Latta Plantation Sprint Triathlon 2009
By: Jack Shannon
Since we have so many new members, I thought I should explain this email. From time to time, members will share a race experience with the group. I encourage everyone to do this; mainly so I can collect all the stories, make them my own, publish them in a book and become an international sensation. I just have to remember not to appear on Oprah, or my web of lies will be revealed.
Anyway, the Tri Latta sprint triathlon was this Saturday and Sunday. Mike Ham, Tim Friederichs (aka Darryl Strack – wink, wink) and I competed on Saturday; Brian Poplin, Theoden Janes and Holly Townsend competed on Sunday.
Saturday was a nice calm morning for a race. It was a tad humid, but I’d rather deal with that than wind. The race started at 6:30, so Mike and I were there at a little after 5:00. We met up with Tim, um, I mean Darryl, about 30 minutes later and then had a good time seeing old tri friends before the race. There was a moment of panic when we realized we didn’t see the beer truck. Race officials assured us it would be there; we quickly stopped hyperventilating.
In a nutshell, we all had a good race on Saturday. I felt good on the swim, in so far as I went straight and only turned when I was supposed to. The bike got off to a rough start because my bike was knocked over by another guy when he took his bike of the rack mine was on. He wasn’t at fault, the rack was shaky. So I had to adjust my brake, get my helmet that rolled away, find my glasses, etc. Once on the bike, I felt good. Like I said, it was calm and the course is relatively flat with some rolling hills. Going up the first incline, I found out the fall messed up my rear derailleur. As I shifted into easier gears, the chain started jumping between two gears. I was able to work around it and actually averaged over 20 MPH on the bike.
Since I’m not in my running prime, I knew the run would be interesting. 90%+ of the run is trail running – rocks, ruts and a tad of mud. It was a different route than last year, and on paper it looked like an improvement. Little did we realize the hill the new route introduced. I really missed the old route when I was climbing that hill.
As suspected, I was off my run pace, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I averaged just under a 8:30/mile pace. I finished the race at 1:37 and some change; a minute better than last year. Mike came in with a solid 1:34; Darryl was looking a little older than usual, but he rocked the course with a 1:30. Good day.
Sunday, I was a spectator. Same conditions as Saturday. Brian smoked the course with a 1:36. Clearly, impersonating me at OTM has paid dividends. Unfortunately, Holly and Theoden and less desirable outcomes. Theoden has a great recap on his blog, but the short story is he got a flat when he was deep into the bike course. He had to take the sag wagon back, so his race was over. Tough break; felt bad for him. Never a quitter, he turned around and signed up for the Lake Norman tri once he got home. He will not be denied.
Holly took a page out of Hazel’s book, but with bad results. She strayed off the bike course, but instead of shaving miles off, she added miles. Many miles. Like Theoden, she isn’t a quitter. She got back on course and finished the race. She also signed up for Lake Norman to see what it’s like to only do the sprint distance.
