It’s a run, bike and a swim to the finish line at the Harvest Triathlon

Hundreds of people traveled to Wareham to push their bodies to the limit in a not-so lazy Sunday way.

The eighth annual Harvest Triathlon was held Sunday, June 8 at the A.D. Makepeace Headquarters by Max Performance, a Massachusetts based organization that puts on triathlons throughout New England.

“It’s going very smooth right now and the athletes seem to be having a great morning,” Max Performance Event Director Tim Richmond said.

The triathlon brought over 400 athletes together to run, swim and bike in one of two triathlons. The sprint race consisted of a third of a mile swim, an 11.5 mile bike and a 3.5 mile run. The olympic race was about double the length according to Richmond with a 0.9 mile swim, a 20 mile bike ride and a 10k run.

As athletes lined up on the shores waiting to jump in the water, brothers Grant and Matt Larson felt a mix of emotions heading into their first triathlon.

“It’s like a mixture of apprehension and excitement so we’ll see how it goes,” Grant Larson said.

The two brothers from Boxboro and Dedham respectively said they got convinced by their third brother to give triathlons a try and spent a lot of time on a specific training program to prepare for Sunday’s race.

“We started with building volume and making sure our bodies can handle larger and longer amounts of distance and then there was the build phase where we pushed ourselves at longer distances,” Grant Larson said. “It ended with a more restful phase before the race.”

Over the course of their training, Matt Larson said he saw the most improvement in running and wanted to know how his training would hold up come race time..

“It’ll be exciting to see what my performance on the run is so I’m eager to get to it,” he said.

Unlike the Larson brothers, many of the triathletes there have been competing for a number of years and the Harvest Triathlon marks the first race of the triathlon season for many racers.

Grace Pietsch of Westport has been competing in triathlons for the past 13 years and said preparation is important but going out there and enjoying the race is the key on race day.

“It’s important to focus on the fun and remember why we’re here,” Pietsch said.

Ethan Jina of Carlisle was the first contestant to finish the race and said the event gave him a good baseline knowledge of where he needs to improve to post better scores in the future.

“I need to continue to build my aerobic base in the run by getting those 3 miles and 5k runs in and then work on my speed ahead of nationals,” Jina said.

Wareham had some hometown representation in the event. Three residents completed the triathlon and their times are as follows.

Eric Holmes finished with a time of 1:13:00, Alex Mallard posted a time of 1:42:03 and David Reardon who only swam and biked posted a time of 54:37.