American Triple T Ohio Race Report Part One

Several of my friends have asked me about my experience at the Triple T race and I thought a race report might be illuminating for those of you interested in a somewhat unusual race format offered over three days of competition. For those of you unfamiliar with the race, the Triple T involves competing in four triathlons over three days. The race organizers have held the event for many years in Ohio in May, but in 2010 they expanded to an identical race weekend format in North Carolina on October 8th through the 10th in addition to their normal format in Ohio where I competed.  Another unusual aspect of the Triple T is that all the competitors are given a triathlon jersey that they are required to wear in all four races.

The standard uniform for the weekend featuring the Triple T jersey

  

The competition starts off with a short sprint triathlon on Friday evening. The distances are a 250 meter swim course, a 5 mile bike followed by a 1 mile run. On Saturday morning all the competitors gather at 7:30 a.m. to begin an Olympic distance triathlon (although the run is approximately 1/3 of a mile longer than a standard 10k at 6.55 miles). Saturday afternoon is yet another Olympic distance race, however, this time you bike first, then swim and finally go out for another 6.55 mile run. Assuming you still have your game face on after the Friday sprint and two races on Saturday, Sunday morning at 7:00 a.m. is the final event; a half ironman distance race in the standard swim bike run order. A final twist that makes Triple T unique is that you can race as a solo competitor or as part of a two person team. If you opt for the team route you can draft off of your teammate only in the third and fourth events on the bike which would probably strike many of you as odd, to say the least, given the rules governing most USAT triathlons.

A fairly typical Triple T racer wearing her TT helmet, Trakkers jacket, and Ironman Canada shorts and matching backpack presumably to intimidate the competition(??)

In pondering whether to recommend this race to my friends I would say that I can think of two good reasons to tackle this race; the first reason is that you are an ironman finisher or hope to complete one shortly and are looking for a different type of challenge. This is not a race that would be a good idea for the casual triathlete, or even those who regularly tackle sprints and Olympic distance triathlons. If you aren't an ironman distance finisher, you are considering signing up for your first one, but are worried about whether you can complete a full 140.6 race and think that if you can handle Triple T Ohio, then an ironman distance race is doable.

However, if you aren't an ironman yet, you don't want to spend 600 bucks to possibly become a DNF at a WTC ironman. Thus, Triple T is a good reality check to gauge your ability to handle 140.6 miles of swimming, biking and running. Granted, at Triple T there are some significant breaks between races thrown in to make it somewhat more manageable compared to a full ironman race and at approximately half the cost of a WTC event it is a decent bargain.

The second reason I can see to compete at Triple T is simple; to find out how tough you really are. That may sound bold, but believe me, these courses are seriously tough with hills on the run and the bike in particular that will test the endurance and strength of all but the most skilled climbers. These courses were not designed to be fast, but difficult and perhaps even punishing on your legs depending on your ascending skills. You will suffer and you will probably be seeing numbers on your Cateye, Garmin etc.....that you would think are funny were it not for the fact that you are supposedly racing.

At one point going up a steep hill on the bike I looked down and was averaging 4-5 mph and going as fast as I could. Good times. I passed a guy on the bike during the half ironman going uphill and his comment to me was that, " I really want to downshift to another gear....but it won't go any lower because I don't have any easier gears". Exactly! I was riding a triple crank road bike for the race with 24 gears and I spent some significant time in the granny gear over the course of those three days. I can't imagine doing this race with only a standard double crank, though I know many racers did just that. Of course, I am not a great climber owing to some extent to my serial flirtation with the Clydesdale division where excess weight is a serious disadvantage once the road becomes vertical. So, be prepared to suffer on some long steep hills. I didn't get out and measure them exactly, but I believe over the course of the weekend there are approximately five hills that are at least a mile in length. You cover at least one such hill in each of the sprint and olympic races and ride up the same hill (named Thompson hill I believe) twice in the half ironman race. Plus, those are not the only hills on the courses....just the most memorable because they were LONG.

There are plenty of other hills to frustrate your ability to ride anything like a pace you are accustomed to at a typical triathlon race with a relatively flat course. So, no matter what your Olympic or half ironman times have been in the past...you would be better off forgetting them for the weekend of Triple T. They will only lead you to frustration and possibly a DNF after you blow up trying to ride harder than you body will allow on these courses. Many of my friends have raced at Ironman Kansas 70.3 and for comparison purposes I would rate the Kansas bike course as a 3-4 in terms of level of difficulty compared to a 9 or 10 on the half ironman bike course at American Triple T.

Friday evening was the first race and I drove to the race site with JP, a friend from St. Louis, who was also competing in the solo division. Owing to my tardiness in getting underway on Friday morning we managed to arrive about 15 minutes before the cutoff time to check in at 4:30 p.m. The race was set to begin at 5:00 p.m. so we rolled over to the tent and officially checked in with our ID's and USAT card. Mostly that was a blur....although I do remember something odd about this race. There were no official paper numbers for the competitors requiring a race belt. They did hand us two wrist band type of numbers; one to attach to our bike and the second one to attach to our wrist. This was to allow only the actual competitor to walk out of transition with their own bike. Basically it was to prevent someone from stealing a bike. Ok....I was cool with that. We did get body marked on our left bicep/shoulder with a race number in black magic marker and we also received an ankle bracelet with a timing chip. Incidentally, the race volunteers collected the chips as competitors finished each race and you would pick them back up again before each subsequent race. JP and I went back to the car and grabbed our bikes and gear and headed to the transition area to set up.

This picture was taken on Friday afternoon at the time we checked in

A general observation here; almost every competitor that I saw looked like a seasoned veteran of countless triathlons. Plus, it seemed like quite a few folks had raced together previously at this race since there seemed to be a bunch of, "Nice to see you, what have you been up to?" conversations going on in the transition area. I had debated wearing a wetsuit for the 250 meter swim and in the end opted to go without one. Of course I made this decision without ever having put one foot in the water which was probably not the wisest move. I left the wetsuit at the car and once we reached the beach I was surprised to see the field seemed split about 50/50 with half the folks wearing wetsuits and half going without one. Interesting, since I assumed I would of been in the minority wearing one. Oh well. Too late to go back to the car. Plus, it was 250 meters......even a pathetically slow swimmer like yours truly can manage to get through a 250 sans wetsuit right?