Heron Lake Brick--Sunday, Aug. 24

Where: Heron Lake*
What: Open water swim (~1 hr.) + Bike (~2 hr.)
When: Sunday, Aug. 24
Time: 8 a.m.
Optional: camp out Saturday, Aug. 23, families included
* more details will be sent out the week prior as they get worked out! Since I've never actually been to Heron Lake, I will depend on others who have to provide some guidance on where exactly to do the swim and bike + where camping is available etc.? Any input is much appreciated!
The Aquatic Center will be closed for their annual cleaning & maintenance (2 weeks?) after the LA Tri, so this is a great opportunity to get some training done in open water in preparation for any races coming up in late summer & early fall. And, the group camping will be fun too, with the bonus of not having to make the drive up early in the morning!

Santa Fe Triathlon RR

Race Report – Inaugural 2008 Santa Fe Triathlon

The city of Santa Fe decided to organize and host a triathlon this year. I found it to be a well run race, and they more or less hit the technical parts of race execution. I thought it definitely had the feel of a local triathlon, with a fair number of mountain bikes in the transition area and a lot of people acting not quite sure how to logistically tackle the day. The race order is the same as Jay Benson, a run, bike, swim. I thought the venue and the course were really quite nice, with about half the run along a paved fitness trail, and the remainder along Rodeo Road. The city had blocked off an entire lane of Rodeo Road for the race, so that along with the early 6:30 start made for a pleasant, albeit slightly long run. The bike course headed out Richard Avenue, past the community college and towards several small subdivisions sprouting out of the high plains desert. The roads were generally good pavement, and clear of traffic and the race did a great job of manning the numerous intersections along the bike course. I found the bike segment to be deceptively tough with a lot of long slow rollers that made it hard to get into a good rhythm, but the views were nice. The swim was in the Chavez Center pool – a really nice pool with wide lanes and very clear water. They had chip timing and did a great job of quickly posting results and getting the award ceremony underway. The post race spread was adequate, but nothing special. They had a lot of goodies in the race package and the shirts are nice looking cotton T’s.

Some aspects of the event were annoying to me, probably artifacts of first year working the wrinkles out. They closed race entrance a week before the race, and it was a fairly expensive 65 bucks, counting a 15 dollar late fee. I’m starting to wonder about the value of such steep late fee’s, especially in the age of Active where it is pretty easy to register an athlete to an event. They made everyone get down to SF on Friday for packet pick up and a mandatory pre-race meeting that was not very informative. The early start of the race is a bit heinous, but due to Santa Fe traffic and public access to the Chavez Center is probably unavoidable. They used the Triatomic/county bike racks, and unnecessarily cramped the transition area. They also had an asymmetric transition area that put some athletes at a pretty big disadvantage….close to 30 seconds I would guess for the worst case. The run was unnecessarily long, by 60 – 90 seconds I would venture, which was odd since as they had us run a little out and back loop-de-loop before heading out on the primary part of the run. I also thought the medals, while decorative, have the feel of a participant medal and contain no information concerning your performance. Oh, they were also making noise about mandatory swim caps for “health reasons”. The swim cap thing was really stupid for a pool swim, but they backed off brfore the race and announced that they were only "encouraged".

Triatomics, and friends of Triatomics, rocked today, especially the women. Both Kim Myers and Rachel Hundhausen were in the Top 10, and Liz Spangel who owns the Running Hub and has been very generous to the Atomicman Duathlon was second. Kim Katko was 5th. Taraka Dale, Shana Cooper, Kimberly Peterson who have been active in the S-n-D raced well, along with Los Alamos residents Liz Miller, who won her age group and Thayla Sullivan who was second in her age group.

For the guys, I saw Bill B and Rob A had medals, I think Dr. Goddard won his age group and I came in second overall. Nathan Romero won his age group, and Ben Davis was also there expressing satisfaction in his race.

My race went fairly well. I was surprised to find more competition on the run than I anticipated. The run field started off pretty fast. And I was a long, long way down right away. OK, no problem, this happens a lot these days and I usually settle in and try to pick off people the second half of the run. It actually kind of started that way for me. I came out of the loop-de-loop in 11th place, quickly passed two more dudes to move into 9th. On the gentle decent down Rodeo Road was catching the next two guys in front of me. Then we turned onto the fitness trail. I’ll tell you something. I’m not a very good uphill runner, I never have been. The worst kinds of hills for me are low angle grinders. I don’t know what it is, but I just can’t get any mojo on those kinds of hills. Anyway, this was that kind of hill. It was almost flat enough to not be considered a hill, but it weighed me down. I didn’t pass anyone else, but at least I didn’t get passed either. I hit the transition timing pad, which was about 50 yards from the transition area in 20:00 flat. As I mentioned earlier, I think the run was a fair bit long. Being this far back put me in a bad spot for overall considerations, but I figured I would keep a positive outlook, try to scratch back what I could on the bike and see what happened on the swim.

