September 11th was remembered by many as a somber day but September 11th 2004 will go down in my memory as the 25th Anniversary of the Black Hills Triathlon. It was an ominous morning with forecasts of rain and wind. The horde of volunteers struggled to set up in the early morning hours as the rain fell. A little after 6:00 AM, the rain quit and held off, except for one brief and rather pleasant cooling shower, for nearly the entire race. Perhaps the spirit of our dearly departed friend and co-director of the race for well over a decade, Mark Bentley, was watching over us.
It was a race to remember on many accounts. The race director Brett Buckley and his wife, the race director's director, Ann Cook were passing the gauntlet and stepping down as the race organizers after 15 years of stellar service. Their performance as race organizers along with the race committee has been truly remarkable and has made this race a hall mark of what a triathlon can be, if done to perfection. I only know a handful of these folks but see them all there year after year. Eric Forsyth, Russ Lidman, Shelley Bentley, Jeff and Marianna Mason, Pat Powers, Mark Sutton, Linda Nelson, Martin Meyers, Larry Ekstrom, and many others have year after year contributed to making this a blue ribbon event.
Prior to the race, Brett and his daughter, Ryan, along with Mark Sutton continued the tradition of swimming the course without wetsuits to test the water and prove to the whiners that the September rains hadn't cooled the water that much. They reported a cool 68 degrees.
Cold enough to wake you up and remind you are alive, but not so cold that you begin to question whether staying alive through the swim has now become your primary goal.
Svelte and not-so svelte wet suit clad bodies converged on Deep Lake for the start of the race. It's a multi-wave start that prevents the more aggressive swimmers from using the slower swimmers for traction as they swim overtop of them. This handicap does slow these fast folks down a little, but it's a burden they have to bear.
The waves are shuffled in such a way to give the faster young females a shot at crossing the finish line first. Brett sends the waves of swimmers off on four minutes interval from his kayak. This gives him the opportunity to whack anyone who sneaks ahead a little with his trusty kayak paddle. I've never seen him do this, but I did note there was a good size chunk missing from one of the blades. The older women go next. Declaring your age at a race appears to create a bit of a dilemma for some of the older female athletes. I noted while being marked with my race number that our age was, this year, no longer scrawled on the back of our calf. Apparently that little form of public admission was not appreciated by a few of our more age discrete women. Those over 45 did have to swallow there pride and line up with there sisters in the second wave. But no use advertising the number of years that have passed all day and possibly several days as the permanent felt marker finally wears off.
I was back in the fourth and last wave; I fondly refer to it as the Geezer wave, men 45+. It was good that all our gray and balding heads were covered with green latex. It improves our looks and makes up for any bad hair day issues for those who are lucky enough to still have hair. Brett was calmly admonishing the faster swimmers among us, "Do not swim over those slower white caps swimmer ahead of you." That is when the ultra fast swimmer, Bill Penn blurted out, "Kill Whitey". We all roared with laughter. Bill went on to indeed "kill Whitey" and green and most of the other colored caps out there, putting in the 5th fastest swim of the day. Way to represent do the geezer proud Bill.
The rest of the swim was a bit of a blur of splashing arms, foggy goggles and hyper ventilation for me. Looking at the results later I noted some standout performances by some of our local athletes. Brett and his wife Ann could be proud of their youngest daughter, Ryan, who I'm told was first out of the water in wave one and posted the third fastest time overall in 15:49. I think she is a sophomore this year in high school. She then tore up the roughly 1/3 of a mile hill and posted the second fastest transition time overall. This is after swimming the course without a wet suit as a "warm-up". Past overall winner Linda Nelson posted the third fastest swim of all the females of the race in 18:57. Linda has stopped "serious" training but still kicks most of our butts pretty soundly in the swim.
Most of the rest of us shuffled up the big hill barefoot as fast as our little legs could carry us. We made it to the transition area blurting out various grunts and squeaks and an occasional using the Lord's name in vain as we bruised our tender feet on the rocks and stick and pine cones along the way. I began to miss the old days of carpet remnant strips lining the worst spots. The red sections of carpet used to make you imagine you were royalty. I'm sure the burden of storing old moldy carpet for this once a year extravaganza became too much to ask for. But I still miss the "good old days".
Frantically we stripped off our wet suits and tossed on a helmet and biking shoes. It was nice to see a few bikes left in the racks for those of us among the geezers that had pretty good swims. I managed to make it through transition pretty quickly. I guess the experience of doing triathlons for going on 20 years has started to pay off a little. I was surprised to pass my old Olympia buddy, Ted Thomas, on the bike in the first couple hundred yards of the bike. Knowing he is a much faster swimmer than me lead me to believe he must of stopped to put on shoes out of the water and perhaps made himself a peanut butter sandwich or something before wandering up to get his bike. It must have been the adrenaline that gave me the energy to pass his quickly. I watched him tailing me in the little mirror inside my glasses for about the next ten miles as we battle the south wind that was starting to increase along with stretches of pretty smooth freshly chip sealed road. After that he must have stopped to make another sandwich, because I lost sight of him. I made up the 8 minute stagger my wife Joy had on me, swatted her on the butt, without wrecking this time, and spouted off some lame words of encouragement. A woman near her told her, "I hope you know that guy". I think she had visions of sexual harassment lawsuits in her head.
