Buckman Sprint Triathlon
Round Valley State Park in Lebanon, NJ
.25mi swim / 17mi bike / 5K run
Swim: 15:07 (or rather 13:07)
T1: 4:23
Bike: 59:00 (17.3 mph)
T2: 2:21
Run: 25:56 (8:22/mile)
TOTAL: 1:46:45 (actually, 1:44:45)
Today was my last triathlon of the season... a short season since I did my first ever in June. It was a B race, mostly for fun, and I picked it because of the short swim, considering I'm such a slow swimmer.
The night before I got one of those nightmares... you know... where you wake up late, leave late, don't have money so you have to make a detour to the bank, you park 2 miles from the start, swimmers are leaving as you pick up the package, transition setup becomes T0 as you struggle to get everything set up in record time, you put your wetsuit backwards, you run to the beach to see your wave well underway, 100y offshore, and so on.
And when you get in the refreshing water, you wake up. And you realize you were actually awake, and it wasn't a nightmare, just the beginning of the day. I'm always the slowest swimmer, afraid I'll be the last one left in the water, so imagine how I freaked out after missing the start by about 2 minutes. They directed me to splash through the next wave, which was waiting for its start, and I scrambled after my guys, the light blue caps. Luckily, the troubles were over for me, and nothing else bad happened to me, but the race had a lot of low points, which got me quite angry...
Surprisingly, although I'm so slow, it wasn't much until I started passing people from my wave!! That's totally unheard of for me... at my first Oly, they were picking up the buoys behind me. Soon, I'm near a guy who's yelling for help, splashing around, almost drowning. Another swimmer asks him out of courtesy if he's ok and he yells "heeeelp pleeease heeeeeeeelp". Now I know how it is, at my first triathlon I freaked out being my first OW swim, I was hyperventilating, couldn't get anything together, had to spend some time on my back before getting back to a regular breathing rhythm, and so on, so I'm in no position to criticize anyone, but come on.... If after 100 yards of swimming you're on the brink of drowning, maybe you picked the wrong sport. Luckily for him, a "rescue" boat was approaching quickly. I mean very quickly. Heading right into the crowd of swimmers. The guys yells "Ooops you'll have to go undeeer!!" and then bang! it smashes right into two swimmers who are forced to go under the boat. Looks like that Staten Island Ferry captain that rammed his boat into the harbor, killing 10 people in the process, is out of a job and volunteering for this race. And it was not a kayak of small inflatable boat, it was a big one. I had to take a wide loop around the boat and then everything was fine.
Now the lake was unbelievable. Never seen anything like it. They said it's crystal clear and you can see the bottom at 70 feet, and that was totally true. I had my shaded goggles, and still could see very deep. Look forward and it was like a Discovery Channel underwater documentary, you could see all the swimmers moving ahead. At one point, it was so amazingly clear that you could see very small rocks that I wanted to see how deep is it, so I dropped down, and I'm sure it was well over 10 feet. When I got up, another uy asked if I'm OK and I said "sure, just don't let that freakin' boat come anywhere near me". I passed more people than I expected (I never passed people on the swim before), and it was so short that I was soon out of the water, running to T1.
T1 was an uneventful, just that I had to look for my stuff, since I didn't unpack everything before the race. My bike was right next to the exit, leaning on the transition area's fence (they directed me to leave it there). Should've been a very quick T1 but I needed a short nap (well, waking up at 5 is not fun), then sipped my coffee and was out on the bike.
