I posted separately about the tragic death of an athlete at this year's race here: http://www.trifuel.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9773

But, I also wanted to do a brief writeup about what I felt was a well-run, very challenging sprint tri.

Race Location: Devil's Lake State Park in Baraboo, WI. For those not familiar, the Devil's Lake area has some of the most dramatic terrain in the state. The park is attracts a lot of rock climbers, hikers and campers.

The race: 1/4 mile swim, 15 mile bike, 5k run. The race starts and ends near the beach of Devil's Lake and is limited to 800 people. The weather this year was clear but unseasonably cold. 34 degrees when T1 opened, and maybe 38 when my wave started.

The swim: The swim is pretty easy--go out 50 yards, turn left, swim parallel to the shore for a few hundred yards, turn left again, swim 50 yards in and exit. In past years, the lake has been so shallow that people have walked the whole swim. That wan't really possible here, though the out and back portions were fairly shallow. We swam right into the sun on the long leg, and I wished that I had not left my tinted goggles at home. The swim took me 8:31, and even though I know I went off line by about 25 yards at one point, I'm pretty sure the course is a bit longer than a quarter mile.

The bike: 15 miles of almost nonstop hills, including an initial steep climb that is roughly a mile long and had me gasping and my heart rate racing. Many people were walking their bikes here and on some other hills. Of course, there were a couple of good screaming descents, but these often had turns at the bottom so it was tough to take full advanatge of the momentum. I had put on socks and a jacket in T1 to fight the cold, but my feet went numb within 2 miles and stayed that way a long time. I also learned that full-fingered gloves are very difficult to pull on while riding. My bike time was a slow 54:53. This was nearly 10 minutes slower in the cold & steep hills than I would expect on most other courses with more moderate hills, but was still good enough for 18th out of 71 in my age group.

The run: 5k of gentle rolling asphalt. Very fast despite the hills. As a bonus, the middle mile goes through several campsites. The beginning of the run was tough because I couldn't feel my feet. Another runner mentioned that it felt like running in bike shoes, which seemed pretty accurate. At about the halfway point, I regained sensation in my toes, which was nice. My run was a good-for-me 24:16.

My results: 1:31:30. 21/71 AG, 104/440 men, 112/736 overall. For AG splits, my swim was 26/71, T1 13th, Bike 18th, T2 12th and run a mediocre 39th. Something to work on.

Pros: Tough but beautiful course, well run race, good food afterwards.
Cons: The only negative I saw was that there was a large novice wave (or 2?) starting right before the age groupers. On the bike course, this meant weaving through a large number of people who didn't always follow the "ride-right, pass left, don't block" rule as closely as you might wish. I understand why the race organizers did it--by having the newer people go first the roads could be reopened faster. And I'm sure it didn't cost me much time. However, it is a safety concern on a course with so many steep descents and turns to have quicker riders coming up behind a big group of slower riders.