The Single Speed

August 27th, 2007 | beauty, bike, crazy, fun, green, green living, single speed, triathlon | chris | 0 comments

over the past week or two i’ve taken a little project on to convert my old red dawes road bike into a single speed commuter. i bought this bike back in 2003 on ebay for $300, added tri bars, new saddle and clips, and i was ready to race. at the end of the 2005 triathlon season i upgraded to this beauty, the cervelo p2 sl; a delicious combination of speed and design. since then the red dawes has been hanging in the garage lonely and depressed.

last week i finished its conversion from 24 speeds to 1. not only is this a great bike to train on but it’s a blast to ride. the best thing, i’ve driven my car 3 times in the last week. goodbye, gas pump. goodbye.

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check out some of the conversion pictures and some more bike porn here.

new shoes

June 26th, 2007 | feet, marathon, running, triathlon | chris | 1 comment

Front

so i’ve finally retired my shoes from last season. in the last year-and-a-half i put close to 500 miles on the old asics. they treated me well, up until recently. i’ve been getting small blisters and cuts on my heal because my foot was starting to slip through the padding and into the hard plastic support. so, i made a trip to running wild yesterday and bought another pair of this years version of the exact Outsoleshoe. i’m very excited to get on the road!

this is formally kicking off my training for my first marathon this fall. after doing more and more triathlons, i figure it will be fun to get out and do one long race.

Side

i haven’t decided on a race yet, but i do know there are few to chose from in iowa so if you

know of any good ones in the midwest, let me know.

so here are my new asics GEL-Landrethâ„¢ 3

Hy-Vee World Cup Triathlon!! – post-race

June 18th, 2007 | bike, family, morning, triathlon | chris | 0 comments

Hy-Vee World Cup Triathlon 2007

What a weekend! We had a full day of racing yesterday from my race in the early morning to watching the Men and Women’s Pro races in the afternoon. All day in the sun! You can see the pictures from all three races here.

My race was great! The course was beautiful, the weather was perfect, spectators all the way from the start to the finish, it was just a blast! I really didn’t train too well for this race, but mostly just wanted to enjoy it. I found myself taking it all too seriously last year and luckily was able to back off and enjoy being able to race again.

The Pro races were unbelievable to watch. This race was unique not only because it was a World Cup race in Iowa of all places, but that the prize purse was so huge. The winners of both the men’s and women’s races received $200,000 and an H3 Hummer. These athletes do this for a living. In order for them to receive this same amount, they would normally have to win 10-12 races. The cash given out at this race was HUGE! It made for quite the specticle. They started out at Gray’s Lake, did their swim-to-bike transition there, then rode to the capital building where they did 6 laps downtown, followed by 4 laps running. Watching their transitions was amazing. The would literally go from swimming to biking and biking to running in less than 10 seconds. It was amazing. My first transition time yesterday was one minute and nine seconds. I that’s not too bad for me. My second one was at about 45 seconds. Either way, these people could jump off their bike and put running shoes on faster than anyone I’ve seen. Not only that, but they would do each leg of the race so fast and with such strategy. It was a blast to watch.

So check out the pictures from the race!!

hy-vee world cup triathlon

June 12th, 2007 | bike, morning, triathlon | chris | 0 comments

Troops & Trihawks 2006this week will be my first race of the season.  this time last year i had already done 3 races, so i’m more than ready to be out on the course this year.  i’ve decided to chill out a bit this year so i can enjoy racing again.  and i have been.  training is a bit more laid back than the last few years, but i am enjoying it much more.

so anyway, this race is going to be a big one.  it’s actually a world cup race meaning that there will be professional triathletes from around the world racing in des moines this sunday afternoon.  it’s extremely exciting!  they currently have over 1600 athletes registered.

we will leave friday and do packet pick-up and the pre-race meeting hopefully that night.  then saturday we’ll check out the course, transition area, finish and all the other stuff just so sunday isn’t such a shock.  we’ll be much more prepared that way.  then, O-dark-thirty we will get up and be at the transition area by 5am.  set-up transition area and start the race at 6am.  before most of you will be awake on sunday morning i will have swam 1500 meters, biked 25 miles, and ran 6.2 miles.

thankfully deeann’s parents will be feeding and housing us for the weekend at their place in des moines.  very grateful for that!

all in all, i’m very excited to be racing again and look forward to letting you know how the weekend goes.  if you’re at all interested, check out www.multisportjunkie.blogspot.com to see how my season last year went.  it’s an old blog that i kept up throughout the season last year.  i won’t be updating it this year, but it’s always nice to look back and see how other races went.

triathlon’s biggest purse

February 10th, 2007 | news, triathlon | chris | 0 comments

I’m in. I just finished registering for one of biggest, most exciting races this year, the International Triathlon Union (ITU) World Cup. No, I’m not competing with the pros, but they won’t be far off. Unfortunately I won’t be traveling to some exotic location to compete this year. Nope, this year’s ITU Cup is in Des Moines, Iowa. Hy-Vee has decided to sponsor what will be the biggest purse prize in ITU World Cup history. Des Moines will be joining less than 12 cities, a small handful worldwide that have hosted this race. The only other U.S. cities that have hosted are Honolulu, Hawaii, New York City, and St. Petersburg, Florida. All because of the $700,000 total purse prize. Not bad for just running a race for a few hours. However, these athletes will be coming from all over the world. And they won’t be your average Joe bringing their 10-speed commuter bike; these are going to be some rock hard, crazy triathletes ready to run over your face for the cash and the title. This year’s race will be on June 17.

The ITU races are all Olympic distance races (1500 meter swim, 25 mile bike, 6.2 mile run). This is my favorite distance…not too short, not too long.

This year I hope take it easy. Last year I did eight races and completely ran out of gas by the end of the season. Despite being completely zonked by the end of the year, I really enjoyed doing so many races and setting my goals high. This year I plan to take it easy. I have yet to run a marathon, so I hope to do that in the late spring early summer. I also would like to get closer to my goal of doing an Ironman Triathlon in 2008, so this year I will do my first Half-Ironman Triathlon which is 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run. Overall, I’ll be doing maybe five races this year and just enjoying the challenge.
Click here for more news on this years ITU Cup.