…The reasons I could list would fill a book. But let me specifically talk about what it meant to me at Ironman Louisville 5 days ago.

After nursing a stress fracture, I decided last minute (errrr, like 4 days before the race) I was doing it. More info on this ordeal can be found via my race report on my website in the journal section: www.carole-sharpless.com

But I’ll include a portion here:
“I was incredibly sore and was NOT fit for the last miles of this marathon. I was giving it everything I had but couldn’t feel my legs. At mile 24, Mariska caught me. I held out my hand as she went by and she squeezed it honorably. Though my heart was broken to lose 3rd so close to the finish, she had fought well and earned her place. I will always display the best of sportsmanship I can to my competitors and will be pleased when it is given back to me. Once she passed me, I completely blew. I was hunched over and hurting, and had a run gait which resembled a praying mantas. As I finally approached the finish line I forced a smile because I had PROMISED myself, no matter what, I would have a good attitude about the day. Just finishing an Ironman is what still matters the most, and I wanted to represent Timex well as a positive athlete amid one of her worst professional performances. I got across the line and doubled over, complete muscular failure. I couldn’t even stand and a wheel chair had to bring me to the medical tent. I was dizzy and exhausted to my core. I had absolutely given everything and could have done no more…”

Fun, huh?

So why do I love being a part of this team?

1) My teammate, Kyle Marcotte, has become such a good buddy of mine. He, Jordan Rapp and Andriy Yastrebov were among the Pro men racing at Canada the day I was racing Louisville. Yastrebov finished 4th & Rapp finished 5th (yea, baby!), and Marcotte finished right behind them. That was a hell of a field racing that day in Penticton… my boys are STRONG. Marcotte and I had been texting regularly in the months leading to our respective races, and he was so supportive with my stress fracture situation, checking in on me, etc. After I finished I got word on the boys’ results, and sent a text to KM to congratulate. The first thing he wrote back was inquiry about my leg and how I was. I can’t explain it — but it was just such a “teammate” feeling. It was really awesome……

2) Having teammates Luiz Alvarez and Emily Herndon also racing IML was so great…. and to have Keith Meyer and Tammi Moses from Timex was like having my family there. Keith gave me a bike split at mile 15, “Sharpie, you’re 2:30 from Gollnick. Hang in there!” Just seeing him on the course felt like seeing my brother. Knowing he was out on the course made me feel like I had protection if something happened and I needed it. He was on a motorcycle doing splits during the marathon, and his loud, echoing, “C’mon Shaaaaaaaaaarpie!!!!” as he buzzed by on the opposite side of the road was just so helpful to my wounded spirit.
But most of all …..

3) Tammy Moses was my guardian angel. (!!) She was at the finish line when I collapsed and never left my side for even a minute when I was in the med tent. There seemed to be some hesitation in giving me an IV. I felt like death. After what seemed like 30 min, I looked at Tammy and pleaded pathetically, “I really need an IV. Can you do something?” Some sort of devil child unleashed from that sweet soul. (Thank God for me!) As protective as a mother bear over her cub, she looked at one of the medical volunteer’s and sternly said, “Carole needs an IV. GET HER AN IV.” The medical team jumped into action, and FAST. I didn’t blame them, I was afraid Tammy was going to beat someone up if they didn’t listen to her. :) As I was being a bit of an over-dramatic baby, Tammy held my hand while the nurse tried (and failed) to get my vein, and blood shot out everywhere. Then, as if Tammy hadn’t done enough… my complete muscular failure prevented…. how should I say this?? …. optimal “hovering” over a toilet. It wasn’t happening, people. I could barely stand much less bend my legs and I lost control of a couple other “functions”. I was still in my Timex racing outfit - you can put two-and-two together (pardon the pun) as to what happened. But Tammy is a PROBLEM SOLVER. She helped me hobble behind the port-o-johns in the med tent for a little bit of privacy, and helped me strip off those nasty things. I asked if she wanted to wear gloves …. my outfit was SOAKED in every type of thing that can come out of one’s body. Even I was disgusted. She wasn’t fazed (but did hold my shorts with the very tips of her fingers and made a face). Then she helped me get into some dry clothes… I smelled like I had been bathing in raw sewage …. but she didn’t seem to care. What she cared about was getting me more comfortable and getting me some food.

I can’t tell you how much she did for me — the GROSS stuff, people. WHO would do that??! Only a team that cares about the athletes as people first would do this.

Since then I have been inundated with emails from my Timex teammates, all checking on me and congratulating my day amid some “not ideal” circumstances.

I have been on many “teams” in my life…. but NOTHING is like being on the Timex Team. I feel so lucky…

Word.

