RR: Kinetic Sprint – relay
I was looking to do a 5K and was hoping to do the run leg of the Kinetic Sprint. But Coach Ed only had a spot for a biker. Since biking is my ‘weakest link’ I decided it would be a good idea to join the relay and do the bike portion. Ed linked us up through an e-mail. Since I was an older Z I took care of registration and team “The Old and the New” was born. Old, because (1) I am old and (2) I am an old Z’er. New because the two other relay participants were new/fairly new Z’ers. Of course, I wished I had named us “Z Old and Z New” but…I did not.
Anyway, I headed down to Lake Anna early Sunday race morning. I had no idea what Alex looked like and I had only seen Kathleen’s picture online. (Thank you, Facebook!) So after dumping my stuff in the Team Z ‘transition’ area, I started asking around. No luck. I went and checked in at registration and found out Kathleen had checked in and was able to find and meet her. We got closer to the race start time and we still had not met up with Alex! We were worried he was not going to make it so Kathleen offered to do the swim leg. Just about the time she was about to try out a wetsuit, she spotted Alex. So at about 10 minutes before race time our relay was set! Whew!
We did not know how long Alex would take to swim so we watched the relay wave and eventually headed to transition so we would be ready. When Alex came out of the water Kathleen transferred the timing chip to my ankle and I was off. Wow, the relays were in the back and it was a long run to get out…including the run on the gravel portion, ugh. Since I had done the Kinetic Sprint two years ago I remembered that there was a hill out of transition, so I was in the proper gear to get going. Yay! I was off.
Since I was ‘only’ biking I wanted to push as hard as I could through the whole ride. I think I could have done more but I backed off on one hill somewhat towards the end. It was a little crowded there and a race official had just passed, so I got nervous! Oh well. I’ve never had a penalty (knock on wood) and hope I never do.
I really loved the ride. Other than the uphill at the beginning, I did not remember much else from two years ago. Aside from the rain. Well, the uphill was still there, as noted above, but there was definitely no rain!! Except for a little bit of wind it was a great day for riding and I had a great time! I had no idea how much time it would take me as I tend to ride 15 miles per hour. I told Kathleen this and she said she’d be back in transition in an hour. That was a good thing because I finished in 1:02:16. I felt pretty good about that. Alex was in transition too and did the chip transfer to Kathleen’s ankle and she was off. Lucky – the run exit was right by where our relay was in transition! Alex and I headed over towards the Team Z tent and then over to the finish so we could watch other Z’ers come in and of course to see team The Old and The New finish! We again did not know about how much time to allow so we just kept watch. Kathleen soon arrived and our relay was done.
It was a lot of fun, only worrying about one leg. The only other triathlon relay I did was with my son, and he did the run leg while I did the swim/bike.
There were 31 relay teams. Here are our results:
Swim 14 – 18:15
T1: 7 – 00:01:10
Bike: 13 – 01:02:16
T2: 28 – 00:00:32 – I guess we were slow? (I’d kill for that T2 time in an individual event!!)
Run: 20 – 00:31:12
Total: 13 – 01:53:23
I was looking to do a 5K and was hoping to do the run leg of the Kinetic Sprint. But Coach Ed only had a spot for a biker. Since biking is my ‘weakest link’ I decided it would be a good idea to join the relay and do the bike portion. Ed linked us up through an e-mail. Since I was an older Z I took care of registration and team “The Old and the New” was born. Old, because (1) I am old and (2) I am an old Z’er. New because the two other relay participants were new/fairly new Z’ers. Of course, I wished I had named us “Z Old and Z New” but…I did not.
Anyway, I headed down to Lake Anna early Sunday race morning. I had no idea what Alex looked like and I had only seen Kathleen’s picture online. (Thank you, Facebook!) So after dumping my stuff in the Team Z ‘transition’ area, I started asking around. No luck. I went and checked in at registration and found out Kathleen had checked in and was able to find and meet her. We got closer to the race start time and we still had not met up with Alex! We were worried he was not going to make it so Kathleen offered to do the swim leg. Just about the time she was about to try out a wetsuit, she spotted Alex. So at about 10 minutes before race time our relay was set! Whew!
We did not know how long Alex would take to swim so we watched the relay wave and eventually headed to transition so we would be ready. When Alex came out of the water Kathleen transferred the timing chip to my ankle and I was off. Wow, the relays were in the back and it was a long run to get out…including the run on the gravel portion, ugh. Since I had done the Kinetic Sprint two years ago I remembered that there was a hill out of transition, so I was in the proper gear to get going. Yay! I was off.
Since I was ‘only’ biking I wanted to push as hard as I could through the whole ride. I think I could have done more but I backed off on one hill somewhat towards the end. It was a little crowded there and a race official had just passed, so I got nervous! Oh well. I’ve never had a penalty (knock on wood) and hope I never do.
I really loved the ride. Other than the uphill at the beginning, I did not remember much else from two years ago. Aside from the rain. Well, the uphill was still there, as noted above, but there was definitely no rain!! Except for a little bit of wind it was a great day for riding and I had a great time! I had no idea how much time it would take me as I tend to ride 15 miles per hour. I told Kathleen this and she said she’d be back in transition in an hour. That was a good thing because I finished in 1:02:16. I felt pretty good about that. Alex was in transition too and did the chip transfer to Kathleen’s ankle and she was off. Lucky – the run exit was right by where our relay was in transition! Alex and I headed over towards the Team Z tent and then over to the finish so we could watch other Z’ers come in and of course to see team The Old and The New finish! We again did not know about how much time to allow so we just kept watch. Kathleen soon arrived and our relay was done.
It was a lot of fun, only worrying about one leg. The only other triathlon relay I did was with my son, and he did the run leg while I did the swim/bike.
There were 31 relay teams. Here are our results:
Swim 14 – 18:15
T1: 7 – 00:01:10
Bike: 13 – 01:02:16
T2: 28 – 00:00:32 – I guess we were slow? (I’d kill for that T2 time in an individual event!!)
Run: 20 – 00:31:12
Total: 13 – 01:53:23
The happy finishers!
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