Milkman

Saturday, June 7th, was the 24th Annual Milkman Triathlon. Wow, 24 years. What were you doing in 1985? This is a fun race and pretty popular with the New Mexico and West Texas triathletes. It's in the small town of Dexter, about 15 miles south of Roswell (and the Alien Museum). If you find yourself in the area on the first weekend in June, you should give this race a go.

The swim is in Lake Van. I don't know who "Van" was, and I sure don't know why it's called a lake. More like a large pond. The water is never more than four or five feet deep, it's pretty murky, and the bottom of the lake is covered in about six inches of mud. In spite of that, it's a pretty good swim. They stretch a rope with buoys 250 meters from the shore, so you get the same length swim every year. The water seems clean enough and it provides a nice backdrop to the race venue. The water temperature is always in the low 70's for the race, so wetsuits are optional. The "strong swimmers" usually swim without wetsuits. For a more feeble swimmer like myself, I've found that I'm about one minute faster with a wetsuit than I am without one. (9:15 vs 10:15 for the 500 meters.) I went with the neoprene this year, and sure enough I swam 9:15.

The transition area is right next to the lake. It takes me an extra 15 seconds to peel off my wetsuit, but it's still a net plus for me. The 20K (12.4 mile) bike course is an out and back on a sparsely traveled county highway. The road surface varies from "kind of rough chip seal" to "pretty bouncy patched potholes chip seal". A lot of people run with lower tire pressures on this course. There is also one cattle guard on the course. (Think twenty parallel railroad tracks with about two inches of spacing between the rails.) In previous years they have covered this with sheets of plywood. This year it was uncovered, which was no big deal. A lot of us deal with cattle guards on our training rides, and they're no worse than crossing railroad tracks. Just cross them at a 90 degree angle. This year there was a 20 mph wind from the south. Great when we were heading north on the way out, not so great when we were heading south on the way back. I was happy that I was not quite one minute slower than last year.

I needed to run a 22 minute 5K if I was going to match last year's overall time. Back in the day, that would have been no problem. Even now, I could have managed this if that was the only thing I was doing on the day. However, after pushing through the headwinds on the bike, I was never going to finish the run in 22 minutes. The run is interesting. You start off on the road around the lake, then run some dirt and grass trails for a couple of miles, then finish on the road around the lake. The last 100 meters is across a grass field to the finish line. I finished the run in 23:45, which left me about one minute slower overall than last year. Not bad considering the wind on the bike!

This race is part of the "Best of the US" series. The overall male winner was Clay Moseley, who is pretty much the alpha-male among New Mexico triathletes. Uber biker Seth Wilkie was less than five seconds behind Clay. Third, fourth, and fifth places belonged to some "old guys", 48 year old Bobby Gonzales, 51 year old Perry Toles, and 46 year old Jeff Johnson. These "old guys" were able to finish in front of some of the young guns from the local area including Albert Lugo, Jason Atkinson, and Chance Payton. The top three females were Deborah Kidd, Gretchen McElroy, and 50 year old Tamsen Schurman. Pretty impressive, and it shows how you can still be competitive in "middle age"!

This race also recognizes the "First Time Triathletes" by bringing them up to the awards podium and giving them a Milkman coffee cup. I didn't count, but there were more than 20 first timers (among a total of 110 male and 63 female individuals) at this race. They also get quite a few relay teams participating. This year there were 14 relay teams. It's things like this that help grow and maintain interest in triathlon.

Finally, they present the Pegye Jann Marshall Spirit Award at this race. She was an active supporter of multisport who passed away several years ago. People who are presented with this award have made some significant contribution to multisport. This year's winner was Flip Lyle. If you have participated in any of the Southwest Challenge Series races during the past 20 or so years, you know who he is. He pretty much created the series and he is the glue that has held it together for the 20 or so years that it has been around. He has received other recognition from the Guinness Book of Records and from USAT, and it was nice to see him win this award.

Less than three weeks until Buffalo Springs!

muffinman