Mighty Montauk Race Report

Yesterday was a long day.  It was Saturday, June 7, and it started at 5:50 and ended at 2 something....allow me to explain.  I was in Montauk with two of my classmates for the Robert J. Aaron Memorial Triathlon.  After a tasty pizza dinner in town, I was up later than I would have liked trying to resolve some.....grrrrrrrrr...bike mechanical issues.  Re-doing the rear brake cable proved to be impossible.  I've never felt quite so aggravated, as I had already spent many hours over the past few days trying to get the bike 100% ready.  

But, as I later came to realize, it's just one race.  There will be many, many others.  One of my classmates was feeling quite poorly and so suggested vehemently that I race using his bike while he spectated.  I capitulated and used his bike.

I had decided before the night before to treat the race as a hard workout and not try to push myself too hard, owing to the less-than-ideal bike arrangement and my lack of consistent training time coming into the race.  I surprised myself a little and won my age group! Ya!  Read on!

Now for the race; the swim was a very protected 1 mile, out and back course in Montauk Lake (or was it Lake Montauk? whatever.  It has a misleading name, as it is saltwater) that made for very calm conditions and a very respectable time for myself of 23:00.  The swim felt really good; I just cruised and thought about technique and how much longer 2.4 is than 1.  I definitely plowed over 2 or 3 women from the prior wave...whoever you are, sorry about that!  I didn't see you until it was too late!

T1 was slow for me; oh well.

The bike went pretty well.  The course is lovely, easy to follow and didn't have much traffic.  You get to bike past the Montauk Point Lighthouse and some small bodies of water, very nice.  Again, it would've been nice to be on my own bike and maybe move a bit faster, but I guess I need to keep in mind that regret is for people with time machines.  The course was nice and rolling, a few hills but nothing major.  The weather was also pretty good; overcast, a bit humid but no scorching sun, wind, rain, and warm enough.  A few people passed me but I was able to keep up a decent pace, somewhere around 22 mph, as the 22 mile course took me 59:41 to do.  

T2 was much better than T1; 51 seconds instead of 2:46.

The run was hard!  Hills!  Holy Ham Sandwich!  I saw a lot of people that I recognized on the many short out and backs and attempted to greet them but was feeling a bit too spent a few times.  Something I do occasionally on the run portions is say something positive to each person that I pass/passes me (hopefully the ratio leans strongly towards the former) and doing that yesterday seemed to help put things in perspective. I crossed the finish line happy with my performance, given the circumstances, and especially happy that I had NOOOOOO:

a.)flat tires

b.)broken chains

c.)cracked frame (happened to my new road bike a week ago)

d.)ninja star attacks

Ya!  Results:

Swim: 23:00

T1: 2:46

Bike: 59:41

T2: :51

Run: 43:53

Overall: 2:10:10

38/500? overall

1/22 division

After the race, it was good to hang out a bit with the other members of Team Sunrise Tri who were doing the race.  There was talk of setting up a tent but there wasn't any open space to really do that.  The sensation of being on a tri team is really pretty awesome, even if I see my teammates somewhat infrequently.  I'm looking forward to kindling the same kind of relationships in Seattle after graduation.  I would've liked very much to hang out for a bit longer and enjoy Montauk but....there was a very, very large party awaiting us back at school, hence the late bedtime.  All in all, a satisfying, extremely sweaty day.