Jay Benson and new uniforms!

Seeing as how I didnt race, I probably shouldnt call this a race report. But I did spend most of the day volunteering in the transition area, so I even had a chance to snap a few shots of those who went through during a low volume moment (note, they are mostly butts, as I had to do my job first and shoot later and usually they have already gone past me :).

Quite a nice showing from Triatomics with 15+ racers including Rachael (her older son did the kids tri too!), Tina, Rob, Jim W and his daughter Beth, Jeri, Laurie G, Paul, Karen Y, Jeff, Clay, Amy, Frank, Nathan, Deb K and John B (new club members from Santa Fe).

Everyone did extremely well, with lots of personal bests, age group placings as well as two women and two men in the top 5 overalls!! Click here for results.

So here are some shots with our new uniforms!
Tina is ready to go and waiting for women's start:
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Here is Frank and I believe part of Jim Wendelberger (ahead in mostly red) during the men's start.
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Here is Clay in T1. He came in just behind Nathan Romero from the run. Nathan slipped and fell as he was running out of the transition with his bike - all the spectators and Nathan's whole supportive family gasped as it looked quite painful! Later there were quite a few more of such slips in bike shoes. Be careful running in bike shoes and maybe that's a good argument to try and learn to do it like the top guys and gals - run barefoot with shoes already in pedals. Although dont do what Jeff did yesterday - apparently he accidentally clipped left shoe on the right and right shoe on left pedal and discovered that as he was mounting his bike - but at least he didnt slip while running out :)
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Here is Jeff's backside as he heads out on the bike - he only wore the triatomics shorts, or as his daughter Heidi likes to say "Daddy is naked!!"
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Here is Paul sporting our fancy new gear heading out on the bike on his fast Quintana Roo!
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Here is Amy heading out for the bike. She is also a TriSports.Com athlete, which means she cant wear our cool club tops that often in races (she did get one though! :)
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Also, Sportz Outdoor, as the only sponsor of the event put a lot of money into the race: along with medals, top three in each age group also got gift certificates to Sportz Outdoor and the raffles were amazing! Best of all Clay won a Giro aero helmet in our club colors - couldnt be better as the one he was racing in that day was held together with some carefully placed duct tape (and was blue)! :)

Btw, those of you who've done the race before - they still start women 30min after the men which means top women have to swim around the backend of men's wave. Its totally unfair, both to the top women and the men they are trying to run over! Deb and Amy who got 4th and 5th overall, both had to deal with it and Deb even had a huge bruise on her cheek from a guy kicking her in the face when she tried to squeeze by between him and the lane line as he wouldnt stay right.
Supposedly next year they may consider an elite wave to avoid this scenario - I hope so, although I wonder how they would define 'elite'.

A Mighty Wind (almost)

The Jay Benson triathlon was held this past Sunday, and Los Alamos had a great showing for the race.  On Saturday, the winds were as furious as my mother when I didn't pick up my Legos, and Sunday's forecast didn't look any better.  Luckily, race morning was very calm (relatively) and made for a fast race.  Most of the club members (looking at you Laurie) showed off our new club uniforms, and are they bright!  Clay took 2nd and Jeff took 5th overall.  That's two in the top 5 from LA!  Amy, Laurie, and Frank took 1st in their age group (did I miss anyone?).  Ted's son, Nathan, had the fastest run, at 16:39, but couldn't hold onto the lead on the bike.  Although, this was the first time he rode his bike this year.  

I had my PR for the course, despite the swim and run.  My bike was the fastest I've ever had in a race; jeez, considering what I paid for the new bike, I better have!  The lack of swim training showed in the water.  Between 200 and 300 meters, I wasn't swimming, as much as I was simply flailing my arms.  Luckily, the life guards didn't think that I was drowning.  All in all, it was a great race, and a good start to the season.

Atomic Man 2008 with pictures

Clay and Tarik have already written race reports, so this is really just meant to add pictures that Clay was missing when he wrote his. Clay's is below (or click on Race Report label at left and scroll) and to check out Tarik's report go here - if you've ever read Tarik's race reports (loads on SW nordic blog) you know its worth reading!!
Main action shots from the race are courtesy of Cyndi and Mike Warren of Pet Pangaea - you can access them from the race site. The ones below are a few of the ones I had time to snap as I was frantically running around. To see all of the pictures I took go here.
Luckily Timbad was able to make it (his dad is sick), so we had some serious speaker-power and a great announcer! :)
Here is the FatMan start:

We also had the honor of having Don Perkins of the Dallas Cowboys spectating and hanging out. Check out the highlights of his spectacular career here and more here. He was there to watch his grandson Wyatt while Judy and Dave did a relay. Here is a shot with Dave, Timbad, Don and Wyatt - Dave is waiting for the bike leg while Judy is out doing Run1.



Here is a shot of Clay (1st FM) and Martin (5th FM) after the race:

and here is Judy kicking in for the finish (man, that uphill there must just SUCK!):

Here is Derek getting his award for Little Boy - he was one of our younger competitors but a race veteran having done it before:

Here is Denny finishing Fat Man while Alexis cheers him on:

Well, I can keep this up forever, but I'll stop now - so to see all my other pix go here.

Jarrod, Jeff and the race committee did a great job on the race! volunteers were amazing - we are becoming famous just for our fantastic volunteers. Thanks to everyone!!

Triatomics Spring Party recap!

Here is a belated party recap and some pictures. The complete set of pictures can be found here.
With the help of all the cooks (food was awesome!) Rob put together a great party! We did missed Timbad and his music - but he had to be away due to his dad's health. We made do with a few ipods which worked out well in the end.
The party started with packet stuffing for Atomic Man Duathlon - thanks to everyone who helped out! Here are the 2008 race directors Jeff and Jarrod right after all packets were put away:



After that the festivities began with large amounts of awesome home-made food. We also celebrated Bill B. 60th birthday with a delicious cake that Cathy had made and with 60 candles on it!!!! - dont tell the Fire Dept! He needed a lot of help to blow them out and the kids obliged (sorry Bill, with all the fire and kids, I somehow didnt actually include your head in the shot... :):



Here is a shot of Bill talking to Tom and Sue to make up for the one above:



And here is the party organizer, El Presidente (aka Rob) with his son Ethan:



And the swarms of kids had a blast - some chasing others with bats... Its ok, it was a girls against boys thing and I think the girls must've been winning :)


bat-woman! :)


Alright, then there was dancing and socializing, but since I was dancing there are no pictures of that part :). You can see more pictures at the link at the very top of the post. To clean up we made Nora and Heidi Johnson wash the floors... :) :) :) They did a GREAT job!
Here is Heidi:


And here is Nora:



And that's all! Next party is post-LA Tri BBQ - BE THERE!

Maxxis order to come in on Thu 5/8

Maxxis order should be here by Thu according to UPS tracking system. Let Clay know how/when you want to pick it up. We can do it similar to uniform pick up since there are relatively few people ordering on this one.

Who is going to Jay Benson?

My first race of the year...only real goal is to improve my time from last year....but I am going to rest rest next week, and bring the full fast kit, including the Triatomics ourfit my wife bought for me. anyone else?

Maxxis order already in for this go 'round

Well, if you didn't get your order in, you'll have to wait until the next round, which might sometime during the summer. The order was placed yesterday and hopefully, we'll see the tires come in by late next week.

Hope to see you all at the Sinko de Mile tomorrow, or at the Viva La Recreation Day at Ashley Pond.

Also, is there anyone interested in going to Buffman and Squeaky?