The Triple T Chronicles, Volume V: The Shawnee Redemption

Greetings and happy Memorial Day, readers. Welcome to the long overdue final installment of the 2009 Triple T Chronicles; I know that you have been waiting with bated breath to hear about the fate of your beloved Spartan racers, so let's get right into the update.

When we last left our intrepid group of triathletes, Saturday evening bedtime was quickly approaching and, while three of the four races of the weekend were in the bag, there was still a decent amount of trepidation about Sunday's challenge. And for good reason; the Triple T website contains the following disclaimer: "Two time Solo Champion, Gordo Byrn, described the last day of the American Triple-T Ohio as the most difficult course he’d ever been on in his career." With this statement from the co-author of Going Long bouncing around inside our skulls, we all slept like fallen angels and awoke early Sunday morning, checked out of our hotel, and headed to the fog of Shawnee State Forest for the final time. The mood in transition on Sunday morning was a smidge different than Friday afternoon (namely lacking in humor, happiness, and talking in general), but after setting everything up and heading down to the beach there was nothing left to do but our cheer and one last race.

When we finished our cheer on Sunday morning, some joker responded with, "Go Buckeyes!" I proceeded to go playfully shove him around a little bit and he popped me in the mouth with his forearm. Typical Buckeye fan behavior.

On Sunday morning of Triple T weekend, the racers cover 69.8 miles (1.2 mile swim, 55.5 mile bike, 13.1 mile run); I won't provide any more description of the race than that because it is impossible to convey the singularly unique place that everyone is in both mentally and physically for the entirety of Sunday's race. One of the bikers I rode with for a little bit probably said it the best; after I said something to the effect of "I forgot that this is a 'do what you can' race", he responded with the following wisdom: "Get to the line, man." There are no words to fully describe the feeling of immense accomplishment, relief, and humility that occur when you finally do get to the line, but it probably comes close to this:

If you don't understand this reference, shame on you.

In the end, the weekend was a huge success; all 14 racers completed every single race and many even won hardware for being top three in their age group. Here are the times and some photos from the final race:

Tim Fredricks ~ 5:26:05 (43rd)
Clemens Drenowatz ~ 5:39:05 (60th)
Greg Boyd ~ 5:58:20 (92nd)
Team McCallum (Josh Mc. & Jeremy) ~ 6:30:33 (161st/162nd)
Team Hollywood (Josh Ma. & Alex) ~ 6:31:23 (163rd/164th)
Team Misfit Toys (Scott & Eric) ~ 6:51:28 (197th/198th)
Team Squid Butter (Nancy & Alissa) ~ 7:17:48 (235th/236th)
Julia Jones ~ 8:09:23 (288th)
Team Triathlon is Our Victorious Secret (Renee & Kate) ~ 8:39:35 (298th/299th)

Scotty P., Matter, Douglass, and Tingwall heading down the finishing chute.

Nancy and Alissa just after completing the Triple T.

Nine of the fourteen Spartan triathletes who completed the Triple T and their hard-earned hardware.

A huge thank-you goes out to all who came down and supported us this weekend; your cheers and consciousness on the drive home were very much appreciated. I am tremendously proud of everyone who raced this weekend; we all showed the triathlon community (or at least this small, bat-sh*t-crazy sector of the triathlon community) what MSU Tri is all about. That's it for the 2009 Triple T Chronicles; the big question: Will you be a part of the 2010 version?

