spin / second sole multisport team

Earning the “Multisport” in our name this weekend saw the Spin/Second Sole Multisport Team all over NE Ohio in all sorts of events.

Jen Petkovsek and Brain Stern represented at the Muncie Endurathon with Jen placing 3rd in her AG and Stern cracking the top 10 OA. Paul Lentini, Marty Mason, and Mike Schaefer  visited Lorain for their annual summer sprint where Marty and Mike won their AG and placed in the top 10, while Paul snatched another podium position in his AG. Bruce Macdonald and Andy Cornwell raced the XTERRA in Ravenna where Bruce placed well despite the wetsuit ban, and Andy hurt himself from time to time but still had a good time. Oh, he did his first mountain bike race last week too….double race week! Finally, Leah Halloran and Aussie went and raced the Tour of the Valley (not to be confused with the TdF!).

Racing against former and current pros (including the current masters U.S. National criterium champion) Leah placed well in most of the events and cracked the top 10 in the GC (general classification) at the end of three grueling days of racing.  A very solid effort. Aussie faltered on the second day after a decent time trial and ended up playing domestique for a strong up and coming rider from Team Spin named Matt Orehek who went on to take 4th overall.

Reports featuring PRs, new bikes, and Eddy Merckx imitations at the link.

Marty and Mike –

What a beautiful day for racing. To start, I didn’t wear a wetsuit because Paul(Lentini) said I wouldn’t be a man if I did at such a short distance. A little confidence builder for late summer races–thanks Paul.
I would like to acknowledge Spin Bike Shop. I retired my old bike. My Serotta is so old most folks think I keep dinosaurs for pets. So, I finally have a new bike(sorry, it ain’t hot pink). The new BMC Time Machine handed me the second fastest bike split of the day. The fit is better than my old ride(which I thought was perfect).
I finished behind a two very fast 25 and 27 year old age-groupers on the 5k run. I was a little hurt they were interviewed by local press; however, I forgot about it quickly. I took the new bike past Huron. “Fun day!” is the way my five year old, Luke, would measure it.

Course PR!! (after 5 previous runnings)  I decided to focus on the swim and run for this “training” race, and I think I may be onto something!  Still rode fairly hard, but avoided my “redline” HR (175) comfortably except for the one climb.  Also started the run a bit more slowly and actually ran negative Spilts!  Note to anyone doing huntington – My full sleve wetsuit was TOO WARM for the current lake Temp.  (My swim was 30 sec faster than any previous, but it was fairly tortuous)

Jen and Brian –

First, off, I’d recommend this race! I thought it was a great event, well-organized with excellent volunteers. Going into the race we all pretty much knew it was going to be a sans-wetsuit swim due to the water temp. Race morning water temp was 80 which wasn’t a big surprise, and although I still brought it with me I knew I wouldn’t be wearing the wetsuit. A slow swim it was, but uneventful and I made it through without being too tired or beat-up! Although I could’ve sworn someone kept moving the one buoy farther and farther out! The bike course on this race is awesome. It’s so fast! I was worried about an early section that headed through their rails-to-trails system and on a multi-purpose path but it was shaded and fast! There were some false flats and short, small inclines but for the most part open, flat and awesome roads! Definitely made for a great bike split and I was able to average 21.6! One highlight on the bike was that I puked! I had a shot block in my mouth and I guess my body wasn’t having it at the time! Definitely made me feel hard-core just doing it and continuing on! Loved seeing a sign that read, “Swim, bike, run. That’s a good day.” The run course is a different story-rolling and hot! It just seemed unrelenting between the rolling and the heat. Fortunately, there were aid stations every mile which at first I thought seemed excessive, but it was not! I just focused on making it aid station to aid station and never was so happy for a cold, wet rag! I dumped so much water on myself (drank a little too) and put ice cubes down the back of my shirt. I knew that keeping cool was the name of the game at that point. I was able to hold it together on the run pretty well for a good finish of 5:10:20! I crossed the line and just gushed some tears with a smile. Very happy and relieved. Needless to say I’m extremely pleased, but it does put the pressure on a bit for the Rev3 half!

2010 Muncie Endurathon Half Iron – Muncie, Indiana
Known as a fast PR race course, the Muncie Endurathon has existed for 31 years. The swim is in a beautiful reservoir and this year was without wetsuits (80 F water temp). The bike course is an out and back on excellent road surfaces with rolling climbs, making it one of the fastest bike splits. An added bonus – the entire bike course is closed to traffic on major roads. The run course is anything but flat, long gradual climbs or descending, all with little shade. The race temperatures were in the 80’s with a light breeze, beautiful weather.

