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.
(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.
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!
`
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.
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!