Sharpie

Trek released a new singlespeed mountain bike this year. Since I’m taking a break from racing Xterra and focusing on endurance singlespeed mountain bike racing, this was the bike I selected for 2008. While there was a slight delay in receiving the bike, it was well worth the wait.
This singlespeed hardtail bike is called a 69er, since it has a 26” rear wheel, and a 29”front wheel. It was developed by mountain bike Olympian / alternative MTB legend Travis Brown, who I’ve had the misfortune of racing against at Sea Otter (there’s nothing quite like getting beaten by 4 minutes, well actually there is - more on that later). It’s the first of Trek’s 69er line, in 2008 they will be producing geared hardtail and full suspension versions as well. The original 69er will remain largely unchanged for 2008.
Frame: The frame is aluminum, which works great for this application. Since singlespeeders spend a lot of time climbing out of the saddle and reefing on the handlebars, a stiff frame is key. If I may dream for a minute, I’d love to see Trek make this in Carbon Fiber, especially since no other manufacturers are doing it…
It may sound strange to have a 29” front wheel and a 26” rear wheel, and the bike indeed looks different. However, there are sound reasons behind this, and after riding it all season, I’ve become a believer.

1. The 29” Front wheel rolls better. The larger contact area, and larger wheel diameter cause the wheel to roll faster and not get deflected as easily as a 26” wheel, most noticeable on rocky descents. The bike descends SO well, I feel almost as fast as I do on my full-suspension.
2. The 26” rear wheel accelerates faster than a 29” wheel and allows for shorter chainstays, which climb better (I’ve never ridden a full 29er, but both points sound reasonable).
3. The sliding dropouts are just about the coolest thing ever. They allow the user to run a standard quick release hub as well as a normal BB. This facilitates tire changes and chain adjustments. Speaking from experience with all singlespeed options, the sliding dropouts are so much better than horizontal dropouts or an eccentric BB that I can’t imagine either of those will be around for long..
4. The rootbeer brown color is terrific. It looks very cool. (though this year I’ve certainly done my best to scratch a tremendous amount of paint cartwheeling the bike across the rocks)
5. The geometry is perfect. Since I ride a medium, I was concerned the handlebar would be too high and it would be difficult to weight the wheels optimally while climbing. Turns out, it climbs as well as it descends.
6. It sure gets a lot of attention! It’s a unique and new design, and I get comments and questions on every ride and at every race.
7. The Bontrager Race X lite wheels are stiff and light. I don’t notice any wheel flex, whether climbing out of the saddle, or hard cornering on descents.

While I sincerely like the bike, I feel there are a few minor areas for improvement (of course I pretty much feel that way about everything in life:

1. The whole thing should be lighter. 25 lbs is too heavy for a singlespeed. It’s pretty easy to lighten it up, but it would be nice if it came that way, though that would make it more expensive…
2. The bike should be a little cheaper. I realize this is in direct contradiction to my quest for it to be lighter, and I understand this is surely a result of a small production run of a new product, but feasibly this will change when they start mass producing it.
3. As mentioned, the frame would be ridiculously cool if it were carbon, though I’m not sure how that would stand up to my recent rash of crashes…
4. The fork should be toned down (see pt 1). The bike comes with a 3.75lb Maverick dual-crown fork. While the travel is nice, as a traditionalist I find the thru-axle a little inconvenient and the double crown over spec’ed. A Rock Shox Reba Race would be 0.25lb lighter.
5. The rear disc rotor should either come spec’ed as 140mm, or allow an adapter. Most racers are running this to save weight, since most braking power comes from the front anyway.
6. It needs a second bottle cage mount. Since I train and race for the longer endurance events, I need to carry more fluids, and don’t want to carry a camelback.

Interestingly, the complaint I hear most from non-believers is you have to carry 2 tubes. Before I go any further on this, I should state that EVERYONE should be running tubeless. However, if you get a front flat, simply inflate your 26” tube to the point where it fits in the 29” tire, mount it the rest of way, and inflate it the rest of the way, and you’re good to go!

In conclusion, I really like the 69er’s ride, and definitely recommend this bike to anyone shopping for a singlespeed.

I grew up here in Chicago (the burbs, actually) and know Lake Michigan to be eternally frigid. On race morning they said the water temperature was 68 degrees. WOW that is really warm! Well, my husband did the sprint race and when I saw him on the run, he told me the water was REALLY COLD! I don’t know where they took the temp, but trust me, it was not anywhere near 68. It was colder than Coeur D’Alene! My guess is a balmy 62.

I must say this is the biggest transition area I have ever seen! It’s situated on a hill and you can’t ever see all of it! AND after the rain and flooding we have had all week, the hill was a MUD BATH. I took a photo with my phone, but it does not capture the depth of the mud. So I was lucky in that my transition area was pretty dry and close to bike in/out. The less running in transition with the bike, the better!

Swim – Cold, lots of seaweed and a deep water start. I tried very hard when I first jumped in to tread water as fast as I could to warm up. I swam pretty hard for the first 200 yards and then settled down into a good rhythm until the turn buoy. I wanted to keep up with the group and catch the draft. The swim area is very narrow and its hard to swim off course, which is good for me based on my last two races! I had trouble sighting due to foggy goggles, I forgot to lick them, because I was running late to my wave. The biggest issue with this swim is you quickly catch up to all the previous waves slower swimmers. I had to practice defensive swimming. I got kicked in the head a few times when I came up on someone swimming breast stroke. There was so much seaweed and it kept getting caught on my goggles and around my neck. What an icky feeling! I didn’t want to stop every time to take it off so I developed a system of when my hand passed my head in the swim stroke I would just pull it off my face. Worked quite well, I only lost a little momentum doing this. My swim time was 29:00. the timing mats are at the end of the run, right at T1…so the official time is 32:30. That is the longest T run I have ever done. Longer than IMLP! 450 yards, in bare numb feet. And then I had to run to my rack which is on the complete other side of transition.

