging is that they are these small choppy little pain-in-the-ass bumps with an attitude that never really allow you to get into climbing mode or descending mode. You are just constantly, climbing, cresting and descending, and that's a hard way to spend 112 miles. On the positive side the countryside is spectacular with diary farms, forest, fields and best rural scenery that Midwest America has to offer. Plus, the crowds in Verona are massive and they almost make taking on the piss ant hills worth the effort.
As I get to be an old hand at these races I'm really starting to hate the typical Ironman marathon course. Unlike a big city marathon like Chicago, Boston, or New York, the IM marathon is always bit too loopy for me. I like to run through a city and start and end in two different locations. But for obvious reason an IM marathon always starts and ends in the same place, and has you making multiple loops around, through and in town. The IMMOO course is two big loops through Madison. You get to run on almost every running surface know to mankind and that includes, cement, concrete, dirt, railroad tracks, streets, paths, sidewalks, and even AstroTurf as you run through the University of Wisconsin stadium. There's one big steep hill (that everybody walks) one big lake (that everybody loves) and one big capitol building(that signifies that you are at either the beginning, middle, or end or you run). Do you want the good news or the bad news first? I'll start with the good news. The run is truly interesting with plenty of points of interest to look at, and massive crowds that gather at both ends of the two loops. The bad news has to do with those little mileage signs. Perhaps this is only me, but I hate seeing that I'm either on mile 3 or 13. This is hugely demotivating for me on the first loop when I'm just on mile two and signs starkly reminds me that I have 11 more miles to go before I'm even at the halfway point of the marathon. The Race Expo: The Race Expo is right in front of the imposing capital building between the Capital and the Convention Center as well as inside the Convention center. It features the same old Schwag that you can also buy inside convention center at the IM store. If I were you I would skip the expo and head to the farmer's market around the Capitol building on Saturday afternoon. Unless you are really a hardcore triathlete and you really need to discuss the subtle virtues of carbon wheels with the Zipp rep., your time might be better spent tasting the subtle virtues of the local homemade Amish chocolate chip cookies at the farmer's market.
- Get to the start of the race early and into the water ASAP. The timing mats are set-up under a big black arch that you must cross before you get into the water. The area for doing this is about 4 feet wide and when I raced there were still several hundred athletes trying to squeeze through the arch and get into the water the as the gun sounded. Perhaps that's why so many of them felt the need to cut swim corners. - This is one race that you don't need a tri bike. A road bike with clip on areo bars may be a better bet in the long run as you'll spend less energy climbing the short but steep hills of Verona. The gearing on a tri bike is just too tall (think too hard to pedal up steep hills in your smallest gear) for all but the most talented and hardcore triathletes/cyclist. - Be sure to get your finisher's photo...especially if you finish at night. The finish of the race is right in front of the blazing Capital building, and this makes for an incredible photo of you crossing the line with the Capital ablaze in light in the background. - Don't kill yourself on the bike. This is one of the harder bike courses and it is certainly all too easy to leave it all out on the bike course. The smart race strategy with the race is to build into it and leave plenty of power and energy for marathon. - Don't dilly dally in T2. I know that it may seems cruel and unusual punishment to leave the cool/warm confines of the convention center but get out on the run ASAP because transition count. - Finally, check and recheck the weather for your race day. Even if you think it may be a perfect day bring all of your cold and hot weather stuff with you to Madison. I'd be willing to bet that I got lucky and the weather will always be the silent and often critical variable that will either make or break your IMMOO race.  Inaugural Ironman 70.3 Kansas Race Review 07/24/2008
