Ipswich YMCA Triathlon Results

Yesterday, the Britt-Webb family and the "North Andover Britt" family enjoyed a great outing at Crane’s Beach on the occasion of the Ipswich YMCA Triathlon. My brother-in-law and his son, Frank and Tyler Britt, and I got there around 4pm to get our registration packets and set up our gear. Our families arrived in time to meet us before the event kicked off and to cheer us on through the race.

Race Highlights

The race was different from all the other triathlons in which I’ve competed. It was much more informal. Story has it that this race started 6-10 years ago as a small group of people just doing the triathlon events together for fun. It’s now grown to 200 people competing in a YMCA-sponsored event. But still, you can’t find anything about the event anywhere on the internet. You learn about it only by word of mouth or by visiting the Ipswich YMCA. Frank and I discovered it through another triathlete that we met at the POWOW triathlon in July. Another difference with this race is that there were no split times (only
overall time), and the run preceded the bike.

SWIM: The race started with a half mile ocean swim along Cranes Beach. We all started in a single wave. Remarkably, Frank, Tyler and I all finished within a few seconds of 16 minutes, averaging 2 minutes per 100 meters (2:00/100m).

RUN: In the beach transition area, we ripped off our wetsuits, through on our running gear and headed out for a 2.5 mile run along the beach, up and around the Crane Estate, back down through the sand dunes ending in one of the parking lots. I finished the run in 27:05, supposedly 10:50 per mile. Despite the beach, hill and sand dunes, I still think I ran faster than that.

BIKE: The run was a 4.5 mile out and back, 9 miles total. I finished in 25:29, or about 21.2 miles per hour.

OVERALL: I finished in 79th out of 165 in 1:12:59. Frank was 110th at 1:19:35. Tyler was 140th at 1:29:38. You can see race results on CoolRunning.com.