Robbins, Buchholz-Quigley race to victory in new Triathlon sprint course

HARVEYS LAKE — When looking to establish a new way to race at the Back Mountain Triathlon, it helps when two of the area’s best and most well-known competitors are the ones who win it.

This year’s Back Mountain Triathlon saw the introduction of a new sprint-distance race, and triathlon veterans Sean Robbins and Kristin Buchholz-Quigley were the first to tame it.

Robbins clocked in with a time of 1:12:37 to take first place in the Men’s Sprint race, and Buchholz-Quigley came dashing home a short time later to win the Women’s Sprint race with a 1:18:04 first-place time.

The new sprint race proved to be a huge hit with both new triathletes looking to try out a shorter course, and with veterans of the sport looking for a new challenge, or a way to lighten the load on their bodies.

Such was the case with Robbins, a multi-time winner of the Wilkes-Barre Triathlon and a fourth-place finisher (first in his age group) in the inaugural Back Mountain Triathlon a year ago.

“I had my hip replaced on Oct. 28 and I’m still working my way back,” Robbins said. “I have not run 10K off the bike, this wasn’t the place to do it, so I tried the sprint.”

Robbins took on two other sprint races earlier in the season to get acclimated to the course once it was announced that the Back Mountain Triathlon would feature a sprint course.

Simply put, the sprint course follows a similar path to the Olympic-distance course, but with each of the distances cut in half. The swim shrinks down to 750 meters, the bike down to 12.5 miles and the run to 3.1 miles.

It proved to be no issue for the 54-year-old Robbins, who finished about eight minutes clear of second-place men’s finisher Gordon Kopa.

In fact, Robbins proved to be even a bit too fast for the course itself.

The archway that marks both the start line at the swim and the finish line at the end of the run had only just arrived from the beach to Lake Noxen Elementary School by the time Robbins made his turn for the finish.

In one final flourish, Robbins hurdled over the deflated archway to finish the race, an exclamation point on a dominant performance.

“It was a good race, everything went well,” he said.

A few minutes after Robbins crossed the line, it was Buchholz-Quigley’s turn to finish up her first place performance.

Buchholz-Quigley’s time of 1:18.04 got her to the line comfortably ahead of second-place finisher Sarah Hale, who clocked in at 1:25.27.

The first-place time was the second-fastest pace on the sprint course overall, among both men and women.

“It was so much fun, I had a killer bike and I came out of the swim with my husband, which was awesome,” Buchholz-Quigley said. “When I hit the run and did the turn-around, all of the girls were cheering for me and it gave me so much energy.”

Like her training partner Robbins, Buchholz-Quigley did the Olympic distance triathlon last year, finishing in fifth place.

This year, she said the addition of the sprint race made it easier for her to be able to compete.

“(The course) was perfect, I love riding here in the Back Mountain,” Buchholz-Quigley said. “It was exactly what I thought it would be, and I loved every second of it.”