I did the bike course on Thursday so I knew it pretty well. It was rolling hills through beautiful scenery, and I was able to go very fast on the first part. Really loved it, I was passing a lot of people, stayed mostly aero as I was going along the lake shore. The lake drive ended up after a nice downhill with a tight turn onto a very narrow road. Lucky me I knew it was coming, a couple of people were bringing their bikes back from the bushes. More hills followed on a very rough road, with many potholes, which seemed to have caused a few flats. After a first half which was more downhill, I was averaging about 19.5mph, but the second half had to make up for those descents. We had about 4 miles of steady easy climbing, and I passed even more people. Actually, only one biker passed me here, but he was on a carbon bike, disc wheels, aero helmet, and so on. And anyway I passed him back shortly after. Wow, somebody should've taken a picture, that's the first time I'm passing a disc wheel!! Eventually he passed back, and then I passed him again on a climb. Happened one more time. And just when I was about to pass him for the 4th time, he took the olympic course turn, so maybe he was saving his energy for those 7 extra miles after all.
After we got back together with the olympic course, I see another guy on a P3 Carbon, discs and all. I pushed hard and passed him quite easily... These things kept happening to me. As I went by, he had a very angry and frustrated face as he looked at me in disbelief. 2 minutes later, I'm going 36mph downhill and he zoomed by me. But for half a second he stared at me, and his face seemed to channel something like "you sucker, so you passed me as we were pedalling on the flat road, but my all carbon, $5k bike with Zipp wheels can kick your cheap Cannondale's a$$ on any downhill". With 3 miles remaining, the fun was about to start... After admiring the scenic hills in the background for a while, we came to realization that the park is on top of one of those hills. As I got at the bottom of the first half mile, 8% climb, it seemed like all the racers were lined up in front of me, most of them walking their bikes up. So I picked them one by one... wasn't easy, but I made it to the top. Short break, then another half mile, slightly easier grade. More people passed. And then the final climb when I was winded out, but happy to be on top. Last mile was all downhill to the transition.
T2 was ok, not fast since I had to finish that coffee
but the beginning of the run was cool. It's the first time that I don't get cramps and stitches at the beginning of the run, so I went as hard as I could. Well, not all out, since after more than an hour of racing I wasn't that fresh anymore. But my 8:22 average mile is not only my fastest for a final run, it's slightly better than my HM pace, which is a race about as long as this one.
So... the swim was of course bad, but you have to cut 2 minutes from my time, considering the mishap at the start. Still a bad time, but hey, I can't swim, and I was far from being the last one. On the bike I was 61 out of 157, not a bad ranking for me and though 17.3 is not that great, bike speeds were quite low because of the very hilly terrain. And on the run I was 57/157 making it the first time in my short triathlon career when I rank better on the run than on the bike. It was after all a very pleasant experience, an it looks like I like more and more the energy of these short events.
But something had to spoil this race.... As I was watching other people finishing, they started letting cars and trucks out of the transition/start/finish area. I was a narrow road, bikers were coming in, runners were coming in, runners were going out and runners were turning around for the 2nd loop of the olympic course. And eventually one of the boat-carrying trucks ran over a girl's foot as she was heading to the finish, breaking it. I think it's the dumbest accident that can happen. Why did they have to let the trucks out just then?? That so horrible, the girl was obviously not a contender, just someone who came to have fun because she loves the sport. And now her athletic career might be over.... Yeah, I know, we should all appreciate the volunteers for the great work they do, but this time they really f@#ked up. They may do it for free, but that's not an excuse for being stupid. Maybe it's not the driver's fault, since he was signalled to proceed. Not the RD's fault, since he didn't cause it. But in the end, volunteers are his responsibility and it's his job to do an IQ test on them and if it's below 50 - sorry you're out. That poor girl may never run again, and who's gonna pay? The idiots who directed traffic? No, the race director, who's doing this from enthusiasm, hardly making any profits. And remember those jacka$$es who were driving the "rescue" boat? This race could've been even a bigger disaster. And guess what? After the accident, they didn't stop the trucks. They created a huge backup on that narrow busy road... you should've seen the looks of disbelief on the face of the runners coming for the finish and finding that the road is blocked. Glad I went through before, this looked like the worst finish area I've ever seen in any race. OK, that's it, I had to get it out. I'll post some pictures when I get them.
