Timed my wake up and out of the house prep perfectly: 3:30 alarm, stretch my back and that damned right heel, “breakfast” and out the door by 4:30; arrive at 5 a.m, as transition area opens. Time to rack bike, walk from “Swim In” to my bike ( British woman left a Union Jack shirt hanging from the end of the rack before mine) and from “Bike In” to my running shoes. Chatted with my age groupers, and I am relaxed for a change, I’ve actually done almost all the training I planned, and I feel ready for my second “A” race of the year.
The swimmers wait for wave 2 (with two other, younger age groups!) and we line up on the beach on the Hudson in a bay formed by the Croton peninsula. With more confidence in my swimming this year, lined up in 2nd row at the end near the line of buoys stretching out towards a small sailboat (we had expected something more impressive, like a full schooner, perhaps). 30 second warning and then GO!
Starts very shallow, run a few yards in soft mud, and the mosh pit begins, but I am managing to get a groove early on and at cousin Rob’s suggestion I latch onto the draft of a guy who seems to be my pace, and I know it must be annoying, but I stay close to the froth from his kick and touch his feet practically every other stroke, and he speeds up a little, and I hang onto his pace for dear life because it IS easier, and I don’t know what he looks like but I know that the ball of his right foot has a rough callous. And everything is GREAT, i am humming along and achieving my first goal of the race (getting into my groove and not worrying that my arms are aching and actually enjoying the swim) and we’re at the first and virtually only turn in the course when i suddenly realize that…
My chip has fallen off. And this is the Hudson. And I am not going to find it.
So I stop and shout to a kayaker that I’ve lost my chip (bring duct tape next time!) and he says to tell someone when I get to shore (read: not his problem). Well, the guy I was drafting has turned the buoy and is gone, baby, gone, probably quite happy to be rid of me, and I am suddenly faced with a Big Realization: this really is My Race, and I will simply do the best I can, because without that tracking chip I may not get any credit for completing it! “I am racing, it makes me stronger.” So I dive on, see that even though we were supposed to leave the buoys to the left, NO ONE is going all the way over there, they’re just heading for the finish line in a rough corridor between two sets of buoys and eventually my straight line crosses over the line of buoys leaving them to my left and (as advertised) I suddenly have a CURRENT carrying me forward, and even though other people complain post-race that the current was against them, I feel with every stroke as if I’m borne up by a phalanx of dolphins nudging me along. And I get to shore! 39 minutes for 1.25 miles (others report it’s 1.45 miles), so i can’t compare it to last year’s 24 minutes for 0.9 miles. (Measuring this course seems to be a perennial problem…)
I get out and shout that I’ve lost my chip, I’ve lost my chip (so much for the placid, Zen approach to triathlons…) and a volunteer says, take this new chip!, they had planned for this problem, and I tell her my old number and she takes note of it and I cross over the transition mat and it gives a reassuring BEEP and I am back in the race! (I later realize they HAD to account for me, or they’d have to search for the body of no. 217 who never came out of the water…)
I am so wacked out by this turn of events that I forget to count the racks to my bike but, God bless the Queen, there’s the Union Jack shirt, and I see my black and red Cervelo and my blue inside-out Vortex wetsuit and start to change and realize, wait, I’m still wearing a wetsuit.
That’s not my bike.
So i run a few feet more, find my bike, swap goggles for glasses, strip the wetsuit (so easy with the sleeveless) put on socks and bike shoes (standing up, no more of this dizzy and sit down stuff) and where’s the chip! That strip of foam they gave me?!! OMG, they can scarcely give me a second one and then… duh, I dropped it by the other guy’s bike, and there it is, I am golden again. T1 in “only” 3:41.
