spin / second sole multisport team

While the web guy was out of town, the Spin/Second Sole multisport team was racing like crazy!  Read on to catch reports about the Spirit of Morgantown (formerly Mountaineer) Triathlon in West Virginia, the Providence 70.3 (raced on a sprained ankle!), The Double Mussleman Triathlon– including the washing machine-esqe Musselman Half Iron, and several local races!

I know it’s long, but worth reading. The Spin/Second Sole team has been putting in some great results and occasionally doing it in the face of pretty solid adversity!

Spirit of Morgantown (Tim Walsh)

Myself and 3 teammates made the trek down to Morgantown, West Virginia this weekend for a crack at their half ironman. It turns out the 3.5 hour drive was well worth the effort. The event, formerly known as Mountaineer, had been appropriately named. The course highlights include: a cool river swim that allowed for a current-aided finish, a two loop bike route that allowed for speeds over 40mph (for the brave), a two loop run course that was predominantly flat and well shaded. The lower-lights included: an against the current swim, a 56 mile bike that must have consisted of 40 miles going uphill, and a run that, while mostly fairly flat, had a punishing finishing hill that was on your mind the entire run.

I’m proud to report that my fellow SSSMST member’s had really nice showings: Brian Stern, Rob Reddy, and Kevin Krol all finished around 5 hrs. or well under, with Brian second in his division and Rob first in his age group!!! As for me, well I’ve gotta get a little more skilled at changing a flatted tubular before I can compete with those guys.

All and all, it’s a race on the calendar for next year already.

Spirit of Morgantown (Brian Stern)

There were four brave Soles that made the trip to WV this past weekend to tackle one of the tougher Half Iron Courses around (the road surfaces play a major part and twice up the 11% monster hill at 5 and miles into the run). Rob Reddy lead the team out of the water with the fourth fastest swim including all pros. He said afterward that a crash on the rain soaked bike took him out of focus but still finished in 4:51:59 good enough to win the 40-45 age group. Not to be out done Tim “CO2” Walsh had a never ending flat on the return trip home and filled the tire with about five CO2’s to make it in for the run. He had to wait until a few other riders donated their CO2 for his cause. What a true trooper ending the day in 5:09:26 good for fifth place age group 40-45. Kevin “Red Bull” Krol had a solid race and planted a RED BULL at an aid station on the run and finished strong with 5:03:32 and tenth in age group 35-39. I did the usual average swim, decent bike, and powerful run to finish Second Elite Master in 4:43:46.

Lorain Sprint Triathlon (Jenn Davila)

Just wanted to give you an update on the stellar performance of the superfast sssmst this Sunday at the Lorain Sprint. I think everyone showed up to the race thinking “why the hell did I sign up for this, my last day to sleep in on a holiday weekend” and then, of coarse, there’s Bruce who is always regretting his alcohol consumption from the night before. But we prevailed… Jim LaMastra smoked the entire field with an overall time of 58:26 in the men’s Triathlon. Marty Mason had a fantastic race and finished third overall in the men. Bruce MacDonald won his AG. Joe Bush had a solid
AG finish. Nacho won second overall in the Duathlon with the sweet speed of his new ride. Jenn Davila was second overall in the women’s tri. Congrats to the team on a great job and a fun race!

Tomahawk Pow-Wow Days 10k (Mike Schaefer) [I don’t think this was supposed to be a real race report, but it’s funny and Mike got a PR, so I’m including it anyway.  -andy]

Just a brief race report from the northwoods of Wisconsin (my annual vacation back home) – I ran the “Tomahawk Pow-Wow Days 10K”  (cheezy, I know, but they still have real native americans up here…) and set a PR by over a minute – 42:29, (4th in AG) I’ve also managed to do a few long (and beautiful) open-water swims and rides this week –Now if I can just avoid the deep-fried cheese curds for a few more days, I’ll finally be ready for an international distance event next month….

Providence 70.3 (Lauren Trocchio)

So today I raced in the inaugural 70.3 Providence, RI. The race was to be a half-way point for IM Florida in November.   I suppose I should start the story back on Tuesday this week when I decided it would be a good idea to sprain my ankle…on a flat sidewalk. After a little RICE and a quick trip to the ER I was wearing an air cast and hoping for the best come Sunday.  The race never sold out so the official starting number was roughly 1,500. There was a fairly good field of pros, though (Lisa Bentley and Oscar Galindez ended up taking the prize.)

