American Triple T Ohio
I did the American Triple T Ohio two weekends ago - May 21-23. This race is in the Shawnee State Park in south central Ohio. The area is called the "Little Smokies" because it has some nice sized hills for the Midwest. The race is put on by HFP Racing (Shannon Kurek). We are blessed in Ohio to have Shannon and others putting on quality races in Ohio. We have more triathlons close by than we deserve because of him.
Here is the web link, so I won't rehash what Shannon says about his race: http://www.americantriple-t.com/
The Friday afternoon super sprint was fun. A short swim, bike, run that took all of 28 minutes. The water was very cold - I estimate 56 - 58 degrees - so a full wetsuit is a must.
Saturday we did Olympic races - one in the morning and one in the afternoon. There were storms that closed the bike course they wanted to us in the morning because there were trees on the road. So the bike course was the same for both races - an out and back that includes a long - I estimate 3 miles - hill that you hit on the way back. I didn't have my power meter yet so I tried to pretend to take the hill the EN way and of course everyone was passing me. I am pretty fearless on the descents and made up time there and on the flats.
The run course is the same - a ~3 mile course into the woods on a gravel/dirt road that includes so pretty steep hills. Do the out and back for the Olys and do it twice on Sunday for the Half Ironman. There is partial shade and it was pretty nice on Saturday. There are plenty of water stops and I found the variety of terrain helped me stay focused.
When I added up the first three races, I was at 6:40. I knew lots of people would slow down for the Sunday half Ironman distance. After the cold swim, getting out on a new bike course was fun. We were on small, but pretty well maintained fire roads in the State Park with lots of short steep hills and descents with technical turns at the bottom. It is prudent to take it easy on those descents. A few guys crashed. It started getting hot on the Sunday run but I kept it together for a total of 6:44 on Sunday.
I treated the whole weekend as a fun way to emerge from the OS and get some good training stress and have some fun. In fact, it only took a couple days to recover given I didn't kill myself.
The only other EN'er that I think did this race was Carl Bromer. Shout out to Carl; it was fun to see you there. Monday starts my Ironman Louisville Week 1 training. I got my PowerTap and wheel from Rich and am ready to go! I may see some of you next Saturday at the ride of the Louisville course with Bob Baney and company.
Comments
Congrats on a great weekend of racing. Looks like you managed yourself well through all the races. This is definitely on my to do list also!
Scott,
Great job and nice report. I live in Columbus so 90 min drive from the house and I've done the race 3-4 times. It's a great course to prepare for a hilly IM.(12,000 ft climbing over 3 days). also the 2nd Olympic on Sat is a bike-swim-run. It's a trip because your leggs are full of blood and then try to swim and then run. a very weird feeling. I took this year off but will back for it next year. It's a very well done race by HFP Racing
Pg