Boyne City Triathlon

The fourth edition of the Boyne City Triathlon was Labor Day weekend. I'll be the first to admit I'm very biased toward a race that is 10 miles from my house, on my home roads and where I'm good friends with the RD, Rob Swartz, who's story with Team Lucky Seven worth a read in itself. But even if none of that was a factor this would still be one of my favorite races.

The course, the backdrop and pavement conditions are spectacular, the event is very well run by Andy and the Tri to Finish crew. Post race food trucks, with options such as Happy's Tacos, The Pita Cruiser and Cheese & Co, are unique and delicious. Yes, I did consume a "normal person" portion of food from each truck.  Plus the monetary prizes bring out some great competition for a local tri. The awards medals double as bottle openers and did I also mention that the race benefits a charity for neurological research?

Hunter had his picture taken quite a few times on Sunday. 

The additional factor this year was that Rob got in touch with four time Olympian Hunter Kemper, who came out to "hang out" for the race. There was a pre race dinner where Hunter gave a talk about his Olympic experiences. In the morning he was hanging out in transition with a megaphone and was also at the finish and awards handing out medals. I got the chance to chat with him for a while as well, making the whole race day experience that much cooler. What a great ambassador for our sport.

A couple other notable personal details about this race include that this was my wife Brittany's first duathlon. We need a bit of time to get her comfortable swimming. She was super nervous the morning of but I reassured her there wasn't any pressure here and the goal was to complete the race and enjoy it. My goal was somewhat along those lines as well, which is unusual for me as I'm usually  in a race to compete and contend. However this spring and summer have been unusually frustrating for me in the injury department. Without getting into a whole bunch of details lets just say that the race today would be my second longest run in a good four or five months. Kind of an issue when you need to run a marathon in another month. I also had a new race kit printed up. I'm willing to bet that I'm the only triathlete with a pig (Hill Valley Farm logo) on their kit. Also shout out to my main sponsor B-Nuts Trail Mix ("sponsor" is a loose term when it is your own business).

We dove into the calm and beautiful water of Lake Charlevoix and the race was off. I found some feet and got a solid draft almost the whole swim, exiting in 19:37, my best swim performance to date and I would say rivaling Muskoka last year. I don't want to claim I'm becoming a swimmer...

Onto the bike my plan was to hold a few notches under normal "race" pace and see how my hip held up. This equated to about 260w as recorded by my new (i.e on sale) Stages Powermeter. I had a few sciatic spasms mid bike, but got those worked out and things didn't tighten up on me, which was  a big relief.

I finished the bike in 1:03 and began the run about the same time as another competitor named Tom. We ran together for the first two miles or so. My hip was feeling okay, but my "run legs" felt pretty flat. I decided my only shot was to try to up the pace a bit earlier in the run, rather than wait until the end. I managed a bit of a gap for the next two or so miles and my hip continued to feel okay.

Brittany, myself, Rob and Dani Swartz, my buddy Jason and Hunter. 

Whatever happened I wasn't willing to risk re-aggravating the injury and leaving me further in the hole with only a month to go before my A race. Plus I obviously didn't have any top end run legs. So when Tom caught me with a mile to go it was a big sting to my pride, but I was unwilling to challenge him for last spot "in the money" and told him so. I could tell in our brief exchange that the competitor inside him was disappointed. I finished fourth overall with a 38:31 run, which I'll be the first to admit isn't shabby considering my situation. Overall time was 2:03:07. Brittany finished her first duathlon without feeling too terrible. I think she might be hooked. Full results.

My whole summer has left me as bummed out as ever as far as training and performances are concerned. We'll see what the next month brings me and we'll see how Kona goes. I might not go out as I wanted, but I'll find a way to have a good time doing it.

Boyne City Triathlon

This first year event happened over a month ago, but now that I finally have some time to kill I thought I'd do some catching up. The Boyne City Triathlon was a superb event and I was super impressed with how well it went off for being the first year doing it. Besides being a great course, and only a 15 minute drive from my house I knew the significant prize purse would draw some super fast guys. Turns out I was right (Full Results Here). Between the Olympic and the sprint there were at least 6 guys with their Elite Licenses.

Having come off Lake Placid a month earlier I had about two weeks of "getting back in the groove" training but felt confident I could put down a decent showing for this race. Pre-race was unremarkable and as the gun went off I quickly figured out that these guys must be ex-swimmers. Way faster than me that is. About a quarter of the way through the swim I made a tactical error and let one guy gap me, missing the draft and thus swimming most of the swim solo. I came out of the water in fifth (23xx) and played catch up from then on.

If I had any shot at being in the podium I had to get into contact on the bike. I held 280w for a while and tried to get some splits to guys up the road. Two guys were way ahead and another about a minute, but I couldn't seem to close them down, despite the very familiar rolling course suiting my strengths. Making little progress on closing the gap I faded a bit toward the end of the bike. (1:01; 279 NP).


I started the run and settled into my default olympic run pace. It seems I've turned myself into a diesel and have one running speed. I got a split that I was about two minutes down to third place. The run course was a two loop, with a significant climb from mile 1.5-2.25 and downhill to 3.1. On the second loop I got word I was closing on third and that he was "really struggling". I dug a little deeper on the uphill section and finally made visual contact with third. He wasn't having fun and looked over his shoulder several times. I was closing the gap until the course started downhill. After that there was no more closing to be done and that was that. (36:48)

I finished fourth in a 2:02xx. In my experience, fourth is the most disappointing place to be in. I was satisfied that I left it out on the course, but less than pleased with the result. But that is racing, and considering all the circumstances I didn't dwell on it. Looking at the results and seeing that my bike and run splits were comparable to the top guys was reassuring I'm doing a lot of things right and it comes down to what distance one prefers to race. I know if I choose to focus on some shorter races next year, I will need to improve my swimming.

The cool thing about this race is it was organized by my friend Rob as a benefit for his new non-profit, raising money for Neurological Research. It's just getting going but you can check out his FB page or this short news article. At the end of the day when there's a well organized race, with competition that pushes you AND it benefits a good cause, it will be on my "must do" list for next year.

Photo Credits: Freshwater Photography. Check out her FB Page!