Lansing Legislator Race Report

Normally, this is where I would post my times, but that won’t be happening here and there’s a story behind why not...

I decided to do this event a few months ago when looking for a race to facilitate my cross-country transition. It seemed perfect- close to my parents’ house so they could come and see me race, commemorative biking jersey with the name of my hometown on it instead of another cotton t-shirt, and a good Oly distance to keep me motivated to train while moving. I signed up excitedly and a couple of weeks ago the e-mails started coming. Now, I don’t want to say that I have high expectations, let’s just say that I’m a bit structured about things. So there were some red flags in the e-mails. The race organizer was referring to the distances in the race and they kept changing- by the time race day arrived they were 1.5 k swim, 31 mile bike, 6.5 mile run. By the way, the website says 35.4 miles total- don’t know how any of these numbers add up. They also were running a 1/2 IM and a duathlon as well.

Went to check in the day before and no jerseys were to be found. They mentioned something about them coming in from overseas and not arriving on time. Hmmm, I was suspicious. 52 people were signed up for the short course, about 120 for the 1/2 IM and 30 or so for the duathlon. Drove the bike course, but didn’t see a lot of good markings for the turnarounds, etc. so I was glad that I drove it instead of riding. Got home and to bed early hoping that the forecast for rain wouldn’t be right.


The morning came with overcast skies, low humidity and temps in the mid-70s. Arrived in plenty of time (no comments here please!). Set up my transition area, racking next to two Giants which I thought was a good sign. Realized that I still haven’t found my watch since the move. It’s been nice running without it for the past week, but it would have been great to have race day. It was a nice, mellow group of people and the pre-race went well once they got folks squared away on the two courses for the swim. The water temp was 77 so it was just wetsuit legal. I decided to wear mine since I had it with me, but was a bit concerned about overheating. The 1/2 athletes and duathletes went off about 10 minutes late and I got in the water to warm up a bit since we were going 30 minutes later. Earned my OBX t-shirt (if you don’t get this reference then you don’t want to know) and got ready to go.


Mellow start and I took off. It was good that I paid attention when they were going over the course because I ended up all by myself for most of the swim. Had some trouble sighting on the way back as the sun was on the horizon directly in front of me. Think I exited the water 4th (not that I was counting!) despite having only swum twice since Colonial Beach and feeling like it. Easy transition to the bike and I was off!

Now this is where the story gets interesting. I felt great on the bike, but noticed that no one was passing me from my race. I was catching and being passed by some folks from the 1/2 and the du. I knew that I was having a good day, but couldn’t imagine that no one was with me. It was a strange course (http://www.3disciplines.com/legisltr_maps.html) with some portions where you could see other folks and I noticed that I recognized some people from my race coming back that I didn’t remember passing me. Here’s where I started to worry a bit. Am I on the right course? What is going on? Am I doing a second loop so I’ll end up going 56 miles instead? About ten miles from the finish I started passing what looked like the back of the packers from my race. How did this happen?!

Turned into the park to finish and rode by the 3 mile mark on the run seeing lots and lots of folks out there. Damn, how could this have happened? Came into the transition area at almost 33 miles by my computer. Saw a woman I rode with last week (who I hadn’t seen at all out on the course) totally lost next to the transition area trying to read a map of the course with a volunteer and find where she was supposed to go. Most all the bikes were already in and took off on the run after hearing my dad cheering. Ran with a woman for a bit who mentioned that the bike course was screwed up and people went lots of different distances. I felt less crazy at that point, but it didn’t help the fact that I was almost dead last in the race. Picked some slower runners off (this felt good despite the fact I knew that I was in the wrong place and that was the only reason it was happening). The run course was deserted and poorly marked. I think that it would have been better if I had other racers around, but I saw perhaps a total of a half a dozen people during the whole run. I even had to stop and consider which way to go at one point because there was no marking on the road- just call me Bob Frost ;-) Felt good on the run, but had no idea where I was going and felt really alone out there considering what the hell happened.


Finished strong at about 3:15 for the whole race. It was explained to me immediately that some people in the short tri did 22 miles instead of the 32 I did on the bike. There was apparently a sheriff misdirecting at an intersection so some racers missed the first 10 miles of the bike course which would explain my utter confusion and how everyone got ahead of me. They were asking folks who had computers on their bikes to report the distance they rode and they were going to try and sort out the results from there- good luck! Also, lots of people were confused about the run since we were all so spread out and the course was so poorly marked. My dad gave away his map of the course to a competitor and both my mom and dad stationed themselves in places where they could direct runners since everyone seemed lost. BTW- as I crossed the finish line, the announcer was already offering 1/2 off next year’s race due to all the confusion...



Checked on the thread on the slowtwitch forum today () and they’ve got some thoughts about the race (although most of the posters did the 1/2 IM so their distances weren’t messed up). Posters did report that the bike course was a couple of miles long and some short-course finishers in the transition area told me that they thought the run was more like 7 miles instead of 6. No e-mail yet from the race director or info on the website about the whole debacle. So, how did I feel about the day? Strange for me. It was great for my parents to be able to see me race. But in a time in my life where I’m already discombobulated with transitions, this was a bit much for me. Shouldn’t everyone in the same race do the same distance? Why isn’t 31 miles just 31 miles instead of 32.6 or 22?! Onward to the Crim Ten Miler in a couple of weeks and I’ll post an update once the race director posts an explanation and I get my official times...