Team "Daddy Long Legs" was made up of Tim Brown, Mike Dowd and a personal friend, Matt Stewart. They competed as a relay team. Matt did the swim portion, Mike raced the bike and Tim finished with the run. There were roughly 500 athletes competing overall.
Matt was in the first heat and finished the 1 mile swim through a chilly Casco Bay 7th out of 55 or so swimmers. (We were hoping for top 10, so we were pumped!) Matt handed off the ankle band to Mike who shot out of the gate and gave us all a salute as he left our line of sight.
We estimated Mike would return the 40K leg in about an hour. We watched our clocks patiently and slowly made our way to the edge of the course. We started to hear sirens which meant the first bike was coming in. The announcer said, "The first bike is about 1/4 of a mile out and should be here any moment." Christine Brown, (Tim's wife) looks at me and said, "Lynz, I can't be sure, but I think that's Mike!" I jumped out into the road and sure enough, it was him! I was screaming my head off and so proud as was the rest of our supportive crew. The announcer said, "That's Mike Dowd from Melrose, MA and Team Daddy Long Legs making the turn, folks." Mike told us later that as he was coming close to the finish, he saw a lone man walking up the course and immediately recognized it as being his friend RJ Keene! No one showed up after Mike for about 4 minutes- so the guys had a good lead.
Tim took the ankle band from Mike and shot off on his 10K run. The announcer asked me, "Who is that runner?" I replied, very proudly, "That's TIM BROWN!" (Which I know Tim just loved- no pressure, right?!) It rained the entire time and Tim had a very hilly course. Tim doesn't usually train in the rain or on hills, so this was really a task. He had to suffer a full day of anxiety waiting for his teammates to finish while trying to stay warm. Tim passed RJ on the course again who naturally shouted words of encouragement to Tim. Again, the announcer says after a half hour or so, "The first runner is nearing the finish line folks and should be here momentarily. Sure enough, it was Tim, in first place with no one behind him!! Tim got to break the ribbon on the finish line.
All in all, Team Daddy Long Legs won the Triathlon, received 2 medals, some prizes and got their name in lights. Full statistical details can be found on http://coolrunning.com/results/07/me/Sep15_Lobste_1_set2.shtml. They finished at 2:05:37. They were the Top Relay Team by a long shot out of 43 relay teams. It was a fantastic race and a great day.
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