Ludlow Triathlon

Year in Review...June Ludlow Tri

I am a very lucky guy to  reside on the shores of a little pond that I can swim and kayak. With that in mind, when the firmman organizers come to little Ludlow every year to set up the large orange buoys that designate the annual Luldow Tri Course, I cant just sit back at home and watch the fun.

The ludlow tri includes a 1/2 mile swim, 20 mile bike, and 4 mile run. The swim is hectic, the bike a bit hilly, and the run blazing fast. I love this tri, and not just because i can swim home.

I finished first in my division. Rumor has it that i also qualified for the championship race in Burlington later in
the year, but unfortunately the race conflicted with Josh Billings and will choose the later.

 

                                                      

Harpoon 5 Miler

2011 Race review...  Harpoon 5 Miler

"Sure you've run some races, but i bet you never danced after a race". Lish said it well. The Harpoon 5 miler is a must do race! For $40, you get 3 free beers, a race tee shirt, Bertuchis catering, Sausages Guys sausages,  and an urge to dance in your gym shorts!


Family, friends, friends of friends all came together to run a little, and drink more. For me this was the first race my brother and i raced together in. The McCarthy's rocked out! Older bro placed 592 out of 3300 while i was able to use my chicken legs to finish in the top 10. Team V, (what the V stands for is still up for debate, but for now we will refer to as Very Fast) finished 11th out of the 150 teams.


Team V and friends results
7       2/624 M3039 28:16 28:16 5:40 John McCarthy 32 M 922
49     23/624 M3039 31:17 31:11 6:15 Joseph Langan 36 M 815
142   54/565 M2129 36:26 33:17 6:40 Adam Szymkowicz 27 M 3668

370   53/986  F2129   36:23   35:41   7:09 Christin Christoph     28 F   3666
438   59/986 F2129 36:57 36:15 7:15 Adriane Boscardin 27 F 3664

592   186/624 M3039 39:17 37:30 7:30 Bob McCarthy 36 M 923
701   220/624 M3039 40:01 38:15 7:39 Darren Bourque 35 M 131
749   230/624 M3039 39:15 38:32 7:43 Daniel Walker 31 M 3669
932   151/986 F2129 42:43 39:34 7:55 Caitlin Brome 26 F 3665

1350 172/705 F3039 42:37 41:54 8:23 Lisha Storey 30 F 3667
1716 438/624 M3039 45:25 43:37 8:44 Steve Cosgrove 36 M 284


Harpoon organized a great race and a better party. There was about 10 draft stations offering fresh Harpoon beer to all the runners. In addition, age group winners( which i was lucky enough to be one,  won additional beer. I will take a case of UFO over a trophy any day!

Team V

                                                                      McCarthy Brothers

Play that Funky Music

2011 Wildcat Wildfire Pentathlon

The wildcat pentathlon is the little brother of the more prestigious pentathlon, Tuckerman's Inferno. As such, we have  sarcastically dubbed the wildcat, wildkitten (meow....as my Irish friend and rival Joe would mock). Yet, this race is still no day in the park.

The wildcat race begins with a 6 mile road race, which transitions to an 8 mile downriver kayak with class 2 rapids, followed with a 20 mile 2000ft elevation gain bike up towards Mt Washington, continued with another 2 mile hike and another 1500 ft elevation gain up Wildcat Mountain, and finished with a usually not so smooth downhill ski to the lodge. This is a classic solo style adventure race.

I came up Friday to test run the river. There was much debate over if the river was running high or low. I found it to be just right! My west side boat exceed, with a whole cut out of the right butt check pad to prevent dead leg, cut through the rapids beautifully.. I even, not quite on purpose, performed quite a boof on a spillover rock with all of my boats 19 feet getting somewhat air born .

Saturday morning was bustling with energy. Crystal and I left the condo by 6:00 to get all the gear set up. We squeezed the kayak between a little evergreen and another kayak at the put in, laying out my paddle, skirt, helmet, a jacket, and some booties. Over to the take out we set up the bike and left a bin with packets of gu, my cleats, a towel, and gloves. Finally we headed to the start to begin the run. It was 27degres. Brrrr.

I ran next to Joe most of the race. Joe was pushing the pace early. Knowing I had a long race ahead, I tried to relax and have some small talk with my Irish friend. Joe, breathing heavy, was not so amused, and politely told me that he doesn’t talk while racing. Later, over a beer, I know that what he meant to say was “shut the hell up John, I’m running”!!!

I pulled away in the kayak leg. This is where having the right boat can pay off big time dividends in the race. My West Side Exceed is perfect for these conditions. Straight forward whitewater with lots of flatwater sections in-between. Good secondary stability, closed cockpit, and super long. This boat takes skill to keep up, but if you can handle it, its one of the fastest in these conditions. Over 20 people dumped in the river that day, but I stayed up with one of the fastest times.

I have three words to explain the cycling; cold, wet, and cramped. I couldn’t quite get my legs at full speed, as my left hamstring kept on pulling. Yet that didn’t matter as I got to about mile 14, and I saw my wife in the car sitting in the middle of the road. Next to her, a large, beautiful, brown moose!

My apparent natural expression as i noticed the size of the Moose

I couldn’t decide if I should ride between the car and the moose to get a closer look or around to the other side of the car. My decision was made as I got closer to the animal and she looked up and we exchanged glances. Her eye seemed as big as my hand. She was large and there was no barrier between us. I was going around the car!