The bike is on two lanes of route 9A’s rolling highway, closed to traffic, south then north for roughly 2 1/2 loops. On the one hand I am much more mentally prepared for how LONG 56 miles is, but I had forgotten how many hills there were, 3000 feet in elevation changes, but coach Debi and I have a plan, and I stick to it: z2 heart rate (keep it to 141 bpm and under) and if I stick to the pace I will survive the run. But there are a LOT of 50-54 year old guys passing me, 4 or 5 of ’em, and putting aside that Zen stuff, I want that podium. So Mr. Gray Helmet and I leapfrog 3-4 times, and he says, you look familiar as he passes, and I say, we’re keeping each other honest as I pass, and… That’s the last I see him. And no. 221 leapfrogs with me, and I get out of the saddle to stretch my hips and incidentally go faster (though I’m in conservative gears, shooting for 90 rpm and averaging 80) and no. 221 is dropped. And no. 197 Glenn (he’s wearing his running tag) leap frogs with me over longer sets of miles, maybe he’s pacing off me, well, this is MY race, I will not go faster than planned, and Mr. Green is coming in from a port a potty!, he must have KILLED the swim to have gotten such a lead on the bike, and I tell him so as he passes me. but he squandered it taking a leak, and even though he shoots WAY ahead i somehow eventually catch him.
It’s like this: by the time I turn at mile 40 (worrying that I should have taken that bottle swap earlier cuz I am running dry after my two bottles) I am sometimes in heart rate zone 1 and when I really tuck down in my aero helmet with my face next to the straw on my sippy cup I don’t feel the wind (that everyone complained about after the race) and I am a bullet and my legs are soooo strong and it hurts and I pass everyone, 197 Glenn and Mr. Green and who else is there ahead of me? and I slow down at the narrow winding bike path entrance back into the park (where I almost fell last year) and i am in transition, 2:52
(19.5 mph), WELL under last year’s 3:02, and I am the FIRST bike back on our rack!
OMG, I am in first place. There was no one else who stole a long swim lead. It was only those 4-5 guys. And I waste some energy yelping, “Whoooooo!”
Twice.
But I am not going to survive a half marathon by thinking about the podium, and Mr. Green is getting off his bike as I run out so HE’s on my tail, and his wife says “you’re almost done” and y’know I don’t think she understands and I don’t think he believes her and I never see him again. But I am racing, and it makes my stronger, and my feet are light, my neck is tall, my elbows are going and I am keeping that heart rate to zone 2 (141-151) for 4 miles, 7:40 for the first mile, slowing down to 8:10 then 8:40 at the slight ascent on miles 3-4 and then… I realize that my HR is good, going up miles 6-7 in the shade and some dirt and gravel is fine, and the high school cheerleaders are sweet and the focus is on MY race and I manage to smile or at least give a thumbs up for the big photo in front of Croton Dam. But frankly I don’t have the turnover, whether it’s uphill or flat or downhill I cannot get my legs to go faster the bike was too punishing on my quads. And at Mile 8 I ask whether I can stop now, please. And at mile 9-10 it’s another hill and around then comes 197 Glenn, and he is TALL and flows by easy and all I can do is hope Mr. Green doesn’t catch up because I. Can. Not. Go faster. Tom Andrews from our Hastings team says looking good just before Glenn calmly goes so far ahead that he either has a 5-10 minute lead or maybe, maybe, he stopped at the port a potty? And yes it’s downhill and I am just trying to stay in it without caving into the temptation to walk. To rest. And the last mile is soooooooooo lonnnnnnng and bright sun on the concrete road, too bright, everything hurts, the finish line seems impossibly far away and I get there and cross it and the run is 1:53:05 (2 minute PR for this race), an 8:38 per mile pace, and it’s 5:29:29 total.
And. I. Am. Finished.
And…. SECOND PLACE for my age group! In a race where last year, I just wanted to close the gap between 5th and 3rd place (20 minutes away!). 51/406 OA. Scratching the swim, a 12 minute PR. And with 2/21 AG (top 10%), I am qualified to go to the 70.3 Nationals.
And the best part: up until Mile 8, I actually enjoyed most of it. It’s the first Tri that i’ve actually stayed present and focussed and digging into MY race for all three legs. The podium is icing on the cake (even if Coach Debi wants us to avoid sugar!). I raced. It made my stronger. That’s all I wanted.
And I’ve never been faster.