East Lyme, CT
Sunday, August 14, 2022
For years, I had participated in triathlons annually, sometimes 4-5 per year. Mostly sprints, but up to Half Ironman distance. But that was a few years ago. In fact, it had been just over five years since my last triathlon, the Block Island Tri back in early August 2017.
To me triathlons, as with pure running races, are more fun when you know other people in the race. And while we had had as many as ten WTAC participants in the Block Island Tri in past years, by 2017, I was the sole WTAC'er there. So when Tommy expressed interest in the Niantic Bay Tri this year, I was all in! It was time. It was past time. In 2020, tris in southern New England were cancelled due to the COVID thing. In 2021, I couldn't participate for health reasons as I couldn't get my open head wounds from the cancer surgeries wet. I was overdue, and I registered.
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| Met up with Tommy upon arrival |
I was in the fifth and final wave, based on my age and gender (males age 55 and over). That was just fine with me. As a back-of-the-pack swimmer, I sure don't want to be in the first wave. Each wave was three minutes apart. As I made my way to the beach, another random triathlete saw me struggling to zip up my wetsuit and came over to help. That was really nice. Wished good luck to the others I knew (Tommy 5K, Bob Kerwin, Carol Ann, and Lisa) and watched their waves take off.
The water was pretty smooth but it was weird swimming through eel grass until we got into deeper waters. I got into my rhythm and after going past two buoys, I noticed I was actually passing a few swimmers from earlier waves, as each wave has different colored swim caps. I had no issues with sighting and felt good with my swim, slow as it is.
T1: 2:17, 99th out of 304
For the first time ever, I went sockless into my bike shoes (T1) and then again into my running shoes (T2). No issues at all.
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| My transition spot. You don't exactly get much space. |
Bike (11.4 miles): 36:11, 47th out of 304
Average 19.0 mph, which I was really happy with especially considering the undulating hills. The first half was reasonably flat, and then there were a lot of hills. Nothing terrible, but just a lot of ups and downs that made it hard to get into any constant rhythm. I was passing many cyclists, but then went back and forth with one that similar to my running, passed me on uphills and I'd pass him on the downhills. He wanted to talk to me during the race, and was asking me how many tris I had done, and was explaining it was his first one. That might explain his choice of attire, as he was wearing long pants in 70°F weather.
Midway through the bike course, it was scary to see emergency vehicles in the road, a bike lying in the road, and a cyclist lying down with first aid responders over him. But I heard someone say something to the effect that at least he's OK. Carry on!
T2: 1:34, 228th out of 304
This was a rare time that I thought a transition went well, but stats don't lie. Clean change into my running shoes, refitted with lock laces. No idea what went wrong.
Run: 19:01, 9th out of 304
Splits 6:25, 6:13, 5:53. Good. Not great.
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| Picture of finish line early in the morning. This is going to be fun! |
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| Approaching the finish. Photo courtesy of Tommy 5K |
Overall: 1:16:03, 38th out of 304, 2nd in age group Full results here
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| With Bob Kerwin at finish |
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| And with Tom. What a beautiful and fun day out there! |
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Middletown, RI
Sunday, September 11, 2022
This race is held entirely within the town of Middletown. Not an inch of it goes into Newport. So why is it called the Newport Tri? Unless it's referring to the county of Newport? Or does Newport just have a better cachet than Middletown? At any rate ...
This race had three divisions: Sprint (146 participants), Olympic (99 participants), Aquabike (7 participants)
Sprint is what Tommy and I participated in.
Arrived about an hour early. Tom must have just gotten there before me, as he texted me that start was delayed from 7am to 7:30am. Got my stuff and got in line for packet pickup. Loooong line. While waiting in line, on the loud speaker they explained the delay was due to so many athletes picking up their packet on race morning. Well, I didn't really want to drive two hours round-trip the day before to pick up earlier. When I got to the front, it seemed they were quite short on volunteers, as it was just a woman and perhaps her young children helping her. And then there was no one passing out shirts; you just went to a messy pile of shirts and helped yourself. I get that sometimes it's hard to get volunteers, but let's call it what it is.
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| Lined up outside of transition, just before sunrise. Note the lights on the rim of one bicycle |
I asked where body marking was, and was told there would be no body marking. That's too bad, as I like to check out the age / age group of fellow athletes that I am passing or getting passed by on the bike and run. I wonder if that was scrapped due to volunteer issues as well?
After setting up transition, I went to use the bathrooms at the beach pavilions. They're locked! What? Waited in line for a porta-jon, and when I opened the door and looked inside, I promptly walked right back out and waited for the next one. I'm no prude with porta-jons but this was absolutely disgusting.
