After my good friend Logan Beytagh moved back to Tybee Island, Ga this past year, I decided to look for a triathlon out his way. I knew that I had just completed the Boston Marathon, followed by my 1st half ironman, followed by a sprint triathlon followed by a 10k, followed by a International Distance Tri "Over the mountain", but with 2 weeks of no races, it seemed like something "FUN". Driving down for the trip, I tried to remember everything I could to bring for the race but most importantly I wanted to enjoy my time and visit to the beach.
Thinking about bad I have been running of late following everything, I put a tad more focus back into the run over the 2 weeks leading up to the Savannah Tri. In the process I also inked in with "Studio 7 Multi-sport" with Coach Lance Leo, in order to really give a shot at improving my multi-sport status. TrySports also spoke with me about being my main sponsor and offered full support of my attempt to give this Triathlon stuff a real try. Confidence was high knowing that in the near future I would have the backing of several credible sources in the community that believed in me. Lastly, I received a call from a highly respectable trend setting Chiropractor in Scott Greenapple about the possibility of joining forces with his office, so in the span of a couple weeks I really had a lot going on but moving forward in a positive manner.
Onto the race, the day before I went on an easy ride with G$ rocking out my Team USA one piece that is way too small, it was pretty cool hitting the roads with it on though. Afterwards I hit the beach with Logan's friends, drank some beer, played horseshoes and hit the ocean of course. Exactly what you should not do before a race! This was a fun trip, so no pressure and no worries about the outcome of the race tomorrow. Going into the race I had seen previous results where it seemed a local legend Jerry had claimed several victories over the years at this race and was obviously a phenomenal cyclist, so the comp would be good.
The morning of the race, I woke a little late after watching part of Avatar into the night and G$ was really pushing the issues to get things ready and to hit the road. Dave Cross was in town, so we followed him to the race site because he had a Garmin, all the while G$ was worried that we were loosing our way. Arriving just a bit later than we wanted, G$ high tailed it to the packet pick up and said I will see you at the start. "alright" I say and look back to Dave as we talk about random stuff and maybe getting in some kind of a warm-up. Looking around in the transition area, I notice a lot of REALLY nice bikes equipped with Zipps and disc wheels, at first I get a little worried but then I just think back to my college running days. These skinny guys would do stride outs before the race and everyone would get nervous because "that guy looks good, he is skinny" but I just didn't care what you looked like or what you had.
The swim was great for me being that it was only 500 yards! I had a good swim warm-up for a change and tried to keep my focus of really going hard from the beginning. Being up near the front was great for a change, I even got to draft behind someone for about 100m. After reaching the transition, I grabbed my bike, helmet, sunglasses and took off quick. After a mile I had passed about 3 people and some guy came ROLLING past me, So I did my best to go with him but I just couldn't match his effort. From mile 3 on, I watched 2 guys about 200m in front of me take turns trading pace efforts and it just made me livid.
After giving my best efforts to catch the 2 guys in front of me, we hit transition and I was 5th hitting T2. "TIME TO ROCK" is what I kept thinking, so I hit the road and knew I had to throw it on the line in order to catch a few guys, so as soon as I had my shoes on I was flying out of T2. After passing the finish area just before the mile, the announcer called me out, "#58 from Charrrloote, NC Chris-tapher Lamperski is eating up the competition and will most certainly catch 2nd place but does he have enough to catch Jerry?" in his european accent. This jacked me up even more and shortly after I passed the next couple guys and moved into 2nd overall. "Where in the hell is 1st place? Am I in 1st place?", is all I thought at that point. The guy who was in the lead was on the far side of the lake and I never saw him until I hit the 2 mile mark, so I pushed onward. I was getting updates from spectators once I hit the 2 mile I heard "he is 50 seconds up, go get him!". Once we hit a small turn around I came back through and the same guy said its only 22 seconds!
With 1st in sight and over 1/2 mile to go I knew I had it in the bag permitting that I didn't fall. G$(on his 1st loop) was just in front of Jerry who was in 1st, once I approached I told him to keep it rolling. It was great just knowing my legs finally came around after being dead for weeks and that i would be winning my 1st official triathlon. Nearing the finish, I slowed it down a bit in cruise control but I heard the announcer saying that I would be close to a course record, so I kicked it in to cross the tape. "I can't believe I just won, but you deserved it" is the 1st thing I thought of.
All in all it was a great day for me, I was 12th out of the water, I think I had the 6th fastest bike, I ran 15:40 for just over 3 miles on the run course according to my Garmin, won the race and set a new course record. Time to hit the ocean and celebrate!!!
Shout outs to Glenn Carroll for a 4th place finish in his age group and to David Cross for winning the Overall Duathlon Title.
Special Thanks to Justin Breland & Angi Klick of TrySports for your support, Scott Greenapple of "Greenapple Sports & Wellness" for helping me stay healthy and to all of my peers out there whom I get to run,swim, or ride with on any occasion.
