Cohasset Triathlon

1st pic: Pics from Capstone. 2nd picture: That's me in the blue shirt in the center. 3rd is us trying to look like the winners, 4th pic is the super-nice banner I was greeted with from the kids when I got home.
5th pic is Eric,



I did the Cohasset Tri this morning. I've done some tri's and duathlons but they were all offroad. This was my first road triathlon. I went down there with Eric who also had not done one. There were 700 people and it was very well organized, which was impressive since today was the first time they have had the event.



The 1/4 mile swim was not what I expected. I thought it would be ice cold ... in the low 60's or so, but it was much warmer. I didn't really need a suit but wore my shorty for the bouyancy. Most people wore full suits covering arms and legs, which were un-needed and cost them time at t1. The guy next to me sprayed Pam on the outside of his suit ankles so it would peel off faster. The difficulty in the swim was from the chop and all the swimmers. They had 6 mass starts; 3 for men, 3 for women, by age. I was in the 2nd group and started at the back of the center of the pack. There was the usual tussle in the beginning but not bad. After rounding the 2nd and last buoy I got boxed in by swimmers and had one guy practically swimming right over the top of me. I probably kicked him ten times but he still didn't seem to realize i was there and kept interfering in my stroke. Maybe he was also boxed in. I finally had to breast stroke for a few seconds and let him pass. The whole swim was rough in that i could not get a good stroke going and kept inhaling water. This despite practice swimming in the ocean three times in the past month.

The transitions were made easier by the fact that there was plenty of room between bikes. It felt strange to do transitions in a parking lot since i'm used to doing it in the sand. I used a water bottle to spray the sand off my feet.

The 12.5 mile bike was smooth, from Cohasset to Scituate to Hingham and back. We shared the road with cars at many points but there were cops and volunteers everywhere doing a great job. The bike course is smooth and mostly flat, with mile markers. I used my mtn bike with road tires and I was passed by a few road bikers and passed a couple myself. I passed a few mtn bikers as well. I was passed by a few elite women who had more than made up for the 10+ minute headstart us guys had.

T2 was a peice of cake, needing only to drop my helmet and gloves, and swap from bike shoes to running shoes.

Now the run. Man i was beat, my left calf was cramping badly and I had to stop and stretch it for 30 seconds after running a 1/4 mile. I jogged the whole 5k at a steady and not too fast pace. It was brutally hot. Some water station was actually giving out some sicky sweet drink that seemed like they were playing a trick on us. I tried to go faster several times but just didn't have it in me... just stayed the course til the end and ran hard the last 1/4 mile and it definitely hurt.

My time was about 1:28, putting me in the middle of the pack (I'm happy about that believe me) and Eric was about 1:15 and finished in the top 100. All in all a very good race. I grew up in Cohasset and it was nice be doing something like this there.

Race results are here.

I just heard that someone died during the race during the swim. I didn't realize any of that during the race or the after-race awards. That is really sad.