<:: Welcome to Slowtwitch.com ::>

Timothy Carlson images of mid-swim, late swim and the swim exit: By the middle of the swim leg of a triathlon, competitors usually spread out and settle into their own individual rhythm and speed. But in highly competitive events like the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii, swimmers are sure to bump and grind into one another right up until the ramp to the swim-to-bike transition. In open water swimming, some adept triathletes catch a wave and body surf in for a last minute advantage. Once they start running on the beach, some like Craig Walton can high-step through the shallow waves and take off like rockets. But even the greatest swimmers in the business can, like Andy Potts at Clearwater in 2008 or Joanna Zeiger at that same race, show the effort invested in the first leg. While olympic caliber swimmers like Sheila Taormina can blast off alone, they usually play the swim conservatively to save energy for the bike and the run.

The 2010 Rev3Tri Knoxville is in the books and Matty Reed and Julie Dibens were dominant winners. The race was very well run and the winding, technical bike segment made for a very fair race. Especially the pro field was spread apart nicely and there were some impressive performances both by the athletes and the crew.


All images are © Herbert Krabel

The new Abu Dhabi Triathlon is coming up in March 2010 with a very nice prize purse and a unique distance offering. Athletes can pick either the 3km swim / 200km bike / 20km run or the shorter 1.5km swim / 100km bike / 10km run version. We traveled to the United Arab Emirates to check out the course in Abu Dhabi and the surroundings.

All images are © Herbert Krabel / slowtwitch.com

Like Hemingway’s Paris, a triathlon finish line is a moveable feast. While the line itself remains fixed in time and space, its place in our memories, dreams and reflections can be carried in our souls forever. And as clear as it may seem, there are many ambiguities and alternate definitions for that elusive line. For the unlucky, the finish line of their day comes cruelly soon thanks to a crash, a penalty, illness or simply cold water. The time taken to get there can certainly be relative. It took Walt Stack 26 hours in 1981, just 8 hours and 4 minutes for Luc Van Lierde in 1996. But if you calculate all the time it took for the dream to grow and gestate, race day is just the tip of the iceberg for what may have been a 10-year odyssey. Thanks to the physical, mental, emotional and soul struggle required to cover the distance, emotions are deep – and often ambiguous to the casual observer. Two time champion Chrissie Wellington was crying and quite overcome after winning her 2008 title. She won it by 15 minutes, so why couldn’t she take it in stride? Almost overcome by the heat, Barb Lindquist looked out on her feet, eyes rolling back in her head like a knockout victim. Certainly not the happy winner of a $50,000 check at Life Time Fitness. Dimitry Gaag crossed the line in Montreal a World Champion, but looked like he just got shot in the leg, thanks to a hamstring pull. Hamish Carter looks like he just got KO’d by Muhammad Ali, not a 2000 Olympian. Peter Kropko didn’t get a gold watch for his end of his noble career at Kona, just his own tears revealing the depth of his love for Madame Pele’s demanding charms. Sometimes, even a 6-time Ironman champion like Bella Comerford puts in a full day’s work in the hot sun and only gets a tomato face for her troubles. But even though triathlon may bring its practitioners a sort of transcendence once the day is done, often as not the pain is overwhelming, as the gentleman from Australia can attest.

So after looking at all these images, the old Wide World of Sports motto -- The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat – seems confusing, turned on its head and upside down, like Picasso’s cubist masterpieces. Isn’t it the Agony of Victory, the Thrill of Defeat?

The late, great author John Updike wrote of Fenway Park in Boston that it was “a lyric, little bandbox of a ballpark. Everything is painted green and seems in curiously sharp focus, like the inside of am old-fashioned peeping-type Easter Egg.” Triathlon cannot claim to own its sporting venues like major sports stadia. But once (sometimes twice) a year, the late-blooming sport of swim, bike and run can occupy and intertwine with places of uncommon beauty. Whether a glass and steel metropolis like Chicago, a dramatic tropical lava field like Kona, or a tiny elegant village like Pacific Grove, lines of colorful spandexed and neoprened triathletes become an iridescent ribbon of aerobic pilgrims who wrap the water, sky, shoreline, domiciles, roads and residents in a living, breathing impromptu homage to one of Christo’s famed environmental art installations.

