Sky High Off Road Triathlon at Grafton Lakes

By Brent Hamrick, XTERRA representative

(Grafton, NY – August 7, 2005) The Sky High Off-Road Triathlon has been on the Nissan XTERRA USA Championship series for as many years as anyone can remember and there is a reason for that! This race rocks! Sure there’s a DJ blasting your favorite tunes, but I’m talking about granite and stone. This course has more rocks per square mile than we have in all of Florida, but let’s start at the beginning. Saturday was the scene for my first kid’s triathlon age 14 and under. My hosts John and Kathy are unbelievable. They run a kids adventure camp all summer that culminates with the kid’s off-road tri. They train these kids with 56 mile road rides (that’s huge for an 8 year-old) trail runs, pool swim classes and visits from the ice cream man. Where were they when I was a kid? 41 kids under 14 raced on part of the grownups course which proved a great warm up for us volunteers and staff.

Sunday brought out the big boys and girls. We started with a two loop swim and a long run on the beach won by Jim Hadley of Fallsington, PA in 16:50. The bike was a tough but fun 20K with some great fast downhill single track. As always you had to pay to play with some long steady climbing. There were a couple of rock gardens on the bike with one requiring a mandatory dismount. Even the locals couldn’t find a rideable line through there. The rocks just kept coming as you moved onto the 5K run.

As soon as you left transition you climbed to the top of a rock spine then descended to The Rock, a 5’ high wedge that you have to jump off right in front of the entire crowd. This is the signature spot for Sky High with banners, a photographer and the DJ calling out your name. That was the easy part, because as you reach the second mile the never ending rock garden started. In here, every single step was important. The uncharacteristic dry conditions proved to be a blessing for posting some fast finish times. Eric Bowker from Williston, VT finished first overall with a time of 1:42:25 with Paul Fronhofer only five seconds behind. Andrea Sauer was the first woman to finish with a time of 2:06:56 and sporting a new engagement ring she received at the finish line of Ironman Lake Placid two weeks before.

This was a great race weekend. Thanks to all the racers, volunteers, and park employees for coming out. Hope to see you there next year.

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