Hang on to your chammies, tri-hards, we have a double blog post ahead!
The pool was a roiling cauldron of athleticism for the ten minutes or so it took for the 22 triathletes to make it through the six heats of the race. It's kinda hard to describe the action -- imagine the classic piranha feeding frenzy, only instead of meat, they're going after Clif Bars, and instead of piranhas, they're triathletes.
The story of the night was Noa "Sleeper Agent" Sison's turbo-charged performance of 31.6s. Coach Tia definitely felt scandalized that Noa had been hiding this speed.
To satisfy the cardio junkies, Coach Tia designed a special Halloween themed swim relay as cool down. But now that I've seen things from her perspective, I'm suspecting she makes us do these swims partly for personal entertainment...
Coach Tia giving out instructions for a post-race Halloween-themed relay.
It's a good thing this event didn't deplete all the glycogen, because just a few days later was the Aquathon, reported below by club President and Guest Blogger Jen Moroz!
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Even though the morning forecast called for rain, rain and more rain, six athletes showed up to compete in the clubs first multi-sport event of the Fall classic race series – the crowd favorite aquathon! This race consists of a 500m swim, followed immediately by a 2.2 Km run.
Martin made a grand entrance with his brand new tri-suit. Built for speed and cold weather racing, it appeared that he might have a huge advantage over the other competitors. An advantage felt by Flo and Jen, who were later found tampering with Martin’s shoes before the race.
But that wasn’t the only shenanigan for the day. Nima was caught racing with a self-made jet pack after barreling past Jen and Martin less than 100m into the swim (despite starting 10 and 20s behind them, respectively). Tia had to confiscate the contraption before allowing the race to continue. Lucky for Nima, his burning desire to win the race allowed him to continue pushing the pace, setting him up well for the run.
Ariana and Ben worked well together in the swim to give them a huge lead heading into transition. However, their inexperience caused them to blow this lead as both casually suited up for the cold run, and even stopped to sign a few autographs for their adorning fans. During this time, Nima ripped past them, looking poised to get the W. Jen surprised the entire crowd by posting one of the fastest transitions! (Yeah, we didn’t believe it either). Guess being the last out of the water meant she couldn’t waste precious time helping her competitors remove their wetsuits, nor give out free hugs. ;)
Out on the run course, Ariana and Ben were in chase mode after the rapidly moving Nima. Close behind, the chase pack of Martin, Jen and Flo (dressed up as a fairy!) did their best to close the gap. Only Jen - channeling her inner Gwen Jorgensen - had the leg speed to charge after Nima. But, she was unsuccessful as Nima cut the tape first with a final surge along the blue carpet. Ben was the final competitor to make the podium, crossing the line less than a minute behind the leaders.
The excitement continued as Flo, Ariana and Martin were switching leads several times. In the end, Flo used his fairy powers to propel him to a fourth place finish just ahead of Ariana, who was closely followed by Martin.
Up next are the 500m swim TT, the 5Km run and Brick. Who has what it takes to dethrone Jen and Nima? Will a new member surprise everyone with a dominant performance in one of these races? Only time will tell. Stay tuned!
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