Terry Davis and his Tri-California organization started holding events in this community, just a few blocks south of the famed Monterey Aquarium and Cannery Row, in 1996. This past weekend was the 15th Triathlon at Pacific Grove. Perhaps you’ve heard it was beautiful. But it’s one very lesser thing to read about it than to experience the heartbreaking beauty of this place live and in person. The turquoise waters decorated with wine dark kelp and framed by the jagged rocky shoreline, ringed in iceplant and cypress trees, dominates the swim of course. But it also provides a welcoming backdrop as the bike heads south toward Spanish Bay, and makes the run that heads north toward Monterey along the shore an equally perfect picture. All the action whizzes past beautiful 19th century Craftsmen wood shingled houses, Spanish-style stucco homes covered in passionate red bougainvillea and cactus, blending seamlessly with tasteful modern homes whose skylights and wide windows embrace the outdoors.

While Ethan Brown and Annie Warner won their first professional victories and $2,500 in the draft-legal elite race at noon on Saturday, even these competitive pros could not help but look around them to soak in the beauty. Pacific Grove is like that. No matter how fast or slow the competitors – whether they be elites racing for money or age groupers racing for a PR in the Olympic distance races on Saturday, or the armies of newcomers racing for pride in Sunday’s sprint race, Pacific Grove is a priceless experience.

All photographs © Timothy Carlson

Triathlons starting at Alcatraz and finishing in San Francisco go together like a horse and carriage, love and marriage, Wimbledon and tennis. Terry Davis and his masterful crew at Tri-California know how to put on a great race, so when IMG took their Escape property, Davis and his dozen years of experience putting on that race decided to take charge and put on his version on August 29.

The course had a few tweaks. The 1-5 mile swim from the ferry ended at a platform right on Marina Green and eliminated that half mile run on pavement to the bikes. The bike was extended all the way to the San Francisco Zoo and mileage upped from 18 to 25 miles. The run was similar but the finish chute was closer and mileage was reduced to 7 miles.

The pro field was a bit smaller but prize money was a solid $40,000, which outranked two Life Time Fitness series events. But the races were hot and the joyous spectacle of racing through San Francisco Bay, riding through Fort Point and the Presidio, past the golf course and the Legion of Honor Museum, down the Cliff House decline, into and out of Golden Gate Park, then running out to Baker Beach , back up the sand ladder and finishing on the Marina grass chute was, once again, exuberant, challenging and fun.

Photographs © Timothy Carlson

Timothy Carlson’s pictures chronicle the clash of generations in part 3 of Ironman Hawaii Photo Galleries of the winners, movers and shakers 2006-2008. An Old School revolutionary prevailed among the women in 2006 as Michellie Jones, the 1992-1993 ITU short course world champ, upended Natascha Badmann’s reign. Jones topped Badmann 54 to 1:06 on the swim, gave back 7 minutes on the bike, then found her 3:13 marathon good enough to top gastrointestinally challenged Badmann’s 3:27:54 run. That same year, Normann Stadler made sure nobody thought his 2004 It’s-About-the-Bike 2004 win was a flash in the pan. Stadler’s record-smashing 4:18:23 bike gave the Normannator 10 minutes on rival Macca, just enough to hold on for a 71-second margin of victory. But 2007 was quite another story. Michellie Jones dropped out when a pre-race ear infection made it impossible to continue and a very fit, 40-plus Natascha Badmann was denied a chance to defend against an onslaught from the new guard due to a bad crash on the bike. That left Kona 2007 to a duel between well-known rookie Sam McGlone and unknown dark horse Chrissie Wellington, who had been a pro for all of eight months. Wellington won, the most shocking rookie debut since Luc Van Lierde. Mirroring the dropout rate of best women, 2005 men’s champ Faris Al-Sultan, 2004 and 2006 champ Normann Stadler and many other Germans were felled by gastro woes. When the dust had cleared, McCormack fulfilled a career-long dream to take the win by 3:30 over Kona rookie, consummate professional, Craig Alexander. In 2008, overdog Chrissie W backed up her Kona debut with a repeat, while Macca dropped out with cable troubles and Crowie well and truly earned the crown he inherited with a great 2:45 run.

