January 26, 2009

Bike Week Bell Lap

Heading into the final week of the bike session, the Top 10 club list is dominated by some familiar faces and some newcomers.

The battle for top spot continues, with the Alaska and San Diego teams trading places numerous times this month. As of this writing (blogging?) the Red Biting Bunnies are nearly at 16,000 miles and the San Diego crew are at just under 15,000. Don't these people have day jobs? Very impressive.

Rounding out the Top 10:

Alaska Tri Club White Wabid Wabbits
Hammerhead Tri Club
DC Tri Club
Buffalo Tri Club (right behind DC)
LA Tri Club
Tribe
Jet City Tri
FAST


A special shout-out to the Tribe team, who are holding onto 8th with only 26 athletes on their team! They have racked up the highest average per-athlete mileage of the bike session (259 per athlete so far). If they had a full team of 75 they would be well out in front right now.

The Bike Session officially ends this Saturday January 31 at one nanosecond past midnight, so keep spinning, pedalling, riding, hammering and logging those miles. Club reps will have extra time to record all the miles put in by their teams, but make sure you get your results in to your club rep as early as possible.

January 18, 2009

We Have a Winnner

Building on their success in the Swim Session, the Alaska Tri Club Red Biting Bunnies pulled off another win in January's Bike Session. Again besting arch-rivals the Tri Club of San Diego, the Bunnies broke the tape literally just ahead of their southern California opponents. 

Alaska TC RBB's hit the 10,000 mile mark on January 13 at 7:15 AM Alaska Time. 
Tri Club of San Diego were right behind, logging their 10,000 on the same day (!) at 10:38 Pacific Time. Close!

Congratulations to both clubs for putting in such a huge effort. 

The benchmarks for each session have gone up each year of the competition, since many clubs seemed to easily reach them in each past year. This year as of this writing only 2 clubs have surpassed the 10,000 mile mark, but one more (the other Alaska team, the White Wabid Wabbits) is poised to reach it any day now, and with half the month still to go there are three more teams (Hammerhead, DC Tri and Buffalo) who have a realistic shot at 10,000 miles. 

Comments about the competition so far? About the mileage benchmarks? We want to hear from you. Send your comments either via this blog, the NCC website contact form, or by posting to the NCC Athletes Facebook group.

Happy riding, everyone! Warm weather is on the way! 

January 15, 2009

A Facebook Group is Born

Hey sports fans, so there's this new thing called Facebook that all the kids are on now, apparently you can post photos and updates and - what? You've heard of it? Well have you heard about the newest Facebook group, NCC Athletes? No? That's probably because I just created it an hour ago.

Go, join, post, chat, trash-talk. See who you're competing against. Make new frenemies.

First discussion thread: "Northern athletes are more motivated than those in the South. Discuss"

Wow. Who picked that topic? Oh right, I did. Strongly agree? Agree? Disagree? Or maybe you Strongly Disagree. Let us know. 

January 7, 2009

Indoor Sports

Just to prove their Swim session triumph was no fluke, the Alaska Tri Club decided to hit the ground riding in January. Their massive warehouse-based indoor ride-a-thon got them off to a great start, and the warm weather clubs are still playing catch-up. 
Even though their plan to webcast the event was foiled by technology, they still captured a few photos to prove their all around hard-core-ness. 



Does your club have a similar event planned? Let us know so we can help you brag about it here or on the NCC website. There's a handy form on the site for sending email to the good folks at Racetracker, your online emcees for the National Challenge Competion.

January 1, 2009

Swim Session Roundup: Facts, Factoids, and Truthiness

With the swim session officially over (but open to mileage entry until Jan 2) now would be a good time to look back and reflect on all that we have learned since December 1, 2008. It seems like barely a month ago, doesn't it?

Here are a few facts and figures from the opening session, as well as a few factoids containing various degrees of truthiness.

  1. Total Mileage for December: roughly 187,000 miles. That is more or less equal to 24 times around the earth at the equator.

  2. Total Swim Mileage for December: as of Jan 1, over 10,500 swim miles have been entered. That's around 17,000 kilometers, or 340,000 lengths of an Olympic-sized (50 meter) pool.

  3. Highest individual swim mileage: 105.46 miles by Jenny Birmelin of the Ford Athletic Swim & Triathlon Club. That's about the distance from New York City to Philadelphia.

  4. Highest club swim mileage: 894 miles and counting, by the Alaska Tri Club Red Biting Bunnies. That's further than the distance from Anchorage to Juneau, as the crow flies.

  5. Highest Swim Mileage for a non-club Athlete: 55.9 miles by Erica Chabalko in Baghdad, Iraq. Impressive! Given the heat in that part of the world it looks like Erica spent as much time as possible in the pool, so Erica we are glad to give you the excuse motivation to keep swimming.


The miles should really pile up in January, as this is the Bike session. The warm-climate clubs can now get their revenge on their northern competition, as athletes in the snowier states are at the mercy of the weather and road conditions. Sure we can ride our trainers, but it's a lot easier to do a century on the open road than in your basement or at the gym.

For the rest of us (your host lives in the north) let's put the studs on our bike tires and get out the thermal underwear, it's going to be a busy month.