Steelhead 70.3 Sherpa Report

This is going to be a long, fun post, filled with short, fun stories and lots of photos. I don’t expect you to read it all. Just so you know where I’m at in my report, I’ll give you the breakdown of how this will all play out:

I. Drive out to Michigan
1. Chicago Story
2. Hoopty Ho-Jo

II. Pre Race
1. Packet Pickup
2. Back at the Hoopy Ho-Jo

III. Race Morning
1. Ready to go
2. At the Race Site
3. “What, it’s a Duathlon?!?...
4. At the “New” Start

IV. The Race
1. Pharmie!
2. The Verdict on the Outfit
3. Steve, the Aid Station Manager
4. Someone’s Gonna Die
5. Finish

V. Post Race
1. Burn
2. Sleep

IV. Drive Home

So here we go. Strap yourself in.

I. Drive out to Michigan:

We got up at 3:20 am on Friday, loaded the car, and we were on the road at 4:15 am. It was dark. We were tired. Pharmie slept.

A few hours later, the sun was up, and we made a breakfast stop at McDonalds. Pharmie had a strawberry shake (this is her breakfast the day before her half Ironman, mind you - I think she’s starting to eat crap like me):

I had my favorite: a sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit:

We hit those 3 tollbooths on I90 coming into Chicago. When we got to the 4th tollbooth, it was backed up about a mile. It took us a while to get through it. Once we got through that mess (and downtown Chicago), we both REALLY had to pee. We just passed the stadium where the White Sox play, and we HAD to exit. We found a Shell Station. It was a pretty sketchy neighborhood. And their bathroom was broken (it was an outdoor bathroom and the key got broken off in the lock). Damn it. I really pushed Pharmie to go around back and pee next to the dumpster. She didn’t want to. Damn it again.

So we hopped back in the car and drove a half a block to something that was advertised like “...a café, and MORE!” Sweet. Cafés have bathrooms. And we could get a sandwich if we need to (if we feel guilty about just running in to us their facilities).

We walk through the door, and this sweet older lady greets us. She asks if we need a bite to eat. We say yes. She then leans in real close: “Just so you know...” she whispers, “this is a center for retired individuals...” In that moment, I quick scan our surroundings. We are the youngest people there by about 35 years. Damn it, yet again. The sweet old lady is still talking “…but you two are COMPLETELY welcome to grab a bite!” We told her we just really needed to use the bathroom, and she slyly pointed out the restrooms to us. We did our “business,” thanked the sweet old lady on our way out, and got right back on the freeway. Pharmie was mortified. I got a kick out of it all. Regardless, we were back on our way to Michigan.

We arrived in Michigan (9 hours later), and got to our hotel. It was a Howard Johnson’s. We stepped in our room. It was hot. We turned on the air, but nothing came out but hot air. We left it on as we went to the race expo (for over 2 hours), but when we got back, the room was only hotter. And more humid. Super.

We went to see if we could get a new room. Long story short, we “upgraded” to a double Jacuzzi room for $40 more, and IT HAD AIR CONDITIONING! We would have paid anything for A/C. (In our old room, they were willing to let us “borrow a fan.” Jerks.) But the place was still a crap-hole. Here’s some photographic proof:

That’s the view out of our window. That’s the on-ramp to I-94.


This was around the corner from our room, by the ice maker.
There’s a constant flow of water out of the pipe into that hole.


I flipped on the TV, and the first thing I saw was a bad
Chuck Norris movie. Seriously. I couldn’t make that up.


And this was the channel that they said was HBO.


The wall of mirrors right next to our bed was the icing
on the cake. Yes, I DO look excited.

It had a Jacuzzi, but it was scary. It was falling apart and moldy. TriSara Tops and Rural Girl stayed in the same hotel, and they had TOENAILS all over their floor. Eww. The rest of our stay in Michigan, it was known as the Hoopty Ho-Jo.

The only good news about getting the double room was that now we had PLENTY of room for Stu and his airbed on our floor. So Stu settled in and spent the night before the race in the next room.

That meant Pharmie had to sleep with clothes on. Boo Stu. Just kidding.

I’m getting ahead of myself here. Let’s step back and talk about the race site.

II. Pre Race:

Once we got somewhat settled in at the Hoopty Ho-Jo, we headed for the race site. We followed TriSara Tops, Rural Girl, and Stu. We found the site, and Pharmie picked up her stuff. She got body marked:

And then we snapped a quick photo:

She got her bike...

