July 2017 – Mark Kaufman

NYC Triathlon – July 16, 2017

This was my third time doing this Olympic distance triathlon and I caught myself early from getting caught up in an unrealistic goal: the podium for my age group. I mean, this is a big race – over 3,100 – with professionals and elites from all over the country, and guys my age that are still standing and doing this stuff are pretty serious. But I shot for a more reachable goal: the top 10 for my age group. After all, I had been 15th or 16th in 2013 and 2016, and I was among the youngest in my division, now.

Being in the first wave (after the pros and elites) at 6:00 a.m., I was in bed on Saturday night by 8:45 and woke up at 2:45 a.m., surprisingly wired and ready (WTF, I know.). The generous Vadim Shteynberg picked me up at 3:30, flexing his numbered tattoos (I rushed back into the house to put on mine!),and we got to the City and found parking by 4:05; got to transition near 72nd Street (where we had all racked our bikes the day before – thank you Rachel for coming with me!); and had almost an hour to set up and, get through toilet lines before transition closed at 5:15.

Did I tell you, transition opened early in the morning?

(Announcement: “A professional has had a blow out. Does anyone have a spare front wheel?” Seriously?). Another 30-minute walk to the swim start; at Vadim’s suggestion and another racer’s confirmation, I left a pair of worn out running shoes near the exit from the swim (for the half mile run back to transition); and around 15 minutes to chat with my fellow almost-the-oldest guys.

With college roommate Dzu Do – his first triathlon since NYC in 2001!

No time to spare before being hustled onto the temporary barge sticking into the Hudson at 97th Street. We walk down the plank, line up in groups of 15, the horn blares and we jump!

The water is salty but warm (73 degrees) and I am surprised that my sleeveless wetsuit feels great (even though the full-length always seems faster) and I am shooting to swim as far to the right as I can, not only to avoid the disguising flotsam and jetsam we had seen by the riverbank while waiting to start, but also to get the stronger current. And I get into the best groove I’ve ever known: reaching and pulling strong, breathing to the left (my “bad” side) to watch the shore zoom by (God bless the current!), keeping my head together, this is MY race, no time or wasted energy to ponder whether I am “behind everyone”, I have no idea who started ahead of or behind me, anyway; suddenly tapping into rotating through my core as I’ve only sometimes felt through all these years of training, and I am actually passing people, and I’m at the dock, and I scramble up the ramp with strong volunteers grabbing me by the arms and pulling me to SHORE! Time: 15:26 for 1.5 km (0.9 miles); 9/137 for the AG. Even with the current, that’s my fastest and best placement ever – and I am told that the current only got faster as the day progressed.

Start running to transition, then remember that I stored my old shoes by the exit, but I’ve forgotten to count the fence posts and… I can’t find them! Screw it, I’ve run this 1/2 mile barefoot before, and I am not going to lose time looking for my time-saving sneakers.

Count the rows and racks to my bike, strip the wetsuit, switch goggles for glasses, slap on my helmet with magnetic, wraparound “windshield” (borrowed from Alan Golds, who couldn’t race this one) and bike shoes and GO! Bike Out is really close to where our age group was assigned, so this is a great T1 (5:41, including the run along the river, 7/137 for AG) and up that steep hill out of Riverside Park and onto the crappy road that is the 79th Street roundabout and up the ramp onto the West Side Drive and GO!

My heart rate is literally in Zone 4 (hitting 153 BPM) before I cool down and settle into high z2, flying as best I can after whoever finished the swim ahead of me (podium? Maybe?), and then I’m passed by four guys who vanish out of sight (damn, dropped again, i’m fighting for 6th place at best). And until I turn around at the almost midpoint, I am alone- no novices on mountain bikes, dangerously cluttering the fast-as-I-can descents, but no one in target distance to keep me at maximum effort, and Alan had warned me about this- keep an eye on the Garmin to keep my RPM up to 90 (but when I shift to a gear that’s “comfortable”, those guys had pulled even farther ahead…) but a few times my heart rate dips to zone 1 which means I’m not. Working. Hard. Enough.

And by the time I reach the first turnaround, some of the more powerful 40-somethings pass me, one of them coming dangerously between two of us (me yelling, “Hey, pass on the left side!”),

and I pass one of the elite woman, and I’m passed by a guy with 62 (years) on his calf (“60-freakin 2! Look at you!”). And I’m doing the best I can not to be passed by Vadim (as he did at Quassy) and I get to the second turnaround at 60th street, and I feel like I’m in the middle of the pack. Oh, well, best I can do today. Time: 1:16:01, which is 19.62 mph average. 17/136 for AG. (Yep, biking is where I need to improve the most.)

