Pigman Sprint Triathlon Results - DNF

So, it finally happened. I flatted out of a race. The big DNF.

I will start at the beginning. Everything was going really well. The night before Jackie and I had dinner at a local Italian place with Kevin O'Connor, owner of Gear West Bike and Tri, Jared Vorhees, Kris Swarthout (my tri-coach at OptumHealth Performance), and a bunch of the MJETs (MN Junior Elite Triathletes). It was a nice dinner and fun.

Got pretty good sleep. We got there plenty early and I got my transition area setup nice and neat. I talked to a number of people and went for a short warm-up bike. The weather was great, high 50s rising to low 70s by about 10AM. Elite start time was 7:30AM.

They had a time trial start for the AG athletes, which seemed really time consuming, and there was a lot of standing around and waiting. but in the end was kind of nice. The time trial start results in people being really spread out in the swim and made for less traffic, at least it seemed that way.

I had a great swim. It felt really good. It "clicked".

There is a decent run, mostly uphill, to transition. I ran out at a good pace and had a very good transition. I was really feeling pretty good.

I got out of the park at a pretty good pace, not in the aerobar. There was too much traffic. Once out of the park I headed down the big hill and got moving good. At the bottom, when it flattened out, I shifted into a comfortably hard gear. I was probably about 5 miles out, maybe less, when I hit a pothole, and there was large "clunk" and I felt the rear end get a little wobbly. I didn't want a flat tire, I also didn't want a broken Sub-9 disc. I continued to ride another couple miles and continued to get passed by a lot of people. I decided to give it up. Got off the bike and yes, the tire was definitely flat. I got in the sag wagon, or as the driver called it "shag wagon", and made the slow trek back to the start/finish/transition. It was slow because we had to get through all the bike traffic on the way back. It was an interesting ride, I got a change to see how others were handling the bike, especially up the hill.

I was dropped off pretty close to transition, I had about a 5-10 minute walk back to the start/finish area. On the way back I got a lot of "So sorry" and "That sucks", it was nice to get a little sympathy.

Once I got back, I quickly found Jackie, and got changed and more or less got ready to go. Before leaving we ran into Jared and stripped the tire off the wheel. Thankfully, the wheel was not damaged. It appears that the tire was damaged around the valve stem. I must have hit the pothole just right.

Lucky for me I race, and can race, every weekend. Something like this is a learning lesson and I can take it into next week. I had a great swim and I can push it harder and still get on the bike feeling pretty good. Even though the bike was short, I got a good feel and I know how it will feel coming up this next week. I was really happy with my swim and I look forward to it next weekend. I also look forward to racing, and finishing, this coming weekend at Manitou Sprint.

Here are more shortened results

Swim (547 yards) - 8:30 (1:34 min/100 yards), 2008 was 9:44 (1:44 min/100 yards)

T1 - 2:52, 2008 was 3:44, I believe. I really concentrated on moving fast and getting the wetsuit off in a methodical manner. It paid off.

The winner of the race was Devon Palmer and second was Kevin O'Connor, owner of Gear West Bike and Triathlon. This race features an "Equalizer". The Equalizer is a head start for the women, in this case about eight and half minutes, and the winner gets a bonus check. In this case no male caught the lead female and she, a triathlete from Bloomington IL, walked away with a little extra spending cash.