Swim (1/2 mile): 21:09, 103rd out of 146
The swim start was reminiscent of the race starts of the few races that actually happened at the height of the pandemic: two athletes at a time, spaced by 5-10 seconds. The sprint triathletes would start first, and then I believe Olympic and finally aquabike. Totally fine with that, but since everyone was issued the same color swim cap, I couldn't tell anyone apart.
The swim was an OAB. I don't care for that format, as more than once on the way back I noticed I was drifting towards the oncoming (outbound) swimmers. I think I lost some time correcting course. And once I saw one triathlete was actually on our incoming side of the buoys and a lifeguard was trying to get his/her attention.
T1: 2:02, 31st out of 146
I thought my T1 was absolutely horrible, so I'm shocked to be in first quartile. I had so much trouble getting my wetsuit off, especially as it was bunched up around my left ankle caught on the timing device. I tried to just tug it off, but the device dug into my ankle and left red marks on it.
Bike (10.6 miles): 32:22, 19.6 mph, 13th out of 146
I got on the bike, went to turn on my bike computer, and noticed right away that IT'S GONE! What?! The bike and bike computer are new. I'm frustrated and angry, and somehow convince myself to let it go, focus on the tri, and come back to it later.
In that spirit: I liked this course! Gradual incline on the way up to the half-way mark, then downhill back to transition! Felt very smooth.
T2: 1:28, 100th out of 146
I know I lost time because this time I didn't use lock laces, but didn't want to go through the effort to re-lace my shoes the night before, and then again after the tri.
Run (5K): 18:25, 5:56 pace, 3rd out of 146
Third behind Tommy (2nd overall) and overall winner. Splits 6:37, 6:18, 5:34. I saw a few older looking guys in the 3rd mile an didn't want to leave anything to change, so I hammered that final mile.
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| Very close to the finish, in chase mode. Photo courtesy of Robin Kerwin |
Overall: 1:15:28, 19th out of 146, 2nd in age group Full results here
OK, now back to the missing bike computer. I showed Tom, and he suggested I notify a race official. I did that, told the official it was stolen from transition, and the official asked if it simply fell off. It's actually a fair question, except that it was on my bike this morning, it doesn't fall off even on jarring bumps as you have to twist it off and on, and I had retraced my steps from the car to the transition area. He took down my bib number, so I figured either he or the RD would reach out to me post-race, even if just to say sorry that it happened but they hadn't turned up anything. No communication.
Tom and I did notice there were a lot of bikes in transition that had bike computer mounts, but no bike computers. Hoping that someone didn't steal that many bike computers, I asked around on best practices, including at the bike shop where I eventually ordered and paid for a replacement. It may be obvious, but I learned that a number of others regularly remove their bike computers if their bike will be out of their sight. Lesson learned. Frustrating. More than being out the money and hassle to replace the computer, I felt violated and that my blind trust in fellow triathletes has been broken. I guess every group has their bad apples. Moving on ...
Post-race, I asked an official when awards would be, and he explained sprint awards ceremony would be first and probably a half hour away (about 9:15). OK, time for a good cool-down, and if I missed the ceremony, people will still likely be around for me to collect my award. Went for a long cool-down (6 miles) post-run, as this was my peak marathon mileage week and that's more important. Ran with Tommy for the first 1.5 miles as I was happy to show him part of the Sachuest Wildlife Refuge.
On my way back, saw Bob Kerwin out on his second run lap (Olympic distance) so ran with him for a little bit, and then Mel asked me to help pace her to get her closer to a competitor, so I happily did that as well. When I finally got back to transition, I learned the awards ceremony would be combined and not until 11:00am! Not sure if I got bad information earlier, or if plans changed. Decided to stick around and watch others come in and wait for the awards. Took my time and had a sandwich from the help-yourself arrangement of Subway sandwiches.
And thus endeth my short tri season of 2022. I had considered finding a third tri in Massachusetts in late September, but I really have too many races on my calendar already. Will hang up the wetsuit until 2023, and while I still may get out for a casual bike or two, my bike season is basically over for the year as well. I need to keep my eye on the prize (Detroit Marathon) and I find it hard to train for so many different things with the demands of marathon training.
Having run two triathlons this year, both for the first time, I find the urge to make some notes with my own subjective comparisons:
- Swim course: far preferred the L-shape course of Niantic over Newport
- Bike course: Newport over Niantic; smoother and more gradual inclines, less intersections
- Run course: Newport over Niantic; both had cone-turnarounds which isn't great, but Newport had less turns and amazing ocean scenery
- Communication: Niantic over Newport. Far better website, and more frequent e-mail communications, including a follow-up e-mail with a thank you and links to results and photos.
- Organization: Niantic over Newport. Lots of volunteers, clear signage, body marking, many food selections, just professionally done.
Both fun events. But now time to refocus on running. Return to triathlon next year.
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