Triathlon aficionados will debate forever just how meaningful Roth’s world best Iron-distance times are, whether the course was a kilometer short or not, or whether swimmers get a positive wave effect in the Main-Donau Canal. But there is no debate that this 21-year-old classic offers one of the most transcendent emotional experiences in the sport. Once the first and only Ironman event in Europe, now the Quelle Roth Challenge stands on its own as the sport’s closest equivalent to a Tour de France mountain stage for sheer stagecraft and drama. Somehow, ambitious pros who want a piece of history are drawn to Roth to see how they measure up to the greats like Paula Newby-Fraser, Luc Van Lierde, Jurgen Zack and now Yvonne Van Vlerken and Chrissie Wellington. Fans of endurance sport can stake out a spot on the Solarerberg climb and virtually touch the greats and near-greats, creating a synergy energizing the triathletic warriors’ hearts.

Somehow, this historic town of 25,000 and all its castles and churches bestows its rich sense of history and reverence to this sporting event that is embraced by a loyal set of fans who can’t think of a better way to spend the second Sunday in July.

All pics © Timothy Carlson

In March of last year we shared a gallery of Pros with their dogs and after collecting images and details for a couple weeks we can now present part 2 of that series. This second gallery was actually inspired by Matt Lieto, because after his interview on slowtwitch (where he mentioned his dog Mili and her prowess) other Pros started a little banter with Matt about who has the best dog.

Featured in this gallery are the special dogs of Gina Crawford, Kelly Williamson, Emma Garrard, Dede Griesbauer, Lisa Bentley, Sam Warriner, Julie Dibens, Amy Dannwolf / Jordan Jones, Richie Cunningham, Tim Berkel, Brian Smith, Matt Lieto, Courtney Atkinson, Cameron Dye and Michael Raelert.

Related gallery

Pros and their pooches 1

The Timberman Triathlon Festival is very popular with age groupers and Pros alike and 2009 was no exception. But Timberman isn't just an Ironman 70.3 race, it also has a short course event and the Gunstock TimberKids Challenge.

The 70.3 race was won by Andy Potts and Chrissie Wellington in blazing fast times and prior to the race a tribute was held to Richard Blazeman Blais. Shooter Eric Wynn was there to capture impressions from the event.

All images are ©EricWynn.org

Torbjorn Sindballe was diagnosed with bicuspid aortic valve syndrome this spring, which promoted his retirement at age 32 from a remarkable triathlon career. The Dane whose name means Thunder Bear won silver at the ITU long course World Championship in 1999 and 2002, then gold in 2004 and 2006. He won the European Championship in 2003, and smashing victories at Ironman 70.3 California in 2002 and 2005. In the longer arc of his career, Kona was the ultimate goal and he advanced very far towards the summit, setting a bike record in 2005 and placing third overall in 2007 despite a physiology that was in no way a good fit with the heat and humidity of Hawaii. One of the three or four best cyclists in the sport, Sindballe was that rare combination of a cool scientific mind with a hot-blooded Viking passion.

Terry Davis and his Tri-California crew founded the San Francisco Triathlon on Treasure Island in 2002 and this current Pan American Cup Olympic distance event has had a storied group of winners including 5-time ITU World Champion Simon Lessing, Greg Bennett, Hunter Kemper and Matt Reed among the men - and Laura Reback, Becky Lavelle, Julie Ertel and 2002 ITU World Champ Leanda Cave. This year, American Ben Collins and Canadian Tenille Hoogland broke through with elan on July 10 to take their very first professional victories.

Photos © Timothy Carlson

After a year of rumors, speculations, and anticipation, Trek finally released the Speed Concept. According to Trek, this wasn't a bike built to Pro Tour standards and adapted to triathletes. Rather, this bike was born and bred for multisport, and Pro Tour riders are the ones who have to adjust to it. When Lance Armstrong received his prototype bikes last year, he had to use a custom seat post with massive offset to overcome the bike's native seat tube angle of 78 degrees.

Trek conducted its product launch at the grandiose Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles, to a room packed with journalists. John Burke introduced the bike with Triathlon product manager Tyler Pilger and Advanced Concept Director Doug Cusack. Trek pointed out that the bike's design goals are threefold: superlative aerodynamics, unparalleled integration, and above all, dynamic bike fit. The bike sports a number of features aimed at achieving all three goals, discussed in more detail in the image captions. After going through the bike's main features over power point, they invited journalists to view the entire production line of bikes, all the way from a top-of-the-line 9-series frame outfitted with Shimano Di2, all the way down to an Ultegra-level 2-series aluminum version.

All images are © Nick Salazar of salazarphotography.com

Trek/K-Swiss athletes Julie Dibens and Joe Gambles have been having a stellar year, as have many of their podium-topping teammates. The two will compete in the Rev3 Quassy triathlon in Middlebury, Connecticut on June 6th.

