Surfski Knowledge Base

Mountains to Sound Relay - 1st place ironman
happypaddle <happypaddle@…>
06/27/11 #10903

One man, One day, One hundred miles!!

Pacific Northwest native and adventure sport expert Jimmy Z. earned himself some impressive bragging rights yesterday as he dug deep for a good cause, doing what he does best from Cascade Mountain trails to Puget Sound waterways…

In a 17 mile mountain bike, 46 mile road bike, 12 mile kayak leg, 13.1 mile/ half marathon run and a final 10 km 'sprint' race to the finish…

With many liters of water, Gatorade, Gel Shots & caffeinated power gummies later…

Through leg cramps and into the pukes…

He surprised himself (but not us:) with a strong, 1st place IRONMAN finish at 8 hours and 20 minutes in Seattle's finest fundraising, multisport relay race!

Watch highlights of his epic endurance race @ http://vimeo.com/25682270

~nbz

steven wort
06/27/11 #10904

Amazing race, great video, thanks for sharing. I saw Jim come across the finish line, and he looked really strong. A lot stronger than I was feeling and all I did was the kayak leg :)

I saw his kayak, and was wondering what make / model it is?

Cheers

Steve

Shane Baker
06/27/11 #10905

Jim paddled an early Phantom from Necky. Later Necky moved the cockpit 10“ forward.

Jeff Hegedus <jhegedus@…>
06/27/11 #10906

Good job Jim! sheesh

Tony Velasco <tonyvelasco@…>
06/27/11 #10907

Congrats Jim! Way to go! That's one of the toughest ironman events around ANYWHERE!

Congrats too to Mischa's Boomer's Drive-In team for the 1st overall team win! Way to go Mischa!

paul clement

06/27/11 #10908

Sounds like the guard has changed… No Ecker,Soffield, or BOSS. Congratulations Jim and Mischa!

debbie natelson
06/27/11 #10909

Jim,
Though I got to see you DO IT in person and congratulate you there, still can't gush enough. Amazing effort, especially psyching yourself up for the final 10K, right after finishing the half-marathon. It was really fun to see you light up (and lighten up your step) at the finish as you rounded the bend and saw the crowd cheering you on. Nice, well earned motivator.

Jim not only finished the Ironman competition first, but with a rather large lead time between him and second place. Whoo hoo.
- Deb

happypaddle <happypaddle@…>

06/28/11 #10910

When Jim finished the kayak leg, with nearly 20 miles of running still to go, he turned his tiring 6'2” body to get out of the narrow, old school racing kayak Phantom's cockpit and it caused both his quads and glut to all seize up….so he laid down on the grass and I gave him a 5 min. intense leg massage while Steve helped change his shoes/clothes…
Then after his overall finish, we drove a short distance back to Steve's house & just got outa the car, when Jim mumbled, “I don't feel so good” and let it all out, right as a sweet young neighbor family was walking by…(I explained to them with pride it was pukes of victory! ;)

~nbz

Michael Gregory

06/28/11 #10911

Right on Jimmy! Mike.

MischaUriah

06/29/11 #10914

Thanks, but it seems the MTS race could use an influx of participants, so how about some of you come on down next year and give the race a go? It's a good team race and would make a super challenging early-season iron race for any paddlers who'd like to try the multisport experience.

Great job to Jim. He looked pretty messed up to me–it was like a scene from a Rocky movie–but he kept slogging away at the miles and I'm sure slept very well Sunday night.

See you out there,
Mischa

happypaddle <expeditionpaddlers@…>
06/30/11 #10921

Even better reason to make Moutains to Sound a training goal for next year…

1. Ironman allowed.
2. Profits a good cause- M2S has contributed over $50,000 towards improving trails and recreation along the Mountains to Sound Greenway, for the I-90 Corridor from Thorpe to the shores of Seattle.
3. Jim needs some more competition. ;)

Erik Borgnes
06/30/11 #10927

It's interesting to me why the Ski to Sea race thrives and gets bigger each year while the other races, i.e. Ridge to River, Gap to Gap, The Big Hurt (Port Angeles) and from what I read, the MTS struggle(d) to get participants and end up dying. I don't know how the Bellingham Traverse is doing.

