Battle At Midway Triathlon, June 14, 2008

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Popularity: 68% [?]

Our final winner of the Battle At Midway, ‘08 Goals contest is Brad Willis. Below is Brad’s story and ‘08 goals.

Popularity: 46% [?]

Winner #3 of the Battle At Midway, ‘08 Goals contest is Jeff Gardner. Below is Jeff’s story and ‘08 goals. Stay tuned for winner #4 of 4.

At the beginning of the year my main goal and focus was training in preparation for Ironman Arizona in April. I had previously finished one Ironman, Florida in 2005, and DNF in Arizona in 2006. In an attempt to have a better experience than I did in 2006 I put together a much more extensive training program and stuck to it all winter. It may not be as much as others train, but I was able to consistently hit 15 to 20 hours a week and felt confident heading into Arizona. To make a long story short, I got dehydrated and DNF’d for the second time in very similar conditions. My discouragement lasted about 12 hours and I have signed up again for Arizona this November. I returned home last week to set a pr at the annual SHAC pool tri, so I guess all that Ironman training did pay off. So in addition to training for Ironman Arizona in November, I will be attempting to qualify for Boston at St George this year, and enjoying the SGTrifecta Race series. I’ll probably make the annual trip to Echo, and possible visit Yuba in Sept.

Jeff Gardner

Popularity: 45% [?]

Winner #2 of the Battle At Midway, ‘08 Goals contest is Aaron Jordin. Below is Aaron’s story and ‘08 goals. Stay tuned for winner #3 of 4.

August 9th, 2007 I arrived at home after racing at a local road race, the Huntsville 100. The outcome was a similar one for the 2007 season. I was racing in the Cat. 1/2 group and got dropped before the last climb and ended up rolling in way back, out of the money and points. I had been racing competitively for 8 years on the road and was on a very competitive team, but had lost my fire and desire. I arrived home from the race and began venting to my wife. She immediately stopped me and told me she was sick of my bitching and moaning about road racing and that if I wasn’t having fun I should do something different.

Two hours later I’m on-line and signed up for the Kokepelli Triathlon. Never mind the fact that I didn’t know how to swim and the only “running” I did was the obligatory vacation runs during the winter with my wife - maybe 3 miles max and only 3-4 times a year. I decided then and there to focus on something new and that target was triathlon. 10 days later I had my first swim lesson (Sara Watchhorn is an amazing coach) and had purchased a new bike to race on ( still explaining to my wife why I had to sell my ‘05 Felt DA and get the P3 Carbon). Running was a challenge but I was setting new PRs every run - really not hard when my tempo runs were run for 3 miles at a 9 minute pace.

Full of excitement I decided to jump in early and race the Yuba Tri Sprint. The race went well. I wasn’t last out of the water and I actually had a competitive race. That was it. I was hooked. Ended up doing the Kokopelli Tri Olympic race but as you know the race was canceled after the swim. This little bump in the road catapulted me into full on crazy obsessed tri-addict Aaron. Within a few weeks I decided that I was committed and signed up for the California 70.3.
Winter went well, I attended master’s at Steiner, ran and ran and ran and even started hanging out with other tri obsessed people. My road racing buddies now call me Speedo and give me a hard time every time they see me - trying to understand how I could go from racing my bike 50-60 times a year to doing bricks on my weekends and only racing once a month or so.

California went well, I managed to achieve my goal of going under 5 hours (54 seconds to spare) and am committed to a full season of 1/2 and Olympic length races.

Being a tri-addict has done fantastic things for my health, my attitude and my life. I’m spending more time with my family on the weekends, my wife and I train together (she’s already a triathlete), my kids get to go to the pool a lot more, I’ve been healthy all winter and I’m generally in a great mood. Thank goodness for that fateful August day and for healthy addictions.

Aaron Jordin

Popularity: 48% [?]

This race has been hyped up for sooo long and it is good to see it come to pass. It went off with some mixed success. I say mixed, because I wouldn’t consider less then 200 athletes a success, but they hit all of the other objectives on the head. Spectacular event management; great pro field; nice venue; tons of schwag for athletes.

I’ll write up more for the next Editor’s Note, but I thought I’d share a few tidbits on what I thought as the inaugural BAM approached. For the record, I was not racing.

I didn’t think much of the pro field until Craig Walton and Emma Snowsill registered for the event. Some of the athletes were familiar, most were not. Some had big results in smaller events. I’m not taking away the abilities of these athletes, because I’m sure they are all amazing. However, it wasn’t filled with Hunter Kemper or Barb Lindquist types.

I had no intentions of heading out to Midway for the race. I have church to attend, and family time is precious. It kills me to be away from them when we only have weekends and evenings to share. Co-race director, Charity Vernon emailed with me a few times a week out from the race. I had to be sure the TriHive’s made it into the race bags! They did, but some where in the email chatter I committed myself to covering the event. This was pre Walton and Snowsill.

Church starts at 1pm so I new I’d be able to get home in time to clean up and join the family. My friend, Jeff B. resides in Park City and offered a room in his pad for the night. Things were lining up, but I was still less then thrilled about attending. (Nothing personal, WARP crew)

My intrigue grew when the Walton/Snowsill announcement was made. I thought it would be fun to watch the two race. I also realized it would be a rare opportunity to get a live interview with the Aussie duo.

The eve of BAM arrives, Jeff and his wife welcome me briefly before they head to bed. I thought I’d stay up and research the pro field a bit more. Maybe the announcement was previously made, but some how Cameron Widoff slipped under my radar. Luke McKenzie…why would someone want to race one week after finishing 6th at Ironman CDA? Blows my mind! Other revelations started to appear as I continued my research and became more excited.

I didn’t turn out the lights until midnight or so. Then, it took another few hours to actually fall asleep. I knew Sunday was going to be a very long day.

I hit the road around 4:30 am and headed to Soldier Hollow. It was super chilly in the morning. Good thing I brought a coat.

The race was actually a ton of fun to watch (yes, I was surprised). I enjoyed watching the pro race. I’ve covered a few other “big” races and have enjoyed those equally. It’s nice to have another such event in our own back yard (XTERRA being the other big event in Utah).

I have no regrets about spending my morning at the race. It was a ton of fun. Lets hope WARP can make this race stick!

Alex McKinley
Publisher

Popularity: 17% [?]