Both athletes had been riding prototype Speed Concept bikes, and had already taken multiple trips to Retul's Boulder studios to be fitted. Now that the production bikes and front ends are available, they returned to the studio so that fitter Mat Steinmetz could replicate their positions on the new machines.


All images are © Nick Salazar of salazarphotography.com

Mitch Thrower has made it his life’s credo to mix business with pleasure. When he started his first business, a guide to student travel, he set up shop in the very jewel – La Jolla -- of the triathlon mecca of San Diego. He rented a couple of rooms in that first office on elegant Prospect Street, which doubled as a modest home. And used that headquarters as a triathlon training center to dash out for swim, bike and run workouts at convenient times during the day. Over the past 17 years, while finishing 17 Ironmans, he sold the student travel biz, bought into Triathlete Magazine and eventually became co-owner and chairman while writing the Starting Lines column at the front of the book, and also co-founded the wildly successful Active.com. A serial entrepreneur who lectures on business at several universities and writes books on entrepreneurship, Thrower exudes energy for his multitasking business interests he says he gets from triathlon training and racing.

Remembering the thrill he got from attending the Multisport School of Champions Triathlon Camps in the 1990s, Thrower decided to host his own triathlon camp and invited fellow entrepreneur-triathletes and pure triathletes of wildly different backgrounds to share his passion for the sport.

Thrower describes his Triathlon Sanctuary this way: “If you were to design an ideal Triathlon Sanctuary, you would need perfect weather, a perfect location, a large support crew to run lead vehicles and sag wagons protecting you on your long bike rides. Throw in some spectacular advice from top triathlete coaches, guidance from professional triathletes and some Olympic swimmers with under water video cameras. You would eat catered meals every day, have a private mechanic and bike-sizing specialists. Then you would surround yourself with some of the most successful businesspersons and enthusiastic triathletes at all levels and dive in and enjoy the party.”

The most recent Triathlon Sanctuary was held March 17-20 in La Jolla. To request an invitation for the September 15-18, 2010 Triathlon Sanctuary, contact www.triathlonsanctuary.com.

All photos in the gallery © Timothy Carlson

Everywhere they turn, West Point triathletes are drenched in legendary heroes and stirring history that goes far back in time beyond the Big Four and the original Iron Men. Bound by the strict Cadet Honor Code, if a Black Knight triathlete sucks wheel, they are bound to turn themselves in.

Next to Washington DC, London and Kim Il Jong’s rec room, West Point may be the world headquarters for statues honoring military heroes of the past. Everywhere stirring mottos, heroic monuments, plaques and murals exhort today’s cadets to bravery, leadership and integrity. Equally concerned by the mistakes of the past as well as the victories, West Point drums the lessons of atrocities at My Lai and Abu Ghraib to make sure tomorrow’s military leaders keep our troops living up to the highest ideals. Even the triathlon team and their faculty advisers and coach see their sport as a crucible with lessons that apply to their future appointments in Samarra and other combat zones around our strife torn the planet. And so they also pass down in Saturday night pizza parties the stories of triathlete who came before and their deeds. When some of your triathlon teammates have spent a tour in Iraq, peer pressure by example make it harder to slack off.

If triathletes with regular job and a family are model encyclopedia entries for the Type A personality, West Point cadets are Triple A. Somehow they find a way to squeeze in typical 14-18 hours per week of high quality workouts in an unrelenting succession of 14 hour days of study and military related training, which requires cadets to cram in 5,000 calories 25 minutes at a time of controlled mess hall frenzy. All in all, this dedicated group of cadets uses their ingrained military discipline to get the most out of their sport, and build a habit of group camaraderie that will serve them well in their inevitable combat deployments.

The 28th Wildflower long course saw a record time established by Julie Dibens, a second best ever finishing time by Michael Raelert, the usual passionate bright May wildflowers and 30,000 campers enjoying themselves.

The weather was perfect and the winning performances by Julie Dibens and Michael Raelert were nearly so at the 28th Wildflower long course May 1 at Lake San Antonio in inland Monterey County.

All photographs © Timothy Carlson

Eneko Llanos captured his 3rd XTERRA world Championships after having won already in 2003 and 2004. Julie Dibens is also a 3-time champion after her dominating win this year, but she has won all 3 events in a row and is the first person to do so in XTERRA history.

All images are © Eric Wynn