Race Recap: Graniteman Triathlon.

 First off, I really liked this race a lot!

I originally signed up for Graniteman because I was looking for a race that I could do by myself, Kris does Minneman every year and that is sort of her race so I wanted to find a race for me. Last year I did Lifetime Triathlon one week after Minneman and that was OK, but honestly Lifetime is a lot of hype and the emphasis is on the Elites and the average age groupers don't get much especially considering it is one of the most expensive Tri's I have ever signed up for.

Graniteman had a number of things that attracted me to the race. First and foremost was the swim course, Graniteman has been around for 7 years but this year they moved to an entirely new location in Warner Lake Park and the swim is a straight point to point .46 mile swim, no turns to fight around and as it turned out a nice lake, a little murky with no weeds to speak of.

Heading into this weekend we have not gotten much training in at all due to the new priority of getting Kris moved into my house. Take a moment to read our combined blog A Life More Complete for more details. With our focus on the move and lack of training this past week, skipped Core, no swims at all but we did have a very hard weights on Wednesday night which left us sore for most of the week. So with all of that I was not in the best place for this race and to top it off I we did not get in our pre-race soak.

The race is in Lake Warner Park and it has a bit of an unusual start, there is only transition but it is at the north end of the lake and you have to walk to the swim start at the south end of the lake. I was in wave 8 out of 9, another plus if you ask me, less chance to get run over during the swim. I started the swim and felt pretty good, but my lack of swimming this season came back to bite me again, about a 1/3 of the way across the lake my anxiety got the best of me, call it a combination of dark water, lack of training and the curse of starting off too fast during a race. Whatever it is I had to flip over onto my back and regroup, I keep swimming but with my own personal swim stroke, don't even know what it is called but it keeps me moving forward. Not sure how far I swam that way, maybe another 1/3 but after gathering myself I flipped back over and finished the swim fairly strongly.

Out of the water and into transition, I was trying a new tactic to wash my feet and speed up my T1 time, which I have been historically very slow at. I brought an additional towel and after rinsing my feet from my water bottle I stepped onto that towel to dry and keep dirt out of my bike shoes. It seamed to work since I got out of transition in 1:44 which might just be my fastest T1 time ever.

Out on the bike and this is the area I am hoping to be able to improve the most so I planned to put most of my energy on my bike today. The bike course was 15 miles and it was mostly gentle rollers, not two hard but I was at a slight disadvantage; I did not know then course and somehow I had it in my head that the course was 13 miles. My cycle computer had a dead battery so I honestly did not have any idea of how I was doing during the ride. And I am still having problems with my front derailer, I dropped my chain again that makes  two races in a row. Sigh.....

OK back to transition for T2, which is always pretty fast for me, I don't wear socks during the bike and then can just slip into my running shoes grab my visor and go. Back out on the course. The last mile of the bike you ride on the other side of the road from the runners and you sort of get an feel for what to expect on the run. It is a straight out and back with just one turn before the turn around. Unfortunately, the run course also has several rolling hills, not as bad as Waconia was but enough to make the run that much harder.

Having pushed pretty hard on the bike, I was shooting for a 20mph average or better, I used up a lot of my energy, and strting the run was harder then I was expecting, the weather was not helping , sunny and warm which is always one of my downfalls during a run. But I pushed on and after the first mile or so I was feeling a little better, I think my last gel might have been kicking in so i was able to add a little bit more speed and was able to finish strong. One critique would be that they needed two water stops, not just the one right at the turn around, or put the water spot farther away from the turn around and it can act as two water stops on the course.

I finished with a time of 1:29:18 and with the exception of the swim, I will count this as one of my most successful triathlons. Better then 50% in all categories, overall, division and gender. And one of the best part of the day was having my own personal cheerleader and photographer. Kris did a great job cheering me on during the race.

Mark Kuhn
bib number:	206
age:	40
gender:	M
location:	Robbinsdale, MN
overall place:	114 out of 367
division place:	20 out of 42
gender place:	89 out of 208
time:	1:29:18
swim:	16:40 (2:15/100y)
trn1:	1:44
bike:	45:15 (19.9 mph)
trn2:	0:56
run:	24:45 (7:57 pace)

Next up: Ragnar Relay (unfortunately more then a month away)

Race Recap: Tri-Loppet and Lake Waconia Tri - Back to Back Relays

This past weekend I had two opportunities to compete in a Multisport Relay event for the first time.

