Jackson County Triathlon

Ok, first let me tell you how wonderful it is to have the wife I do. It is not every woman who would get up at 4:45AM on a Sunday morning, drive 25 minutes to wait another 2.5 hours to watch her husband "do a hobby" for approximately an hour and then wait around for him to receive his 3rd place award, which is basically about $100 worth of free stuff. So THANK YOU AMY!!! I LOVE YOU VERY MUCH!!!!!!!! Oh, and did you know that she takes great pictures too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The race started at 8:05 for me, I was the second heat (they had us start by age group) to go, so I had to make up 5 minutes on the first heat and hold off the other heats behind me, that was my goal. Longview lake is a great venue for a triathlon, although today the wind was kicking up some strong waves that made for an interesting swim. Not to mention that I as I the swim went on, I had to navigate through the heat that went ahead of mine. I had a good swim and was first overall out of the water both in age group and everyone that competed.

Swim Time: 8 minutes 13 seconds (.3 mile swim)
After the swim to bike transition, I could see that I was right beside Chris Fugate, a friend and competitor. We actually swam together in High School, so I expected him to be with me on the swim. I know he is a very good athelete and can run very very well, so I needed to put some time on him on the bike and that is what I did. I passed him quickly out of transition and never looked back, I just put my head down and hammered the whole way. 11.75 miles was the 1 loop course.

Bike Time: 30 minutes 46 seconds. 22.9 MPH Average (11.75 mile bike, although I think it is actually longer than that).

This is me going out on the bike, you can't see in this picture, but Chris is about 5 feet in front of me.


This is me coming in to the finish on the bike.

Coming off the bike, I knew I was in the lead. I passed about 20-25 people from the first heat and no one had passed me at all. So I felt like I had a good bike leg. But I knew that the run was going to be tough.

I got off the bike, threw on the run shoes and took off as fast as I can. This was a different feeling for me, I was the only one out there, I figured someone had to be in front of me from the first heat, but I didn't see anyone at all. I figured if I had a 3 minute lead on anyone in my heat (Chris) then I should be able to hold them off, if I could run 7 minute miles. At mile 1 I was right at 7 minutes, the guy at the water station said I was the second one through, at first I didn't know what he meant, but then I realized that only one person was ahead of me. I knew I would see this guy at the turnaround (at mile 1.5) and then I could see who was behind me. At the turn around, the guy in front was about 30 seconds ahead and I could see that he was a guy that started in the first heat, so actually I was ahead of him by 4 minutes 30 seconds or so. No need to worry about running him down. Also, I could see that Chris (the other guy from my heat) was about 2 minutes behind me, he looked like he was moving fast, so I just kept up my pace. Coming home, I got a quick glance back at the final turn and knew that no one was going to catch me.

This is the first race, where I have not been physically passed by anyone. That is a good feeling!!!

Run Time: 21 minutes 02 seconds. 7:01 minute miles. 3 miles (I really wanted to break 7 for an average, but I think that is my fastest 3 mile run ever).

Final Time: 1 hour 2 minutes 10 seconds.

Overall Place: 3rd out of 448 people.

Age Group Place: 1st out of 42 people

Tour of Kansas City Criterium Bike Race

First let me explain what a Criterium is. Basically it is a bike race on a closed short circuit (3 mile loop) with a lot of twists and turns which make for a very technical race.



This was my first bike race ever. Yes I have done triathlons and duathlons, but this is the first time for just doing a bike race. I started the day driving to some friends house so we could ride to the race start together. This gave us about 13 miles to warm-up in. They live in the south part of Kansas City off of 83rd and Holmes and we had to ride up to North Kansas City to Cliff Drive and Prospect. This was great in that it also allowed me to do my first Urban ride. . . I saw parts of Kansas City that I have never seen before (maybe never want to again too). It was actually fun riding through downtown Kansas City.

We made it to the race start to see the first race of the day go off (8:30 Master's 40+ Men). It was great to see the race, it was a lot of fun to watch and it reminded me of the Tour of Missouri and watching cycling on TV. About 3/4 of the way into their race it started to rain. . RAIN plus Pavement plus BIKES makes for very dangerous conditions. Criteriums are known for being dangerous without the rain and now throw in the rain and who knows what is going to happend. Within 5 minutes of the rain, the announcer let us all know that there was already a crash. . .It wouldn't be the last. . .

The Category 5 men (beginners) started at 9:30 AM. We all lined up and they had more than one announcement on how to be careful on the first part of the course and to be really careful on the turns and decents. They also said we may want to start letting air pressure out of our tires to be able to create more surface area to grip the road better.

The gun went off and we all started up (our race was 4 laps of the 3 mile course). . within the first 50 yards, two guys go down hard and slide across the road. Right then I knew that staying upright on the bike for the whole race would be a win in my book. The crash let some of the guys in front to open up a lead and with the conditions the way they were, I wasn't anxious to chase on the turns that were coming up.