The Triple T Chronicles, Volume IV: Mother Nature Gets Hot and Bothered

Good evening loyal blog followers; you are looking well. The MSU Triple T crew is looking a little battered and weary but we are hanging in there. After a lovely early afternoon spent trying to cram as much food as possible down our little gullet holes (often against our will) and discovering that putting 58 pounds of ice in a bathtub will yield an ice bath of mind-numbing magnitude, we headed back to Shawnee State Forest for our second Olympic race of the day. The distances were the same as this morning, but this afternoon, there was a twist: The order of events was switched up, with the bike coming first, followed by the swim and then the run. You may be saying to yourself, "Hey, that sounds neat/fun", but you are 9000% wrong. Picture, if you will, creating a whole slew of lactic acid in your legs during a 25-mile bike and then going completely horizontal and rushing all your blood to your arms, allowing the lactic acid to just sit and stew in your lower extremities. Getting out of the water after this happens is absolutely miserable; it looks something like this:

This is what the average Triple T racer looks like exiting the water during Race #3.

On top of all that, Mother Nature turned on the heat lamp this afternoon, which made things especially unpleasant. To give you an idea of how warm it was during our race (which started at 3:00), the Weather Channel in the lobby proclaimed that it was 79 degrees out...at 8:15pm. However, despite all the odds stacked against them, the Spartans soldiered on; here is the rundown on how we all did (note that teams raced together for this race and only one time per team is recorded):

Greg Boyd ~ 2:31:40 (38th)
Clemens Drenowatz ~ 2:40:47 (91st)
Tim Fredricks ~ 2:42:30 (99th)
Team McCallum (Josh Mc. & Jeremy) ~ 2:44:08 (107th/108th)
Team Hollywood (Josh Ma. & Alex) ~ 2:49:42 (131st/132nd)
Team Misfit Toys (Scott & Eric) ~ 2:50:22 (137th/139th)
Team Squid Butter (Nancy & Alissa) ~ 3:17:52 (259th/260th)
Team Triathlon is Our Victorious Secret (Renee & Kate) ~ 3:36:07 (304th/305th)
Julia Jones ~ 4:01:08 (325th)

Tomorrow we go after the biggest fish of the weekend: the half-Ironman. Gun goes off at 7:00am; wish us luck.

The Triple T Chronicles, Volume III: The Misfit Toys Strike Back

Greetings from the bottom of Ohio; everyone is having a wonderful time down here!!!! Well, not really, but the morale seems to be holding up well after our bout with the morning quasi-Olympic distance race. Everyone was chipper and excited to get out of bed this morning; that excitement quickly faded when Nancy, my bedmate, woke up and told me she had pink eye (expletive deleted, Miss Boyd). We drove to the race amidst humidity so oppressive that we saw gorillas in the mist and set up for race number two of the weekend. After the frivolity of yesterday evening, this race was somewhere between "playing on a swingset" and "getting a root canal" on the Fun-O-Meter; it was longer (1500m swim, 40K bike, 6.55 mile run), hillier, and contained at least one life-threatening descent (as denoted by the skull and crossbones painted on the road). But we all made it out alive and with some fairly decent times to show for it; here's the rundown:

Greg Boyd ~ 2:22:59 (38th)

Jeremy McCallum ~ 2:23:27 (39th)

Tim Fredricks ~ 2:25:09 (45th)
Clemens Drenowatz ~ 2:27:36 (55th)
Josh McCallum ~ 2:27:49 (58th)
Josh Matter ~ 2:30:32 (79th)
Scott Przystas ~ 2:31:26 (86th)
Eric Tingwall ~ 2:39:38 (129th)
Alex Douglass ~ 2:42:53 (154th)
Nancy Boyd ~ 2:56:21 (230th)
Renee Auernhamer ~ 2:59:26 (243rd)
Alissa Thompson ~ 3:06:01 (260th)
Kate Salvadore ~ 3:16:16 (303rd)

Julia Jones ~ 3:28:28 (325th)

In less than two hours, we will be starting race three of the weekend, the second quasi-Olympic of the day. This is the first race where drafting among teammates is allowed, so the various members of the following teams will get to work together:

Team Hollywood: Josh Matter and Alex Douglass
Team Misfit Toys: Scott Przystas and Eric Tingwall
Team McCallum: Jeremy and Josh McCallum

Team Squid Butter: Nancy Boyd and Alissas Thompson

Team Triathlon is Our Victorious Secret: Renee Auernhamer and Kate Salvadore

The Misfit Toys are sad because their previous partners either a) broke their foot or b) fled to a non-extradition country.