Cities of Lakes Tri-Loppet 

On Saturday, Kris myself and Jeff, our boss/friend at ZapEvent, competed in the Cities of Lakes Tri-Loppet, a twist on the standard Triathlon formula. The Tri-Loppet is a 8K Paddle, 5K Run and then an 11K Mountain Bike. We were signed up in the corporate relay division as Team ZapEvent (thanks by the way to Jeff and/or ZapEvent for picking up the entry fee) and divided the race legs with Jeff doing the paddle, Kris on the run and me finishing up on the mountain bike.

I was really looking forward to this race as I have never raced on a mountain bike before, there are several mountain bike race series in the area but I have never had the opportunity, granted I just got my new mountain bike this spring and I would never have ridden my old piece of junk in a race.

This race requires a bit of planning as, there is two transition location and the start and finish are also in different locations. The best plan is to park at the Lake Calhoun Exec Center and ride the shuttle boss to all the different locations. So we did just that and met Jeff down at the starting line on the south side of Lake Calhoun. It was quite the site to see all of the kayaks and canoes take off at the same time. We even had an Eagle preform a flyby in front of all of the boats just before they blew the horn. That was really neat!

So after Jeff took off we jumped on the shuttle and headed to the 1st transition, Paddle to Run at the top of little Brownie Lake. I honestly did not know you could travel entirely on the water from Calhoun to Brownie, learn something every day.

It might be a good point in the story to mention the torrential downpours we received the night before the race. Enough rain that it actually flooded out the creek and trails and required the race to make some last minute changes to the course. The run course originally ran along Bassett Creek but had to be rerouted because of the flooding, but they were still able to run the full 5K. The mountain bike course was also along the banks of the Basset Creek but in addition there was a lot of washed out areas as well requiring the race directors to eliminate the entire course north of Highway 55. So do to the weather on Friday night the mountain bike course was now less then half of the original distance of 11K.

So from transition #1 I had to get back on the shuttle and head up to Transition #2/Finish line where we dropped my bike off earlier in the morning. I had to leave before Jeff made it to Tran #1 and handed off to Kris. At transition #2 I met up with Charles, one of the videographers that will be filming our wedding, he decided to come and film some background training/racing before we head to Vegas in December. So we talked and I directed him around to the best spots to film Kris and I during the race and transition while we waited for Kris to finish the run.

One of the nice parts it that I got to see Kris at about the 4K mark before she headed back out for a final loop, which gave me a chance to get back into transition and get ready. In addition to the rain the night before, the morning started out very warm and humid and that was very apparent when I saw Kris come into the transition for the hand off, she was wiped. Grabbed the timing Chip and  headed out on the bike. So in eliminating the entire course north of 55 then end up creating two loops south of 55 around the finish/transition area. It worked out really well, but it did make the course a lot more crowded then it would have been. Passing was a challenge at times and impossible at other times. The first loop was more about learning the course and that allowed me to really put the hammer down on the second loop. I have to be honest and say that was the most fun I have had during a race in a long time. There were several watery mud pits that you had to cross along the route, not by design, but just all of the standing water from the storm. In one spot in particular it was water across the entire trail and it was about 30 long, which really will get you plenty muddy in a hurry if you are going fast. Loved it! On the second loop I really could feel how hard I was pushing, and it felt really good, the finish line was just beyond one final hill loop and I like to think I finished strong.

The final results were that we took third place in the Corporate Relay Division with a total time of 1:53:58 and I finished the bike in 19:05 and had an average of 21.5 mph. That is actually my fastest average in any Multisport event to date.

One other great thing came out of this race is that I finally got a ROCK STAR race photo!!

I highly recommend this event to anyone, either as a relay or as an individual. I am looking forward to trying this again next year and hopefully I can ride the full mountain bike course.

Lake Waconia Triathlon

On Sunday we continued our Relay weekend by participating in the Lake Waconia Triathlon.

For this more traditional multisport event we switched roles a bit and my brother Michael was part of this relay team. Kris took the swim leg as Michael is not a swimmer and she is a much stronger swimmer then I am. We had Michael play to his strength so he took the bike leg and I for the second time in two days anchoring a relay team and finished up this time on the run leg.

