I gained entry to the Long Island Gold Coast Triathlon at the last minute. It was closed out, but due to some cancellations the wait list opened up. I was training pretty hard through the week – assuming I wasn’t going to be racing – and when I got the notice that I was now in the event I decided I’d just use this as a big training weekend.

It was a pretty large, event with over 700 participants. Pre-race warm up run felt good and the weather was pretty much perfect. Overcast. A little cool. Almost ideal. My wife joined me for the race to take some pictures and soak in the vibe. She also wore a great shirt to show her additional support.

Caption is self-explanatory!

An athlete that I coach was also in this race, and we met up on the beach and did a quick warm up swim together. We were both in the same age-group and in the 3^rd wave out of eight. As we waited for the swim start, we began to see the beginnings of some major disorganization. Finally, I made my way to the swim start

My athlete shave 6 minutes off his PR at this race. Nicely done!

Heading to the swim start

The swim buoys were moved multiple times. First the swim looked short. Then it looked like it was going to be very long. Then more buoy repositioning and it looked like a short swim again. Instructions changed multiple times, and the race start was delayed by almost a half hour. Final instructions were given, but with a poor sound system, not everyone heard them. The swim was very short and a free-for-all with people cutting a corner and making the swim an almost non-event. The good news was that I was 2^nd out of the water for my wave / age-group with the athlete I coach coming out seven seconds ahead of me. Glad to see the speed drills he’d doing in the pool are paying off!

T1 was uneventful and quick. It was a two-loop course, and come the second loop there was a bit of congestion to contend with. This was another race where the body marking was interesting (LINK). No age designation on the calf. So, unfortunately I couldn’t tell who I was competing against from an age-group standpoint. I saw the leaders on the first loop and they were really moving so I didn’t focus on them too much. But it was very annoying to not know who was competing against whom.

At the end of the bike course I wasn’t passed by anyone and moved through the traffic well. T2 was very quick and, thanks to some great brick workouts (LINK), my legs came around pretty quickly. Truthfully, because of a heavy training week, I didn’t have high expectations but I certainly didn't want to be gathered up by anyone on the run. I felt strong and once I hit the half-way point of the run I put a little extra effort in and finished well.

Timing and scoring was apparently quite a mess (adding more to the disorganization). After massive delays results finally started to go up. I placed first in my age group, and 14^th overall. Two and a half hours later, awards were not yet presented. Positions changed. Names showed up and disappeared from overall results. After almost three hours the race director made it clear he didn’t know when awards were going to happen.

I left winning my age group and placing 14^th overall. On Monday I was 13^th overall. By Wednesday I was 9^th overall. Hold on – let me go check again!

A nice second race of the season, and a pretty good follow up to my first race of the year.