Round Valley State Park in Lebanon, NJ
.25mi swim / 17mi bike / 5K run
Swim: 15:07 (or rather 13:07)
T1: 4:23
Bike: 59:00 (17.3 mph)
T2: 2:21
Run: 25:56 (8:22/mile)
TOTAL: 1:46:45 (actually, 1:44:45)
Today was my last triathlon of the season... a short season since I did my first ever in June. It was a B race, mostly for fun, and I picked it because of the short swim, considering I'm such a slow swimmer.
The night before I got one of those nightmares... you know... where you wake up late, leave late, don't have money so you have to make a detour to the bank, you park 2 miles from the start, swimmers are leaving as you pick up the package, transition setup becomes T0 as you struggle to get everything set up in record time, you put your wetsuit backwards, you run to the beach to see your wave well underway, 100y offshore, and so on.
And when you get in the refreshing water, you wake up. And you realize you were actually awake, and it wasn't a nightmare, just the beginning of the day. I'm always the slowest swimmer, afraid I'll be the last one left in the water, so imagine how I freaked out after missing the start by about 2 minutes. They directed me to splash through the next wave, which was waiting for its start, and I scrambled after my guys, the light blue caps. Luckily, the troubles were over for me, and nothing else bad happened to me, but the race had a lot of low points, which got me quite angry...
Surprisingly, although I'm so slow, it wasn't much until I started passing people from my wave!! That's totally unheard of for me... at my first Oly, they were picking up the buoys behind me. Soon, I'm near a guy who's yelling for help, splashing around, almost drowning. Another swimmer asks him out of courtesy if he's ok and he yells "heeeelp pleeease heeeeeeeelp". Now I know how it is, at my first triathlon I freaked out being my first OW swim, I was hyperventilating, couldn't get anything together, had to spend some time on my back before getting back to a regular breathing rhythm, and so on, so I'm in no position to criticize anyone, but come on.... If after 100 yards of swimming you're on the brink of drowning, maybe you picked the wrong sport. Luckily for him, a "rescue" boat was approaching quickly. I mean very quickly. Heading right into the crowd of swimmers. The guys yells "Ooops you'll have to go undeeer!!" and then bang! it smashes right into two swimmers who are forced to go under the boat. Looks like that Staten Island Ferry captain that rammed his boat into the harbor, killing 10 people in the process, is out of a job and volunteering for this race. And it was not a kayak of small inflatable boat, it was a big one. I had to take a wide loop around the boat and then everything was fine.
Now the lake was unbelievable. Never seen anything like it. They said it's crystal clear and you can see the bottom at 70 feet, and that was totally true. I had my shaded goggles, and still could see very deep. Look forward and it was like a Discovery Channel underwater documentary, you could see all the swimmers moving ahead. At one point, it was so amazingly clear that you could see very small rocks that I wanted to see how deep is it, so I dropped down, and I'm sure it was well over 10 feet. When I got up, another uy asked if I'm OK and I said "sure, just don't let that freakin' boat come anywhere near me". I passed more people than I expected (I never passed people on the swim before), and it was so short that I was soon out of the water, running to T1.
T1 was an uneventful, just that I had to look for my stuff, since I didn't unpack everything before the race. My bike was right next to the exit, leaning on the transition area's fence (they directed me to leave it there). Should've been a very quick T1 but I needed a short nap (well, waking up at 5 is not fun), then sipped my coffee and was out on the bike.
