Jefferson Sprint Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

It's been a while since we've had an update on Team MLC, but with another race under our belt now's the time. The Jefferson Sprint was held at Fry's Spring on Saturday and Brian, Zach, and I carried the banner. If you were in town you know it was a beautiful day for a race - relatively cool temps and low humidity - and the Jeff Sprint proved a relatively low-key event as these things go. Below are details about the race event along with some results. Skip to the bottom if you don't care about the inner-workings of the event itself.

Swim… was 350 meters in the 50-meter Fry's Spring pool. Racers did a "running" start one at a time every fifteen seconds, which was a much more civilized way to race. Instead of a mosh pit like Richmond there was very little contact. We raced down-and-back in one lane before pushing off the wall, swimming under the lane divider, and then heading back the other way in the adjacent lane. They only hairy part came when you tried to pass and found yourself playing chicken with anyone who might've been headed the opposite direction in your lane, but that didn't happen much. Don't know about Brian and Zakk, but the speed-seeding worked well for me. I passed 5 racers and got passed by 1.

Ride… was a 20k out-and-back up and down old Lynchburg Road. Because of construction at the north end of Old Lynchburg there was a slight detour into and out of Fry's Spring, and with the construction dirt, dust, and gravel spilling over into the road for a few hundred yards it was tough sledding for the downhill bit at the beginning. The turnaround point was an orange cone at a relatively random point six or so miles out. The hills made for a slower pace than Richmond, but it was a fair test. Saw two or three riders fixing flats, which was a bummer.

Run… was a 5k lollipop that included a random gravel road that connected Stribling and Fontaine before looping back through part of the university near the stadium. Like the ride there were some hills but nothing deadly. There were a couple of aid stations along the way (and some random guy spraying runners with a hose) but I was so out of breath when I got to them that I nearly choked on the water I swigged. Yet another triathlon skill I have to practice, I guess.

Transitions… weren't "clean" like they were in Richmond. They were staged in a grassy area near the entrance to Fry's Spring. That meant a pretty long, uphill, barefoot run from the pool to the bike over rough, parking lot pavement. Not great, but whatever. And then your wet feet were covered with gravel bits on their bottoms and cut grass bits on the top so putting on shoes was a bit of an adventure, but whatever. And there weren't assigned rows for staging like in Richmond - it was first come first served - but there was plenty of room so whatever.

Competition… was far less serious than Richmond. There were 250 or so entrants including 185 in the open, male category. Whereas I felt like most of the racers in Richmond were pretty serious about being there, I didn't get that impression on Saturday. A few very serious competitors, lots of Team MLC candidates, and a fair amount of fun-run types. There were 22 men in the 40-44 age group, and they included some of the front-running, serious types including the overall winner.

Results… were not posted in real-time like Richmond but were posted in bunches every five minutes or so. They were posted on-line within hours of the race, though. And they posted your relative position at each stage in the event so you could see where you were compared to the field and your division, which was pretty cool. Overall results are posted here.