So this really cool thing happened to me in this race, normally, when I hit T1, a lot of bikes are gone….this time, most were there. So my mind goes and says “they are SO much faster than you, they are already back and on the run!” which I know was impossible. I passed a lot of people on the bike, and I didn’t get passed by to many people, mostly men from the waves behind me, very few women in my age group passed me.

BIKE - I borrowed a bike from my mother in laws personal trainer, thanks Alison! She rides a Trek 1000 and just completed a 150 mile MS ride on the bike, so it was in good shape and broken in! I test rode the bike on Saturday and found that shifting into the big ring was a little tricky, so I left it in the big ring for the race, which I thought was going to be dead flat. WELL, it wasn’t dead flat. The bike out went up a pretty steep on-ramp, and I didn’t feel like climbing out of my saddle and jacking up my heart rate so soon, so I shifted down into the middle ring (yes, a triple) and spun up the hill. Wouldn’t you know it, I get to the top and I can’t shift back into the big ring! Darnit. So I rode the whole course in the 42/12 or 42/13. I topped out at 25 mph. I would have loved to have about 2-3 more gears than I ended up with. My total bike time was 1:16.

I did something totally out of character, I was feeling really great. I passed a guy wearing, of all things, a Purdue University uniform. I yelled at him, “Purdue SUCKS! Go Hoosiers!” and sped off. I am an Alumnus of Indiana University, 1995. I looked back to see him pop out of his saddle and sprint to pass me. He got about 100 yards in front, and he then sat back down. I reeled him in at my steady pace and passed him again, this time not saying anything, but passing very close so he would know I passed him again. I feel bad about that, but in a really good way.

When I came into T2, there were a few bikes on the rack, but most were missing! WHOO HOO!

Run - we went south to the Planetarium and around the Shedd Aquarium and down to  Fireman’s memorial park, which was quite nice. It was hot and I was struggling to get 9 minute miles going. I almost lost my gel at mile 1. I ate it but it didn’t want to stay down. I was able to pass a lot of people in the run, which always helps to keep you motivated. It seems like every time I picked someone to pace, in about a mile or less, they slowed way down and then I would pass them and keep going. Total run time 56:36.

I placed 50/256 in my age group for a PR race that was 2:51. I was hoping for a 2:45, which I think I could have done better on the bike and swim. Oh well, there is always next year! I finished in the top 20% of my AG, which is huge!

Rachel won the Female Elite with a 2:10:33

Kim Dunker won her Elite age group with a 2:27:09

Great job to everyone who raced last weekend!

Sharpie threw down a 48 minute Ironman swim at IMLOU!

The Timex Multisport Team continued with their successful season as they headed into Sunday’s 2007 Subaru Ironman Canada race.

In the Pro Men’s race, Ukranian native, Andriy Yastrebov, used the 3rd fastest run (2:57:02) to secure a hard fought 4th place.  Jordan Rapp scorched the bike course pulling off an impressive (4:48:39) bike split, which was the 2nd fastest of the day, and came home in 5th place overall.   Canadian, Kyle Marcotte who raced consistently all day finished with the 6th fastest time of the day.

The Pro Women had a good day as Jacqui Gordon came through with 12th overall, while 23-year old Laura Tingle scored a 15th.

Canadian Cat Brown had a stellar day and used the fastest run (3:31:04) in her age group (25-29) to finish in 2nd place.

Next up for the Timex Multisport Team is the 2007 Ford Ironman Wisconsin race held in Madison, Wisconsin on September 9th.

Cat Brown        W25-29    2nd         10:29:07
Jacqui Gordon     WPRO    12th        10:29:13
Kyle Marcotte    MPRO    6th         8:55:19
Jordan Rapp        MPRO    5th         8:51:32
Laura Tingle        WPRO    15th         10:37:08
Andriy Yastrebov    MPRO    4th         8:50:37

See that thing that looks like a single serve pizza in the middle of my wheel? It’s a 27 cog and mine is part of a Shimano 10 speed 12 X 27 cassette which replaced the 12 X 25 I’ve ridden for years. While Laura Tingle finds it so hard having enormous hair, I love having an enormous cog.

Western CT where I ride is hilly, but I didn’t get one because I was “paper-boying” up the hills here with a 25 cog. I got it because I run better after spinning up those hills with a 27 versus dancing on the peddles with a more manly gear. The jump between gears isn’t as great as I thought it would be, as this gear chart shows.

I’m swallowing my pride and packing up this super granny cassette for Ironman Wisconsin. Last time I raced there, a spectator dressed up as the devil taunted riders struggling up Stagecoach Rd with bacon stuck on the end of a pitchfork. This year I plan to be smiling when I pass him.