Strong finish to triathlon season for Bradley

Contributed Photo – Scott Bradley makes the turn to enter the finishing chute at the Cozumel triathlon on his way to breaking the 9 hour mark.

Lyndonville native Scott Bradley recently had a strong finish to his busy year of triathlon competition including earning the initial first place finish of his pro career.

Bradley earned his milestone first victory at the Finger Lakes Triathlon in September which was an Olympic distance triathlon (0.9 mile swim, 25 mile bike ride and 6.2 mile run) with no professional category.

Bradley came out of the water in fourth place in a time of 27:38 but quickly moved into first place overall by posting a personal best and course record time of 55:47 in the bike ride which is his strongest event.

He then capped off his victory by posting a time of 36:00 in the 6.2 mile run finishing the triathlon in a total time of 2:01:15 which was a new event record by 1 minute and 13 seconds.

Keeping the momentum, Bradley then earned a third place finish at the Niagara Falls Barrelman 70.3 (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike red and 13.1 mile run) with a total time of 4:05:59 which was the second best of his career.

Bradley came out of the water fourth out of five male Pros in the competition in 31:26.

The bike ride again proved to be his strength as he had the fastest time of the day by over two minutes (2:03.:13) which was a personal best in a 70.3 event and moved him into second place.

A run time of 1:28:13 then earned him a third place finish, which was his second podium in a 70.3 event and his second time finishing “in the money”.

Bradley next competed in the Ironman 70.3 at Miami placing 19th out of 36 Pros and out of 2,219 overall competitors.

Slow swim times were the rule as Bradley posted a time of 37:32 which placed him 33rd out of the 36 Pros.

However, he started climbing up the leaderboard by posting the 10th fast time in the bike ride of 2:04.57 to clim to 25th place.

His day was then highlighted by the posting of a personal best time of 1:21:31 in the run which moved him up to 19th place.

Bradley then completes his season by competing in the Ironman Cozumel, a full triathlon.(2.4 mlle swim, 112 mile bike ride and 26.2 mile run).

Competing in the event for the third time, he broke one hour in the swim for only the second time at this distance. His time o 58:16 placed him 33rd out of 34 male Pros.

A personal best time of 4:37:11 on the bike ride, which was the 11th fastest of the day, moved him up to 16th place overall.

With a goal of breaking 9 hours for the first time in a full triathlon, Bradley then needed a run of 3:18:51 to reach his goal. He ended up with 7 seconds to spare as he ran a 3:18:44 to finish with a personal best time of 8:59:52 which was good for 17th out of the 34 male Pros and 19th overall out of 1,390 competitors.

His dad Wes Bradley notes that “after starting his season in Panama in January with a crash on his bike, Scott’s season was progressing very slowly through Ironman Canada in Whistler, B.C. in July. Scott spoke with his coach at that point, asking for a change in his training program. These final four events of the season showed some significant gains in all three distance races.”

After taking this month off, Bradley will resume training in January for Ironman 70.3 in Puerto Rico in March and the Boston Marathon in April. He is still working on putting together the remainder of his 2017 schedule.

Bradley is the Assistant Principal at Byron-Bergen Jr.-Sr. High School.