A September Weekend to Remember

This past weekend we had a spectucular time. So much to do, we spread ourselves out across the state of Connecticut and Westchester County.

Starting on Friday, many of our brethren sponsored and rode in the lovely Charter Oak Charity ride.   Carlos helped provide support to this fantastic three day tour, starting at the Charter Oak school in Bridgeport, CT, traveling up to Kent, CT.  Three days, 200+ miles of riding.  Carlos and crew will give us a full report we hope but what a three days to go cycling.

On Saturday, it was bike racing day at the Three Villages Race in Baltic, CT (and two neighboring villages, apparently).  Eneas decided to top his 15 mile solo effort from the Tour of Greenwich to break away for 45 miles to win this event.  Rick did his best to race in the Masters category and he did ok.   Again, the weather was inspiring.  And there is a festival that goes on during and after the race -- fun for the entire family.   The course is a rolling hill course with two biting climbs and a flat fast finish -- challenging but fun.

On Sunday, it was TRIATHLON day. And we mean it: the Westchester Jarden Olympic; the Westchester TOUGHMAN Half; the Fairfield Sprint; and the ITP Triathlon walkthrough.   Dom Gillen won the overall title at the TOUGHMAN in a 4:14 effort on a new course.  He beat all comers, including two different relay teams... Not bad -- who says 3 is better than 1? Allie Lawler showed she is getting ready for Florida by placing second overall woman with a 5:04 or so.   And if she just had aero wheels or a P2C or an aero helmt who knows how fast she'd go (or all three)... At the "short" Westchester event, Mitch West got 5th overall amateur with a 2:11, Megan Kelly Griffis got 2nd woman in her age group (25-29) with a 2:32, Lyn McCabe got 5th her age group (30-34) with a 2:40, and Dave Yockleson got 3rd in his age group (40-44) with a 2:15. Ray Tierney and Bruce Koffsky also competed in this event and did well, too.  In the Fairfield Sprint, Valentin Lopes got 3rd overall!  Great showing!  He missed a couple of markers swimming or he might have gotten top 1 or 2... (save it for this weekend Valentin).   

Meanwhile, Eneas and Rick had wandered over to Darien CT to do a bike-run through with 40 ITP  participants.   The group went through a site viewing of the swim, then did the bike together, going over tactical strategies for riding the course. Then after rehydrating and changing, the group proceeded to run 4 of the 5 miles of this weekend's course.   It was a blast. Plenty of questions (hopefully fielded intelligently and kindly) and lots of enthusiasm and excitement about this coming Saturday's ITP Triathlon in Darien.   Best of luck to everyone racing it! May this coming weekend also be a weekend to remember...