On the way up to Pinkham Notch



As i pulled into the hike transition, my heart dropped...there was no one there. Where was Crystal??? Than from the corner of my eye, i see her running toward me with my all my ski gear. I do have the best support crew.

On my way up, a competitor tossed me a few cliff shots....a good reminder of the sportsmanship in such an event!  

The rest of the race seems now in reflection quite uneventful. I hiked, I cramped, I skied, I finished. I still cant quite fathom skiing down Left Gully with the amount of cramping that went through the legs during the hike and ski portion of wildcat.

 The wildkitten is a fantastic race, and I would encourage anyone to give it a go. My sights are now set on the oldest brother, the tuckermans inferno! 

What makes this race really special are the friends that come together to live, breath, challenge each other and themselves...and to have a beer with after the race!

2010 Josh Billings Triathlon

This is not your standard triathlon. No swim, bike, run, but a bike(peloton style), kayak, run. .

This tri has a big time race feel. For several weeks before hand, cyclists where out training on the bike route, kayakers and canoers practicing their strokes on the Stockbridge bowl, and runners, well, running. I drove down to do like the rest, train on the course. What i found was a town full of energy. Great Barringon, Stockbridge, and the neighboring communities gave an impression of a North Conway,NH or Lake Placid. Roof racks, fit people, and talk about the upcoming race filled the air. 1200 people where expected to show for the country's second oldest triathlon of this kind.

I did a decent job preparing for the race. I knew it would come to the bike ride and getting into the pack early on. The bike race hits a hill early on, mile 1 or 2, and many experience cyclists know, that hill will determine the rest of your bike race. Hit the hill hard, get into a group, and you find yourself in a good paceline for the rest of the race. Bonk on the first hill, miss the paceline, and you will either lose 10 minutes as you fall into the second peloton, or exert all your energy riding by yourself.



I missed the first major group as i had a hard time positioning myself at the front of the start (note to self next year), but kept to a group not too far behind. All in all, i only lost five minutes from the first group.



The kayak is where i was able to pull away. Though I have been suffering from "Dead Leg" , temporary paralysis of my leg from sitting on a nerve the wrong way, big blue was good to me and my leg was fine. I finished with one of the fastest kayak times of all racers, including teams.

The run the other hand was brutal. Possibly the slowest run in quite some time. The run course is a hilly 6.2 mile course. At mile 3, i was plagued with muscle cramps. I had to stop and message my legs. Running is generally my strongest leg, but on that race day, i was humbled. What could have i done different, more electrolytes, more gu, ...i found myself very frustrated as i jogged forward.

In spite of the challenging run, i still finished well, placing second in the ironman kayak division. I won a nice Josh Billings Mug that was filled with a tasty Oktoberfest later that night.

....and i could not have done so well in the race without my champion support crew. Notice the "helper" race number

Review: Anaerobic II Cycling the South West Sunbelt

 The reports called for 12-20 inches of snow for western ma with winds approaching 50mph. The snow didn’t quite hit the mark, but the wind was intense. Rather than feeling like Dorothy on a set of x-country skis, I decided today would be a great day to try out a new cycling video I got for christmas.


BTBop is not like any training video I've used previously. There is no coach to motivate you, structured workout routine, or interval training. Rather, the video attempts to place the viewer into a real ride. The cyclist follows the view of a camera attached to one of the cyclist's handlebars. Today, I was participating in the first 50 miles of the Durango 100 century.

I was skeptical at first if I would stay interested in a 2 hour indoor ride while watching a handlebar camera. Yet I was very surprised how I got into the race. I really felt like I was in the event. My instincts on when to hammer the pedals matched perfectly with the rider's acceleration on the screen. As I settled back into a paceline, I instinctively dropped to an easier gear and slowed down my heart rate. In a chase, I rode hard, bringing my heart rate up to 95% for over 10 minutes and the whole time thinking to myself “I can catch up". I even was finding myself using had signals on my trainer to apparently warn the furniture behind me. Two hours passed by quicker than I would expect and the scenery of the Sunbelt made me forgot of the current blizzard conditions happening outside my window.

My one recommendation is to ride using the "sounds of the roads". BtBoP offers 2 choices for background noise, a musical soundtrack and no music (ie.sounds of the road). I love music and find videos hard to watch without some good tunes, but for me, the soundtrack was a compilation of bad upbeat elevator music. Go with the sounds of the road, which does make the ride more realistic, or throw on your own favorite tunes.

I have another video from BtBop that I plan to use next week and will report back. In the meantime, winds have died down, so a skiing I am going.

Xmas eve long run

One of my favorite places to run is Ashley Pond in Holyoke. A gravel trail around a beautiful reservoir, with no sign of traffic, large trees and plenty of bird songs. Its easy to forget that your are actually in Holyoke. I even heard a pileated woodpecker! I am beginning to rebuild my running endurance, running for about 70 mins, 7 1/2 or so miles. A great way to start off the holidays.

Weston Winter Duathlon

Jan 9, 2011. The event takes place all on snow. Begins with a 4k run, followed by 6k xc ski (most competitors skate ski), finish with another 4k run.

This will be my first xc ski race. I checked out the Weston Ski Track and took a lesson in skate skiing. I have much practice needed within the next 3 weeks if i dont want to look like a turtle on ice. Too bad my Chezch brother in law wasnt around to give me a few tips. At least i can run.