Check back later this evening to see if our teammates still love each other. Boyd out.

The Triple T Chronicles, Volume II: Got-R-Did

Good evening, avid readers; it's been awhile. The 2009 installment of the American Triple-T is officially underway and things are going swimmingly. After rolling out of our posh accomodations at the Portsmouth Ramada (and when I say "posh", I mean "our room has a hand soap dispenser that was clearly stolen from a McDonald's restroom affixed to the mirror over the sink and the showerhead would be too short for Gary Coleman"), arriving in the beautiful Shawnee State Forest (Shawnee is a Native American word that means "titillating"), and setting up transition, all we had to do was wait around and see if Douglass was going to make it on time. He did, arriving twenty minutes before race registration closed in his work khakis and ready to rock and roll. We all donned our uber-patriotic jerseys (these jerseys make the Harlem Globetrotters look like Communists), checked the water temp, laughed hysterically when we saw a guy wearing a uniform with the name Meatnip embossed on the lower back (I am not making this up), and anxiously awaited the start of our epic weekend.

These men wish to divide up your possessions and give some of them to those less fortunate than you.

BANG!! The race is off!! Friday's race is all about speed; the distances are ludicrously short (250m swim, "5 mile" bike that's actually closer to 3.5, 1 mile run), there's only one hill of moderate consequence, and everyone is fresh. There were a few noteworthy moments during the race, including a) one of the guys starting in front of Scottie and I finding a leech on his leg before the swim, b) passing Meatnip going uphill on my bike and almost falling over laughing, and c) Douglass and Julia having a pretty sweet race to the finish; other than that, it was pretty much business as usual for the Spartans. Here's how the times stacked up:

Josh McCallum~ 23:41 (44th)
Tim Fredricks ~ 23:57 (52nd)
Greg Boyd ~ 24:03 (58th)
Jeremy McCallum ~ 24:03 (59th)
Scott Przystas ~ 24:04 (60th)
Clemens Drenowatz ~ 24:09 (62nd)
Josh Matter ~ 25:11 (99th)
Eric Tingwall ~ 25:59 (127th)
Nancy Boyd ~ 27:59 (187th)
Alex Douglass ~ 28:03 (188th)
Renee Auernhamer ~ 28:47 (228th)
Alissa Thompson ~ 30:09 (261st)
Kate Salvadore ~ 31:19 (291st)
Julia Jones ~ 32:50 (314th)

Upon finishing the race, the MSU Triathlon crew repaired to the local ice cream establishment, the Dari-Creme, and mingled with some of the colorful locals, including a small child with a shirt that informed us all that the official past tense of "Git-R-Done" is "Got-R-Did".

I hope you're happy, you no-talent hack.

That's all from Portsmouth for the evening; check back tomorrow to see how all your favorite Spartans are faring as the going gets tough and the tough get Meatnipped.

The Triple T Chronicles, Volume I: The Calm Before the Storn

Hello MSU Triathlon enthusiasts; today is truly your lucky day. After a long hiatus, the blog is back, and since my long-winded ramblings render Twitter the most worthless form of communication since smoke signals, this is THE official source for Triple T race news. Over the course of the weekend, Sgt. Boyd and the Broken Bodies Club Band will be updating YOU, the normal, sane, rational, Triple T-non-participant, as to our progress. We will laugh, we will cry, we will ride on dolphins doing flips and sh*t.

There are no boats at the Triple T; only soul-crushing hills.

So check back often for the real scoop on the best weekend you can have for $200*.

P.S. Douglass is currently lost and the first race starts in two hours and twenty minutes. If he doesn't figure it out soon, Team Hollywood may end up being Team Dollywood.

*Outside of Tijuana.