This is the fourth time I've done the Jay Benson triathlon, and they are really starting to piss me off.
Jay Benson is doing a very good job with the waves - I'll give them that. They course is closed, which is awesome. The field was evenly spread out. There was little congestion in the pool. The refs reported that it was much easier to marshall the course. It's a good course, not too hard, not too easy, and it attracts a lot of newbies every year.
The packet pick-up is well-organized, other than the weird idea of marking me the night before (hello, for a sprint?) and you always get a nice T-shirt.
So what is the problem?
The problem is that they absolutely refuse to put a timing mat at the start line. As a result, if they screw up the wave time, or if the racer screws up their wave time, their entire race is timed incorrectly. So, as a result, my finish time was listed at 52 minutes. Yep. According to my bike calculator, I did the bike in about 45 minutes, so that means I did the 5k run and the 400 meter swim in about 5 minutes. Don't get me wrong - I'd love think that I could pull off a sprint triathlon in 52 minutes, but at the present, it ain't happenin'. Their screwup, I figure, is due to them having me listed in the next wave, which took off 20 minutes later. Why, I don't know. They told me to start in wave 5, so I did. Who knows how many other people's times they screwed up?
Last year, they recorded a 10 minute 5k for a relay participant. They also reported a 20 minute 5k for a 40-year-old Athena, and don't get me wrong - she's talended, awesome cyclist, but her 5k has never been less than 30 minutes. There were a great many other mistakes, which I know of because I know the people involved, and how fast they are. Many of the ones from last year they've never corrected.
I went to the officials after seeing my posted time told them,
that's not my time, and they said these were all unofficial times, and they've be fixed. Immediately after this conversation, they had the awards ceremony. WtF? Why have an awards ceremony if you know the times are all wrong? And when they called my name, and said, "52 minutes" I went up there, shaking my head, saying, "I told you that isn't my time." So then they asked me, well, how do you think you placed?
How do I think I placed? Isn't that what the timing chip is for?
Now, having said all that, I think I did pretty well. I may have a personal best on this course today. I'll find out for sure when they post the "corrected" times.
Get it together, Jay Benson. You've got a good race going, but if you don't get the timing right, it's not really a race. It's just an expensive workout.
...
