'Crossin' over to the dark side...

Posted Jun 28, 2006
6,347

Tris... TTs... Blues & BBQ... Iowa Games & more!

Yep - Randy Catron was worried about me last Thursday night as I claimed to not pay attention to much racing outside of Des Moines this year. I guess there is a reason for that... yes, I've crossed over to the dark side - triathlon.

After a major back injury last summer, I had to take a few months off to rebuild my core muscles and found myself in the pool for rehab. Then I started running again. Then I had breakfast with JJ Bailey to talk shop. Next thing you know, I'm racing triathlons this year. I've done the Pigman Sprint, Dutchman Olympic and training for the Steelhead 70.3, now.

Being said, there is a lot of crossover in training and some great events coming up - most notably, neo-pro Tom Zirbel is coming home to take on all comers in Clear Lake at the Blues & BBQ road race. The Iowa Games is the next weekend - July 14-16, and a great line of events including the torturous 20k time trial on Friday night, awesome mountain bike race at Peterson Park on Saturday, and everyone's favorite race up Pilot Mound on Sunday. Sign up soon before the discounts disappear!

Back to the tri thing - there are some mean time triallists doing tris - including JJ Bailey, Jason Halfpap, Reed Rinderknecht and local pro TJ Tollakson. TJ had a serious game-face on last Saturday - I was downright scared! Neat part was in between a 1500 meter swim and 10k run, he ripped off a 54-minute 40k time trial. Ouch!

In other news, remember that Dave Lippold is the defender of freedom for all of us.

I finally got my Karate Monkey back from the Squirrel... little guy finally got his own!

ROCK OUT!