Spoiler alert: this was a good one.
I had done the local Toughman on a different course in 2013, and had come in second place for my age group in 2014 (which was a huge thrill), but this was in Harriman State Park, near Bear Mountain. And this is much, much hillier: 4,500 feet of elevation for the 56-mile bike (even more than half the Ironman Lake Placid course I had raced at the end of July), and 1,000 feet of climbing on the 13.1-mile run. The 1.2-Mile swim is, thankfully, flat. So among 70.3 or “half Ironman” distance races, this is among the toughest I’ve done.
My goal is simple: to do a strong run, instead of walking a lot as I had in the last two long races (April’s Florida 70.3 and July’s IM Lake Placid).
Harriman is only a 40-minute drive from my house, but I still wake up at 3:15; eat and pack up my ton of food as prescribed by Dina Griffin, Goddess of Nutrition and Patience,The Nutrition Mechanic, LLC; drive to the race and arrived as transition opened. (I really need almost 1 ½ hours to get situated, mentally and physically- like, “how many rows from Swim In to my bike?” And: “where’s the nearest plastic outhouse?”). The dew is so heavy that after an hour, my bike is drenched, just sitting there, and I put on an extra shirt because of the chill.
Transition at 5 a.m.This Toughman is not as polished as other triathlons: volunteers don’t appear until shortly before transition closed to bodymark the athletes, and then only write bib numbers but not ages on us – so we will have no idea whether we were chasing someone in our age group. Also, no one ever announces the water temperature or that it’s wetsuit legal – but one guy near the bathrooms tells me it was 68 degrees the day before, during the kids race. (Well, THAT’s wetsuit legal!). Convinced that it was really cold, I don’t get in the lake to get warm up – for fear of freezing while waiting to start – so instead I run around in my wetsuit to get my heart rate up.
But when the race begins, the water’s fine!
I’m in the third wave, consisting of Men 55-59 (yes indeed!), 50-54, and… 30-34. What the heck? We go through the inflatable archway, standing ankle deep in the water… 30 second warning … 10 second warning… GO! I’ve seeded myself in the second row of a pretty sparse group, and I think I’m going straight for the first buoy and I’m pulling pretty strong but quickly get passed, which of course is demoralizing, but I remember what I learned at IM Lake Placid, where I had a great swim and a less than great race: the swim really doesn’t matter that much.
And I draft off someone for a little bit but I don’t want to be the obnoxious stranger brushing a competitor’s feet (which at first means they are too slow for the job – until they get too fast for me to catch up). And the water really is beautiful, kind of metallic tasting (ah, my iron supplement for the day), the sun hasn’t quite risen over the trees, and with the buoys on the left, well it makes sense to breathe entirely on my left side, and lo! that recurring pain in the right side of my neck disappears, and I’m sighting every 20-25 strokes, and pretty much on course, the open water is lovely but that means I’m either way ahead or way behind the rest of my wave. But this is MY race, my super-swimmer friends can scoff if they want, I’m feeling smooth and measured and the goal of this race is simple: to have a strong run. Turn at the first yellow buoy, a few yards to the next buoy and turn again – and I pass a guy doing backstroke (what the heck?!) and realize there are almost NO kayakers out here, God forbid anyone should really get in trouble (again, this is a less than polished race…), and breathing to the left is especially good now because we’ve turned around so the rising sun is now on our right side and it is blinding bright, and there’s the inflatable archway and the shallow water, I swim as far as I can until I have to trudge in the last 15 yards (ugh! My legs…) and I’m out of the water and have survived another swim!
Swim results: 38:29, =1:44 min/100 yds.; 4/7 age group (at the time, I had no idea the group was so small…), 56/146 overall (ugh; and wow, I thought there were 400 participants…)
As I leave the beach, some guy tells me they have strippers – meaning, volunteers to strip off your wetsuit (nothing x-rated) – but I learned from Lake Placid, I’m faster taking it off myself, thank you. Jog into T1, lots of roots (taped in orange) to avoid in my bare feet , I’m on the second rack, two bikes missing (so at least two guys in my age group are already ahead of me), sit down to put on socks and swap goggles for glasses and my Darth Vader helmet, and an extra 10 seconds to wipe the dew off the visor/shield with the “special cloth” that came with the snake oil “anti-fogging” stuff I bought at the Lake Placid expo. T1 in 3:40 (a horrendous 81/146 OA).
