Monday - Race Morning and General Info
Good afternoon everyone! We wanted to spend the next few days talking about the ins and outs of the Pocomoke Triathlon. First and foremost, this event normally happens in June of each year but with COVID-19 restrictions, we had to postpone the race. Our gracious hosts at the Lower Shore Family YMCA in Pocomoke City have allowed us to have the event this Sunday, so be sure to say Thank You when you see one of their staff members!
The Pocomoke Triathlon has gone through some changes in the past few years, and what would a COVID season race be without another change. This time through is the BIKE COURSE. To minimize the amount of road crossings that we have, we have had a NEW COURSE approved (just last Friday). This 16 mile bike course is a large loop, with just one or two intersections that will need to be controlled. We will discuss that later this week, but the updated course maps and description has been placed on this site.
Our swim, for those of you new here, is in a pond that is on the grounds of the Lower Shore Family YMCA, and has a temperature (yesterday) of 65 degrees. This water is clean, but we will go through all the necessary steps.
The run for this course was changed last year, and now is a trail run (smooth trails, don't worry!). The duathlon will start out with 1 loop and the triathlon will have multiple loops. This is a great course to see, and pick off, your "friends"!
So what should we expect on Race Morning? Masks... everyone wears a mask. Volunteers, spectators, athletes when you aren't racing.... We will have tons of disposable masks for you to wear. If you have a favorite buff, you can certainly bring that with you. We will have a paper mask in your bag (see the video at the bottom of the www.PocomokeTriathlon.com page for What's In The Bag) for you to wear and dispose of at the swim start.
We recommend everyone come to the YMCA starting around 7am. Though the adult race starts at 9 am, we will have a kids race at 8:30 that we want everyone to enjoy! At 8:30, we are going to close down transition so that no one is in the way of the kiddos.
When you show up, please bring your bike and gear with you over to transition, where you will have your temperature taken and we will check your ID. We will also check that you have filled out the COVID questionnaire, which will be sent out via email and posted on the website on Saturday morning at 8am. (You will NOT have to print this, it is electronic).
We plan on a 9am start with a corral start of the swim and the duathlon. Athletes will self seed and will cross over a timing mat. This timing mat CHECKS YOU IN to the wave, but IS NOT THE START. DO NOT START until you are told to do so. Triathletes, you will have a large green buoy that we will start you from. Duathletes, you will start about 5 yards beyond the check in mat.
Once the first wave is launched (first 10 people) we will wait 15 seconds, and then we will allow the next 10 people to cross the mat. They will start approximately 2 minutes apart. We will continue this until everyone (Sprint, Duathlon, Aquabike) are all on course.
As the week progresses, we will continue to add emails to a special tab at the top of the page called EMAILS. That way, you can always go back and look.
Talk to you tomorrow!! We will be addressing the swim course, and going over the start process again!
See you on Sunday!
Jason