Bike In is, again, near my rack, I swap shoes, swap storm trooper helmet for my lucky Ironman baseball cap, run out and as I ascend the hill realize I have once again left my watch on the bike. But T2 in 1:44 (gaining from 17th place to 10th place!)

I don’t know if I am taking the 1st mile too hard (I want that top 10!) so I slow down as I leave the park and feel strong as I plow down 72nd Street towards Central Park,

but starting at Mike 2 I am feeling pretty grim, grabbing water at the rest stop, and by mile 3, I am just hanging on to survive, and the only good news is that the hilly loop around Central Park feels “easier” clockwise, at least we can descend that One Big Hill. But it feels like this slogging is all I’ve got, walking a couple of water stations, struggling to give a damn, whoever has the juice to pass me, God bless ’em, and sure enough as we approach the Finish Line, a 63-year old – whose age group started after me – passes.

Humility and inspiration at the same time!

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Not sure whether the Garmin would have helped – maybe I would have felt better to see that I was doing 7:27 min/mile the first half, and been inspired to go faster than 7:32 in the second half.

But even if the run was rough, I finish in 46:45 – and my overall time is 2:25:43! And best of all, I met my goal of the top 10: 8/136 for AG (well within the top 10% needed to qualify for the Nationals), 303/2192 men, 356/3132 OA. 8th place. Damn, that’s satisfying.

With more Rivertowners: John McDermott and Kevin Carlsten

So, compared to last year, that’s 4 minutes slower, and 6 blocks (0.3 miles) shorter on the bike course (they announced at orientation that the turnaround at 60th instead of 57th now makes he course the correct distance), but run is 1 mile longer than last year (when they cut short the run to 5 miles because of the heat). So I figure a PR of around 2:30 minutes (effectively, 2:18:30 on last year’s course).
So, on the one hand, I want to ratchet up my bike speed to at least 21 mph. I did 22 in Milwaukee, but that was really flat. On the other hand, I jumped from 17th place on the bike to 8th place on the run – so maybe a measured, controlled bike leg IS the route for me…

Now, that it’s over, and that grueling run has ended: “that was fun.” And I’m ready to get to work – I have Poconos 70.3 (half Ironman distance) in 4 weeks!

Stissing Sprint Triathlon – July 2, 2017

This was a good one. I hadn’t done this race since 2013, and it was a good way to get together with my racing buddy Scott Schiffer who lives nearby – or least nearer than I do. We had dinner at a diner in Fishkill, New York; watched some of the replay from the Tour de France time trial; and I was in bed by 9 o’clock. Got up at 4:30, because no matter how well prepared I am I can’t get out in less than an hour. Drove 15 minutes to Pine Plains, New York and checked in for a very small, very local race.

Only 70 people had signed up, and only 66 showed up, because it was the Sunday of a four-day July 4th weekend, and how many idiots would spend part of a mini-vacation doing a sprint triathlon? Around 66.

Had a new realization on the way to the race. I was scared. (That’s not new; bizarrely, after all of these triathlons, I’m always scared to start the race.) So, next I asked and answered, what’s scaring me? I was afraid of failing. I suppose a lot of us feel that way; maybe it’s heightened before a challenge (and sprint or Ironman, every race is a challenge; as French ultra-marathoner Emanuelle Jaeger said, “the shorter races – they are more violent!”). But the new part was realizing: what would failure look like? I mean, having survived a few bad races, I don’t think I’d recognize “failure” if it bit me on the butt! It’s ridiculous. I race and finish triathlons. Would failure mean: coming in less than 1st place for my age group (as I had done in this race last time?). REALLY? And coming in after Scott, an excellent athlete who trains virtually every day? REALLY? Or not doing better than the 1:30 I had done last time? How the hell does that equate to failure? Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous!

So I realized this was a morning filled with opportunity, with possibility, simply to do the best I could. And really, every race is like that. (REALLY, every morning is as well.)

I arrive at 6:30 to start at 8 a.m. Call me crazy, but the extra time makes me calmer. I set up in the semi-assigned transition area. Meet some nice guys, one of whom lends me a race belt (as I later find mine in the car). Go down to warm up in the l’il Stissing Lake (so small that motorboats aren’t allowed). The water is really warm, and I’m tempted to wear my speed suit instead of sleeveless wetsuit, but I am not a capital S Swimmer and need all the help I can get. Some back stroke, some fast work, some standing around on the beach with a nice bunch on a beautiful day. (74 degrees, whatever % humidity.).

Total of two waves – based on date of registration, not age or gender! – and so informal, we start with a “Go!”