On the bike, a long jog in click-clacking bike shoes from transition timing mat to the line where I’m allowed to mount, off we go, and at least it starts downhill, I start counting how many I pass (up to 6 or 7) and subtract when I’m passed (by the end of the ride, I’m down to net 1 or 2). It IS hilly, but rather than lots of relatively short steep hills as in IMLP, these are more gradual and very long – sometimes for 2 to 4 Miles.
Coach Debi Bernardes, Queen of Cruelty and Patience, www.ucandoitcoach.com, had strict directives: Zone 2 on the bike (heart rate at 131 to 141 bpm), with special dispensation, if my heart rate was in Zone 1, to look to power — 90% of FTP (around 200 watts). Again, stronger cyclists may scoff, but my goal is a strong run and, well, a 3-hour split. That would be nice.
The ride IS beautiful, but it takes an effort to enjoy the view because I’m focused on the road (really cracked up in places) and my keeping up the work. I use my watch only to keep track of when it’s time for nutrition — but before I can have first solid food at 15 minutes, I drop the entire Base bar package! Fortunately I have a wee bit of backup fuel, so I eat that and hope I don’t get a flat or bonk.
I start taking mental notes for this blog, and then think, “F— me! Stay present!”, and then think, “Whoa! Keep away from negative thoughts!” And I think, I don’t see guys my age, maybe I’ll make the podium, and then think, “F— me! Stay present!”, and then, “Whoa! Keep away from negative thoughts!” And I fantasize, “I’m going to be light and fast on the run” [an easy fantasy during the first bike loop]; but again, the punishment, the Zen, and the forgiveness. Is this what it’s like to have multiple personalities?
What goes up…
By 0:55 or so, I’ve drained my torpedo “sippy cup”, pour in a few squeezes from the spare bottle, and 10 minutes later grab a bottle from one of the eager young men as I ride by. In my other bottle is a UCAN “superstarch” drink, the bold new experiment of Dina’s Nutrition Plan to see if I can avoid the meltdown I had at Lake Placid. That, and Saltstick tablets every hour during the race (sometimes with caffeine, which fill me with optimism!). And it seems to work: even if I’m a little hungry for a moment, if I stick to Dina’s plan and I’ll be alright.
On the second loop, my HR is only at the top of Zone 1 and my power is only around 200, but with 15 miles to go my legs aren’t turning over so well, and my glutes have been on fire for a while, and my lower back is aching (Debi had said to get the bike re-fitted, but who has the time?).
Here’s the revelation, somewhere around Mile 40: I embrace the discomfort. As Zander had said when we were running last week, discomfort simply is part of this work; if we couldn’t handle it, we wouldn’t race. And for me, right then, I ask: what’s stopping me from accepting, from even embracing, all of this? It’s that I’m afraid I can’t sustain it, afraid I’m going to bonk. But I’ve hired a professional nutritionist, and a professional coach, and I can depend on the plans we’ve made. So, the only thing blocking me is my anxiety, not anything real.
F—- the anxiety.
So I crank along as best I can, and around Mile 50, two guys come burning past me as if I’m standing still, and I wonder where do they find the reserve to put out that power, but I think, this is MY race, and it has three parts (and I’m not going to blow up on the bike and get shin splints on the run, like I did at Quassy 70.3 in 2015); and I think, the second rider is a BIG guy, he’s going to have a hard time running. And with a couple miles left, I see elite guys running towards me (because part of the run route overlaps the bike route) and they are at Mile 5 already, and burning up hill… Humbling. Extraordinary.
Get to transition. My Garmin says I rode in 3:03, the exact time of my first loop at IMLP, but official time is 3:07, = avg. 17.9 mph. There are a couple of bikes racked near me so I’m pretty sure I’m in 3rd place at best, but I have already planned out T2. My wife and sons will be impressed to learn that I haven’t peed for almost 4 hours (okay, when you’re male and hit your mid-50’s, then you can scoff), but that plastic outhouse which I had scouted when I arrived is right next to the row of bikes where I’m racked, so before I put on my race belt and water belt I use the outhouse. Yeah, T2 in 3:02 is pretty slow, but faster than stopping on the run.
Ah, the run.
