Colonial Beach
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Colonial Beach Triathlon I participated in and finished the 22nd Annual Pohanka Colonial Beach Triathlon on Sunday July 9. I made the decision to sign up in early May because I was looking for another race to do. The appeal of this one was that it was close enough to drive down the morning of and they also offered packet pick-up the morning of the race. It was a good decision as it was a small but well run event and all the volunteers were very friendly. The weather at the start of the race was sunny and 63 degrees F, with 94% humidity, and calm winds. (This was from the post race report I received from Kale Running.) The race start was slightly delayed due to a spill of some type on the bike course. They were waiting for word that it had been cleaned up before they sent the first wave of swimmers into the water. There were three swim waves and I was in the third one, which was all women. The posted water temperature was 79 degrees but wetsuits were allowed due to the 'critters' that were out there...and numerous people were stung by those critters. Fortunately I was not one of them! The current was a bit strong - I watched swimmers from the first two waves get pulled to the inside of the triangle, but I did not have too much trouble navigating. For once I was lucky in that the swim course was clockwise and since I am a right-side breather I did not have to struggle too much to locate the buoys. When I signed up for the race it stated that the bike course was moderately hilly. The course was an out and back and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that there was only one really bad hill and some other mild hills. I had to stop and adjust my race number on my bike shortly after I got out of the transition area. I had the number on backwards and the air was getting up into it and flopping it onto me. Once I straightened that out I was okay. My average bike speed was 18.3 mph, which wasn't bad considering I was using new pedals and I did not get as much bike training in prior to the race as I would have liked. Oh, and I saw two dead snakes on the bike course! The run was nearly flat and was also an out and back. I was awfully tempted to stop in at the little espresso shop just outside the transition area, but I decided not to. The run went through the Town of Colonial Beach and lots of town folks were out there to cheer the runners on. Golf carts are quite popular in Colonial Beach - people were tooling all about town in them during the run! There were water stops at every mile and I got water at each one since it was heating up a bit. There was a dead snake on the run course, too! I finished the race running strong - it is too bad I couldn't run the entire race that way. I saw posted results for all women that showed that five women in my age group already finished ahead of me. I was not sure how many were in the group but the last time I had checked there were eight. My boys were with me and we left shortly after that. On the way back I found a Starbucks and got my coffee. Later after we got home I received an e-mail notification that congratulated me for completing the race and notifying me that I finished 2nd out of nine in my age group. It turns out the first four finishers in my age group were 1st and 2nd overall and 2nd and 3rd in masters. That was a nice surprise! All in all this was a great event and I would definitely consider entering again. |
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