High Cliff Triathlon

This past weekend we kicked off the triathlon season with the High Cliff Sprint Triathlon. We drove up on Friday evening to camp with other people from Tri Wisconsin at High Cliff State Park. It was nice hanging around the campfire the night before the race knowing we only had to go a mile down the hill to the start in the morning.

Cassie woke us up early Saturday morning at 5, but that was okay since we had to get up for the race. We made some coffee on the stove and had breakfast before getting ready and stowing the pup in the car. It was cloudy and the car was in the shade so we weren't worried about leaving her for a few hours.

We made our way down the hill and set up our transition areas. Since they assigned numbers based on registration time, Diana and I were right next to each other and in the same wave for the start. The race started at 7:00 with waves going off every 2 minutes. Diana and I were in wave 20 so we started around 7:40 with a 1/4 mile swim. Diana came out of the water first in 6:50 and I was right behind in 7:03. We met up in the transition area and headed out onto the bike at the same time.

The bike starts off going straight up the "high cliff" for the first mile. It was a slow hill but then most of the rest of the course was flat with rolling hills. The wind was blowing pretty good but the clouds made for a good riding temperature. I had an interesting moment towards the end of the ride when approaching a railroad crossing and the flashers started and I could hear an approaching train. Fortunately I got across the tracks before the train stopped some of the riders. I guess the race directors can't really control the trains and they did adjust peoples times who got stuck. I finished the 22 mile bike in 1 hr 4 min (20.4 mph) and Diana finished in 1 hr 13 min (18.0 mph).

The 5k run started out running straight up the same route as the bike ride. Again it was a slow climb and then the run went off road onto the trails of the state park. Most of the run was spent watching your footing on the trails, which took some of the thinking off of the actual running. I finished the 5k run in 21:37 and Diana finished in 30:59. Overall I finished in a time of 1 hr 36 min and Diana finished in 1 hr 54 min. Official results are here.

We spent the rest of the weekend hanging out at the campsite and relaxing before heading home on Sunday morning. Sorry for no pictures!