Timberman 2008

Being able to drive under 4 hours to a triathlon festival the caliber of Timberman makes it a “must do” race. The course is beautiful, the event organizers are great www.timbermantri.com and the pro field is first class. Having done the 70.3 several times I decided to take the lazy route this year and race the sprint. Hey, I can sit back Sunday and watch Potts, Lessing, Lovato, Wellington and several friends rip up the long race on Sunday…

Saturday morning

The sprint is fast, 600 meter swim, 15 mile rolling bike with one “nasty” hill and a rolling 3 mile run along the shores of the lake, sounds more fun than a 70.3 any day… right?

Almost 1000 racers lined up race morning to nearly perfect weather, 68 and sunny with a light breeze…

I was in the 4th and final wave, the swim in crystal clear lake water is fast, the bike, a tad busy and the run rolling hills and maybe a touch short of 3 miles. Although sprints are painful there’s something reassuring knowing every stroke, pedal and step takes one measurably closer to the finish, no seemingly endless Ironman death marches here…

I raced the swim and bike full on, with the exception of the last downhill, which is a no passing zone… getting struck behind a slowpoke coasting the rest of the way in. After posting a 16:44 minute run split I crossed the line in 1:04:35 hrs, 55 seconds behind winner Tim Snow an up and coming pro and 1 sec behind the other pro in the race… Bottom-line, I missed the podium by 1 second… People, I know we’ve all being watching the Olympics but I raced for 3876 seconds and came up one short!

Results: http://lin-mark.com/tmsprint08.txt

So it’s 9:00am on Saturday morning and I’m done racing for the weekend… that doesn’t sound right! Tomorrow I can train by myself - or train with 2000 of my closest friends. And double this month’s run milage!

Remember that bit about the organizers being great? Well, being a member of Team Timex didn’t hurt and having the same name as their son didn’t hurt either, so a few hours later, with a race packet in hand I’m in.

Now reality sets in, I’ve no nutritional goodies and my running shoes are 4 year old 8 oz. racing flats that are “flat” in many senses of the word…

Time to hit the Expo, firstly for a bunch of Powerbars and gels http://www.powerbar.com/ and then to see Shari at the Zoot tent. Several of our Timex teammates have been racing in Zoot M Ultra’s this season http://www.zootsports.com/ with great results, so I was confident if Zoot had my size I’d be good to go. Shari and Ben came through big and I walked out 10 minutes later in a new pair of the most comfortable running shoes I’d ever put on my feet…

Sunday morning

Once again great conditions… low humidity, 65 and enough wind to stay cool on the run. As usual the old guys go last with our wave 55 minutes after the pro start, time enough to watch Andy Potts decimate the swim in 22 minutes and be riding his bike before the competition got out of the water!

No need to bore y’all with the details: I found a great pair of feet on the swim (thanks Jim) and rode the bike in 3 sections, first 14 miles at bike threshold (149 HR), next 36 miles at 142 HR (nice tail wind) and the last 6 miles at 137 HR, easing up at the end to be “fresh” for the run…

I was barely on the run course when the announcer congratulated Andy Potts on his 1:14 run, new course record and 10 minute schooling of the rest of the field. Watch out Kona this guy is the real deal…

Pro Results: http://lin-mark.com/tm703profin08.txt

As usual I ran a little ahead of myself averaging 6:55s for the first 4 miles before reality and lack of training set in but with the moral support of a couple of young studs (thanks Tod and Toga) we managed to keep rolling and held a decent pace to the line. The Zoot Ultra’s were fantastic, my right foot was unblemished and had a small blister behind the ball of my left foot, mainly due to grit from T2. The arch support is the best I’ve ever felt in race shoes…

The highlight of the run was watching our Timex teammate Chris Thomas run a 1:21 PR run split to convincingly take his second Top Amateur Ironman 70.3 victory this season in 4:14:01 hrs. Chris even spent time running with Potts before graciously allowing Andy to run the last few miles solo…

I ended up crossing the line in 4:35:36 a Timberman PR, first place in my new and improved old guy age group and PR’s in both the swim and bike… even with the Zoot’s I might actually have to train some to get my run back…Results: http://lin-mark.com/tm703ama08.txt

Despite screaming IT bands for most of the run it was a fantastic day and the double was no trouble at all…