Black Fly Triathlon 7-10-2011

The Black Fly triathlon was an awesome weekend. Waterville Valley is a great place to hold an event like this. There are many rooms and condos available in easy walking distance to the starting line. There are also restaurants, shopping, kayaking, hiking, ice skating and a host of other family activities. The only driving I did was the 4 hour trip up on Friday and the 4 hour ride back on Monday. The weather was awesome as was the scenery.

Friday night they had a time trial race. 2 miles downhill, then two miles uphill. I didn't race, but we watched some of the bikers go. They passed out cowbells and Zoey was really into it. Jim and Patricia and Jiillian and Jessica arrived late that night. In the morning Patricia and I did the International Distance Tri. A quarter mile swim, 21 mile bike and 5 mile run.

While I booked the condo in the fall, I didn’t get around to registering until a couple days before the race, which was a bad thing. The races don’t have waves, they are done time trial style. Ideally, there is a five second gap in between each racer, but it seemed like they were allowing each racer to walk down to the water before they would release the next swimmer. I think the time trial style was necessary due to the swim venue, which was a pond, where you had to swim the outskirts of the pond in a rectangle that would not accommodate too many swimmers at a time. The first racers to start were all those who entered all three races, followed by the others in alphabetical order, except for late registrants who went at the end. By the time I was in the swim shute, the race had already been underway for 45 minutes. I was number 483. There were only six people who came after me. As a slower racer, I am always afraid I will come in last, so this was not an auspicious way to start.

The swim went well –I went without wetsuit due to the short distance and the water temperature of 70 degrees. I swam easy, there were lots of buoys to go around. The only problem I had was when two swimmers in front of me, suddenly chose to stop and walk I had to maneuver around them and caught a good mouthful of water. there was a short run to transition on a mat and grass so it was easy to run on. They had wetsuit strippers for those who wore the suits and my brother's wife who wore hers, said it was a great feature.

The bike start went well for me. The one advantage of starting last is you can pass some people and thus know soon enough that you will not be last. I was flying on the bike, going way faster than I normally do and wasn’t getting fatigued at all. I was racking up the miles. Of course the route was somewhat downhill – I didn’t realize how much downhill until I had to ride back. Basically, the out and back course is 10 miles downhill and 10 miles uphill. Other than one very short and very steep climb called Devil’s Hill near the turnaround point, the entire course is 1300 feet of descent over 10 miles and 1300 feet of steady ascent back. I ended up in my small chain ring and just kept pedaling counting off the quarter miles. I passed five bikers on the way, which is good for me.

When I made it back to transition and started out on the run, I heard the race announcer say over the loudspeaker, “There are still some stragglers out on the bike course, maybe they stopped for breakfast at the bottom of the hill.” Ha! No respect.

I held a decent pace for me on the run, and passed another five runners along the way. I was fatigued, but was able to run the entire way. Fortunately much of the route was shaded and there were plenty of water stops. I’d grab a cup of water as I passed, dump it over my head, and then grab a Gatorade and take a couple sips. I made it in before the awards ceremony, which had been my secondary goal, besides not finishing last. At the end, they handed you an ice-soaked Black Fly monogrammed towel, which was great to put on my face and around my neck. I guess they had a big food spread, but I missed it in the throngs milling about.

It took me 2:33:54 to complete the course. I finished ahead of 30 other racers in the standings, and gained some confidence in my still fledgling but improving biking ability.

That afternoon, we had a blast watching the girls in the kids’ triathlon which was very well put on. They also used the time trial start, although they kept no time on any of the kids. They had kids of all abilities, some swimming with life preservers and riding on bikes with training wheels, while some older kids had tri-bikes and were quite accomplished. There was huge crowd support for the kids and they all finished in the same shute as the regular racers had and were given medals and Kool-pops.

They had a Firefly 5k that evening at 8:00 PM that Chevaughn did, and then Jim did the Sprint the next day. I had no regrets about not doing it. (I would not have felt up to tangling with the similar, but shorter bike course again), although maybe next year I will try all three Lord of the Fly events.


Total 400 of 430 2:33:52
Swim 271 of 430 9:37
Bike 400 of 430 1:26:14
Run 390 of 430 53:40

Results