2002 River Cities Triathlon
By: The WM
August 4, 2002

One of the beauties and also big negatives of the internet is of course, that everyone has a voice.  This will be my impression of today's Sports Spectrum River Cities Triathlon in Shreveport, LA.  "Some bigger, none better" is their slogan, and I pretty much have to agree with that.  As a disclaimer, note that I have been competing in triathlons for just over a year and have done about a dozen of them.  So I'm new, but not that new.

The 2002 River Cities Triathlon was at Cypress Lake Park, a little north of Shreveport/Bossier.  At packet pickup on Saturday (more on the packets later), we received an excellent race summary/instruction sheet.  We took the advice given and got to the park early race morning. 

Transition was a bit crowded, but it can't be easy squeezing racks for 1,000 bikes, athletes, bags, etc. into the parking lot we used.  I was glad we got to the park when it opened at 6:00 am.  We had plenty of time for setting up, the body marking line was short, and we were able to warm up with both a bike and run.

At a few minutes before 8:00, there was a good invocation given to the crowd, and then things were underway.  Elimination of the elite wave at the last minute caused a short delay in starting the event, but no matter.

The "800 meter" swim was long.  Probably 950 or more.  I heard numbers from one and a half to three minutes as people noted how much slower they were than usual for a half mile.  The water was warm of course, but pretty clear for (north) Louisiana.  Plenty of boats.  Well marked.  I was a hair over 20 minutes - slow by even my shaky standards.

The 18.2 mile bike is potentially the best course I have been on.  In fact, the course itself is undoubtedly the best, it is only the traffic I and many others encountered that prevents me from rating it best overall.  The road surface was super smooth for over 90% of the course.  It is a loop rather than out-and-back, which I personally prefer.  It had enough hills and subtle up and down grades to be tactical.  Nowhere near as hilly as Caney, but mountainous compared to what we have in south Louisiana.  Just right.  But I got the bejesus scared out of me when I was doing 34 on one of the downhills (about as fast as I can go), and some *&$%)# in a truck came up from behind and passed me doing about 60.  Of course that was an isolated incident.  But from mile 13-15 or so, a bunch of us got stuck at about 18-19 mph behind 3 or 4 cars that wouldn't or couldn't pass the bikers in front of them.  A few of us did the pass-on-the-right trick and the ride-the-centerline-between-two-vehicles-coming-from-opposite-directions move.  I chose not to take such chances (this time) and finally the cars cleared out.  It felt like we lost several minutes, though in reality it was probably more like 30 to 60 seconds.

The 5k run in the park was great - very shaded.  It was pretty hot by this time of course, but being out of direct sunlight makes a big difference.  Plenty of water to drink, a few showers to run through, and some nice cold towels all helped.  There was a little cross-country portion thrown in as a bonus at the 2 mile mark - that made things interesting.

The post-race party and awards were very well done.  The "Road to Kona" was the theme, and the male and female winners got airfare and accommodations to Hawaii for the Ironman this fall.  Tons of great food - roast pig, jambalaya, fruit, drinks, frozen yogurt and much more.  All finishers got faux shell necklaces with medals, lots of nice touches.  The race organizers went to a tremendous effort to put on such an elaborate event.

Before I did even one triathlon, before I even thought of doing one, I heard how good the River Cities ditty bags/race packets were.  Well, it's true.  I don't know how they can get you so much cool stuff - quality clothing and gear - for the low entry fee they charge, but they do.  No wonder the race sells out in less than a week!

They've been having this race for 22 years now.  I, for one, hope to make it back for a few more.