Rain, wind and choppy waters failed to deter the two Upstarts teams who made mincemeat of the course to complete the Team Triathlon in impressive times yesterday. Hundreds of spectators lined Front Street to yell encouragement to the intrepid lads ("Get out of the way!"; "Let the leaders lap you"; "Your training wheels are loose" and suchlike).
Upstarts A lined up with Gary ("Can I run as well?") swimming, Padraic ("I caught a whopper") cycling, and Dave ("I can run 3 miles in 17 minutes") Kaniauru running. Their hot competition was Upstarts 1, with Alan ("Did I mention I was up the entire night Friday?") swimming, Phil ("I haven't done much biking since the Tour du France") cycling and Donald ("Is it really only 3 miles?") running.
Gary pummeled the choppy harbour waters to give Upstarts A an early lead of 2 minutes 43 seconds. Alan decided the water was so nice that instead of taking a straight line he took the scenic route. Blaming a slow leak in one of his arm bands he exited muttering "that's my slowest swim of the summer". Undaunted, Phil made immediate inroads into the lead Padraic had started with, knocking 40 seconds off in each of the first, er one, laps. The two battled neck and neck thereafter, clocking excellent times and leaving Dave Kaniaru with a lead of a couple of minutes going into the run.
No problem for a man of his prodigious speed, one might think.
Think again. Donald had sped past him like a speeding bullet by the end of the first lap. He looked utterly confused as I called out the time gap between him and Dave; he had thought Dave was another lap ahead and was busting a gut to try to catch up, when he had already done so...
There was no shame to Dave, as Donald managed the 15th best time out of 76 runners -- 18 minutes and change for 3 miles.
In the end Upstarts 1 won the head to head by a handful of minutes, but both teams did really well in trying conditions. To put it in context, both teams finished about half-way in an event comprising experienced triathletes well used to the course and for the most part focusing on their best event. Job well done -- and all done without Jon B, an excellent triathlete who offered to take part just after the teams had been settled. Maybe we can make it three teams next year?
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