My theory is that the race organizers, in an attempt to attract more racers, created categories for Iron-person, duo, adventure team, etc, plus team relay (sometimes having teams with kayaks in a separate class as teams with canoes) - and that diluted the focus of the race too much as it created multiple races (all with different age groups) within the same race. It's like having two or three soccer balls in play at a soccer game - too confusing / unfocused. Think about how the Hawaii Ironman triathlon would fare if they ran a team relay race simultaneously . . . I think people would lose interest.

Any other ideas?

Erik

steven wort
06/30/11 #10928

From what I understand, R2R lost sponsorship, so has died because of that.

MTS is an interesting race because of the geography, and nature of the different legs. In some ways it lacks the Big Mountain feel that you get from starting on Mount Baker, and the potential danger of the canoe, and kayak legs at S2S. Plus I don’t think it is well enough known yet to have the draw that Ski to Sea does, and yet they continuously fail to advertise to bring in more participants, and then wonder why numbers are down L

Their numbers are definitely way down, from close to 200 in 2008, to 120 last year down to around 70 this year L

It would be interesting to hear from some of the S2S teams that came down to MTS last year as to why they were not there this year?

~Steve

lori & beau whitehead

06/30/11 #10929

I did M2S the very first year, and unfortunately, it left such a bad taste in my mouth I never went back. I'm sure it improved after it's rookie year, but the lack of traffic control during the road bike stage and only one water station during a half-marathon on a 85 degrees day will be very hard for me to forget(-:

Tony Velasco <tonyvelasco@…>

07/01/11 #10932

The course definitely improved after 2008, especially the number of aide stations and the flagging and course marshalling, and plenty of water stations. However, they can't help that once you get to Redmond, the police just sit in their cars with lights on and don't do any traffic direction. Everywhere else on the course it's very well marshaled now.

Some problems I see with Mountains to Sound specifically, are: that it is only 1 month after Ski to Sea, and for many teams, that's just a bit soon. Another is it competes with a lot of other events going on during the Summer, including a ton of road bike races, a ton of marathons the same weekend, and the beginning of Seafair as well. They don't advertise particularly well, but there are so many other things they are competing with, it's incredible. Once the novelty wore off, it really needs better advertising and probably a better date for the race.

The course will be back to being awesome next year, with the tunnel re-opened at the top finally, and the Burke Gilman trail improvements done as well. I'll definitely be back down there next year, but this year I had other priorities with my oldest daughter getting married and helping her and her husband move back East, so just didn't have time to focus on the race at all. I do love the race, for sure.

Shane Baker

07/01/11 #10933

Tony hit the nail on the head. Too many choices. For us water sports racers three fairly local races that weekend besides MTS: PNWORCA Rooster Rock OC-6 and OC-1, Sound Rowers Rat Island and Bowen Sea Kayaking 'Round Bowen'.
Shane.

happypaddle <expeditionpaddlers@…>
07/01/11 #10935

To compare M2S with S2S numbers, Ski to Sea has almost a hundred year founding lead on this new multisport relay companion…S2S's race history goes back to a time when Bellingham was much more of a small town. The race involved a lot of the community and grew solid roots in many families as an annual event on the calendar. Now the town and race have both grown and it's evolved into so much more, but still a solid tradition for many. While M2S is only in it's 6th year and taking off in a much more metro population, so has to do more to get attention…

Another big difference - the M2S race is a also fundraising event, having contributed nearly $10,000 a year so far to supporting the greeenway. With shrinking participant numbers, that is a huge feat from a fellow fundraising race directors standpoint. While Ski2Sea is not and presumably operates on a much bigger marketing/advertising budget, having built a foundation of decades of support from local businesses.

Plus, yeah, in Seattle alone on the same weekend they have the Rock and Roll marathon and the new Paddle Festival, two great events themselves which drew potentially more runners and kayak competitors away from M2S. Then as Tony and my dad mentioned, there are dozens of sport racing opportunities going on every weekend here…

We talked with the M2S race director last weekend, touching on all of these points…Even if they change the race date to a different month,with our growing population (B'ham alone has grown 20% in the past 10 years) and ideal geological PNW playground, especially when you race/play/volunteer in more than one adventure sport, there are just too many choices of events each weekend to choose from on the calendar!

Whatever the reasons and/or whatever the date for next years M2S, especially with the return of an even better race course, it'd be great to see/cheer/race amongst a bigger crowd of competitors, because from a spectator and racers standpoint- Moutains to Sound has a totally awesome venue & volunteer support and supports a great cause- protecting the places we and wilderness Need to play.
nbz