Fast Triathlon 2008

I’m going to Brazil!!! A few days ago I got an email from Victor Plata.  If you’ve ever used my contact form, you know I force people to choose from "Love Mail" "Hate Mail" or "Sponsorship" as their subject line.  Victor wisely chose Sponsorship, which tells me if he was going to pick a non-sequitur he’d rather it didn’t show a false affection or disgust. Maybe I’m overanalyzing it, but he is a soon-to-be lawyer.  Anyway, those details are completely unrelated to the story.

  Victor asked me to be on the USA team with him and Matt Chrabot (Shar-boe) to compete in the "Fast Triathlon 2008" which will take place in Brazil on January 27th at the site of the Brazil Ironman.  The race consists of 3 stages, each composed of a 250m swim, 4k bike (yes, four, single digit), and 1300m run.  By my calculations each stage should take under 12 minutes plus transitions.  Better yet, the bike leg is four laps, and the run is two, so this is as close to a spectator friendly triathlon as you can get (other than being 10,000 miles from home.)  There will be 18 athletes total. Teams of three from six different countries compete. Athletes are given points after each stage based on their place. Then the teams are scored by the sum of the three athletes points after all three stages.

Wikipedia says the host city, Balneário Camboriú, is located in southern brazil.  It’s a beach town with steep hills that drop down to the resorts on the ocean.  It’s known for the cable cars which link the two beaches, and the town’s 10,000 year-round residents have to deal with a summer population of 700,000 people.

Victor has done this race in the past, but this year we will be following in the large footsteps of Andy Potts, Brian Fleischmann, and Matt Reed.  Andy swept all three stages in 2007, and led the USA to a team victory.  This year we hope to repeat.