Swim
Comments: Beach Start. The beach was as rocky as I remembered it. Spent may a spring day carrying the sailboats across the beach, including the old waterlogged Boston Whaler with outboard. Nooone used that without the compliance of at least eight others. I see now they put in an electric winch at the end of a boat ramp and the bigger boats are on trailer. What are kids coming too these days. But anyway back to the race, I was in second wave so when my time came we waded into the water, where once my classmates and myself stood in this very spot figuring out, experimentally, how much ballast it takes to float a beer upright. The horn sounds and I'm off to swimming. This my first swim in salt water in almost twenty years. The water was fairly calm but I did take in too much salt and that did upset my stomach alittle for the rest of the race. But swam fairly stright and strong, small race so alot of open water to be found. What would you do differently?: Nothing really, placed well enough, course longer that offical, even the fish in the race had unbelievablely slow paeces. Transition 1
Comments: Had trouble unzipping wetsuit and getting over ankles. Rack position sucked, was tucked in all the way againt the fence and most bikes were still there. But space bwtn racks was adequate, my T times are just unbelievably slow. What would you do differently?: Everything. Also Mount line was in the middle a a short steep hill, should have carryed the bike to the to and mounted there, would have been faster overall. Bike
Comments: Back in college I had a mountain bike, what would be today be called a hybrid, and although I didn't use it as often as I should have, when I did this was basically the route I'd ride. When I race I rarely sightsee so I don't remeber seeing much from the past, but I think I past the Russian Embassy, and I remember the country club and the cemetary. The roads were even more shaded than I remeber and choosing the sunglasses for the race instead of the clear lenses was a mistake. The turn arounds were slow, escially the one through the campus, where I got stck behind an overlly catious racer. The course was apparently had no officals and apparently the winner of my division felt comfortable drafting for half the course. What would you do differently?: Go Faster Transition 2
Comments: Nothing was fast, still a horrible rack possition, but when I got back there were less than a dozen bikes in transion so I did have a direct route to my stuff. What would you do differently?: Everything Run
Comments: The run went back to the beaach and turned before the sand, and then up to a trail btween the seawall and the third terrace wall. Algong the trail you could look left out over the Sound to Rye, NY and Conn. At the end of the wall you climbed up onto the athletic field. This had really changed. It was built when I was a Senior and it was nothing but low grade landfill and scraggly grass. Whenever you played on it you could be sure to finish with planty of scapes. It's alot different know with nice thick grass. Run across the soccer field and throught eh fence openning to Welwyn Nature Perserve. Same openning that was there twenty years ago with the same boulder "blocking" it. This openning had always proved useful since there was no drinking on campus if you were underage and the openning proved the shortest route off campus. Of course gefore the athletic field was put in you had to tramp though what was esentially wetlands to get to it. From this entrance it's down a little slope to the main road around the preserve a left to the beach. Much has been built up here, but many a stress relieving gathering has happened here. Running along the road above the beach I could see the gazebo on the rock jetty is still there, still looks to be in the same state of disrepair. When the weather was warm enough the night's festivities may have been moved out there. I'm sure when this was a masion serving the upper-upper crust the jetty had a smooth walkway on top, but now it's just a pile of rocks. How we ever got out there in the dark, and more amazingly back, because by then some may hve been just alittle inebriated, without breaking any legs is beyond me. Anyway before the jetty the race had a turnaround and we went back a ways and made a left into the trail system of the preserve. Mastly dirt trails with some sections of mud and and few areas of rocks and or roots, crossed about 6 short wooden bridges over the wost of the mud. Eventually got back on asphault and the last mile were on roads withing the preserve and out onto the road going back to campus. THe finish was down the front driveway running towards the main building, once again a sight of memories. What would you do differently?: Run Faster Post race
Warm down: The Webb kitchen served up breakfast of eggs, waffles, bagels, bananas, juice, ect. Sat through the awards and then spent some time wandering the campus, packed up and left. Event comments: Too emotionally tied to the venue for alot of comment, but the swim was good, the water is alot cleaner than it used to be, the bike needs alittle massaging to be good, some trfic control conesand some officiating. Thr run is good if you like trail running. Last updated: 2008-01-08 12:00 AM
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United States
Sunrise Tri
70F / 21C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 33/188
Age Group = M40-44
Age Group Rank = 4/23
This race is held at Webb Insitute of Naval Architecture, my almamater. I haven't be back in almost 20 years. So no standard race report more of a reminiscing of times past.
Biked from the parking lot to the school. Entered the driveway to see the place I called home for four years. It somehow looked different, cleaner, But the weather was perfect and most of my time there was through the darker months of the year. By the time Memorial Day rolls around we were much absorbed into getting ready for finals and such and had little time to look out the window. I don't know what all these students were doing up. I don't remember ever being up this early on o Saturday at school. You know from "studying" later throuugh Friday Night. Of coarse they were up to help with the race and thrrir time is much appreciated.
Buoys said the water was 58 degrees so got suited up early and got to the beach and in the water. Not nearly as bad as I feared, bean in colder this year. Took an easy swim to the first buoy and back to shore.