On Saturday, July 11, Team NORSA competed in the 25th annual Colonial Beach Triathlon in Colonial Beach, VA. Undeterred by the possibility of contracting Vibrio from swimming in a tidal area of the Potomac River, returning NORSA triathletes Leo Weitzenhoff and Matt White teamed up with potential new NORSA members Mike Louis and Brian Barrett to compete in this event. The sprint-distance triathlon consisted of a 750 meter swim in the Potomac River, a 14 mile bike through backcountry roads in the Colonial Beach area, and a 5 kilometer run along the bank of the Potomac.
The swim course consisted of one loop around triangle of buoys in the river. Although Team NORSA encountered no major difficulties during the swim, returning triathletes Leo and Matt found the river in the Colonial Beach area to be, overall, saltier, nastier, and harder to see through than the upstream portions swam during the Nation's Triathlon in the Washington, D.C. area.
The bike course was flat and straight, but with a surprising twist - the road was not closed to vehicle traffic during the race. Although volunteers and county sheriff's deputies were directing traffic at a few of the intersections, the triathletes often found themselves sharing the 2 lane road with semis and tour buses going 55 mph. Although Matt finished the swim course 30 seconds ahead of Leo, Leo caught up on the bike portion and finished the bike course two-tenths of a second faster than Matt.
The run course was also flat and straight, with a few drunken neighborhood spectators cheering on the athletes (at 8:00 in the morning). Leo opened up his lead here, finishing the race with an overall time of 1:26:21, an improvement over his previous sprint time at the 2007 Sandman Triathlon in Virginia Beach. Matt also improved on his previous performance at the Sandman with an overall time of 1:29:14. First-time triathletes Mike and Brian also made Team NORSA proud with overall times of 1:39:57 and 1:45:01.
Following the race, Team NORSA joined other Colonial Beach triathletes for a healthy breakfast of pizza, beer, and cookies at the local American Legion post. Fun was had by all and Leo, Matt, Mike, and Brian report that they will soon compete in another triathlon (the Luray Sprint on Sunday, August 16).
3 comments:
Wow! Great job, Matt. Despite your incessant complaining at Rockville Twilighter about how you had no time to produce a NORSA post, you actually did a fantastic job on this one. Congrats!!
Who's posting the Twilighter post in a few days and who's posting the Old Rag hike?
Why aren't you wearing NORSA jerseys in the photo?
Speaking of which ... is there any way to order another batch of NORSA jerseys for our growing triathlon family?
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