EveryMan Rating: 3 Brewskis (except that I did not finish) Rating Scale (based on the amount of beer needed after race) The Race There's a popular surf shop in Lawrence, Kansas were you can purchase a cool shirt that says "Surf Kansas" with an image of a women carrying a surfboard through a corn field. This shirt pretty much sums up my feelings about the inaugural Ironman 70.3 held just outside of Lawrence at the nearby Clinton Lake. We're not in Kona anymore Toto! I'm sorry but you know I just had to get an early Wizard of Oz reference into this review. In other words, the race is really trying hard to capture the spirit of the Ironman Kona World Championship but you can't escape the fact that it is in the middle of hilly Kansas corn country. Which, by the way, is about as far as you can get from Hawaii...if you know what I mean. In the interest of full disclosure you should know that I did not get to finish the race because it was called due to bad weather. You can read the full race report HERE. However I don't think that I'm being unfair to the race with a full 3 Brewskis rating just because I did not get to finish it. If anything I'm grateful to the race organizers for putting me out of my misery. I just don't think I could have a taken another loop, out and back, uphill, down hill, and did I mention loop and out and back? The problem with the course is that it's just plain hard and not very interesting. This race (topographically) most closely resembles the Wildflower Triathlon, which is very similar in terms of the terrain, but very different in terms of scenery. Where Wildflower has trees, flowers and naked aid stations, the Kansas 70.3 has corn, tall grass and a camp ground stocked with beer (not that there's anything wrong with that). BTW: The most fun part of my entire race was during one of the endless run loops through the campground were a bunch of not-so-sober campers set-up a homemade aid station with a big sign proclaiming, "Sponsored by Busch" (as in Anheuser-Busch). For a smile the racers could grab a free can of beer to help with pre...no make that...on the run carbo loading. True Story: The guy next to me grabbed a cold one from the station and his girlfriend, or perhaps wife said, "You're not going to drink that are you?" I thought to myself, "Girl you did not just say that at mile 8 on the run?" I suspect he wanted to shout.."You bet I'm going to drink this beer." But instead he took a tiny sip, gave the cold frosty can the very saddest of goodbye looks, and tossed it into a trash can before I could offer to help solve his dilemma. The Racers: For some unknown reason the racers in Kansas can't swim straight. I'm not joking about this in the slightest. I've never had this happen to me before, but I had at least ten racers make a sharp right turn straight ahead of me. You know, I'm just swimming along going straight for the next buoy when the guy or gal on my left decides to just turn right for no apparent reason. It was almost as if they just spotted the wrong buoy, and unfortunately it was over my right shoulder. I did get an email after the race from a fellow non-finisher asking me if I felt the current in the lake? Which I did not, but perhaps some of the more body fat challenged (as in they don't have enough body fat types) did feel the current and were swept right with the current.
The nice part of the swim is that the course is just one big counter clockwise triangle so if like to breath to your left, and hate to get out of the water for a second or even third loop, this swim is for you. Just watch out for the mysterious current and the water treading swimmers. I managed to T-Bone one racers (so hard I heard him gasp) with my head. I felt really really bad until somebody cut in front of me again, at which point I wish I had added a blinking red light to the top of my swim cap. The water temperature was warm, the water was your typical Midwestern lake water and of course the hills (at least on the swim) were pretty flat except for a few boats that churned some distant waves. Transition: Wet, as in, "my it is really really wet in this transition area when it rains." Otherwise the transition was orderly and right next to the start and finish of the race. In fact the transition/start and finish areas are in the middle of a bloated figure eight on the run course. This means that you get to run right by stuff about 4 times during the run. Too bad you can't get back into transition without messing up the chip timing for that forgotten energy bar or rain coat.
