Race Coverage

 

By Matt Dickenson

 

RACE REPORT - Leading up the Saturday I really had no intentions of racing in Park Rapids.  My friend’s wife Ellen Thomes (wife of very tall Dave Thomes) was going to be racing her very first triathlon.  This is a super fun, fast race.  It feels so different when you’re there, maybe that’s because they limit the participants to 100.  I have a spot in my heart for Lakes to Pines, as it was my very first triathlon back in 2011.  Not to mention it supports the high school swim team and I get to see my buds to the North in the Headwaters tri club.  On that cold day in May 2011, it was 41 degrees raining/sleeting.  My first thought was “what am I doing here?  I played football, basketball, and baseball my whole life now I plan to swim bike run”.  I woke up this morning at 4:41 a.m. 19 minutes before my alarm so I was like what the heck I am up.  I looked out the... window and saw that it looked gloomy and ready to rain, talk about a flash back to May 2011 minus the 41 degrees it was more like 52 this morning.  My number one job is being a good dad to my kidos so I ran to Cub foods and picked up some doughnuts and chocolate milk for them and my super awesome mother in-law that watches them so my wife and I can race. We got to Park Rapids around 7:45 and the first thing I saw walking into transition was the German flag of Christel Kippenhan flapping in the wind. I saw a few other familiar faces of Matt Backmann (photo foreground), Neil King (photo background), super fast guys.  For those of you that don’t know Lake to Pines is a 500 yard pool swim, 15 mile flat fast bike and quick 5k run.  My only goal at this race was to have fun, redline the whole way, and see what happens.  When the swim started, it was pouring rain some dude said, “by the time you get on the bike it will be done raining”.  He was right it was done raining just a little sprinkle but the roads were wet and it was super windy.   The bike is a 2 loop course of 7.5 miles, on the way out for about 4 miles I had a tail wind and could push some good speed.  On the way in the wind almost stopped you dead in your tracks.

 

 This is such a fun race for new or experienced athletes.  Nice flat bike and run course and an indoor swim for those who are intimated by a lake swim. - RESULTS