I got through transition pretty fast and had passed two guys before Richards to move into 7th. I tend to have difficulty with the run to bike transitions, and at the start of the run my ass end didn’t have any get-up-and-go as I tried to power over the early rollers. The only thing I could do was downshift and try to spin the run out of my legs. I kept poking around trying to find a winning hand with my gearing, and about 4 miles into the bike I started feeling my bike legs and moved into 6th passing a guy on a road bike who really looked out of his element. I think he might have been the first runner. Before I figured out how to bike I used to get passed by lots of people during the bike leg. I felt a little bad for him as I blistered by, easily 5 mph faster than he was going. At the turn around I was about 75 seconds down on first place and figured I must be either holding my own, or moving up a touch. Right after the turn I moved into fifth and could see fourth down the road. I pressed the return as hard as I could and moved up on the next two guys in front of me, but I didn’t catch anyone else.

Because of the unfair transition, I had relocated my bike before the race to a better spot, actually moving someone else’s stuff who was taking up two bike slots. As it turned out I know the guy whose stuff it was, and he seemed cool about me moving his things and seems to acknowledge that he was indeed taking up two spots. As a result I ended up having one of the best transition spots which helped me get into the water right on the heals of #4. It took me about 150 meters to get into the swim, but once I did I started moving pretty good, passing three guys in the last 200 meters to move into second. The winner, a guy named Eric Lujan, put a good beat down on the entire field, including me, to win by about 75 seconds.

Results can be found here: http://www.cepmtnbike.com/results_misc.c

More pictures of Mila

Hi everyone. Mila is doing better today, as is her Mommy. Turns out, learning how to eat is not as easy as one might think it is, but it's going pretty well. The staff at the Los Alamos Medical Center is pretty darn good at what they do.

Here are some real pictures of Mila. Thanks for all of your support and well-wishes. It has been really great to see all of your comments. I tell Dina that everyone is saying hello and congratulations, and it really makes her happy. We can't wait to get back to the Splash 'n Dash and see everyone...but for now, we're having a lot of fun too.

Click on any of the images for a larger version. Sorry that they're all a little grainy and even blurry. I turned the flash off on the camera so that we wouldn't keep blinding Mila. Their poor little eyes have enough problems without that too.

New Cryathlete

Mila was born July 23

Weight 3361g (7 lbs 6.6 oz), Length 54cm (20.5 in.)

Sorry about the grainy cell phone picture...I have misplaced the cable to our digital camera

Dina had the biggest physical test I've ever seen a human being go through. Just in being there and "supporting" her, I am exhausted and could not walk very well for a few hours. She had a very hard labor that lasted for more than 3 days, but she wouldn't give up and things finally started going our way during the early morning hours so that she was able to go into the final stage of labor and push the baby out from about 9am to 11:50am.

There are, of course many details as to why this was such a hard labor, but the most amazing thing was Dina's physical ability to undergo the labor and the pain, and the baby's strength. If the baby had gotten stressed, then it would have been a problem, but she was strong and only got into stress at the very end when she was being pushed out. She was exhausted by the time it was all over and was a little bit blue, but her color improved quickly and now she is rested and getting strong quickly.

Dina is also recovering nicely. She lost a lot of blood, but she has already replaced most of it the nurses say, and she actually got up to walk around much to the amazement to everyone.

Little Mila's head is a bit bruised and mis-shapen due to the fact that they had to use forcepts on her (very sad thing to witness), but she is recovering from that pretty quickly.

I'll send more pictures when I find the right cable to our camera.

Baby Brug is here!

Deborah Elise Brug was born Wed 7/16 @ 11:03 am (in time for the Splash N Dash that night? :).
She is 21" & 6' 13 lbs.
Both mom and baby are doing well and got to go home early.

