| Baldwin Park Triathlon 7/1/07
Category: Sports .75k Swim, 13.4 mile bike, 2.5 mile run
4th Place in my age group, 45th overall
Triathlon M 30-34
Pos Bib Firstname Lastname Class City State Leg1Tm T1Tm BikeTm T2Tm RunTm TotalTm
4 287 Chad Pilster Triathlon M 30-34 Deland FL 0:11:22.692 0:01:01.883 0:34:27.020 0:00:42.657 0:22:23.782 1:09:58.034
Even though this was my fourth triathlon I was nervous about it. It was my first full on triathlon and it was against tough competition. My first triathlon the competition was everyone in their first triathlon, the second was only about 15 people, and the third was changed to a duathlon. I was most nervous about the swim, because I really haven't done a mass pack swim, but once I was in the water everything just went.
I could of placed if I competed in the novice. My age group had 7 of the top 10 overall times. I was still 45th overall and in the big picture I was happy with my 4th race ever. I'm glad that I'm consistently staying in the upper quarter of the pack. Only 13 minutes separated me from the top and 8 of those were from running. There were 400 people overall and over 200 men.
There were a few mistakes in the timing that I found and I emailed Buttar. 1st place overall, the leader, had a 1:25 swim time, which gave him an overall time that was way to low, I think Kevin Grogan's time is closest to reality.
The third place in my age group was 7 minutes faster than the fastest bike time, which makes me think that they missed a lap. I'm a little concerned at all of the mistakes they have in their timing, especially in the top spots of all the divisions. I know they are in a hurry, but you would think they would look closer at the award winners. They only put the final times up at the event and not the splits, so no one was able to scrutinize anything until the posted the results on the web site.
There were things that I liked about the course. It was cool that people get to see you and cheer for you on multiple occasions. Baldwin Park is just a really cool place and there are restaurants and lot's of places to park. They had the whole course blocked off from any outside traffic and it was VERY flat which meant it was very fast. Also at the two Buttar races I've been at you get a free pancake breakfast. I would do it again next year, but it wouldn't be my first choice.
Now the list of complaints about the course are pretty long. The weeds were really bad, they sent us along the shore for the first leg of the race, so you were swimming with the weeds for about 200m. If they had sent us out into open water, the few weeds at the start would not of been too bad. They also made the start line really narrow, so the first wave was very packed together. The exit of the water was really muddy, but the weeds were worse, I'm amazed no one put their feet down and got tangled up in them. One person told me he just grabbed them and pulled. I have little scratches all over my arms, which I am sure is from them.
They didn't have your age division on your leg. It would of helped to know if it matters who is passing you.
The bike course was kind of crazy, I almost NEVER left the left lane. I needed a voice recording that I could play that said "On your left," because of the amount of warnings I gave people. I was constantly passing people. Some of the few times I moved from the left lane was because people would take corners too wide and I'd have to pass them on the right. I have gotten REALLY good at taking corners tight, without using breaks and then powering out of the turns peddling. I only had two major problems on the bike course. The first one came after my first lap and I was approaching the transition zone. They had given us no warning that we needed to move to the left lane anywhere in pre-race, but as I approached it in a lot of traffic, I couldn't see the guy waving the flag for us to move left. I had to brake to merge into the bike traffic. The next three times I was ready for it, so things went pretty smooth.
The other problem was my fault. I was coming into a corner and I messed up my cornering somehow. I got wobbly at the beginning of the corner, but regained myself in the corner, although I nearly finished the turn into the curb on the opposite side of the road.
My run was slow, but I think it was the heat. It also could be that I'm in a training cycle for a different race. The trail was really nice, except it had almost no shade and there were only three water stations, including the one at the very beginning. I ran an 8:17/mile.
At the end of the race there was very little shade. It would of been nice if they had some more tents and maybe a mister tent. I think I appreciate Moss Park a lot more, because of the tree covering that you get to run under.
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happy 
accomplished 
When we got to the run the other two disappeared and the guy right behind me stayed there until we were neck and neck at the finish. I thought it went really well for my second triathlon ever.
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