I did the bike course on Thursday so I knew it pretty well. It was rolling hills through beautiful scenery, and I was able to go very fast on the first part. Really loved it, I was passing a lot of people, stayed mostly aero as I was going along the lake shore. The lake drive ended up after a nice downhill with a tight turn onto a very narrow road. Lucky me I knew it was coming, a couple of people were bringing their bikes back from the bushes. More hills followed on a very rough road, with many potholes, which seemed to have caused a few flats. After a first half which was more downhill, I was averaging about 19.5mph, but the second half had to make up for those descents. We had about 4 miles of steady easy climbing, and I passed even more people. Actually, only one biker passed me here, but he was on a carbon bike, disc wheels, aero helmet, and so on. And anyway I passed him back shortly after. Wow, somebody should've taken a picture, that's the first time I'm passing a disc wheel!! Eventually he passed back, and then I passed him again on a climb. Happened one more time. And just when I was about to pass him for the 4th time, he took the olympic course turn, so maybe he was saving his energy for those 7 extra miles after all.
After we got back together with the olympic course, I see another guy on a P3 Carbon, discs and all. I pushed hard and passed him quite easily... These things kept happening to me. As I went by, he had a very angry and frustrated face as he looked at me in disbelief. 2 minutes later, I'm going 36mph downhill and he zoomed by me. But for half a second he stared at me, and his face seemed to channel something like "you sucker, so you passed me as we were pedalling on the flat road, but my all carbon, $5k bike with Zipp wheels can kick your cheap Cannondale's a$$ on any downhill". With 3 miles remaining, the fun was about to start... After admiring the scenic hills in the background for a while, we came to realization that the park is on top of one of those hills. As I got at the bottom of the first half mile, 8% climb, it seemed like all the racers were lined up in front of me, most of them walking their bikes up. So I picked them one by one... wasn't easy, but I made it to the top. Short break, then another half mile, slightly easier grade. More people passed. And then the final climb when I was winded out, but happy to be on top. Last mile was all downhill to the transition.
T2 was ok, not fast since I had to finish that coffee
but the beginning of the run was cool. It's the first time that I don't get cramps and stitches at the beginning of the run, so I went as hard as I could. Well, not all out, since after more than an hour of racing I wasn't that fresh anymore. But my 8:22 average mile is not only my fastest for a final run, it's slightly better than my HM pace, which is a race about as long as this one.So... the swim was of course bad, but you have to cut 2 minutes from my time, considering the mishap at the start. Still a bad time, but hey, I can't swim, and I was far from being the last one. On the bike I was 61 out of 157, not a bad ranking for me and though 17.3 is not that great, bike speeds were quite low because of the very hilly terrain. And on the run I was 57/157 making it the first time in my short triathlon career when I rank better on the run than on the bike. It was after all a very pleasant experience, an it looks like I like more and more the energy of these short events.
But something had to spoil this race.... As I was watching other people finishing, they started letting cars and trucks out of the transition/start/finish area. I was a narrow road, bikers were coming in, runners were coming in, runners were going out and runners were turning around for the 2nd loop of the olympic course. And eventually one of the boat-carrying trucks ran over a girl's foot as she was heading to the finish, breaking it. I think it's the dumbest accident that can happen. Why did they have to let the trucks out just then?? That so horrible, the girl was obviously not a contender, just someone who came to have fun because she loves the sport. And now her athletic career might be over.... Yeah, I know, we should all appreciate the volunteers for the great work they do, but this time they really f@#ked up. They may do it for free, but that's not an excuse for being stupid. Maybe it's not the driver's fault, since he was signalled to proceed. Not the RD's fault, since he didn't cause it. But in the end, volunteers are his responsibility and it's his job to do an IQ test on them and if it's below 50 - sorry you're out. That poor girl may never run again, and who's gonna pay? The idiots who directed traffic? No, the race director, who's doing this from enthusiasm, hardly making any profits. And remember those jacka$$es who were driving the "rescue" boat? This race could've been even a bigger disaster. And guess what? After the accident, they didn't stop the trucks. They created a huge backup on that narrow busy road... you should've seen the looks of disbelief on the face of the runners coming for the finish and finding that the road is blocked. Glad I went through before, this looked like the worst finish area I've ever seen in any race. OK, that's it, I had to get it out. I'll post some pictures when I get them.
