Cross Country Skiers do Triathlon #2
Sun, Sep 16, 2007 - By Mike Muha
I thought I'd report on the second triathlon - The Island Lake State Rec Area Sprint Triathlon - that I did along with NordicSkiRacers Ryan Robinson, Greg Worrel and Yvon Dufour, and a friend of Ryan's Michael Kotajarvi. Much nicer weather - sunny and warm.
Me on the far left in the red Hammer Nutrition suit, Ryan on the far right with the shiny head... (photo by Erica Kotajarvi)
Unfortunately, the timing of the event was not the best. It appears they chopped a minute off everyone's time in the swim, plus some of the transition times are missing. I've adjusted the swim and total times by a minute.
The swim was 800 meters, the bike was 12.5 miles, and the run was 5K. There were 251 finishers.
Times (the a few pointed notes about timing)
| NordicSkiRacer | Swim | Trans | Bike | Trans | Run | Total |
| Winning Time | 10:37 | :26 | 32:46 | ? | 19:45 | 1:03:42 |
| Ryan Robinson | ? | ? | 33:38 | ? | 19:13 | 1:09:08 |
| Yvon Dufour | 15:06 | :48 | 32:25 | ? | 23:00 | 1:14:19 |
| Mike Muha | 14:36* | 1:50* | 35:02** | ? | 24:58 | 1:16:26 |
| Greg Worrel | 16:05 | 1:23 | 38:25 | ? | 29:39 | 1:25:32 |
| Michael Kotajarvi | 19:45 | 1:30 | 37:42 | ? | 28:52 | 1:27:48 |
*Wrong! Ryan and I came out of the water at the same time, and we were behind Yvon. And I had a pretty fast transition! Not sure how they screwed up this time. I'm guessing Ryan and I were closer to 15:30 for the swim.
**Hmmm...looks like the bike includes the transition time. Why do I know this? Well, I caught Yvon on the bike and we entered the transition area just a few seconds apart. And there's no way Yvon was 2:37 ahead of me coming out of the transition zone - I could see him less than a 100 yards ahead of me.
I also notices in the times that a number of runners had sub-14 minute time for a 5K that was mostly over a grass running surface. Looks like some people missed the turnoff for the second lap just before the finish line.
Overall Rank*
| NordicSkiRacer | Age Rank | Overall Rank |
| Ryan Robinson | 2 | 6 |
| Yvon Dufour | 5 | 19 |
| Mike Muha | 3 | 28 |
| Greg Worrel | 10 | 78 |
| Michael Kotajarvi | 21 | 107 |
*Officially. Unofficially? Who knows...
Oh well, it was a great training day with lots of intensity! That's what counts. And we generally did better than our first triathlon the previous week. That's a confidence booster.
And we'll give the organizers the benefit of the doubt - this was their first triathlon at this venue.