2011 - REV3 Quassy Half

REV3 Quassy Half; 1.2m swim & 56m bike

Middlebury, CT

My experience at Quassy this year was a bit different from last year as I participated in the Aquabike division and not the standard triathlon. Despite missing the run portion of the race I still managed to have a fun weekend packed with great training and weather in the hills of rural Connecticut.

Three weeks before the race I was on the mountain bike with my dad at Blue Marsh State Park in Pennsylvania and crashed. When I fell my knee became sandwiched between the ground and the frame generating a little road rash and a lot of internal bruising. The fall didn’t seem like a big deal at the time but two days later my knee seized up while running which quickly changed my opinion on the matter. Not a good omen three weeks before a race!

As the race neared it became clear that my knee wasn’t recovered enough to safely run. Instead of skipping the race, I decided to go and use the whole weekend to train for my next race in July. The plan was to do a long ride on Saturday and then swim and bike on Sunday before dropping out prior to the run.

Saturday’s ride ended up being a long one with a decent amount of climbing. The weather was great and the roads were friendly for the most part. Barring a flat from a large nail and some scrambling around with mechanical issues the ride went well. Once the dust settled I had ridden 82 miles over 5 hours with 4500 feet of elevation gain through some pretty New England countryside. I finished the ride just in time to register for my expected DNF the following day.

At the registration tent the person checking me in mentioned the Aquabike division. This was a huge discovery as it stoked my motivation and allowed me to avoid dropping out. I also started to reconsider spending the whole day crushing myself on the bike now that there were people to compete with and three medals on the line J Dreams of glory had to remain secondary however as it was nearing 7pm and I had to be up early the next morning. I wandered into a local Italian restaurant for dinner and by 9pm was checked into the hotel. Not a typical lazy/restful pre-race day…

The next morning came quickly and I was excited to get out there. The Aquabike wave is grouped with the women 45 and older so it was interesting to be one of the few men wearing a Barbie-pink swim cap. Once the gun went off the color of my cap was quickly forgotten as I moved through the warm lake. I felt strong through the first buoy until the course turned directly toward the sun. I had a hard time seeing anything in this portion of race and just tried to follow other swimmers. Finally the beach arrived and I exited in 40:38 (about 2 minutes behind than last year). A bit slower than I had hoped but I was back on terra firma and ready to begin pedaling.

The bike course was seldom flat but it felt good to cruise around on semi-protected roads. I pushed it fairly hard knowing I didn’t have to run a half marathon immediately afterwards. The fatigue from the prior day’s adventure surfaced with about 10 miles to go and the race became much harder. Fortunately I was able to maintain a decent pace and my average speed over this section was only slightly slower. I finished the ride in 2:52 with an average speed of 19.5 mph (about 6 minutes faster than last year).

I wasn’t able to break the top three but I did finish fifth on the day in an admittedly smaller field! Results were of little concern as I capped off a solid weekend by enjoying the race expo, demoing some fancy hospital grade compression boots (pictured below), and watching the professionals finish. Another great weekend at the races!