WAYNE’S WORDS
SEPTEMBER 10, 2005
TOPIC: 2005 LAKE ST. LOUIS TRIATHLON

On September 3rd. At 3:30 A.M. I was already awake getting ready to head out to Lake St. Louis for the 23rd. Annual Lake St. Louis Triathlon.
I had been out to LSL the past two Sundays to do the practice sessions and I had the gut feeling that this year’s event was going to be a lot better than last year’s.
I got out to the site at around 6:00 and got a parking place about 50 feet from the start.
I set up my bike and had about two hours before I had to start the short course race. It was getting lighter now and a lot of familiar faces and shapes started to show up.
Quickly, the transition area filled up, racers were roaming around everywhere and the announcer was nonstop blaring out race information.
Soon the long course swim started and the event was on.
I started at 8:10 in the first wave of the short course swim.
During my race and on reflection afterwards, I, as I usually do, came up with a list of good things about the event, and of course some bad things that happened.
So......

Good things about my race:
The weather was perfect, low humidity, warm temperatures a slight breeze
Lake St. Louis is the perfect place to have a triathlon
Lots of people cheering after the swim
Good T1
Volunteers on the bike course that knew what they were doing
Fantastic roads to ride on
Absolutely NO cars on the course
Cops at all intersections
Lots of cheering at T2
Lots of cheering on the run course
As I ran down towards the finish towards the giant American Flag, I got chills and the satisfaction of achieving a goal and finishing yet another triathlon.
Lots of cheering and smiles at the finish
Lots of Chevy’s burritos
Lots of Gatorade
It was great to see friends that I hadn’t seen for years. It’s always great to connect and catch up with people you haven’t seen in awhile.

Bad things about my race:
I got the shit knocked out of me on the swim. The course was too short to have 50 swimmers try to spread out and still make two 120 degree turns in 400 yds.
It was crowded in T1 and on the bike, I was always in a pack of riders which I don’t like at all.
I saw some wrecks on the bike, heard about a lot more. The fact that there were 400 newbies out there had to make the bike portion a lot more dangerous.
If you are new at triathlons, don't make this race your first race.
It's a tough race, start to finish, and you might get hurt if you don't give the race 100% of your attention and effort.
No water until about 1 ½ miles on the run.
The awards took too long, there just has to be a better way.
All in all I think Dave Reynolds did a great job keeping this race alive. After last year it could have died.
Dave had the help of Ultramax’s Mark Livesay and his crew and our very own Matt Cazalas in making this years race, the best triathlon in the area.
I hope everyone that raced took it upon themselves to thank Dave, Matt, the volunteers, the cops, the fireman and the residents for helping make this year’s tri a safe and enjoyable event, and for letting us invade their city for three weekends.
I'll be signed up early for next year.

Until next time,
Train smart, live right.
Wayne
whuckshold@yahoo.com.