Cochiti Brick #2 -- Report

The brick workout down at Cochiti Lake on Sunday, July 13 went very well. 14 people showed, mostly club members, but also a few new faces. We were expecting hot weather training, and instead got calm, cooler weather... maybe mid-60s when we started and in the 70s when we got back from the bike, with the sun just starting to break through the clouds the last few miles of the bike ride. There were 12 people swimming with varying abilities/speeds but everyone was within 5-10 minutes of each other so it wasn't too spread out; the return leg of the swim gave us some choppy water to contend with (I felt like a cork) but it was good practice on sighting and propelling forward in those conditions. Tina was generous enough to come down with the group and boat behind us again. The water was in the low 70s and it took ~1:05 to swim the same course as last time. 14 people rode the bike route into Cochiti Pueblo--we had considered changing routes due to festival preparations, but decided it'd probably be OK seeing as the festival wasn't until Monday. It turned out to be just fine with very little traffic (and polite drivers), and only a slight headwind on the return. Both the swim and bike were faster this time as people seemed to be more focused and perhaps more motivated in the cooler temps. to keep moving. Or perhaps the novelty of a new course had worn off for people who had done the brick a few weeks ago, so we just got down to business? In any event, it proved to be great training with a really nice group of people. We'll plan another one in August after the LA Tri--maybe up at Heron Lake. Details to follow. Thanks again everyone!

BSLT 70.3 2008 Race Report

**all pictures taken by Dan and added later by Dina - that's why pictures comments refer to Jeff in 3rd person**
If you read Cyndi’s post along with mine you will get the ying and yang of it all.

The red radioactive hoard that is the Triatomics showed up in Lubbock, Texas for the 19th edition of the Buffalo Springs Lake Triathlon. BSLT is a half ironman that is part of the 70.3 series, and as such has slots available for the 70.3 World Championships, in Clearwater, Florida, and as one of the old school half irons is one of the last few 70.3 races one can earn a slot to Kona. We showed up in neon-like numbers with Jim and Barbara Wendelberger, Cyndi Wells, Amy Regan, Char Latham, Martin Pieck, Jeff Johnson (me), Bill Bearden and Tom Bargeloh racing in the 70.3, and Joseph Baehr competing in the aqua-bike.

The race venue is at Buffalo Springs Lake, a man made, spring fed lake that is in Ransom Canyon located about 5 miles southeast of Lubbock, and both the run and bike snake in and out of the very large Ransom Canyon complex and the surrounding farmland. The lake is very nice and unexpected based on the surrounding topography. It is surrounded by a small residential area of year round homes and what appear to be weekend cottages. The lake is fairly clean and a very temperate 75 – 80 degrees, although the triathlon swim always manages to be wetsuit legal, barely.

BSLT has a reputation for being a very hard course that can be hot or windy or hot and windy. I’m not sure what makes the bike course hard because it is mostly flat with about a thousand feet of climbing over 5 moderate hills that are comprised of climbs in and out of Ransom Canyon, but there is something about the bike course that suppresses a high average speed and kind of weighs on you. The run course is flat with three significant hills and a mile and a half out and back on a hot flat road that is called the “energy lab 2”, a reference to the fabled energy lab out and back on the Kona run course.

A delayed storm front brought cool temperatures, overcast conditions, gusty wind and intermittent rain for race day, and although the conditions were cool, which probably contributed to a lot of pretty fast runs, the wind and rain out on the bike course made for slower than normal bike times, and treacherous descents down some of the steeper hills on the course. There were a number of people that came thundering off their bikes but no any serious injuries that I am aware of.

Before I get into the self indulgent details of my race I will recount how the rest of the team performed…

Barbara competed in and completed her very first half ironman, Jim punched in a workmanlike performance in support of Barbara, Amy placed 5th grabbing a slot to Clearwater.

Here is Amy passing some more guys on her way to 5th! :) This is shortly before the finish chute.

Char placed 15th in what has been called this years most competitive age group, Martin was 6th in his AG with very good time of 4:40, and just missed earning hardware by 3 minutes. I think he lost all his time mugging for the camera…. Here are some examples of Martin's frivolous waving to the 'fans' and bicep flexing... what a ham! :)

thanks to Dan for taking pictures! Bill plowed through the race in good form, placing 10th in his AG, even though I know he was under trained, Tom finished solidly in the middle of his AG, and Cyndi showed up and raced despite having her slide-in camper catch fire while en-route to the race. Joe finished the aqua-bike after wrecking his brand new bike on some rain slicked roads and jamming his rear derailleur.