First a little bit of background information about the Waconia Tri, the swim takes place in Lake Waconia which is a very large lake. One of the issue that frequently occures is that the wind can build up quite a wave chop even with mild breeze and that can make the swim very difficult. Last year they even shorted the swim for all of the non-elites. But on Sunday morning it was calm and clear with the only issue is that it was a bit warm and very humid.

With the exception of the Elites Waconia is a time trial start and the relay teams were at the very front of the start line. Fortunately they realized that they had a problem with the time clock just before Kris started seventh in line. The first girl ended up swimming at least a 200 extra meters before they could get her attention and called her back. So after one false start Kris was in the water, and true to her expectations she was out of the water and running into transition in about 16 minutes. In transition, Kris run to where the relays teams were lined up along the back and Michael grabbed the chip and he takes off  out of transition.

 Now this is the hard part of a relay, the bike leg was 20 miles so you have about an hour of waiting before Michael would be back and hand the timing chip off to me. Another issue was that it was getting warmer with the very humid air, this was going to make my run even harder then I was anticipating. I tried to stay out of the sun and found some water to drink a little. As time got closer to when we were expecting Michael to come back to transition I ran for about 10 minutes along the road that the bikes were returning on. This section of road was fairer short in the park so I ran back and forth several times trying to take it very easy. So once I was warmed up Kris and I talked and we decided she would watch for Michael coming in along the road and way to me when he passed her.

After I got the wave I watched for Michael to get back into transition. A soon as he got to me along the back fence line I grabbed the timing chip off his ankle and put in on my and I was on the run. This run was 4 miles and a bit longer then Kris and I have been training for this spring, that and the heat and I did not want to take off too quickly like I have a tendency to do. So pacing my self I headed into downtown Waconia expecting to find a hill along the graveyard near the water tower, but as I quickly discover, this course was very hilly with several long rollers throughout the course. At mile 1 I was at about 7:35, much slower then I wanted to be so I picked up the pace a bit. Mile 2 was just beyond the turn around on this out and back course, and the turn around was just beyond the crest of yet another hill so you had to climb back up and the turn around, that is a little cruel. One of the things that I was really keeping an eye out for was other relay runners, they were easy to spot, we all had a letter "T" after our ages on the back of our right calves. During the run I was able to catch 5 other teams and I saw the other three that were the first teams out of transition, I made up a lot of ground on them but was unable to catch them, just too far ahead.

When I was in downtown, Karen from our master swim group passed me, I had passed her earlier during the run,  and I gave her a "Good Run" comment, she responded as she was passing me to "Keep Up with me" which I was able to do through out downtown but when we got to the next hill, I was beginning to get  the tingles, a good indication I was pushing too hard so I had to let her go. I think at mile 3 when I looked at my watch I was about 21:36 which is not bad, I was able to pick up my pace a bit from the first mile but still no where near what I can do in better conditions. After climbing out of downtown, I was able to get a bit of a breather and speed up going down the big hill by the graveyard which was a blessing as I knew there was one more hill before the finish line.

OK as I am approaching the finish area there is one more guy in from of me, I had been hanging out about 10-20 feet behind him the last 1/2 mile and I was fairly sure I could pass one more person, he did not make it easy though, as i got close he sped up and the I had to speed up a bit more. As we made the turn to head down the chute I gave it all I had and passed him but he managed to hang on right behind me where i could not hear him and passed me just as we got to the line. No big deal, he was an age grouper and I was a relay team, so we were not directly competing but it is nice to have someone help you pull out a little bit more speed then you might have if they had not been there.

Race is done and I have completed my first Triathlon relay, it was fun and I defiantly would do it again but it is something different and does not quite compare with doing all three legs yourself.

End result was that Team Coffee Love came in 4th place out of 13 in co-ed relay teams (5/19 overall) and we just missed placing 3rd by 1:22. Kris's swim was 16:06; Michael completed the bike in 1:03:41 and my run was 28:56, a 7:14 pace which was a little disappointing as I know I can go much faster then that, and we cam so close the placing 3rd, but I did have the second fastest run among all relay teams so I am happy with that.

OK time to wrap up this novel, next up for me is Graniteman Triathlon in 2 weeks, should be interesting as it is almost the identical distances that Manitou Tri was a few weeks back, hopefully I won't freak out on the swim this time. This coming weekend is Kris's race - Minneman Triathlon and Sugar and I will be cheering her on like I did last year, hopefully she has a great race and it is not too hot.