Crabman Sprint Triathlon

Sunday, July 28, 2013


Overall results here.  1:03:19.  39th out of 429 finishers.  3rd in age group!

A perennial favorite of mine.  We had five of us (3 of us Walkers, plus Crutch and FiveK) meet up in Westerly in the wee early dark hours of the morning to start our adventure.  We arrived an hour early, rode the 3/4 mile from the Matunuck school parking lot to the start at South Kingstown Town Beach, got body marked, and set up our space.  I felt there was a lot more space this time than in other tris.  FiveK and I went on a short run warm-up on the course, and before we knew, it was time to get ready and head to the water.

Pre-swim jitters with the gang

 The Swim:  10:48, one minute slower than last year.  I was in the very first wave (mens 45 and over) that left the beach at 6:45AM.  I got into my rhythm, slow but steady.  Got kicked a number of times but I just go with it at this point.  The first buoy came up pretty quickly, as I rounded the buoy and headed for the second.  I actually couldn't see the second buoy at first, and just concentrated on following the rest of the pack.
Now just about every tri I commit some kind of bonehead move.  Here's mine:  I rounded the second buoy, sighted the crowd on the beach, and kept swimming.  After a while I saw a lifeguard on a surfboard right in front of me holding up his hand up in a "stop" gesture.  He asked "Are you OK?", and I just answered yes.  He then told me I was swimming way off course.  I looked and saw indeed my other pink capped Wave 1 peers were swimming in a different direction!  S*%&!  It turns out there were two crowds on the beach, one at the start and one at the finish.  Most people swam towards the finish, while I'm heading back to the start!

My pink cap swim wave starts

The swim is over!  Rejoice!

The Bike:  30:32, two minutes faster than last year.  Felt really good on the bike (except when Jeff D blew by me early in race).  Near pancake flat, able to push up to 26 mph in places.  Average 21.6 mph.

Finishing lap 1 of 2-loop bike course

The Run:  18:48, ten seconds slower than last year.  I had a good run overall, as I got into my groove passing runners early and kept all my splits sub-6 minute pace.  I caught up to Ben ("Gunshow"), ran with him for a bit before passing, and kept making my move up.  When I passed Chris Huesman, he kindly told me there were 4-5 runners in our age group ahead of me (you can spot people's ages marked on their legs).  That gave me the incentive to pick up the pace a few seconds, as did seeing FiveK on one of the loops, as I was determined he wasn't going to pass me.

Finished the race, and then one nice part of being in Wave 1 was that I could go back out onto the course and see friends and family finishing their run.  Saw Tom running it in, then ran out and ran with Mark for a bit before waiting for Matthew.  Ran in with Matthew, which he said he was appreciative for.  Great race!

Mid stride pacing near finish

Congratulations / thanks to:

• FiveK for completing his first triathlon and with awesome times.
• Mike Crutchley for also completing his first triathlon and vanquishing his swim fear.
• Crutch again for saving the day by ferrying all of our bikes to the tri and back.
• My two boys for finishing well and improving their Crabman times (Mark took 4 minutes off; Matthew 5) .
• Shira for finishing and winning her age group!
• Jana for getting up at 4:30AM with us, putting up with our whining, and taking all these photos.

Post-race:  The WTAC gang