Island Lakes / Motor City Triathlons

Dan Wilson has been busy the last few weekends racing for the Rhinos in Sprint and Olympic distance triathlons and has provided nice race reports.

If you've done any multisport racing and would like to provide a short race recap, photos, or just your results, send them to frccmultiteam@gmail.com and I will get them posted.  Cheers, Tim Sherrow

Island Lakes Triathlon

Island lakes State Park in Brighton, MI

Saturday, May 28th, 2011

Weather was drizzly, overcast, and in the 50's. Overall 1:31:03 time (18 in my age-group) for the Sprint Distance (800M swim, 25k bike, 5k run). 64 degree Kent Lake was cold and that zapped energy from many athletes, myself included. My swim felt pretty sluggish despite my heavy winter training. The other challenge was others not sighting properly and swim in all different directions. Got kicked 3 times and had to switch my line at least 7 times due to other swimmers getting in the way.

Bike started miserably with an aero water bottle malfunction (Velcro kept coming undone and I dropped it 3 times in the first 1.5 miles. The rest of the bike went well despite the cold temperature and wearing wet shorts and a tri-top. Pulled my left calf at 10.5 miles and had to slow to stretch it. Decent average speed of just over 20MPH.

I felt good about my 5k run. I did a lot of work on that this winter so I am happy.

Probably could have been 5 minutes faster without the bottle and calf issues. Looking forward to Olympic distance @ Belle Isle.

Official results:

Overall - 1:31:03, 112/267 athletes

Swim - 105/267 17:48 for 800m, Bike - 127/267 41:16 for 12.5M, Run - 155/267 28:47 for 5k/3.1M

Age Group 30-34

Overall - 18/23 athletes

Swim - 11/23, Bike - 18/23, Run - 19/23

Motor City Triathlon

Belle Isle in Detroit, MI

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Claiming to be the fastest triathlon course in the country, I would have to agree. Very flat overall with a nice current on more than half of the swim leg, the 1.5k swim, 23mi. bike, 6.6mi. run all went very well for me in the Flying Rhino purple and yellow as I raced by first Olympic distance triathlon, after just 4 sprint races.

 It was a windy and chilly 60 degrees in the early morning with the relatively heavy wind all morning out of the East. Standing on the beach with 500+ athlete we all caught the chill off the water. As we entered the 67 degree Detroit River the chill went away as we got down to business on the 1500m swim. I pulled off my best swim pace of any race with a 27:48 coming out of the water in under 30 minutes. 

 After a quick transition, I was off on the 23M bike, or 4 laps of Belle Isle, competing against the wind, Canadian Geese, and the other riders, I made it in under 1hr 10 minutes with my 2nd fastest bike speed of my 5 races with 20.2MPH.

 After another good transition, I was off on my 6.6M run, the longest run of my life. I trained for 6.2M and noticed a week or so ago that the course on Belle Isle was 6.6M.  Ah well, it worked out and I put in my 3rd fastest run pace of 9:20 minute miles to clock a 6.6M run in a bit over an hour.

 As I came down the finishing chute, I checked the clock and I saw 2:44 as I crossed the finish line, (subtract 3 minutes for being in the 2nd swim wave). I beat my goal by over 15 minutes so needless to say, I was very excited and happy with my first Olympic race.

Official results:

·         Overall - 2:41:05, 116/199 athletes

·         Swim - 27:48 for 1500m, Bike - 1:08:21 for 23.5M, Run - 1:01:33 for 6.6M

Age Group 30-34:

·         Overall - 9/14 athletes

·         Swim - 8/14, Bike - 8/14, Run - 10/14