Race Result

Racer:	Jeroen van Ek
Race:	Try Andy's Tri
Date:	Sunday, September 19, 2004
Location:	Houston, TX
Race Type:	Triathlon - Sprint
Age Group:	Male 35 - 39
Time:	1:03:32
Overall Place:	171 / 705
Age Group Place:	24 / 64
Comment:	nice improvement on last year, still winnner of battle of the brothers

Race Report:

Try Andy’s Tri 2004 – Houston, Texas September 19, 2004

Don’t expect to glean any Olympic level tri tips from this one….

Cliff Notes: Battle of the Brothers revisited: 2-0 and counting. First time to be able to compare year to year results and first penalty…lesson learned: focus on what’s in front of you.

Long irrelevant rambling part:

I’m sure when most of you think back to your first tri experience, you have fond memories of way back when and chuckle at your novice delight at the time. Well way back when for me was last year when Try Andy’s Tri was my first small venture into triathlons. Based on a bet with my younger brother, the old man (me) took on the smoker (him) after a few weeks of training in this entry level Sprint triathlon. It was a fun experience and I got hooked on the sport. Joining the ranks of weekend triathletes means enjoying your share of winter injuries, but I soldiered on this year and completed Reston earlier last month. One week after Reston I headed out to Houston for a re-match with my brother who was looking to avenge his humiliating defeat. So on with old man vs. smoker part II...

Try Andy’s Tri is a USAT sprint race with some 700 competitors. The location (suburban Houston) and the distance make it a great first time try. It also brings out some of the local speed freaks who use it a warm up for bigger and better things. While Reston has great diversity at its race, you should have seen the types at Andy’s: young old, tall short fat or thin and trained or untrained…everyone was there.

Last year I competed on a hybrid bike with fabbed aero bars. This year I rented the new pro box from Tri-nergy (freshly back from IM Moo it was now off to the exotic sprint race in Houston) and shipped my budget tri bike with my HED’s to Houston. After the umpteenth time when someone asked me “What’s in the box?” at BWI (you mean the one with all the triathlon stickers on it?) it became a sport to come up with different answers: “My two kids, it’s cheaper”, “My dead uncle Larry”, “A professional quilting set for the big tournament”… Packet pick up was interesting, I found out I had been assigned race number 52. Hmmm 52 out of 700...someone in the organization committee had high hopes. Race temp from 90 to 100 degrees. On to the race:

SWIM

My goal, of course, was to beat Brady out of the water. This is easier said than done since 1) it is a ‘snaked’ pool swim and 2) Brady was nowhere to be seen. Snaked pool swim with a LeMans start, all this means you start lined up by race number at the side of the Olympic size pool, run across the chip timing matt and jump into lane 1 (dive = DQ) then get into lane 2 and swim 100 m, get into lane 3, do another 100 and so on through lane 4. They do this on 2 sides of the pool (9 lane pool). All of 300 meters but you have to reverse flip turn every other wall since you are jetting into to next lane over (makes for nice head to head contact with some folks). The starting sequence is seeded by time and judging by the 300 lb tattooed carny in front of me and the 10 year old ahead of him, you just had to wonder how many Michael Phelps wannabe’s we had here. No matter, the first swimmers were off, and blazed away a 3:42 from run to swim to transition…not too shabby. Passing in these swims is a real adventure and after my start I passed 3 folks in the suicide lane. Full out sprint and then a bit of a log jam behind a group of 4. All in all out from start to transition in a good 5 minutes….still no sign of Brady so I was right on schedule...

BIKE

Last year the big hassle was getting my tri top on while being all wet. I also packed 3 gels last year for the bike…lol… 3 gels for a 10 mile bike…I knew better now and loaded up on 2 bottles of Endurox and stacks of Fig Newtons (ok ok I just went with 1 bottle of efuel). This year I opted to throw on a bike jersey. Being racked up front, I waded though the full disc Cervello’s, ZIPP frames and Aegis wonders (wait a minute…. beginner tri???) and hopped on the bike. The course is somewhat rolling and all of 10 miles. Got a good start and passed a few folks before settling down into race mode. It was then that I heard this sucking sound behind me. Welcome Mr. Softride, how’s my back tire doing? I had picked up competitor 56 in full draft mode. Ok, time to drop in the Ullrich gear, I shift to the 11 and crank it some more….still a nice sucking sound behind me. With a tight peleton draft there was no way I’d drop this guy, so I decided to let up a bit. He still didn’t pass but all of a sudden was gone. Finally, I thought, and looked ahead where I passed a guy who was closely matched in pace. As I headed into T2, gave my brother a shout as he headed out on the bike course, hard to tell but we seemed to be evenly matched. All in all ended the bike with a 23mph avg which is a solid fast pace for me.

RUN

The week before at Reston my right calf had packed it in on mile 2, I finished the run feeling ok and happy to complete the race but with way too much gas in the tank. This was a mere 3 miles so I wanted to just run through any pain in the leg and get back soon. No real problems on the run as I ran better than I had in a while and for the first time, passed folks on the run. High school athletes were falling by the wayside as I blazed through… (ok all of two 15 year olds). I shouted out some words of encouragement and headed for the bagpiper at the finish. As I sprinted across the line my brother shouted some last words as he headed for T2, and I stopped the clock at 1:02:32, almost 9 minutes improved on last year. Not bad…but how would my brother finish?. I found him on the run course and cheered him on to a solid 1:06:09 finish time, an improvement of 7 minutes on last year. After the obligatory rubbing it in (2-0) we were both happy with our results grabbed some food and waited for the transition area to open to get our gear.

P1

While we were waiting, we checked out some of the posted results…hey what’s this…the penalty list, I was sure I’d see nr.56 as a penalty….48..fifty..Here you go …fifty two…huh?..That’s me. Penalty for drafting….what??? Oh ok, they must have gotten the numbers mixed up. I seek out the judge, nice guy, and ask him to pull the sheet on the 52 penalty since I wasn’t aware of any drafting. He reads it out and the penalty was assessed since I took 20 seconds to complete my pass. Wow, it seems that with my preoccupation of the guy behind me, I had taken too long to complete my pass. Upon reflection, it probably did take more than 15 seconds (not much but still) to pass even if I was to the side of the guy. A fair penalty and I took the 1 minute addition (cost me 40 spots in the ranking).

EPILOGUE

As I pick up my bike from the rack, nr 56 Mr Softride drafter is right there. I wonder if I should say something but decide to stick to “Fast ride we had out there”. He replies with “ yeah that was a nice draft I had, luckily I heard the judges’ motorcycle coming so I dropped back in time….”. I just laughed and walked away, what can you do. Lesson learned: don’t worry about what’s behind you and focus on your own ride and making a clean pass.

All in all a fun time to go see my brother, compete in a little sibling rivalry and enjoy the Houston humidity.

Next year: sub 1 hour this puppy. Next year's race is in April with a, get this, wet suit legal pool swim....;-)