I can sum up the bike in three "H" words and one "W" word. Hot Hilly Humid and for heaven's sake don't forget... Windy I don't think that there is any other words you could possibly add to make the bike harder. OK, I just thought of two words: Snow and Tornado! But I don't think there's much of a chance of the first word and the second word might actually make it colder, wetter, and certainly windier. You better love to ride out and back because the bike course has three. And I remember every single excruciating one of them. The last one is especially painful as I averaged something like 2.5 mph up the hills and into the wind and 1054.9 mph back downhill with the wind. The Run: On the run you better thrive on running loops around a camp ground as in run around loop A and B and C and D, and so on because that's what you'll be doing for 13.1 miles. You'll have the fun and thrill of watching happy-go-lucky campers BBQ, drink beer, eat brats, play catch and just relax while your legs are screaming from pain. Did I mention that the bike is hot, humid, hilly and windy? Don't get me wrong the campers are great fun and some will actually watch you run by with a beer in one hand and a ready to assist squirt gun in the other, but it all gets really old, really quickly. And what's really baffling in that on the entire 13.1 mile run you'll see the lake for about 5 seconds (twice). No watching the beach boys and babes as they frolic in the water. No watching the sailboats or powerboats as they ply the murky but cool waters of Clinton. You might as well be in any landlocked campground in the Midwest because for some reason the race organizers have gone out of their way to hide the lake during the run. For me there is something cooling and nice about running next to a body of water so I really missed seeing the lake as I snaked my way past yet another, car, camper, tent, toilet, and RV. The Race Expo: The Expo is held in downtown Lawrence in an empty parking lot. Not much of interest to say about this small expo expect that you can enjoy the local surf shop and micro brew after you pick-up your packet and race Schwag. My bag of Schwag (for some strange reason) included my finisher's shirt. And you have to believe that giving out the finisher's shirt before the race has got to be bad Mojo..it certainly was for me. FYINTKS (For Your Information Need To Know Secrets): - There are so many loops on the run that if you decided that perhaps your race time is better served by running a 10.4 mile, or perhaps 8.9 mile half marathon, you could certainly do so without much fear of ever missing a timing mat. Please note that I'm not encouraging this illegal loop hole in the loopy run, but instead pointing out a potential problem to the race organizers that should be resolved. - Parking at the race site can be a problem. Unless you enjoy a mile long pre-race hike with all of your gear, I would suggest that you get to transition early. Also, once the race starts it can be almost impossible for spectators to drive to the finish. They should either plan on joining you in the pre-down hours, or get a camp site, or be willing to hike about a mile to see you cross the finish line. - The weather in Kansas in June is like the weather in Florida in June but without the ocean, or the ocean breeze. Plan on heat and humidity and plenty of water. - There was no cola (except for one station at the very end), or pretzels, or fruit at any of the aid stations by the time I got to them. I have to admit that I'm a big fan of anything but power bars and power gels when I get to the run part of the race. Alas this race offered only the standard packaged power aides without the variety of fresh, frozen, and/or unhealthy junk food snacks that I so long for during the run. - And in case you were wondering, unlike Kona, there is no surfing in the Kansas corn fields...at least none that I saw.
Great Floridian Triathlon (GFT) 01/02/2008
 EveryMan Rating Ironman Florida 70.3 01/02/2008
 EveryMan Rating accenture Chicago Triathlon by Everyman Tri 08/10/2007
 EveryMan Rating
EveryMan Rating: 2 Brewskis (BYOB as they don’t sell it in the park or within 10 miles of the race) Rating Scale (based on the amount of beer needed after race) • 4 Brewskis So excruciatingly painful and lame you’ll need a full year of recovery just to forget this race • 3 Brewskis The best thing said and remembered about race is; I finished • 2 Brewskis Challenging race in a masochistic I’d could do it again sort-of-way given enough time and Ibuprofen. • 1 Brewski Good solid race that exceeds your expectations • No Brewski A must-do annual event for both friends and family
They call Wildflower the Woodstock of triathlon. As I’m sure you may recall Woodstock was best known for sex, drugs, mud, and of course rock and roll. I think the reason that people equate Wildflower to Woodstock is that both take place in the country and both involve camping. However, I found that that the only things the two really have in common are the drugs (think EPO instead of Marijuana and Steroids instead of Cocaine) and of course both begin with the letter “W”. Wildflower is really three triathlons over the course of the weekend. On Saturday they host a Half Ironman and Mountain Bike Tri and on Sunday it is the turn of the Olympic distance athletes to race. Both the Half Ironman and Olympic distance race are big events with about two and a half thousand athletes each. This unfortunate side effect of this two day race schedule is that you really can’t party on Friday or Saturday night as somebody is always racing the next day. Of course this does not stop the thousands of college kid volunteers from partying or getting naked (more on this unique Wildflower tradition in the Need to Know Secrets).
Hot Hilly And Hard For the half Ironman race you can also add a “W” to that list for Windy…and you’ve got a hell of a race. If you are thinking about doing the half Ironman be prepared to add about a half hour to your usual half finish time and don’t be surprised if you end up with a PW (personal worst time) For the Olympic Distance race you can safely add 15 minutes to your normal finish time and also call it PW kind of day. This is mainly because the only flat part of both races is the transition area. The Racers: The half Ironman race brings out the ultra fit and elite of the triathlon community and this year that crowd did inexplicably include Santa Claus. I’m not kidding. I saw a guy that if he were dressed in a red suit and suspenders would make my young son weep with joy. As I was biking out to visiting some raceAthlets at a distance camp ground I saw Santa bringing it home at about 9 plus hours into the race. You go dude! That’s the type of real effort that made me and the elves proud. I raced the Olympic distance race and this was the usual mixed bag of weekend warriors and talented amateurs.