After about 15 miles I seemed to get my legs under me again and began to really crank on the bike. I'm headed north on Case Rd averaging about 24 mph thinking I'm a bad ass biker and maybe that Lance Armstrong guy is not so tough after all. Then I passed an American flag attached to farmer's fence post. It was sticking out like a teen age boy who'd just had a double shot of Viagra. It was a blow to my fragile ego to realize that the fast pace was more a function of a 20 knot tailwind than any imagined biking prowess I thought I had somehow miraculously obtained. But in the final analysis, what triathlete can complain about a tailwind.
We finished the bike winding back through the rough road through Millersylvania Park where no passing is allowed. Stories from one of the course marshals indicated that only one athlete was disqualified for a centerline crossing. I guess crossing the centerline all the way to the other side and going around a vehicle in the oncoming lane before darting back to the course was a little too flagrant to ignore. This older athlete was attempting to qualify for the senior games and tried to argue the case to give an old man a break. In other stories of maim and mayhem, the same course marshal noted a female athlete was tailing another rider drafting in a painfully obvious fashion. As they followed on the motorcycle she switched to first the left of the athlete and then the right and edged ahead of the rear wheel of the leading athlete before deciding to switch back toward the right. Speaking from experience, doing this with the wheels lapped is a bad idea and I've got the scars to prove it. She went down hard but did manage to get back bleeding on her bike and finish the course. Another rider near the back of the pack, riding a nice racing bike, was taking a hard right hand turn and appeared to slam on his front brake and did a nice endo in the middle of the intersection, ouch. He also got back on the saddle and continued the race. Later the same course marshal saw him coming into the bike finish area, when the bike appeared to self-destruct. He said the seat came off, then the pedal, and then the whole bike appeared to disintegrate under him sending him again to the pavement. I not certain, but I think he called it a day after that.
The run is a wonderful course through the quiet trails of the park. This course has some challenging hills that take you along fir needle paths, over a little creek, meandering past huge maples and firs. For sections I always find myself totally by myself in the forested wonderland where I can forget my pain and enjoy the scenery. Then you spot a person ahead or hear the soft footsteps of someone coming up from behind to remind you, get with the program nature boy this is a race . . . Gooooo! Here is where local athletes and fast runners Tom Loranger, and Brad Hopper tore by me near the finish to humble me yet again. Tom was in my age bracket and put 20 seconds on my by the end of the run. Young Brad, only 34, is a runner who is testing the triathlon waters. He had the 2nd fastest run split of the day. Better test the water a little more Brad, I checked the results and this geezer back in the last wave actually beat you by over two minutes. Here's a perfect excuse to get your wife to agree to letting you buy that fast new racing bike you've probably been lusting after.
The run course doubles back on itself for sections so it allows athletes to see many of their fellow racers. I was fortunate enough to run along as a spectator and see the winning athletes tear past me on their way to the finish line. It was kind of them to slow down enough, so they were actually on the run course when I was and hadn't already finished and showered by the time I limped in. I watched Major Heidi Grimm of the US Army rip by for the win and I believe cross the finish line first. Clark Halvorson, next year's race director, was the male overall winner I'm told Clark wasn't quite able to make up the stagger on the wave start. Both of there times, 2:12:30 and 2:04:55 were quite impressive. Clark annihilated the challenging bike course averaging 24.6 mph. Rumor has it he had the fastest amateur bike split at Ironman Hawaii last year. He's headed there again in late October. We all wish Clark, our 2005 BHT race directory all the best in Hawaii. Heidi scorched the run at 6:08 min/mile pace and had a faster run split than Clark by 1:33. She was forth overall, whooping all but a few of the elite boys handily. I'm sure some of my male brothers were sufficiently humbled after getting spanked so badly by this hot 36 year old woman triathlete standout.
I finished my 15th BHT happy and tired. Bill Taylor, another Olympia athlete in my age bracket, was there to greet me looking fresh and rested. I actually beat Bill a couple years ago. Now I realize he must have had a flat tire or something that year. He had finished over 7 minutes ahead of me. Nice race Bill.
I gathered up my camera and managed to take a few shots of other friends finishing the race. It was great to see Deb Naslund finish with her 15 year old daughter Erin Acker shoulder to shoulder. Their Dad, three time Ironman Canada finisher Randy Acker, had finished a few minutes ahead of them. What a great family affair. Maybe they'll all signup for Ironman Canada in the next few years.
My wife, Joy came across the line looking fresh as usual. I finish these things being a big sweat ball and she looks like she barely broke a sweat. She was happy with her race and her third year in a row doing BHT as an individual. We have a standing rivalry in the swim. This year I got the faster split. We've got to start betting something on this. I miss having her take home "hardware" from the race. They have been giving out great water color prints the last few years. She used to score one on these as the swimmer for a fast relay team.
We do have our tasteful high quality sweatshirts that the race gave out as mementos of our Race. These are a great improvement over the cheesey cheap T-shirts that most races give out with homely logs and massive advertisement billboards for the assorted race sponsors. The race gives out sweatshirts about every other year. They've also giving away gym bags, fanny packs, waterproof hats, Tvek jackets in past years. Our closet is pretty much bursting with all the useful stuff we've collected from BHT over the many years.
A thousand thanks to the BHT race committee and the Buckley-Cook Bentley family for 15 years of wonderful races and countless fond memories. I look forward to seeing Bret out on the race course next year kicking my butt in the geezer category.
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Cold enough to wake you up and remind you are alive, but not so cold that you begin to question whether staying alive through the swim has now become your primary goal.
