Island to Island Triathlon - Look out for cargo ships!

Looking for a triathlon with some unique challenges? How about a swim leg across a busy shipping channel, or a bike leg with eight bridge climbs? If that sounds like fun, check out the first Island to Island Triathlon, scheduled for May 21, 2011.

The swim leg of this new USAT sanctioned event starts on the north end of Jekyll Island. Organizers enlisted the cooperation of the US Coast Guard to close St. Simons Sound (the passage between Jekyll and St. Simons Island), giving swimmers one less thing to worry about during what is sure to be a challenging 1.25 mile open water leg. Even with the late-spring date, there’s a good chance it will be wetsuit legal.

Swimmers will exit the water at the transition area, St. Simons Neptune Park. They’ll head out onto a bike course that includes eight bridge climbs, including two crossings of the tallest in the state, towering Sidney Lanier Bridge. Combined with strong coastal winds, the 33 mile course could be a quad killer.

The run, a standard 10K around mostly-flat St. Simon’s, finishes back at Neptune Park.

Registration is open on imAthlete. For more information, visit the organizer’s site www.island2islandtri.com.

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Eleven Global Olympic Triathlon changes venue

Eleven Global has changed the location of their 2011 Olympic distance race from the Ritz Carlton Lodge on Lake Oconee to the Parks Ferry Recreation area, just a few a miles away. The event is still scheduled for Saturday, May 21.


They've also added a new location to their expanding list of global races - Sardinia, Italy. Looks like a beautiful location for a race, especially if you like hills!

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Carrollton teen makes United States Junior Triathlon Team

From the Times-Georgian.com

“Pain is temporary.”

That is what 17-year-old triathlete Jared Senfeld has written on his wristband. And when you compete in a sport that includes 750 meters swimming, 20 kilometers biking and five kilometers running, “a lot of the time it hurts, but you have to push through it,” Senfeld said.

The process started when Senfeld got a bike at a garage sale and started riding it, a lot.

“I got that bike and just feel in love with it and spent hours at a time on it,” Senfeld said.

He rode with local Ironman competitor David Honeycutt as much as 300 miles a week until Honeycutt finally brought up the idea of Senfeld competing in a triathlon. Senfeld has competed in running and swimming, “a little bit here and there,” so the biking was the final piece to the three-part puzzle.

Senfeld competed in his first triathlon in June 2010, and while it was a little weird at first Jared found out he was pretty good at it.

That first competition he was, “somewhere lost in the water and at first you’re nervous, but then you just kind of realize that you’ve trained for it and there’s no reason to be nervous,” Senfeld said. “The thing is everyone pushes themselves.” He ended up finishing second in his age group, 16-19, and eleventh overall.

Jared kept competing, and winning his age group. His first place finish at the John Tanner Triathlon, part of the Tri the Parks series, was enough to be selected to compete in the national championships in Alabama, there was just one problem. To compete you have to be 18, Jared was still just 16.

But recently Jared was selected to be a member of the United States Junior Triathlon Team in the Southeast region. The country is split into 10 regions and the Southeast region includes Alabama, the Florida panhandle, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee.

Read the full article here

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A new spin on triathlon training

Published in the Albany Herald

Scott Schlesinger gave the 55 people seated on spinning bikes before him fair warning.

“If at some time during this you don’t feel like giving up, you’re not putting enough into it,” Schlesinger, a team spinning master instructor out of Miami, told the doctors, lawyers, teachers, housewives and general health nuts pedaling away on their indoor cycles.

Some two hours and 15 minutes later, after participating in Schlesinger’s unique Kona Ironman triathlon simulation, the participants who came to Tony’s Gym on a Sunday afternoon to be a part of the event walked away with a feeling of accomplishment.

“I made it,” Lawson Swan, a manager with the national Stryker Orthopedics firm, said. “I hurt my back working out about a year ago, and it’s kept me from doing anything seriously. It’s been about six months since I’ve been through a spinning class, but this is one of those events I felt like I had to do. I wanted to challenge myself.”

It was the challenge that brought fifth-grade teacher Tina Caldwell to Tony’s, too.

“I love the mental aspect of spinning,” Caldwell, who teaches at Live Oak Elementary School in Dougherty County, said. “This is an activity that’s 90 percent mental and 10 percent physical for me.