On the big hill before the finish I was able to catch the main group and pass a couple of people, but going down hill after the starting line onto the second lap was where things got sketchy again. The whole Bike Shack race team pretty much went down, 3 guys went down hard and then the next thing I know a guy behind me went down and clipped my back wheel. I managed to stay upright, but I made an executive decision right there, that I wasn't going to ease off and stay away from other riders and out of danger. Afterall, this was just a 12 mile bike race, and I didn't spend all year training for Triathlons and Ironman to give it all up for a broken bone in a bike race.

The last 2 laps consisted of me riding in no man's land, passing a group of 2-3 riders from time to time and just wanting the race to be over. I could see the main chase group, but the rain and turns and mud that was splashing up on me from the nearby construction, just had me peddaling hard but not pushing on the turns or cutbacks.

When I finished, I was all by myself, I really thought I had come in second to last or very close to it. After I finished, I saw that the main chase group in front or me (which had about 7 guys in it) just finished about 10 seconds before me.

After the race, I was talking with the two guys that I rode up to the race with and they each thought they got 5th or 7th place, which meant I probably got around 14th place or so. .

Final Place: 12th out of 49 riders.

I was happy with my finish and had a good time riding to the race and back, it was just the race that I could of done without. :)

I climbed the big hill for the last time, catching a guy that fell off the main chase pack

Miles. . .

I am going to start posting ride reports from the Saturday morning group. . ..

Good job to everyone on Saturday. We had a good crew and thank you for
hanging back to make sure everyone made it to Lotawana ok. . .

Saturday's Theme: Miles. .. ..

Some commentary for your reading pleasure (from the 7:30 ride). . ..
(starting after Lotawana). NOTE: IT seems Charlie lost the Yellow Jersey
from the previous week, but we are happy to report he was wearing King of
the Mountain colors. . so we didn't do a good enough job of protecting him
the week before. .

I always enjoy riding with a big group of people down Colbern. Everyone seems
a little antsy to get the ride going and test out their legs for the day.
We had a big group hit the big climb and it quickly revealed who was
ready to ride and who was not. Next . . .

Randy got us going on E Colbern Road coming off the hills towards
Stillhouse. . Dave organized us into a semi decent paceline on Stillhouse
till one of us (who I will not name TROY!!!!, had a flat and it took the
expertise of Dave to get him back on the road). Randy, Dave, I (Jared) and
Max helped to get Troy back up to catch the stragglers and then onto QT
where it looked like most of the guys were done for the day. . .(Eric must
have killed them heading to QT).

After QT, we got a good group (around 8-9) guys heading to Buckner on F
Highway. Eric took the first pull and did an excellent job of getting us
close to Pink Hill where "THE MACHINE" Dave Corwin took over and got us
past Pink Hill and up to a good pace. Steve took over till we got to
Truman Road and held his own really well. I pulled up Truman and onto H highway for a bit. . . . we had about 4-6 guys by the time we hit Bone Hill with Randy and Dave attacking halfway up and I believe Randy won King of the Mountain points there. . .

Heading onto 24 highway into Buckner we had the wind at our backs and Randy
on the front (could anyone ask for anything more?). We stopped at Shell
station for some water/ice/gatorade and started the paceline back up.
Headed down Lake City Buckner Road up to Bundschu where Dave or Troy won
King of the Mountain. . Or maybe it was Randy??? :)
I can't remember . . . I was too tired.

After Bundschu, the executive decision was made to head south on 7 Highway
to 23rd street instead of the Bundschu Hills heading East. .. We had a
good paceline heading down 23rd and everyone seemed to riding strong.

We hit church hill off of 23rd and it never seemed so steep, I can't
remember who took KOM points. .but we were all tired that was for sure. We
did have the pleasure of having a motorist yell (tell on Eric) for not
using hand signals. . .Eric. .please use hand signals and not the one finger
kind.

We came down to RD Mize where apparently much to my surprise the
intersection was not clear which caused me to hit Randy's wheel and almost
end my day. Luckily I was able to "right" myself and after stopping to
check things over was on my way while giving everyone about a 100 yard head
start. . Dave and Randy dueled it out up RD Mize hill to Caseys with Troy
and Eric behind. . I was able to catch Eric and then Troy but had to go
into Time Trial mode to catch Dave and Randy. I finally did at I-70 and
Woods Chapel with the help of a Red Light. ..

Dave, Randy and I ended up first back to Bike Stop with others shortly to
follow. . .

All in all it was a good ride with some new faces. . . Good job to
everyone. .. .

FOLLOW UP: It appears that Steve helped Charlie salvage his KOM jersey by pulling him back from Crenshaw. . . Those two do a great job. . I hope to be riding that well when I am a few more years down the road (no pun intended.