The swim took place at Roger Wheeler State Park, and we were greeted by roughly 4-6 ft breakers at the start. The entire swim really felt like a dishwasher, but I managed a pretty decent time. The bike and run courses were pretty dang tough. The transitions were a bit slower considering I had to put on an ankle brace, but nothing major.  I felt pretty good on the bike but soon learned that the ankle is attached to other parts of the body…and while the ankle didn’t hurt I had some muscle tightness on the same leg. All the same, I felt good when I came in to the Capital Grounds.  The run started off pretty well, but around mile 4 the ankle and foot acted up and at mile 6.5 I ran into some serious cramping in the abdominal region. I basically limped through the second half and finished up about 30 minutes off my best time.

I will tell you, though, that if anyone has ever ridden the LaMastra Buffalo Ride I would liken one of the hills on the run (done twice) to those very same tear-jerking hills. I think about 1 in 20 people were running up them.  The race coordination was great, and the cops were excellent at stopping traffic. We even got a tour of Providence’s rougher side on the way into T2. Since there were two transition areas the logistics of setting up pre-race were doubled in time and the bike course wasn’t great for spectating, but the run course in downtown Providence had plenty of spectators to cheer us on.   Somehow even with a slightly disappointing finishing time I managed to enjoy myself.  I’ll be taking the week off until Saturday when I take on a 2.4 mile swim from Peaks Island to Portland, ME. I’ll report back then!

Xterra EX2, Rocky Gap, MD (John Wilse)

Swim: If I ever learn to enjoy swimming and not just tolerate it, I might go faster……??

Bike (mntn): continuous gnarley rock gardens separated by epic climbs and killer descents, repeat 2 x….the new BMC ate it all up wonderfully…thank goodness for dual suspension….

Run (trail): up, down, up, down, up, up, up, up, down, down, etc., etc….highlight was the 75 foot climb up a 45 degree rock/boulder wall covered….ditto on the gnarley….

Scott Zubricky and I ran bay days five miler on July 4. I PR’d and placed in the top ten overall, 3rd in my age group.  Crazy thing is , I ran out my mind, one of my best races ever. 27:36.  Here is the crazy part- I finished  turned around  and Joc came roaring in.  She was the top overall female- and ran smoking fast 29:00 flat.  So much for me using the excuse of ” ah.. I am 6 months post baby.” Scott also had a great race.

As a tune up of IMMOO I raced the Double Musselman Triathlon this past weekend.  A sprint on Saturday and a HIM on Sunday.  As this was a “B” race and a training day, my theory was that whatever happens, happens, and that I should just deal with it and move on.

The sprint was rather uneventful except the swim crossed two sand bars that were only about half a foot underwater so you had to wade across them.  A 15 mile bike and a flat 5K had me crossing the line at 1:16:43.  Good enough for 45th out of 568 OA and 8th out of 36 AG

The Half was about as eventful as it gets.  I woke up at 4am to a constant down pour.  Trying not to be discouraged I put on a happy face, loaded the car and headed out for the hour drive to the race site.  By the time I made it there the rain had stopped, the clouds had cleared and sun was rising.  The only downside now was that the wind that had blown the storm away was still present and blowing at a steady 20mph.  So I open my Tri bag to find my HR monitor was dead  and I had no back up watch.  Oh well, deal with it and move on.

So the gun goes off for the swim.  A once around triangle that had us swimming across the waves for the first leg, into the swells, and the third leg was with the swells into shore.  By the time we made it to the turn buoy to return to shore we were swimming through constant 2-3 foot swells.  I felt terrible about a 48 minute swim until I found out that the fastest swimmer was over 30 minutes. The bike course was also affected by the wind.  I spent time hammering
the pedals to go 15 down hill against the wind, and hardly pedaling at all to cruise at 30 with the wind.  I was happy with a 2:41 and an average of 21mph.

Last year the run was my downfall.  I cramped up at mile 3 and suffered the rest of the day run-walking the last 10 miles.  This year, my goal was to make it through the run without cramping and running the whole way.  I accomplished both goals and finished run in 2:08.Total time on Sunday was 5:41:16 (a 15 minute PR)   Good enough for 183 out of 559 OA and 23 out of 42 AG.

Total time on the weekend was 6:57:50.   2nd in my AG and 12th OA for the Double.

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