Trinona And Rochester

David popping victory champagne at Trinona courtesy of Yndecam.

If you've been racing in Minnesota this spring you probably have a little more hair on your chest now because the weather has been TOUGH. Lots of rain, clouds, cold and wind. Last weekend Claire and I drove down to La Crosse, WI and stayed with Claire's sister Sarah before racing at Trinona. We had a fun road trip even though we were both shivering cold by the time awards was over. Dave Schutz puts on the race and really delivers on the experience. Winona is his hometown so he's personally invested in the race and it shows. There are even podium girls to give out the awards. I was second to Thompson, which I was happy with and managed to barely win the King of the Mountain bluff climb again.

Trinona Results

Yesterday at the Rochesterfest Tri put on by Final Stretch the race was delayed 30 minutes due to a threatening line of thunderstorms that slowly crept across Minnesota all morning. We were fortunate and had no lightning so the swim wasn't canceled. It's a two loop swim with a short beach run in between, which I think is a blast. All of the spectators line up and cheer. I swam behind Thad and came out of the water a minute and a half back.

After the swim the fun was over. Even though there was no lightning the wind was very strong and somewhat gusty, getting up to the 20-30mph range. The bike course is an out and bike on country roads that run in a grid and the wind happened to be blowing at either a direct head/tailwind or a 90 degree crosswind. So the ride out alternated between white knuckle riding leaning into the crosswind praying that I didn't get knocked over by a big gust and cruising at 35mph not even pedaling because of the strong tailwind. After the turnaround the crosswind was the same back into town but the portions of the bike riding into the wind was a slow grind straight into the headwind. I was riding my Gear West 808 Zipp front and Zipp disc. It was the most nerve-wrecking riding that I've ever done. The entire time I was counting down the miles until I was off the bike and safely on two feet for the run.

Kevin actually got off the bike a couple seconds ahead of me and when I caught up to him I asked if he wanted to run together. We had a very big gap back to second place and I haven't run a race with a teammate since college. He was all for it so we pushed through the 10k and tied for first at the finish. I thought about asking him if he wanted to hold hands crossing the line, but Kevin is too classy for that.

Rochester Results

All in all it was a fun race. It was certainly a memorable race. I complain a lot about the weather up here in Minnesota, but that's mostly because I'm only tough in the heat and crumble in the cold. And even though I whine about it being cold, you just can't beat the races up here. In just 5 weeks I've raced at two duathlons and two triathlons that were really great races. And if I had wanted to I could have raced the Liberty Half the weekend I took off and made it a consecutive five. I've been racing for a long time and still, after getting the car packed up and driving home after each one I've said to myself, 'that was really fun'. There's not many other states where you can do that.

Trying to get my running legs back at
Trinona. Another great shot by Yndecam.

Other than getting in some great early season racing and some good training I haven't done much else. I've been putting in 25-35 hours a week at GW to replenish my woefully small bank account and that has kept me busy. Thank god it's a fun place to work and I get to talk bikes all day or I would probably have gone into depression. Claire and I are renting a room down in Bloomington now and the location is great. I haven't done much riding outside, I usually just get on the trainer and crank for an hour to squeeze more work into a shorter time frame, but the running down here has gotten me really excited. The Mississippi river bottom trails are only a mile away and Hyland Park is only a mile and half. Maybe this summer I'll find my running legs out on the trails somewhere.

I'll be driving down to St. Louis on Friday to race at the 5150 Innsbrook on Saturday. There is a professional field and I'm looking forward to my second 'pro' race.

Train Safe