Race Coverage

Ben's Return to Chisago...

Sunday, 03 August 2014 00:10

By Ben Ewers (benewers.blogspot.com)

Triathletes living in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St Paul had their pick of 7 different triathlon venues over the weekend of July 26/27, typical for any summer weekend in this Midwest hotbed of triathloning. I chose the Chisago City Sprint because it would be my third year in a row at this race, it is USAT sanctioned and Chisago City is located less than one hour northeast of the Twin Cities. It is a "home town" race that at $45 for the sprint is a super deal. You get all the usual stuff including a t-shirt, food, trophies and free coffee to help you wake up as your set-up in the dark. Finally, with the bike segment being my strongest leg, this sprint course was ripe for me with a 1/4 mile swim, 22 mile bike, and 5K run. The race venue also hosts a half Ironman and attracted approximately 500 to each event.

The race venue is typical for these "home town" type of races. A bit of seaweed in the primarily sandy lake, a grassy area for the transition (in this case a knoll overlooking the lake), a bit of biking over grass and through a bike tunnel under a major road, and a lot of relatively flat, smooth, and wide roads for biking.....

I have been negligent in my training this year focusing on other more important stuff like family and health. In the prior three weeks I swam a total of 12,000 yds, biked 200 miles, and ran 13 miles. Not very impressive. I have been struggling with knee pain due to arthritis and hence the extremely low running miles for a running based triathlete. Two weeks ago I tried a new approach to run training in that I ellipse before running on a treadmill. So, two to three times a week I ellipse for 25 minutes and follow that with a 25 minute treadmill run. Boring, but my knees hurt less following the ellipse. I am hopeful that I can gradually increase the training time but do not expect my running form to ever recover to pre-arthritis fitness.