I showed up in Lubbock hopeful for a good performance, and confident I had prepared to execute, but the pre-race omnipresent fear of failure hung over my head. Ever since the previous BSLT I had ridden a wave of good performances and I had raised my personal expectations of race day execution. Proper execution equates to satisfaction that always accompanies accomplishment of challenging goals, but the other side of coin is always there. I had a couple of basic goals for this race, I wanted to improve on my time from last year or improve my overall placement and I wanted to earn a slot to Clearwater.

Anyway, race day loomed. Suzy and I got up at 3:15 our time, 4:15 panhandle time, ate a little, packed and picked up Amy Regan at 5:00. The worst part of this race is a congested drive to the venue. The race starts at 6:30 with all the waves leaving over the following half hour, and there is usually a 20 – 25 minute wait for parking, and a longish walk to transition It doesn’t make for much time to get your transition set up, visit the john, and warm up for the swim.

I basically had enough time after I got down to the lake to scope out how others were addressing the swim start, swim about 150 yards to warm up, and go through the corral to the start. This race has a cheesy legal “cheater” that allows the swimmers to wade along the shore for 100 to 150 yards before starting the swim. It isn’t without peril due to submerged rocks that can twist your ankle or cut your foot. I elected to wade the shore as far as I could and dove in the water in about 5th or 6th place with a pack of 5-10 swimmers just to my left. I don’t think the shore walk gained all that much time but it allowed me to get in the water with a thinned pack and avoid the thrashing that typically accompanies an open water swim start. Being out in the open I was able to put the hammer down and motor through a pretty good swim in just under 26 minutes. I was the second person out of the water in my age group, beating the next pack of guys in my group pack by over a minute.

I got though transition pretty easily and settled in. The prevailing winds on race day were mostly in our faces out and at out back on the return. I figured it would be hard to put distance into people the last 20 or so miles on the return, so the time to make hay was into the wind. I immediately tried to set a steady tempo and work into the wind. My new aero helmet and disc wheel made the head wind pretty easy to deal with. I had been in (pretty minor) angst concerning which front wheel to use in the race, and based on the breezy race morning conditions decided against my deep dish and utilized a basic light weight training wheel with a rear disc. The decision proved correct as many portions of the race had stiff side winds that would have abused my deep dish front, but didn’t phase the steel rim at all.

At about mile 7 or 8 I passed the guy who I knew was first out of the water, and I figured I was in first place in my AG on the road. The ride was pretty uneventful, you had to pick your way down a few of the hills because of the rain but I pretty much relaxed, conserved and fueled up for the run. I must have been passed by someone in my AG near transitions, and due to the rain washing his number off didn’t know it, but I passed him back pretty soon on the run and pressed at a comfortably hard pace to the turnaround. I tried to pick up my tempo on the return, but started feeling the days effort around mile 9, and really struggled to maintain pace the last 4 miles of the run.

Jeff picking up the tempo on the run.

I ended up winning my AG by about 4 minutes. Second place was a guy from Colorado who ran a smoking 1:24 and plowed through a lot people, third was the guy who beat me into T2.


Early in the year when I knew I was going to race BSLT and I established my performance goals, I knew if I accomplished them I would stand a good chance of winning my AG. I contemplated what I would do in the event I won my AG and earned the slot to Kona. In our sport it is almost anathema to decline a Kona slot, and while the distance really doesn’t interest me, the iconic status associated with the race weighed on my decision process. I have always said I wouldn’t race any other ironman except Kona, meaning I would have to win the lottery or a half ironman, and since they are eliminating the half iron slots those opportunities are waning. I finally decided that if I managed to win my age group or finish high enough to have the slot pass down I would decline it basically because I don’t think I would enjoy the training or the race nor did I necessarily believe I would be able to own the opportunity to compete well. The risk to reward ratio wasn’t to my liking. On the other hand, I felt the 70.3 championships in Clearwater were more accessible from both a training and a competition point of view, so I decided early in the year to focus on Clearwater if I could earn the slot.

Jeff with the spoils: computrainer, 1st AG, wine, Clearwater slot!

The second place guy from my AG took the roll down but he looked like he was trying to swallow a buffalo. He commented to me that I was probably the smart one. I wish him a lot of success in Hawaii! Joining me, so far, in Clearwater will be both Dan Reese and Amy Regan, so the Triatomics will be well represented and I suspect we will have a grand time.