The Josh Billings Runaground Triathlon: Racing Is The Easy Part.
By the time Phil Warner and I hit the water in his lightning-fast tandem kayak last Sunday for our team’s leg in the Josh Billings Runaground Triathlon in Lenox, Mass., we had already spent a good part of the morning lugging gear back and forth to various staging areas, shuttling vehicles to and from far-flung parking lots, helping friends on other teams get to the starting line, and coordinating handoffs that were only slightly less complex than the D-Day invasion at Omaha Beach.
Never mind that we were operating on about three hours sleep because the race starts early and the course in the Berkshires is more than 120 miles from home.
So it was a relief to actually start paddling, even though we would be going flat out for more than 45 minutes on a windy lake against more than 500 other vessels.
“This is the easy part,” I called ahead to Phil, paddling like mad in the bow of his super-sleek, lightweight 24-foot vessel. He grunted words that were lost among the shouts of spectators and splashes of churning water.
This was my third consecutive Josh Billings, one of the nation’s oldest three-stage races incorporating bicycling, paddling and running. Josh Billings is the pen name of Henry Wheeler Shaw, a 19th century humorist born in nearby Lanesboro, Mass., who would certainly appreciate the madcap zaniness of the race. Though it attracts serious competitors, the Runaground also brings out a fair number of weekend warriors whose idea of fun is to bike for 27 hilly miles, paddle for 5 and run for 6 on an uphill route that ends at the grounds of the celebrated Tanglewood Music Festival.
You can enter either as an Ironman or Ironwoman and race all three stages, or as part of a two-, three- or four-person team. There also are different divisions based on gender and age.
As it turned out, our four-person team, Spin, Splash, Sprint, would be competing in the toughest division, the men’s open under 39, even though three of us have long passed that age, because the fourth member, runner, Steve Kurczy, is only 32.
Ian Strever, our bicyclist, got us off to a great start in 37th place with a time of 1:16:56, and Phil, a master strategist, successfully employed a trick he devised last year for the wristband exchange.
Because the cyclists come screaming downhill to the paddle transition zone at about 40 mph, where a mob of paddlers await tossed wristbands, Phil wore flaming pink garden gloves that stood out in the crowd and gave Ian a nice target.
Seconds later Phil sprinted to the launch at the Stockbridge Bowl boat ramp, where I paced nervously next to the kayak.
“Let’s go!” he cried, and we carried the boat to the water, hopped in and started flailing away. Phil is a manic paddler and I struggled to match his cadence, but soon we settled into a comfortable but hard pace. Phil has his boat set up to control the rudder from the bow and therefore acted as navigator. He is fearless and aggressive, shouting, “On your left!” (or “right”) as we overtook slower boats.
Within a few minutes we passed a dozen or more racing canoes and closed in on a two-man racing kayak.
“Let’s get ‘em! Hard 10!”
We edged past on a downwind leg and claimed the inside path to a buoy.
“Nice!” I gasped.
The paddle portion consists of two laps around the lake and on the first lap we had to weave our way through only a score of other boats, but by the second time around hundreds of other vessels joined the fray, turning the course into a game of Frogger.
Most of the competitive racers abide by so-called rules of the road that require slower vessels give way to overtaking boats, but the less-serious paddlers in short, stubby kayaks either don’t know about this regulation or can’t reliably control their direction, so we had a few close calls and one genuine collision, punctuated by less-than-friendly exchanges, before we finally steered a wider route to avoid traffic jams.
Complicating our maneuvers was a stiff breeze that sent up chop at either and of the lake. Phil’s narrow, light kayak is tippy enough in calm water, so we were forced to slow down in a beam wind.
“Easy … easy! I don’t want to swim!” I shouted more than once.
Approaching the paddle finish, I saw Steve Kurczy waving his arms and jumping up and down.
Not missing a stroke, Phil dipped his arm deeper, soaked the wristband, tugged it free and tossed a strike to Steve, who took off like a shot.
“Not a bad paddle,” I grunted after catching my breath. “We passed a bunch of boats.”
As it turned out we passed 27 and were in 10th pace overall.
Steve, bless his heart, had a great run and picked up two more places.
“I died on that last hill,” he groaned. Still, not too shabby.
Spin, Splash Sprint finished eighth overall in a combined time of 2 hours, 40 minutes and 42 seconds – about 17 minutes behind the overall winners and good enough for second place in the men’s open.
“I’m ecstatic!” Phil exclaimed. It was his best overall finish at Josh (mine, too).
No time to savor our accomplishment, though.
Within minutes, he mused, “Next year …”
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