Savageman Tri & Another Home Media Experiment

Action Cam.
Hold it in hand, mount it on something stationary, or, moving. Watch out Scorcese.

Apologies if I am testing the download capabilities of your system and/or your patience. I don't really know what I'm doing at all, if you haven't picked up on that yet. Feedback on the content, the format or tech stuff, ways to make it less cumbersome on the user - all welcome and appreciated.

Nevertheless, for the investment of a little time and, so far, about $170 in equipment (voice recorder, action cam, batteries) I can now burden unsuspecting clickers with still pics, audio of my voice, and now... home video. It's aim and shoot with the vid cam, no viewfinder. A weak microphone. Not sure if I'll keep the thing.

The Half Iron distance race yesterday was at least as tough as I suspected. Rather sore all over today. The race was cold and hilly in a nutshell. Hilly enough that it may indeed be the hardest half iron distance tri in the world. According to tri veterans on hand "The World's Toughest Half" in Oregon may have been dethroned.

Hills, hills, hills and then a few more hills. Cold. Race day temp spread was hi 30's early and peaking in hi 50's. Made for some teeth chattering and shivering on the bike when I wasn't working hard on an uphill. Sunny most of the day, little wind. The most significant data of the day - water temp was pretty warm, maybe near 70, thankfully.

I'm about ready to divorce my left knee, drafting the papers as we speak. We argued ever more bitterly and loudly over the the final 2hrs of the 3hr40m I spent on the 56mi bike. I pleaded for peace, babied it, went easy, telling myself it'd leave more fuel in my tank for the run anyway. Once I got off the bike, I had no knee issues for the entire 1hr58mins of my 13.1mi run time.

Dif in water v air temp made for lake surface fog early in the morn on Sun. A pic of fog and no fog swim start area below.

Day before the race, the swim start area in the afternoon.

Lots of dour looks at the Sat. race info meeting when I took the pic above. It was mid 40's gray and windy at the time, sure kept the meeting moving along.

Race morning.
Swim start area ~90mins before the 8a.m. gun.
Those boats are bass fishermen, great timing for their tournament, eh?

It was an in-water start. Line between the orange buoys, one in the pic and one another 50 yards off shore, then swim to the upper left .6 mile, turn around and swim back. Fog was thick enough that I could not see more than 20 yards in any direction. Made sighting the buoys fun, er, impossible.

Took my time drying off and donning lots of layers before rolling out on the bike.

The choice end-of-the-rack transition set spot.
My bike and race gear pile, pre-race.

Mayor Fenty was #64, with me #63 we were rack neighbors. He beat me out of the water, no achievement there, ha. I caught him at mi 40 of the bike. Found out he dnf'd. Letting down the District, tsk, tsk. Not sure if he attempted any of the run. My guess is he packed it in after the bike.

He was not alone. Only 101 individual racers (non-relay team folks) finished. There were a lot of people forced to dismount and walk their bikes up the steep hills, others resorted to doing the paperboy weave back and forth across the road to slowly get to the top. Likewise, lots of walking going on during the run. Not to mention some dry heavers and full out chunk blowers on both courses as well. Makes you feel studly when you roll past vomit trails. As stories start to emerge, it seems many pros and elites really "raced" the course like a typical Half, and paid the price: dnf-ing, doing a finish line bonk - thanks, don't mind me, I'm just gonna curl up over here on this open patch of parking lot pavement.

There was a unique award for the quickest ascent of the 7.1mi Savage Mountain climb that gets the real bike fun started around 18miles into the course. I managed 24th out of 158 total riders who made it up the climb. 40min48secs, 10.29mph.

Otherwise, pretty middlin race in terms of placement.
37th out of 101 finishers.
31 out of 85 men (Note - I got chicked by 6 ladies!!)
12th out of 17 finishers in my 35-39yr old AG (21 started, 4 dnf)

Swim 47:29 (94th out of 101 finishers; 17th out of 17 in my AG)
T1 11:26
Bike 3:39:52 (10th out of 17 finishers in AG)
T2 3:06
Run 1:57:40 (20th overall of 101 solo racers; 17th among 85 men; 6th out of 17 in AG) (about a 9min mi pace)
Total - 6hr 39mins 33secs.

Meanwhile, back in Rock Creek Park near the beltway, Dublin-man threw down a 1:52 half mary (8:36 pace avg) in a prep race for the target marathon. Well done! Let's hope I got a few of those genes.

The audio below is 4mins 13 secs recorded on my drive home Sun.
The video experiment is roughly 30 secs, shows race start area including me stepping in and taking the above fog pic. No relationship btwn the audio and video.