RESTON TRIATHLON HISTORY

Back in the late 80s, we put together a band to play music after the triathlon and some swimming events. The songs are light-hearted take-offs on other songs that talks about Reston Triathlon fun stuff and hard parts (like the infamous steep Hunter Station Road that is no longer part of the course). The band was made up of Lou Poehlman, Bill Sickenberger and me. We all did Reston many times and Bill and I are still doing them. And we're all married with kids now. Times have changed.

Lou was great on the bike. In 1989 my tire went flat before the race began. I didn't have a spare, so Lou gave me his spare tube saying the chances of a flat during the race had to be near zero. It was on the 2nd loop of the bike that I saw Lou on the side of the road with a flat. I screamed "Nooo" and he just yelled "It's OK. Go faster!"

Joe Vicedomine was the winner of 1990, '91 and '92. In Joe's first year in '89, a volunteer near the end of the run was supposed to direct runners at a path intersection. He walked to the next intersection for a minute and Joe, instead of turning left to the high school, ran up a hill into a subdivision. He was in first place at the time. Anyway, instead of winning, almost 50 runners beat him to the finish line.

My fist time doing Reston was 1986. It was 2 years after I had knee surgery for a torn ACL and a lot of crumbling cartilage. They said I couldn't do contact sports or run again. At that time, I was only swimming anyway. But the Reston Masters (swim team) were always talking triathlon and they somehow got me out running. And before my first triathlon, I over trained and could hardly walk on that knee 2 weeks before the race. I still did a slow run for the race, but I was forever motivated after Neil Medoff passed me and said I had to be the slowest runner in Reston. Now I run all the time -- still not real fast, but you can't beat the Reston trails for scenery.