I enter the water and swim (with what I believe is with a purpose) and encounter lots of traffic (started in wave 7). I get out of the water and into T1 with a 38 minute swim (115th OA rank). Onto the bike course and experience a gas bubble for first ten miles, which feels like I need to puke. A couple of hearty belches later relieves the discomfort. I ride at my Half Iron threshold wattage and roll through waves of earlier starters. I feel old as my left knee aches for the first hour. The knee pain goes away only to move to my glutes for the remainder of the ride (getting old sucks). I watch the miles click off and see my bike speed average above 23 mph (bike split 2:21:51 – 23.7 mph avg. 34th OA rank). I push it into T2 and get my run gear on and heed the call of nature to get rid of four water bottles (slow T2 but worth it). I knock out a couple of fast miles before relaxing a bit. I run just hard enough to keep the leg cramps from over taking the rest of my body (did I mention how it sucks getting old?). I get to the run turn around and spot the remaining guys in my age group. Slowly, I hunt them down, catching all but two. Run split 1:23:44 (third fastest time of the day – Sometimes it really is nice to have a run back ground) and finish in a Personal Best Half Iron of 4:27:24. Good enough for 8th overall but only third in the 40-44 AG. Seven of the top ten finishers are 40 yrs or older (2,4,5,7,8,9,10) all in under a time of 4:30.
You young guys enjoy your youth while you still can, cause it gets much harder.

Andy and Bruce –

XTerra is very fun, way more laid back than an on-road tri, and carries more risk…

When I walked in to the water to warm up, I sliced my foot open on something right on the ball of my foot.  Sweet.  The swim was 750m, and felt like 8 miles.  Survived that, and then chugged up to the TA.
Gloves are essential equipment for riding mountain bikes… and I could  NOT get mine on over my wet hands.  I finally got going though, and had a surprising ride.  I stayed upright, went fast, felt good… which is more than I can say for a lot of people.  Mountain biking is very fun.

I get out on the run, and the first mile is in a scree garden uphill…  I was shocked.  It was very hard.  After that, it’s pretty straightforward, but I still managed to trip on a root or something and go down HARD.  On the run.  I hobbled for a while, but then got back in the groove and finished ok. Bruce did really well, coming in just outside top-10, and big congrats to Chip Meek who was doing his first tri on a weeks worth of training, and finished 7th.

Another fun Xterra in Ravenna this year. I did not defend my 1st out of the water title this year…most likely due to the wetsuit ban.  Rob, Aussie, feel free to chime in your opinions on this.
Bike was pretty dry, with a few tricky rock sections and not a lot of climbing.  The race definately favors those good on the bike, as prived by Chip from the Spin team.  He crushed the bike and finished 7th overall.
Run was super technical and rocky for the first mile, not so bad in the middle, and rooty and curvy throught he last mile. Glad I could drag Andy out of the house at 5:30 to make the trip.

Leah and Aussie –

This weekend, I did the Tour of the Valley, a timed three day cycling stage race.  It began on Friday night with a 9 mile time trial.  It was really hard and made harder by the fact that I did it Eddy Merckx style.  My time placed me 17th. The next morning we were back in action at the 33 mile road race.  We had a field of over 40 women which was just awesome!  (Our fields are usually around 15!) About 10 miles into the race was the KOM climb, with time bonuses for the first three women over.  Unfortunately I was 4th over and couldn’t bridge to the three that had formed a breakaway in front of me.  I tried to catch them for about 10 minutes and then gave up because no man’s land really sucks.  Once I fell back, I joined a group of 6 other riders.  We rode hard and constantly were attacking each other to try to form another break.  But, due to prior efforts and the hot weather it just wouldn’t happen.  It come down to a sprint and I got 3rd…6th in the race.  This moved me to 9th in the overall standings.  Sunday morning we had a 1 hour crit in downtown Youngstown. I was a bit nervous since I hadn’t raced a crit all year.  I managed to stay near the front most of the race and ended up 10th keeping my overall spot.  I thoroughly enjoyed the races and hope I can do it again next summer.

Managed to turn in a decent TT, but wasn’t able to go uphill as fast as i’d hoped during the road race. The crit was fun though and spent my time attacking as much as possible to soften up our GC rivals for our man (Matt Orehek of Team Spin) to finish well. He did, so that was good. Really cool experience racing over three days, and something i look forward to trying again soon. Congrats to Leah who held her own against some badarse competition.

Filed under: 2010 | Tagged: bike races, is there anything we cant do?, mtb race, results rehash, triathlon |