Alpha Wins, the very small triathlon company that ran this event (not yet devoured by Ironman), organized this day of multi-sport races in Kingston, NY: sprint triathlon, Olympic distance, aquathlon, duathlon and the race I’d chosen, “Long Course”, a 70.3 distance (what we’d otherwise call a Half Ironman).
I stayed in Saugerties, thirty minutes away, with the wonderful Tom and Penny Kjellberg. Saturday morning, got up at 3:40, eat and drive to the site, parking next to a serious competitor I later learned was Juan. Rack my bike and see that … my torpedo water bottle is dripping. Continuously. No problem: I have duct tape for securing my ankle chip (having lost a chip during the swim in another race), and a neighboring racer’s electrical tape. And it mostly works; I won’t die of thirst out there in the wild.
They announce that the lake water is 82 degrees — too warm for anyone to wear a wetsuit. I pull out my “skin suit” to go over my new tri suit — only to find that I had grabbed from my closet the old tri suit, instead. Oh, well. Warm up in the water for 10 minutes, getting my heart rate up (though you’d think this comedy of errors would have already done the trick).
THE RACE
Swim starts in the water, treading between the big yellow buoys, kinda relaxing, guys still chatting… Then GO. I shoot off on the first leg of the two loops that make up the 1.2-mile course, starting stronger than I’ve done before and feeling good up to the second buoy, when I start to feel the fatigue. I’m trying a new attitude: going hard and feeling tired doesn’t mean that I’m weak and will run out of gas. But I start the second loop with new doubts: “I’m almost the last guy on the course.” Start to flail a bit but calm down and back to smooth and strong, stretch more, feel the lats. At that long, last leg a guy passes me (dammit) but I am swimming my best, that’s all I can do. Coach Steve had predicted I’d finish in 41 minutes, so I’m pleased to finish in 39:35, a 1:52 pace. I assume I’m trailing behind the studs I had met the day before, and that I am fighting for 3rd place in my age group, at best.
Run barefoot over a bumpy dirt path and then, mercifully, grass. I sit down in T1 to put on socks and bike shoes, and suddenly Tom Andrews from Hastings starts to harangue me (“Why, it’s Mark Kaufman! Take your time, Mark. You want to get a donut?”); he and his son Sam are there, preparing to race the sprint. So I start the bike ride laughing.
Bike has a good start, but not for long. On this 56-mile ride, my goal is simply to have a consistently strong ride (rather than slowing down the second half). But the bursitis in my hips kicks — at 24 minutes, much earlier than normal. So, this ride is going to be painful. The hills are long and rolling, and I’m fighting to keep up the power between 180 and 200 watts, and wattage drops to 145 or 155 watts now and then, and my hips ache (too late to do what the PT therapist had suggested)…. And I realize I am carrying a lot of people with me, all of whom are nice enough in real life but who only give me negative advice in my head. ENOUGH. Have some discipline, focus on what’s ahead, push those thoughts away, push it away, push it away. The Ashokan Reservoir is beautiful, enjoy it, no rain, cool weather in the low 70s, what’s not to like?
The doubts resurface now and then, but I keep demanding discipline. (Push it away.) Bruce in my age group passes me, a younger Bib no. 4 passes me. (Let them go; I’m the only one riding this bike.) The goal is just to get there in one piece, pushing hard and will this wipe me out for the run? The 5-mile intervals aren’t close to the 19-20 mph I want. And I need to pee. Oh, well. Legs will cramp up if I stop for a bathroom break and I don’t want to squander whatever ranking I might have. And at almost the end, a glorious downhill, I tuck in and fly, aerodynamic (later learning that I reached over 45 mph). Catch up to a guy in a white shirt who says “I think this route is 2 or 3 miles short ,” and I’m delighted because there’s no other way I’d make the goal time Coach Steve had set for me. Guy in white zooms off, dropping me. Oh well, he has his own race to do. I GET there! And my results are better than I expected (helped by being only 54 miles): 3:01:24. (Coach Steve had predicted 3:01 hours; with accuracy like that, I’ll invest in wherever he crunches metrics!).
T2 is uneventful and quick: swap helmet for visor cap and put away the sunglasses, and change into my Fast Shoes.
Off we go, onto the Rail Trail and through the woods.. This is my strong suit. The 13.1-mile run is two loops of an out and back, which is kind of comforting: just take it 3ish miles at a time, “I’m halfway to halfway…”. Steve had predicted I’d do 8:30 minute/mile, based on my last 70.3. I start too fast – 8:12, 8:20 (yes, I know, I always do that. Shut up, Zander), then allow myself to look at the watch only once per mile and when the watch dings at the end of the mile. I’m working hard, that’s all I’m sure of. It’s a struggle to get up that loose gravel hill before the second turnaround, and that’s a lousy mile result — 8:50, 9:05 — and I’m stabbed with doubts again for a moment, then focus on the trees, the sunlight, and there’s Ziv, running the Olympic race! (I’m working too hard even to say “I thought you were injured and skipping this race!”) And Vadim from Irvington, shouting encouragement and taking my picture!
I’m struggling through every mile, one at a time, and I really need to pee; nature is not just calling, nature is shouting. But I realize on the second loop: everyone I pass is one person closer to my at least making 50% overall. And I pass Bruce in his colorful tri set. And I pass the young no. 4. And there’s Juan. And there’s the heavyset woman, smiling as she runs. And I even pass the Guy in White Shirt. So I count and I figure I’ve passed or am ahead of 24 people, one more and I’ll be in that top 50%… There’s that steep gravel hill but now it’s the LAST time and it’s downhill and around the corner and the Finish Line is closer than I thought and I’m DONE.
The net result: 5:37:24, over 30 minutes faster than Oceanside 70.3 in April. My doubts were unfounded: for the Swim, 41:14 (because official results included the run to T1), which is 1st of 5 for age group and 16/50 Over All (!). T1 in 1:39 – 1st for AG, 16/50 OA. The Ride officially is 3:03 (because it included walk/running over the dirt road in bicycle shoes until we reached T2…) – 17.7 mph average over the actual 54-mile course (not great) and dropped to 3 out of 5 for AG, 15/60 OA. (So, Bruce and Juan were ahead of me). T2 in 1:44 — 1st for AG, 6/50 OA. (At first, I think, “Who cares, it’s just transition…”)
And the Run, ah, the Run: 1:49:21, which means 8:20 min/mile (a lot faster than Steve’s 8:30 prediction) — 1st for AG and 8/50 OA (picking up two slots from the ride) … but even though 8th place in the run, 7/50 overall (picking up a slot from doing better transitions than the next guy)!
I really hadn’t intended to do this for the glory of the podium. But this was the best OA result I’ve had and the fastest 70.3 since 2017 (helped, no doubt, by a ride that was 2.5 miles shorter — but I’m also 7 years older now). I dug in hard aand though I had fun, the focus was keeping up the athletic pressure while slaying those demons. They’ll be back, and I’ll try to keep swatting them down, because this is the kind of fitness I want to sustain.