Well-placed, multiple buoys, I’m knocked by a big fella who passes me, nudges me off course, slows down- someone to get around! Round the first buoy, it’s only .5 miles in total, I’m going strong but focusing on smooth, breathing every stroke on the left side which feels better for a change, it’s a long, second side of a 4-sided figure, the sun is bright, the water clean, round the last buoy, haul in as fast as I can, run through the lake weeds (ugh) onto the beach, and DONE. 14:34, some 30 seconds slower than in 2013. Oh, well. But not bad!

Get to the bike, Scott is leaving as I arrive (“I’ll get you, Red Baron!” No, I didn’t say that out loud), decent transition, out into the asphalt, stumble a little with getting clipped in, and I have a LOT of catching up to do.

Fabulous Bruce Cadenhead in his USAT suit passes me (having started the swim 3 to 5 minutes after I started), another guy passes me, and I am just pouring it on as fast as I can to catch SOMEBODY, for a moment someone off the bike and fixing his chain is within target distance, but he’s gone as well. I mean, after all my training in heart rate Zone 1, I am in Zone 3, and why not, it’s a sprint, time for everything I’ve got. I’m cooking along, taking in some nutrition, and at about 40 minutes, I think, shouldn’t this be curving more to the right to be near the starting line? Maybe an optical illusion. And: not a soul in sight, shouldn’t I have a least SEEN some of the 6 or 7 guys who finished swimming ahead of me? And: it finally dawns on me, this is supposed to be a 2-hill course, but I’m on hill number 5 or 6…. I must have missed a turn.

I slow down, some of the fire gone since I can’t possibly make the podium now, but still in Zone 2. I wave down a van, asking the driver if she’s seen any other bikes, and she says “yeah, they’re going down Route 82. Hauling ass!” And it’s a good thing I talked with her, because Route 82 took a sharp right shortly after that, and I went with it, and suddenly I’m on top of a policeman directing traffic to allow other cyclists turn right, ONTO the road I’ve been riding, and these guys are not the elite athletes I’ve been chasing, these guys are slugging along on bikes with great big saddles, and I ask someone in a blue helmet, “what mile is this?” And he answers, “15”. And I laugh out loud because I’m on mile 18 of a 16.5 mile course!

Perfect for confirming that basic lesson: I really am racing against myself. Bike, after 3.2 extra miles and a lot more hills, is 19.8 miles in 1:02 (19.2 mph, a lot slower than the 20.5 of 2013 – but also 1,220 feet of climbing….)

So I jump off into transition, and there’s a goofy tape which I guess is supposed to make us run around the entire transition area in order to “be fair”, and I’m doing the best I can. Keep it slow the first 200 meters, then pour it on, it’s mostly shady roads, I pass 6 people, one guy passes me (“How old are you?” “31!” “You may pass…”) and it’s painful and it’s hard to focus past the “why bother?” Because I’m not going to beat anyone who’s ridden 3 miles less, but I want at least to RUN faster than I did four years ago, and each mile of the 3.5 miles is a mini victory, I can’t sustain this 166, then 167, ultimately 170 beats a minute, rounding the athletic fields, slowing slightly with the thought that those orange cones require us to do some stupid loop, but no, I turn left, down the grass and across! the! Finish! Line!

OMG, that hurt, wait, I’ll give you my racing chip in a moment…

25:08 for a 3.5 mile course. Avg. 7:11 min/miles, and only 8 seconds slower than the last time I did this race, 4 years ago. I’ll TAKE it! Total time, 1:45:37.

And two great kickers: the Race Director overheard me talking with Scott (who took 1st place for our age group), and she asked, “did you miss that turn where the sign blew down?” Me: “I wouldn’t know!” RD: “Well, we didn’t have enough volunteers this year. I’m going to give you your money back.” And she brings me a check made out to cash!

Well, that’s extremely decent. But after cleaning up I realize that I won’t keep it, and I tell her, “listen, I still did a race, and USAT Rules say that I’m supposed to know the course, and it was a great day.” A moment later, a guy comes up to tell her that he rode 20 EXTRA MILES because of missing that turn (and, I bet, not taking that sharp right to stay on Route 82!). I have to hope she gave him the check I gave back to her…

And, I also tell the Race Director: I may be 54, but I’m 55 in triathlon years, and for once, I want to be older, because that means I came in THIRD PLACE for my age group! (And if I subtract some 10 minutes for the extra 3.2 miles – then, I would have finished in 1:35, which would be Second Place, by a good 5 minutes.). 3/10 AG, 24/66 OA.

And the season is still young!