Watson and Garry Tops at Montauk Lighthouse Sprint

A 26-year-old San Fransciscan, Matt Watson, won Sunday’s Montauk Lighthouse sprint triathlon in 1 hour, 4 minutes, and 22 seconds. 

Tom Eickelberg, a six-time winner of this event, which comprises a half-mile swim, a 14-mile bike leg, and a 5K trail run, was absent. Watson said he was looking forward to going up against him, but as it was Watson, who grew up in Fairfield, Conn., was unchallenged, exiting the water in 10:36 and extending his lead with a 32:50 bike and a 19:45 run.

Kira Garry, a part-time Montauker and Yale graduate who recently finished graduate work at the University of Michigan, was the women’s winner (and eighth over all), in 1:13:06 — a feat all the more notable for the fact that a year and a half ago she had suffered two pelvic fractures, a sacral fracture, and a broken collarbone in an auto accident in Michigan, her mother, Louisa, said.

Kira was one of three family members in the triathlon, which EventPower has overseen for the past 22 years. Her 58-year-old father, Bill, who was 19th, overtook his eldest daughter on the bike, though she, whose 18:25 appeared to be the fastest 5K of the day, overtook him on the run. No surprise there, for Kira ran cross-country and track in all four of her years at Yale.

Kira’s younger sister, Katrina, who is a Yale senior, placed 37th, in 1:21:18. Neither of the Garrys are lifeguards this year, though the town’s women’s team, coached by Paige Duca and Lucy Kohlhoff, is nevertheless expected to be strong.

Duca and Kohlhoff competed Sunday, with the former finishing 33rd, in 1:20:37, and with the latter finishing 88th, in 1:28:30.

Two guys in their 50s, Adrian MacKay and David Powers, of East Hampton, were in the top five — MacKay, the runner-up, in 1:06:39, and Powers, who is coming back from a hand injury, in 1:12:07.

Last year’s women’s winner, Betsy Eickelberg, was the runner-up to Garry (and 28th over all) in 1:20:14. Her brother’s splits last year were 11:08, 32:33, and 18:41. By contrast Watson’s were 10:36, as aforesaid, 32:50, and 19:45. Last year, by the way, marked the first time that a brother and sister had topped this triathlon.

Mike Petrzela, 42, who “won” the Fighting Chance two-mile swim in Sag Harbor the week before, placed sixth on Sunday, nine seconds behind Powers, who is 50. “I tried to chase David down in the run — I’m getting closer and closer,” Petrzela said.

Powers and Petrzela, as well as a number of others among Sunday’s 263 finishers, said they intend to do the Montauk Playhouse distance swims in Montauk this Saturday. 

“It’s my favorite swim,” said Petrzela. “You go along the cliffs, it’s an incredible view.” Powers and Petrzela came in together at the Ditch Plain finish line last year. Petrzela breathes, he said, to the left, Powers to the right, so they were able to keep tabs on each other as they powered through the waves.

Speaking of distance swimming, Spencer Schneider, a member of the East Hampton Village Ocean Rescue Squad, said he intends to swim from Montauk Point to Block Island at the beginning of September, with Dennis Loebs, in “a lobster boat,” with Sinead FitzGibbon, in an ocean scull, and perhaps also with Dan Farnham, his “navigator,” in his entourage.

As far as he knew, said Schneider, no one had ever swum this particular crossing before. “It’s 14 miles in the ocean as the crow flies,” he said, “though because of the arc I’ll have to swim at the start, to take advantage of the tides, it will probably be more like 18.”

Craig Brierley, who was 34th in 1:20:37, and who trains East Hampton’s 40-strong junior lifeguard competition team, said, when asked, that last Thursday’s I-Tri Youth Triathlon at Long Beach in Noyac had to be postponed because of a severe storm that brought lightning with it. “It began to rain at 5:15, we put the start off until 6, but it was still stormy then, so we had to call it off.”

He did not know, he said, when the youth triathlon would be held. “They were thinking of doing it this Thursday, but that’s the day of the Main Beach invitational lifeguard tournament.”

Besides the above-mentioned, other locals seen in Sunday’s crowd gathered on the lighthouse bluff were Thomas Brierley (13th, in 1:15:20), Mike Bahel (14th, in 1:15:24), John Broich (16th, in 1:15:41), Evan Drutman (17th, in 1:16:20), Sophia Swanson (75th, in 1:27:26), Brian Monahan (112th, in 1:32:52), Andrew Foglia (128th, in 1:34:40), Walter Cook (134th, in 1:34:56), Isabella Tarbet (144th, in 1:36:09), Isabella Swanson (190th, in 1:44:54), Mike Vasti (205th, in 1:48:09), and Fran McConnell (258th, in 2:15:35).

Bahel, who topped the men’s 50-54-year-old group, and who, along with Kevin Barry, Cook, Monahan, Broich, and Doug Milano, is to do the Lake Placid Ironman this weekend, said, with a smile, “I’m turning 51 next week and I don’t want to be in the bleachers with a cane when my 2-year-old son is playing sports at the high school.” Bahel has three other children as well, whose ages are 4, 16, and 19. It will be the third Ironman at Lake Placid for Bahel, who last did it in 2009. Broich, who lives in Sag Harbor, said he had done Lake Placid “a bunch of times.”

Drutman, who crossed the finish line with his 3-year-old daughter, Natalie, and with his yellow Lab, Glory, said, “The conditions were wonderful today. My wife [Adriana] said I might have finished higher this year, but that may have been because there were fewer in the elite wave. Kira and I were very much neck and neck on the run. Everybody was saying, ‘Go, Kira!’ A guy in a parked car called out to me, ‘Lose!’ ”

Schneider said he was very excited about his planned swim to Block Island. “I guess I gotta do it now!” he said.