Corvallis Mountain Biking: April 2012

I needed something to motivate me through the winter months of "road" riding. So I signed up for the Beaver Freezer which is put on by the OSU Triathlon club (it happens to be the largest indoor, because you swim indoors, sprint triathlon in the country). This was their 20th year and they have almost 500 racers. I trained for about 10 weeks (swimming twice a week), running on the treadmill and riding his mountain bike. I never did them all in a row, but I would combine two (bike then run, swim then run). This is a very easy race to do, and I enjoyed the fitness the swimming gave me. Here is how it went:

They cap at 500, and this year they had 481 finishers (256 men 225 women). They run relay, road, and mountain bike divisions with age groups. Average time was 1:26:11 for the road and 1:41:47 for the mountain.

I was in the Mountain Bike division with a 7:35 a.m. start time. Start times are determined by swim time, you have to put down a time in advance and I put 15 mins, which is a slow time, so I went off in the second set of swimmers. They try to match you to similar swimmers and you go in 5 second intervals with a max of 5 to a lane. I turned in about 12 min times for the last week of practice, and I swam this one in 10:38 (including getting out of the pool and running through the doors (you are wearing a timing chip), and I could have been even faster I think.

I realize now that time is lost or gained on your competitors in the transitions. I wasn't that fast (though it seemed like it to me), with an average of about 3:30 minutes (again the timing chip tracks that). I road my 29'r with my tubeless mountain tires at 60 lbs. Slicks would have been much better, something for next year.

So here are the mountain bike results:

The mountain bike winner did it in 1:15:47, I finished in 1:28:06 (average time was 1:41.47 for the mountain bikers). That gave me 17th overall, 15th in the men, and 3rd in the 50-59 age group (winner was 1:20:52 in the 50-59 group). Sunday night Monday morning is when I felt the stiffness in my legs, and you get great permanent marker tattoos on both legs and arms to prove it. Now 3rd sounds great (and I'll take it), but the mountain division only had 72 riders (32 men and 40 women) because we are tougher it scares everyone to road bikes. So there was not a big pool compared to the road division and to be total transparent, there were only 4 in the 50-59 group. The road bike riders had 409 participants. The male winner of the road ride did it in 55:12.

Here are my stats and the mountain bike winners stats:

Swim: 10:28 (8:44)
Transition 1: 3:36 (4:02)
Bike: 45:17 (39:09)
Transition 2: 3:34 (1:29)
Run 25:10 (22:21)
Total 1:28:06 (1:15:47)

Great fun and I would recommend it to anyone.

http://people.oregonstate.edu/studentgroups/triclub/freezer/