Fat Clam Triathlon

Saturday, July 26, 2015

This was the inaugural year of the Fat Clam, or as Steve calls it, being politically correct, "The Overweight Clam".  Afterall, it's not nice to call someone fat, even if they are a clam.  Which, by the way, are there really any clams in Coventry?  I digress ...

Having gotten home about 11pm the night before from my best ever Blessing race, and the legs paying for it, getting up and going to the Fat Clam wasn't sounding appealing to me.  I hadn't even packed, but fortunately with a 8am start, I didn't need to get going until 5:30am.  Got up, got setup, caught up with Tommy, Shara, Shira, Polly and others, and time to start.

The swim:  13:23.  111 out of 193.

Swim was in a pristine lake.

Start of my old man wave.  Watch out for that rock (9:00 position).
Swim went by fast.

The bike:  40:27.  27th out of 193.
Tough, hilly 12 mile course.  Started out with a blazing downhill for nearly three miles.  Midway into the downhill (Harkney Hill Road), I got off the aero bars as I wasn't feeling comfortable on them going so fast.  Good move:  I looked at my speedometer and found I was going 41 mph!!  Please don't hit a pothole now.
Turning off Harkney Hill Road, we paid for the downhill bliss with a 2-3 mile climb.  There was a false summit midway, before we resumed climbing again.  This ground me to a near halt with about a 6-7 mph climb ascending over 300' of elevation gain.
Eventually wound our way out to Route 102, which was difficult to ride with a rumble strip section in the breakdown lane.  Either ride in the highway with cars going 60+ mph, or ride the bumpy breakdown lane.  There was one good 100' hill on 102 but it seemed easy compared to the Fish Hill grind.  Being in the first wave, didn't see too many bikers out here, but did jockey back and forth with "gray shirt" before pulling ahead of him going into transition.

The run:  19:26.  5th out of 193.
The legs just didn't want to get going.  Mile 1 was a pedestrian pace for me at 6:43.  Tommy 5K blowing by me woke me up a little, and then I saw cheery Beth passing out water along the route.  After a turn-around on the road, Tommy continued to gap me until he was barely visible maybe a 1/4 mile (?) ahead on a long straightaway before turning onto a trail.  This 0.6 mile trail was actually fairly technical with roots and rocks.  Passed a lot of people here, and was surprised to exit onto the road and find Tommy right in front of me, as in 20' or so.  Back on road again, he increased the gap to finish 17 seconds in front of me (let's conveniently forget for a minute that since he started in the wave behind me, he actually finished 5 minutes and 17 seconds ahead of me!).

Thoughts:  Absolutely loved the trail portion; wish they extended that and got rid of some of the road.  (I think FiveK was thinking the same thing.)  The bike was really hard, but I knew that going in.  It was a nice location, but not the same atmosphere as Crabman.  Would I do it again?  Probably.  Is it my favorite triathlon?  Probably not.

Overall:  1:16:36.  21st overall.  1st in age group (thanks to no double-dip rule).  Full results here.

So nice to see the finish line!

Podium finish.

Fun day with friends.
Thanks Steve, for all the pics.