Once Again, Pink Gloves (Plus a Clever Signal) Help Save The Day At The Josh Billings Runaground Triathlon
“On your left!” Phil Warner shouted from the bow of a tandem kayak, racing toward a buoy during the paddle leg of last Sunday’s Josh Billings Runaground Triathlon in Lenox, Mass.
The competing kayakers paddled like mad alongside, either choosing to ignore Phil’s warning or mistakenly believing they could get to the mark first.
In the stern of Phil’s boat I braced for impact.
Wham!
My paddle jammed between the two kayaks, so all I could do was shove the other boat away with my right hand while Phil trashed at the water. After a few seconds of scraping and yelling we were clear.
“Cut that one a little close,” I gasped, but I don’t think Phil heard me. He’s a little driven.
“They behind us?” he called, not missing a stroke. I glanced over my shoulder.
“Yep.”
“All right! Hard 10! Let’s go!”
The Runaground, consisting of a 27-mile bike ride, 5-mile paddle and 6-mile run ending at the site of the celebrated Tanglewood music venue in the Berkshires, is one of the nation’s oldest triathlons, drawing hundreds of teams from throughout the Northeast and beyond. The charity fundraiser helps honor the legacy of Josh Billings, the pen name of Henry Wheeler Shaw, a 19th century humorist born in nearby Lanesboro, Mass.
Billings/Shaw would certainly appreciate the madcap chaos of the race, with cyclists, canoeists, kayakers and runners dashing about in every direction, occasionally colliding.
Phil, who lives in Massachusetts, and I, a Connecticut Yankee, have competed in the Runaground for several years; our runner, Steve Kurczy, a Bozrah native now living in New York, joined our team for the second time as a runner; Steve brought along as our cyclist Santiago Helman, a native Argentine also living in New York.
The bikers complete their leg after a long downhill at speeds up to 40 mph, and when they zoom across the line in a peloton, or pack, they must toss a wristband to a paddler. It’s challenging enough trying to pick out a teammate from the helmeted throng whizzing past, especially when there’s a roiling mob of other paddlers also scrambling for tossed wristbands, so last year Phil came up with a brilliant strategy: He donned flaming pink garden gloves that he waved as the cyclists approached, which proved an excellent target.
This year Phil employed the same glove tactic and added an even cagier stratagem that helped him pick our cyclist from the peloton and position himself for the toss. It’s so fiendishly clever yet simple and completely above-board that I’m going to keep it a secret so competitors won’t copy it next year.
As Santiago crossed the line he flung the relay wristband into Phil’s pink-gloved hands; Phil dashed down the ramp; we hefted the boat, slid it into the water and started paddling to beat the band.
In his speedy, 24-foot, lightweight vessel we managed to pass a few dozen boats, including the kayak we bumped up against, during the first of two laps, and a dozen or so more during the second turn when the lake began to fill with hundreds of slower vessels just starting their legs. Weaving through this flailing, floating field was like playing the video game Frogger.
With Phil’s expert navigation and some give-no-ground maneuvering we squeezed through the flotilla unscathed – results later showed we had the third-fastest boat on the water – and finally spotted Steve waving his arms on shore. Phil dipped his wrist into the lake to soak the band and launched a near-perfect strike in Steve’s direction. Steve scooped up the coiled cloth, rolled it onto his wrist and flew off.
We barely had time to paddle another hundred yards to a designated boat exit, climb out, and carry the kayak another quarter-mile to Phil’s car before hustling to watch the finish of the run. The first-place winner, Steve Monsulick, running on the Allen Heights Veterinary Team that included cyclist Josh Lipka and kayakers Tom Keefe and Ben Pigot, had already completed in a blazing, combined time of 2 hours, 17 minutes and 21 seconds.
Not long afterward we spotted Steve sprinting toward the finish.
“Come on, Steve!” we shouted. With a closing kick he crossed the line in 2:32:52, giving our team, Splish, Splash Sprint sixth place overall among 417 finishers – two places higher and nearly eight minutes faster than our last year’s finish.
I wasn’t the only competitor from southeastern Connecticut. Also racing was a team from Pfizer, including two canoeists I train with occasionally, Dennis Girard and Bob Smith.
“Go, guys!” I called out when our boats met up during the race, but they were paddling too hard to respond. Along with cyclist Zane Wenzel and runner Donald Tyszkiewicz, Team Pfizer placed 22nd overall and first in the corporate division, in a time of 2:42:54.
Meanwhile, we members of Spin, Splash Sprint barely had clinked our ceremonial award mugs when Phil began plotting goals and strategies for next year’s race.
“Let’s see, if we each shave three minutes …”
As usual, no rest for the weary.
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