Pat Griskus Sprint 7-11-2012

I have wanted to do this race for a number of years, but it always sells out before hand. This is one of the oldest triathlons in the state and I have nothing but good things about it. I signed up a couple weeks ago. The race is held at the Lake Quassy Amusement Park so I brought Chevaughn, Ashley and Zoey with me so they could do the park while I raced.

 I was in the last wave for the swim. It seems I am always in the last wave. The swim course was very interesting. They broke the waves into two, half swam down the left of one set of red buoys and the other swam down the right side of another set of red buoys, at the end, once you passed the final and yellow buoy, you swung around and everyone swam down the middle lane. I used the wet suit again, the water was even warmer than for the Quassy Mile. I swam easily, but did feel a little tired. There weren't too many collisions. I passed many swimmers who didn't look like they were going very fast, lots of people doing breast stroke or stopping to hug safety buoys. When I came out of the water, we had to run a fair way barefooted across pavement which was hard on my tender feet.

I chose a spot in the transition against the side, a little out of the way, but it enabled me to sit on a saw horse to take off the wet suit. I also dried my feet, put on socks, and my cycling shoes. I had a hard time getting out of transition as another clydesdale was walking with his bike quite slowly and blocking any chance to get by him, and then once I got on the bike, he swerved in front of me, causing me to almost fall. I had to clip out and use my feet to keep balance on the bike.

The bike was very beautiful, but seemed longer than the 10.5 miles. There were several hills, that while I never had to drop into my lowest climbing gear, still left me panting. I did pass quite a number of bikers on the hills and throughout the course. On one hill, there was a peleton of people walking with their bikes. At one point there was also car going slowly up the hill, and the car combined with the walking peleton made it very hard to keep going. There was one dangerous spot on the course where there is an S curve. I had heard about it, but just expected I would be warned in advance. As I climbed a small rise, I was passed by two speeding bikers, who suddenly and inexplicably slammed on the their brakes and started wobbling as we went doiwn a hill. I hit my brakes too, and wobbled as well, and sure enough we were on the S curve. I managed to stay on the bike and get through okay. Overall, I was happy with the bike, even though I am still holding back some.

In t2, I used a race belt for the first time, which enabled me to swim with my tri top, thus sparing me the time loss of putting my top on a wet body and getting it snagged like always happened. The run scared me at first because it began with a long, steep downhill, and all I could think about was having to run back up it, but running back up it wasn't that bad.

I was glad to finish and glad to have raced. I would rate this race very similar to the Niantic and Dave Parcells races in that they are great first timer and back of the pack races. Where I am normally in the 90% range, for this one I was at 70%.

Here are my times: (427 racers)
 Swim 19:25 (200)
 T1 2:31 (299)
 Bike 43:25 (314)
 T2 1:23 (300)
 Run 31:57 (339)
 Total 1:38:46 (303 of 427) Clydesdale (16 of 25)

 Results