“(Local instructor) Barbara (Hoots) is such a motivational instructor; she made me realize what a stress reliever spinning is. And since I’d never done anything like (the Kona simulation), I was ready for the challenge.”

Schlesinger, who trains spinning instructors for Mad Dogg Athletics, supplied the challenge. A former football player who became an avid bike rider after his playing days were over, the master instructor was invited to give spinning a try shortly after “Johnny G” Goldberg came up with the concept in the early ’90s.

Schlesinger was immediately hooked.

“I took a spin class at a friend’s suggestion because there really weren’t any (bicycle) trails to ride in Miami,” he said. “It was the funniest thing, but I found that I had the knack instantly. I loved the whole concept.

“You could just close your eyes, get lost in the music and disappear.”

Full article

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Athens-area Tri to Beat Cancer needs a Volunteer Coordinator

The Cancer Foundation of Northeast Georgia is looking for a

volunteer coordinator for the Athens-area Tri to Beat Cancer Sprint Triathlon, scheduled for August 21, 2011. Duties include contacting volunteers from last year, obtaining volunteer needs from chairs and captains, soliciting volunteers from local schools, agencies and churches, assigning volunteers to committees based on their knowledge, preference or need, and hosting volunteer orientation. The coordinator must be organized and have some experience in Microsoft Excel. The Tri to Beat Cancer is a large race and the coordinator will be responsible for managing more than 100 volunteers.

 

To volunteer, visit HandsOnNortheastGeorgia.org or call HandsOn NEGA at (706) 353-1313.

The Cancer Foundation of Northeast Georgia is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to help alleviate the financial burden of cancer for eligible patients in Northeast Georgia.

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USAT publishes state triathlete analysis

 

USAT recently posted a state-by-state analysis of age group rankings using individual rankings for all 2009 ranked age-group triathletes. The report provides a state rank for four separate calculations including:

- The median score by state
- The number of triathletes ranked 90 or higher
- The % of ranked triathletes ranked 90 or higher
- The rank of each state by age group score

Overall, Georgia triathletes were back of the pack:

 

All States with Qualified Athletes

Median Score	Georgia Rank
Female	39
Male	45

 

 

All States with more than 100 Qualified Athletes (38 states)

Median Score	Georgia Rank
Female	28 of 38 states
Male	32 of 38 states

The state did pretty well in a ranking of states with triathletes with USAT scores >90.

Number of Athletes with scores >90 (Elite Age Group)

Gender	Georgia
Female	10 athletes 90+ = ranked 15th
Male	20 athletes 90+ = ranked 16th

However, when you calculate the percentage of athletes in each state with scores >90, Georgia slips back.

Percentage of Athletes with scores >90 (Elite Age Group)

Gender	Georgia
Female	0.81% = ranked 37th
Male	1.62% = ranked 42nd

The good news? Georgia is ranked first for Females in the 65-69 AG.

The full report is available here. The USAT

site has more information on how a score is assigned to each triathlete.

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2nd Annual Tri For The Kids Olympic Triathlon

The 2nd Annual Tri For The Kids Olympic Distance Triathlon is scheduled for Saturday, April 30 in Rome, Georgia. The event is being held in conjunction with the 3rd Annual Tri For The Kids Youth Triathlon, with proceeds from both races benefiting the Boys & Girls Club of Rome. With a down-river swim, it sounds like a good race for those new to the Olympic distance.

Swim: 1.1 miles

• Racers will enter the water one at a time, swimming with the current in the Etowah River
• Water temperature will be posted and updated closer to race day, but it's likely to be a wetsuit-legal race.

Bike: 24 miles

• The bike is on good city and county roads, flat to rolling with a couple of small, challenging hills - should allow for a fast ride.

Run: 6.2 miles

• The run will be primarily flat to gently rolling towards the end.

Registration is only $65 until April 5, and relay teams are encouraged. Registration is open on IMAthlete.

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Atlanta Triathlon Club hosts information sessions

The Atlanta Triathlon Club is hosting information sessions this week from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Wed., Jan., 5, at the City of Atlanta Adamsville Natatorium, 3201 M. L. King Jr. Dr., Atlanta, Ga. 30311. A second seminar is set for 5 to 6 p.m. Sun., Jan. 9, at Atlanta Cycling Vinings, 4335 Cobb Parkway, Atlanta, Ga. 30339.

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