PORT JERVIS—There were clear skies, sun, and not too much heat for the inaugural Tri-State Triathlon in Port Jervis on Sunday.
The turnout was good for the first year, said co-organizer Neal Wilkinson, with 42 people racing individually and three relay teams.
“We like the numbers right now, they’re good for an inaugural event,” he said a few days before the race when he estimated about 60 people would be racing. “They’re very manageable for a first year.”
The race started out with a 600 meter swim in the Delaware from West End Beach, then a 16K bike ride through town, going down route 97 till the end of Hawks Nest and returning to West End Beach where racers transitioned to a 5K run through the heart of Port Jervis.
“It’s short,” said Steven Cercy, 51, a Manhattan resident who has been doing triathlons since 2009 and had already done four this summer.
He heard about the race online while looking for triathlons, and was familiar with and liked the area around Port Jervis.
“For me it’s about the course and having a nice course,” he said “The swim was nice, the bike course was beautiful.”
It was the right length for Sam Rodriguez, 24, from Manhattan who was doing a triathlon for the first time just to see if he could.
“It was hard. I should have trained a lot more for the swim,” he said, adding he chose the race because it had the shortest swim distance of any triathlon he could find.