...and got all set up in transition. Then we went to check out Lake Michigan. We ran into Wil, her hubby James, and their kids down by the water:

Wil, Pharmie, TriSara Tops, and Rural Girl

The lake was calm, clear, and seemed good for a swim the next day. Ooh how that will change...

So we headed back to the Hoopty Ho-Jo, and got everything laid out for the night. Here was my “outfit” all laid out for the next morning:

Stu was impressed and amused by his auto-inflating air mattress:

III. Race Morning:

The 3 of us awoke. Pharmie and I were ready for our day:

That’s currently the only photo that I have of me in that get-up. James has a bunch of shots, but you’ll have to wait for them. I’ll post them when I see them. Until then, I’m sorry: you’ll have to wait. If you’ve already seen too much, then “you’re welcome” - there will be no more photos of that in this post.

TriSara Tops and Rural Girl came down, and we had roughly 42.85% of Team EvoTri hanging out in our room:

I had a bag packed to carry with me all day. I had food for Pharmie and I, cameras, extra clothes, etc. And I had band-aids packed incase the suspenders rubbed over my nipples too much. But they weren’t regular band-aids; they were Bacon shaped band-aids:

We parked, hopped a shuttle bus to the transition, and all split up as the racers got the rest of their stuff set up. Here’s Rural Girl and Pharmie heading into transition:

I went for a little walk as the athletes were getting set up. I went down to the lake. It was different then the day before. Yesterday: smooth and calm. Today: huge swells. I saw a race official boat trying to get off the shore and break the wake. It was scary. I didn’t think it was going to make it. I was getting a little worried for the athletes.

I headed back to transition, and Pharmie came out to put on her wetsuit:

We all headed down to the beach. The athletes had to walk a mile down the beach to the start of the swim. It was a point-to-point swim, going north to south. So we all started walking:

Stu found a spare tire (besides the one around his waist - just kidding), and he had a seat in the tire:

We were nearly to the swim start when the massive group of people in front of us stopped. Some people turned and started running back towards us shouting. When they got close, we heard them: “Swim canceled. It’s a Duathlon.”

...

...Huh?...

...

Everyone just stopped. This was Rural Girl’s expression as she heard the news. Her face says it all:

Later, we found out that it wasn’t turned into a duathlon because the swim was so choppy, but because of a huge undertow that was out there. They had officials in kayaks out in the water before the race, and they kept getting pulled down. They didn’t want any athletes pulled under, so they canceled the swim.

So we all walked back to transition:

TriSara Tops is pouting

Pharmie went out to try to pee a little, but she couldn’t. When she was out there, she commented on how much the water was pulling on her legs, and I think she realized why they called off the swim.

Here’s everyone walking back:

That’s James just in front of me

We all walked about a half mile out of transition to the "new" starting line. There were mixed numbers going around: some thought it was a 2.1 mile run, some said 2.0 miles, some said 1.65 miles. I don’t know what it ended up being. Anyway, here’s the athletes getting to the starting line of their triathlon duathlon, all ready to swim run:

I met up with the group of athletes, and I also ran into Nick, Greg, and Iron Girl Nyhus. Greg was annoyed because he forgot nipple band-aids. Steve to the rescue! I pulled out my Bacon Band-aids, and Greg was in hog heaven (get the bacon / hog joke there?). He strapped 2 on:

He didn’t know if they would work better vertically
or horizontally, so he tried one of each.

Well, they were all off to start the race.

IV. The Race:

James (Wil’s hubby) and I hung out most of the morning. We waited for people we knew to run by. In the meantime, I was cheering like a mother in my little outfit.

Before too long, Pharmie came flying by:

After that, we stayed and cheered until the last runner went by. Let’s just say that my outfit was a huge success! Two random (good looking) college girls stopped me before the race started and asked for a photo with me. Everyone during the race was smiling! Runners would say things like “Dude, that’s AWESOME!” or “Sweet outfit!” or simply “Sexy!!” James can back me up here, but MANY more guys called me “sexy” than the ladies did. It must have looked like I was batting for the other team. There were just a few people that ran by looking shocked (generally older men who are afraid of things they don’t understand). As Marge Simpson would say, they maybe thought I was “one of those male gays.” Younger men and women of all ages loved the look. Older guys were a little scared.

The race director saw me once the last runner went by, and he smirked at my outfit. “What, you trying to take my job?!?” he said with a grin.

I grabbed my bag and started walking to mile 53 of the bike (just 2 miles away). That was where I was going to spend the majority of the day. At that point, I could see people biking in, then again at mile 2 of the run, again at mile 6.5, and again at mile 11. That’s 4 spottings while only moving a block back and forth.

