Race Coverage
Champagne Baths & White Knuckles...
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Wednesday, 10 July 2013 01:10
By Dan Hedgecock (danhedgecock.blogspot.com - posted June 27)
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....
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. READ MORE
ED. Stay tuned for Dan's awesome St. Louis 5150 race report that will post on Friday.
