Competitors weather Philadelphia triathlon

Local radio stations were already broadcasting excessive heat warnings when, like some human version of the windstorm that tore through there last week, 2,500 Philadelphia Insurance Triathlon competitors and 7,500 fans began to blow into Fairmount Park just past dawn on a steamy Sunday.

Soon, a leafy, riverside stretch of Martin Luther King Drive was bursting with type-A's in spandex, many of them there to complete, with widely varying degrees of competence, a 5-kilometer run, a 40K bike race, and a concluding 10K run in superheated air laden with both humidity and grief.

A pair of rail-thin New Zealand professionals - two-time Olympic medalist Bevan Docherty and Nicky Samuels - won the men's and women's Olympic-distance races, respectively, in their debuts at this sixth annual Philadelphia event. On this day, they would have welcomed the swimming that typically makes up one of the triathlon's three legs.

Tragically, the swimming portion had to be replaced with the 5K run after Derek Valentino, a competitor in Saturday's sprint-distance triathlon, went missing in the Schuylkill. Police boats dragged the river before and after Sunday's race - officially a duathlon - before finding the body of the 40-year-old Prospect Park man late in the afternoon.

The cancellation of swimming "was unfortunate, but it was definitely the call they had to make out of respect for the guy who was missing," said Docherty, his body and outfit soaked from both perspiration and the bottled water he had doused himself with at race's end.

Without the Schuylkill swim of just over a half mile, which would have come first in this taxing trifecta, the athletes got little relief from the sweltering heat, which neared 90 degrees when the first of the pros finished at about 8:45 a.m.

"It was really humid, really hard work," said Samuels. "The humidity really gets to me. I've been training in Boulder, Colo., the last six weeks. It's hot there, but it's a dry heat. Here, as soon as we stepped off the plane, we could feel the difference."

As the first wave of runners - the 90 professionals, for whom this race is now part of the Race to the Toyota Cup points standings - took off eastward on Martin Luther King Drive near Black Road, the hordes of later-starting amateurs readied themselves for what literally was their day in the sun.

Wearing baseball caps, sleeveless T-shirts, shorts and sneakers, they were among what officials estimate are 1.2 million U.S. triathletes, the bulk of them amateurs who are not afraid to torture themselves.

"It's the fastest-growing endurance sport out there right now," said Richard Adler, the CEO of the organizer, Philadelphia Triathlon LLC, "and there was nowhere of note for anybody to race locally.

"Six years ago, this was a one-day race for 1,000 people," he said. "Now it's a three-day race with 4,500 sprint and Olympic competitors. Because of that fact, we've grown in stature and become one of the top 10 races in the country."

Before the race, with a morning mist draping the Schuylkill and the huge orange sun rising in the sky, the triathletes stretched muscles against the imposing statue of Alexander von Humboldt, checked on their bicycles in the transition area, or jogged in nervous little circles.

The boom from amplifiers - noisy rock music and an equally noisy announcer - provided a constant accompaniment to their pre-race activity. The sound was so powerful that it occasionally shook leaves on the trees above the tents where triathlon equipment, hamburgers, chicken fingers, french fries and lemonade were being hawked.

By the time all 2,500 in Sunday's event were under way - witnessed by Mayor Nutter - Docherty and Samuels, for whom running is their strong point, already had the leads in the pro field.

Later, having finished the opening 5K, the drenched leaders sprinted into the crowded bike lot, where they scrambled madly to kick off their running shoes, unfetter their cycles, don helmets and biking shoes, and get going on the second leg.

Docherty was ahead of three-time Philadelphia champion and eventual runner-up David Thompson by about 30 seconds at that point. Because he competes more internationally, where drafting - banned in U.S. triathlons - is permissible, Docherty knew the bike course, which meandered up and down throughout the park, would be his toughest leg.

"A duathlon is certainly a lot harder than a triathlon. You get to lie down [and swim] for a little bit of the time," Docherty said.

"It was a tough day out there. I guess the fact that there was no swim did change the strategy a little, but it was still a hard race. And on this course, it came down to the biking." It was in that longer second leg when Thompson, a native of St. Paul, Minn., figured to make his move.

"I'm usually a stronger bike rider," said Thompson, the defending champion. "But Bevan did an awesome job holding me off there. [To win] I needed to be ahead in the transition coming into the run."

Docherty finished in 1 hour, 49 minutes, 11 seconds - 36 seconds ahead of Thompson. Third place went to Tyler Butterfield (1:51:32) of Boulder, who upon greeting the winner beyond the finish line remarked to him, "You make it look so easy." The New Zealander took the silver medal in the first Olympic triathlon at the 2004 Athens Games and the bronze four years later in Beijing. Now he's aiming for London in 2012.

"One benefit to not having a gold is that it's certainly keeping me motivated," said Docherty, 33.

The women's portion of the competition was a two-person battle between old rivals Samuels and Californian Jenna Shoemaker. Though pressed by the Harvard graduate throughout, Samuels, 27, triumphed by 15 seconds in 2:02:20. The third-place finisher, Nicole Kelleher of Charlottesville, Va., was well back, finishing in 2:07:12.

Afterward, the spiky-haired Thompson wiped his brow, gulped down some water, and looked out toward the tree-lined course, where the pace of the remaining amateurs had slowed to nearly a crawl.

"It's always been pretty hot and humid here," he said of the Philadelphia race. "I think you felt it a little bit more today because we didn't get to swim right away. So we were hot from start to finish. It was hard. But for some of these older age groups, it's probably going to be even harder."