the Way of the Turtle

GLIMPSES OF TWO RACES
Saturday, July 14, 2007

Sometimes it pays to ignore Mapquest and choose your own route... after spending the afternoon at one of Ann's extended family's annual reunions, we headed off to Marathon, NY (only 20 minutes or so from the James Kennedy State Forest in Virgil where tomorrow's Forest Frolic trail races would be held.) Rather than head all the way back to the Thruway (no doubt the fastest route, which is probably why Mapquest recommended it) we decided instead to follow route 5/20 east from Canandaigua to route 81 - slower but definitely more scenic.

Along the way we passed through a number of small towns, which can sometimes lead to bizarre delays (one summer we managed to get through a local town just moments after a parade - had we been half an hour earlier we'd have been sitting in traffic waiting for the streets to re-open!) We were slightly concerned when we drove into Geneva and saw police barricades and traffic cones across the road (fortunately, in the opposite lane.) And then I remembered what weekend it was - Musselman!

The Musselman Triathlon started as a Half-Ironman distance tri but was very successful and thus spawned both a MiniMussel sprint tri and a Musselkids tri for ages 7-14. I had heard about it in part due to my interest in multisport events in western NY, and in part because last year one of my students from work competed in the Half-Ironman and gave me a race shirt and Frazz book afterwards, when he learned I was a big fan of the comic strip. (Of course, this led to Ann commenting that now I have to do the race someday, probably in part because I keep saying that one of these years I'm going to learn to swim properly and add tri's to my repetoire.)

As we drove past Seneca Lake State Park, we got to watch some runners coming in to the finish - apparently these guys were pros doing the ITU Pan American Cup race - a race which is used to qualify for the Olympics. Pretty exciting stuff for Geneva NY. Watching them run toward the finish got me excited again about possibly doing the Summer Sizzler Duathlon in a couple of weeks... I'm not sure I'll be able to (travel time and money are both concerns) but I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

As we drove through Auburn we hit another series of blocked-off roads and detours (nothing affecting us, fortunately) which turned out to be due to the Owasco Stage Race, a three part cycling race held in and around Auburn this weekend. We had a brief glimpse of a pack of riders racing down one of the streets parallel to us - seeing them clustered closely together reminded me of how much I appreciate USA Tri's no drafting (riding close to the rear wheel of the rider in front of you, taking advantage of the decreased air resistance) rule - I'm just not a good enough rider to keep from eventually crashing under those circumstances, and in a tight pack like that one crash multiplies very quickly.

After that it was a long, uneventful drive the rest of the way to Marathon, which is a tiny little town out in the middle of nowhere. And fortunately, a quiet little town, too, since Sunday morning would be arriving much too early if we were going to get to the race on time...

JMH