The swim takes place in oddly named lake San Antonia. I say oddly because I was expecting Lake San Antonio to be in Texas. The water is cold, clean and crisp. The swim makes a sort of “P” and both races feature wave starts. I found sighting (read swimming in a straight line) to be especially difficult as you swim into the rising sun and you really don’t have any markers or discernable natural features to use for sighting beyond the buoys. Note to any and all race directors: just plopping a bunch of big orange buoys into the lake a half a mile apart is not setting up an adequate swim course. Perhaps you should try to swim your own course before you make the rest of us do it to see how easily you can see the tiny orange dot on the horizon. Transition: Your transition spot is assigned by your race number. This was a bit confusing for us Olympic distance types as the numbers on the bike hangers match the race numbers for the Iron Distance bibs. Unknown to many of us, we only had to match the last three numbers of our race numbers to that of the bike hanger number. This made for many early morning mix ups worthy of the Three Stooges
Hills, hills and more hills. The bike course is purely an up and down sort of adventure You spike your heart rate on the way up from the two mile long climbs that make many a newbie walk their newly acquired triathlon steeds in a humbling display of the benefits of being thin. And you spike your heart rate on the way down as you fly at almost 50 mph back into transition and try not to crash into trees, cars, suspicious bushes, and mostly other cyclist coming up on your left, and runners going down on your right. If you love to climb this is a race for you. If you are like me and you are carrying extra weight, you’ll pay the price and then some. The Run: The run course loops around the park and up and over several large and painful…guess what? Hills. Yes, just when you thought you were done with the bloody hills you notice that a never ending uphill climb as you struggle to make your legs work on the run. Reports from the half Ironman suggest that many more people actually ran the entire run, but then again in general they did tend to look like much meaner and leaner triathletes. It is worth noting here that the run on both the Olympic and Iron distance race does end in a quad crushingly steep one mile descent into the finisher’s coral. You can make up huge chunks of time on this last mile, but beware your feet will certainly pay the price if you race like I did without socks. The Race Expo: The expo features a wide assortment of vendors that you will certainly be happy to see as you discover that the TSA has confiscated your CO2 cartilages. The race takes place in rural California with the nearest bike shop about an hour away. This means you are pretty much stuck with whatever food you brought to the race. You can purchase food at the expo but the choices are limited to crepes, burritos, hot dogs, pasta, and stir fry. That’s all there was this year and after four days of the Wildflower burrito I was ready for something a bit less carnival like. Also the race expo does feature bands like Woodstock of yore but I never managed to hear one play. This is especially odd as I was always at the expo buying this or that while snaking on the fifth burrito if the weekend.
• Transition never seems to close. They say that it does but it never really did. So no need to get up crazy early as the rousted college kids who man the transition gates will allow you to come and go at will. • I stood in the “restricted’ start area of the half iron distance race and watched wave after wave leave without any issues. My suggestion is that you sleep in a bit and get to transition just before the start of your wave. • If possible get to Wildflower early. The race consists of numerous camp grounds located around the lake. You’ll want to be as close to the expo/transition as possible unless you enjoy a long and very hilly bike/shuttle/walk to and from all the action and food. • You better love camping. No matter if you rent an RV, as we did, or decide to tent it you better enjoy camping. This means communal showers, stinky toilets, dust and dirt, and the wide open bright, shiny and cold nights of spring is all yours for no additional fee. • And yes on both the Olympic and Iron Distance course you will have the pleasure of a topless for boy’s, and even bottomless for girl’s aid station. They, the naked bits, just sort of jump out at you as you round a corner or crest a hill. You are racing hard and the next minute you are hugging a topless coed with all sort of wiggly and jiggly bits all lousy goosey as God intended. It is something that is certainly unique in the sport of triathlon, and perhaps only possible in California at Wildflower while camping and racing in the middle of pretty much nowhere. For more Everyman Triathlon click HERE. |
