So I’m doing this sprint triathlon in S. Jersey yesterday. For some reason, there are three sprint triathlons scheduled for yesterday in S. Jersey, so instead of last year’s 223 finishers in a rainstorm, we only had 170 on an absolutely perfect day, despite cash prizes to the winners, among others. Those others would be $75 to the male and female masters (40+) winners. Finally, all the 40+ were in the same (last) heat, so it was head-to-head the whole way. The last half of the swim (.5mi) I did side by side with my main competition for the day, a former world AG champion in the 50-54s; we came out of the water together. He caught and dropped me at mile 1.3 of the 16 mile bike. Nobody else caught us. When I got to T2, his front wheel was still spinning. Off I went. There was another guy who I don’t think I’ve ever beaten, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen, who was in the race, and I was waiting for him to run me down, but that’s another story. At the one mile mark of the 5k course, the course doubles back on itself, and I saw the leader about :45 ahead of me. On a good run day, I could make that up, but this was not a good run day for me. At mile 2, I was still about :35 behind, so I knew I wouldn’t get him. Nobody behind me, so I finished as best I could :32 behind him and out of the money. He’s a nice guy, we’ve raced against each other a number of times.
At the post-race feed, before the results are posted, I’m chatting with another much faster guy. He mentions that the older guy has gotten lots of penalties for drafting over the years, something I didn’t know. They post the results, and wouldn’t you know? He got a position foul penalty and gets bumped 2:00 and out of the money! Seems he was dinged for not staying right, and he was mighty pissed. We were passing both previous waves, and avoiding a bunch of bad road, and no possibility of drafting, so this was a penalty for safety, I guess, not for illegal gain.
Oh, the other fast guy in my AG (who was a 2006 AA) apparently isn’t such a great swimmer **without **a wetsuit, so I took 2:00 out of him in the swim/T1, and finished up 1:05.
More consistency for me: swim 12th, bike 10th, run 11th, 7th overall (last race was 7th/9th/8th/6th overall). The Sunset Sprint Triathlon is a well-run race with a nice lake swim and trail run. In past years, it’s gotten like 400 racers. Go figure.