Ashland Lions Triathlon Winds Through Hopkinton

The Ashland Lions Triathlon has gone on for so many years nobody was exactly sure Sunday how many years it has been.

"It's up in the teens somewhere," Lions volunteer Roland Houle said as he yelled encouragement to Hayden Rowe Street bicyclists coming up to Hopkinton Town Common, where Officer Phil Powers halted traffic while they rounded onto East Main Street.

The fundraiser for Lions' charities, especially eye research, and its programs for seniors and the schools, drew a huge crowd, rain and cold or no.

Doug Kennedy, a professor at Virginia Weslyan University, was in Middletown, CT for a Boy Scout conference and came up for the day to race in the swimming, biking and running event.

What's Virginia Beach like? he asked rhetorically. Wrapped in cold-weather gear, the wind whistling by, the temperature struggling to reach the high 50s after yesterday's finish he laughed. He nodded toward winding, hilly Chestnut Street in Ashland. 

"It's flat!" he said emphatically. "And hot!"

But Kennedy continued with words of praise for his New England hosts.

"It was a ball!" he said. "The hills ate me up but everyone has been so nice - the people, the police, the volunteers."

Tracy McCurdy of Wellesley couldn't wait to get out of the cold after the finish and after a quick bite and some water, headed with her gear for her warm car and home.

Pals Norman Kim of Westford and Mike Marks of Sudbury chatted while they recuperated, really not looking too much the worse for wear after swimming in the Ashland Reservoir, biking Ashland's Olive-Street-to-Hopkinton loop (twice), and running from Ashland's Warren Center up and down Hopkinton's Clinton Street from 8 to 11 on a fairly miserable spring morning.

"This event has a history of being rainy and muddy," Marks said. 

While Kim competes in a few different races every year, Marks laughed and said, "I compete in this one. That's it for me."