Pinehurst Report

Saturday was the Pinehurst Triathlon and the first race with the new bike and run courses. Here are my musings on the race:

First, this has always been one of my favorite races. It was my first triathlon and I enjoy the olympic distance. The new Pinehurst course isn't exactly olympic (1500M swim / 30 mile bike / 10K run), but I won't complain. The course features a nice lake swim, some rolling hills (speed bumps to people out West and mountains to those of us living in Southeastern NC), and a fairly tough run.

It was pretty warm and humid to start the day and getting into the wetsuit was a joy. Thanks to Bryan Tate for teaching me the plastic bag trick. If you don't know, you put a plastic bag over your foot and you slide into your wetsuit like butter. You then just pull the bag off your foot and out the bottom of the suit. Works great, especially when you are sticky from humidity! Of course, you do need to make sure you get the foot into a leg and not an arm of the suit - right Bryan :)

Bryan Finishing the Bike

The swim went really well for me and the 72deg water felt awesome after wrestling myself into the wetsuit. Also, unlike last year, there wasn't a layer of fog on the lake and you could actually see the buoys! I have been fighting a sore calf, the result of some tough bricks and probably a bit of dehydration, and didn't know what to expect from this race. So, I figured I might as well try to get a good swim leg, since that wouldn't hurt my calf. The wind started to pick up during the swim and caused some chop on the lake. I was in the 3rd wave and felt bad for those starting later; if the swim is getting choppy, you know you'll be fighting a headwind for at least some of the bike.

Speaking of the bike, this was the first year with a new bike course. They eliminated an out and back on the old course and tried to make it flow better. Honestly, I can't remember enough about the old course to say too much about any specific changes, but it did seem to flow pretty well. The course still has plenty of rolling hills. They were even more fun with the headwind over the first half of the course (again I feel bad for those that started later). I caught up with Grant Meyers on the bike and enjoyed trading comments as we passed each other back and forth. At the end of the bike I was glad that I had been babying my calf, as the new run course was tougher than previous years...

Grant Meyers

The run is the same course as previous years, but backwards. This makes for better spectating, but a tougher (in my opinion) run. You leave transition and have the joy of immediately being in rolling hills. Previous years allowed you to try to get your legs under you while crossing the flat damn before getting into hills. The effect of the new course is it just takes a little longer to get your running legs. That said, I think the new course is better and makes for a more interesting race. You'll just pay for going too hard on the bike a little longer.

Top 3 men were: 1st Eric Bean / 2nd Matt Wisthoff / 3rd Tom Clifford

Top 3 women were: 1st Alicia Parr / 2nd Stephanie Hucko / 3rd Marisa Pirih

Finally, this was Bill Scott's last NCTS race as head of Set Up Events. Thanks Bill and enjoy your retirement!