I sat down and finally emptied my shoes of all of the sand from hours before. This is the pile of sand from one shoe:

I took off my sandy knee-high socks, and changed into an extra pair that I brought with me (they were just short “normal” socks). Later on, people were actually running by (on the second run) asking where the socks went! Holy crap! People are observant!

Then I tried my hand as an aid station manager. As I was waiting for the bikers to get back, I walked down to an aid station on the run course to chit-chat. As it turns out, no one volunteering at that stop had ever even SEEN a triathlon, much less volunteered at one. The great thing was that they asked how to set it up and run it all. They asked if people like to be sprayed with a hose or not. They asked if they should run along side the runners to hand out water. They actually had the whole station set up going the wrong direction - they thought the runners were coming the opposite way. So I helped out as much as I could. They were ready to have fun.

Shortly, James and I were watching bikers wiz by. We cheered along everyone. I didn’t get any photos of Pharmie, because she was moving so fast. I think James snapped one or two. So, again, once I see James’ photos, I’ll show you one of Pharmie on the bike.

A quick negative note about the race: The 2 cops that were supposed to be controlling the intersection of Hwy 63 and Enterprise weren’t doing ANYTHING. At that point, it was a 4 lane road, and 1 lane was open in each direction. We saw nearly a dozen bikers that almost got hit by a car turning into to them. One of those near accidents happened just 4 bikers and 200 feet behind Pharmie. Two volunteers were directing all the traffic, and spectators were hopping in to help. I was seriously fearful for the life of the bikers out there. It was not cool. Not cool.

I wanted to say something to the cops about “doing your job,” but I didn’t want to piss them off and end up getting arrested for my outfit. So I bit my tongue.

People on the run were happy to see me again. Runners were running over to high-five me. I saw a few bloggers that I hadn’t officially met before. It was great! People thanked me for making them laugh. “I’m so happy to see you again!” “Man, you are going to have the BEST tan lines!” “Damn, I love those suspenders!” (The funny thing was that WAY more people commented about the suspenders than the short yellow shorts. Seriously. I don’t believe it either.) The best line of the day was “You’re everywhere! You’re like Waldo!” I was having a great time and trying to give the runners something to smile about.

I ran back down to the aid station that I helped set up, and they were all having a blast! The “head” of the station saw me coming and smiled. “We’re having a GREAT time! Thanks for the advice!” That made me happy. I’m glad they had a good time!

Pharmie came running out after a bit:

Here she is a few miles later:

I saw Pharmie that last time, and headed for the finish so I could beat her there. It was getting hot. I was getting weak and tired, and I wasn’t even doing the race. I got back to the finish area, which looked like this:

When I was waiting for Pharmie, about 10 people who had recently finished the race stopped me. They all said things like “Man, I need to shake your hand! It was so great to see you out there!” One guy said “I ran over and gave you a high-five, and it seriously kept me going strong for like the next two miles! You were awesome!”

Shortly, I saw Pharmie go running by towards the finish:

She was a little beat from the heat once she finished:

Getting her chip removed

SHE HAD DONE IT!! Her third half Ironman was in the bag!!

V. Post Race:

We met up with our blogger friends, and everyone had done well! I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag, but Rural Girl qualified for the 70.3 Championship in Florida! (I’ve never been good with cats or bags.) She’s CRAZY fast!! Congrats Rural Girl!!

Pharmie put on sunscreen before the race started, but she had a weird burn when we got back to the Hoopty Ho-Jo:

That’s that. We hit the hay. We had the alarm set for 5:30 am, and got out of that Hoopty Ho-Jo as fast as we could.

VI. Drive Home:

The road was quiet. It was a nice ride. We blew through Chicago (it’s quiet at 6:30 on a Sunday morning). We stopped to eat at one of the 2 rest stops that are above the interstate coming out of Chicago:

After that, Pharmie and Tony (her bike) took a nap:

We stopped at a rest stop:

Pharmie drove for a bit so I could work on my computer (to get ready for class tomorrow). It was bright out, so I worked under Pharmie’s blanket:

We got back home having PRed by about 25 minutes from our drive out. Sweet.

Well, that’s about all folks! In case you’d like to check in on any of the athlete’s listed above, go and check them out: Pharmie (my wife), Wil, Stu, Rural Girl, TriSara Tops, Iron Girl Nyhus.

I’ll be back shortly with shorter posts photos of me cheering from James and official photos from my sprint triathlon last weekend. Check back soon! Have a good week!