Tri Team "Splash, Dash, and Saddle Rash"

I can't say enough just HOW awesome my teammates were at last weekend's failed 70.3 relay. I felt bad that I had to call it quits 3.5 miles into the run, but they were so great about it. And they were SPEEDY AS F*CK.

Michael starting the swim

Michael was the fastest team swimmer and the 5th body out of the water with a 1.2 mile swim split of 29:47 (good for 8th overall after the other waves came in). That's 1:24 / 100 yard pace. Wowza. At my last 70.3, I was REALLY HAPPY with my swim split of 38:44. AND HE DID THIS WITHOUT A WETSUIT. Beast.

Then Bart tackled the bike. It was short of a full half iron distance bike by about 1.5 miles - 54.5 miles vs a full 56 miles. Bart finished in 2:15:xx with a 24.x mph average. A 24+ MPH AVERAGE ON THE HILLS AROUND SQUARE LAKE. FOR 54+ MILES!

Let's put that in context: I had the 2nd fastest bike at the Cinco Du Mayo Duathlon back in May, and that race was at the same place (the parking lot at Square Lake). My Garmin told me I had a 19.9 mph average for those 10 miles. Only TEN miles. And then at the LONGER Lake Marion Triathlon last month, I covered 17+ miles on the bike with a 21.8 mph average according to my Garmin. (And it was a bit windy that day.) I'm just sharing that data on those 2 rides to show how hilly and nasty it is out around Square Lake - nearly HALF the distance at a shorter race by Square Lake, but nearly 3 mph SLOWER on that shorter course because of the hills. So Bart's 24+ mph for 54+ miles is INSANE!!

Bart had the 2nd fastest bike split overall, just behind a former pro. And he had the fastest relay split by 14 minutes! The winning relay "officially" had a 2:14 split, but that biker cut the course. Bart knew something was up because he started the bike, quickly passed a few people to move into 2nd overall (just behind Dan Arlandson at that point), but then ended up passing this other relay's biker a bit into the 2nd loop. How did that biker get in front of Bart? Someone commented on my race report a few days ago that he'd seen the mistake: "I'm surprised that "Team Wood" got their results posted. Stinks for the rest of the team members, but their biker in the Peace Coffee kit was the one that I followed on the wrong turn (stupid, stupid, I know). The guy in the lead vehicle knew he cut the course. I ended up turning my chip in during T2 and went for a nice little training run." But I don't know this biker - maybe he has no clue he cut the course, so I won't be calling him a cheater just yet. It could have been an honest mistake. (But he should have known SOMETHING was up if his computer just showed 46 miles....)

Regardless, Bart laid down some crazy awesome bike split numbers!

The 3 of us have already been talking about next year. We'd like to team up for an Oly Relay sometime earlier in the year - we think we'd be good at that distance. And we've been given free entry to come back and try Square Lake again in 2014, so if all goes well, we'll try to get that course record NEXT year!