At Florida 70.3, I had my best ride ever, but ran way too hard OTB (off the bike); my heart rate was soaring within a couple of miles and the end results were, well, sub-optimal. Coach Debi’s plan is simple: keep HR within Zone 2 (141 to 151 Bpm) through Mile 4, then ignore the watch and go by feel, pushing as much as seems right each mile. Ah, yes, Grasshopper. Stay present.
Started pretty stiff and creaky, but again, recalled last week’s brick with Zander (my friendly Nemesis): Me:“I’m not feeling the love…”. Z: “Oh, come on. You’ve got this.” And lo, that big man who burned past me on the bike? He had a slow T2, I guess, because we’re suddenly running together, and his name is Derrick from County Mayo (Ireland), and he’s only 40 (the shaved head was confusing…), and we finish the first downhill mile at a nice 8:39 pace, and he says, “I’ll see you…”
And he doesn’t pass me; rather, he stops trying to keep up with me.
Well, I keep going, slowing down when HR ticks over 151 for a moment (“Be still, my foolish heart!”), not quite understanding how this course loops around but recognizing those hills from the bike ride and I am patience incarnate. Control, control, control. My goal is a strong run.
By the end of Mile 4, I have settled in, and I figure: on the downhills I’m doing 8:00 to 8:30 min/mile, on the uphills I might do 9:30 to 10:00s, it could balance to 9:00 min/mile. Yeah, that adds up to sub-2:00 hours, sounds like a reasonable goal. But I won’t know it until the end, because I. Am. Ignoring. The Watch. (No peeking! It will only disappoint me or make me feel invincible, neither of which will help.)
By Mile 6, I realize that most of the course has no tree cover (despite the guy who said before the race began, “oh, we’re in the woods a lot, I don’t need sunscreen”) and that I am not yet halfway done. At Lake Placid, I had wanted to quit at Mile 4, so with this 70.3 race (half the distance, twice the fun!), I thought maybe I’ll want to quit at Mile 8… At Mile 8, I allow myself to think I’m closer to done, and I’m really embracing the suck: what am I afraid of? I’m sustaining… These hills go on and on and with people coming at me and sometimes passing me, I’m checking the bib numbers to try to confirm where I stand: 173, 174, 168, definitely my age group, is he on his first or second loop? Am I fighting for 4th or 5th place? Doesn’t matter. The goal is a strong run. My race.
I don’t stop for water (other than to grab a cup and pour it on my head or my back) because I’m wearing the hydration belt, and I gulp down the first two doses of UCAN but can’t handle the third, that’s okay, 3 or 4 Miles to go. At somewhere between Mile 9 and 10, two young women are dancing in place at the fork in the road. It’s not clear where I’m supposed to go, and I yell, “Which way?” To which one responds, “Oh, this way, to the left, and you never have to see us again!” So I guess I wasn’t the first person to be annoyed… By the end of passing and being passed, I’m at about net zero. But I am still running.
When we get back to the starting area, we still have 3-4 miles to go. Finally, enter some shade, but it’s also a dirt trail with lots of rocks, so for 1 ½ miles I’m running over rocks and going uphill. But that means the finish will be on a descent… And I am still running, I haven’t stopped to walk, I am ignoring the watch and finally get to the turnaround and go down, down, down past the lake and around the orange flags into the chute and to the FINISH LINE and doggamn but I have done it.
At last: The FinishBottom line: 5:50:26, with a 1:57:33 run — and that’s 8:58 min/mile, almost exactly my 9 minute goal; the fast descent and slow ascents really did balance out. Victory. My race. I did that.
I immediately go to the massage tent — like, I’m still panting, that’s how immediate — and am sooooo grateful to be still. I get a plate of food, which I can’t eat. Excellent beer is on tap (note to self, avoid beer on an empty stomach — not because of getting buzzed, which was more than fine, but because my stomach is so full of acids from the race, the beer shuts down digestion for 24 hours…).
I get on line to look at the results tacked up on a board and… I have won for my age group. Talk about icing on the cake. 1/7 AG, 49/146 OA.
The Podium, with Wayne Jones (2nd), Milan Tyler (3rd)AND I’m uninjured, recovering via a pre-scheduled sport massage the next day with the fantastic Conrad Scharf, http://www.trueactionpotential.com/. So… I think I’ll race the Westchester Olympic-distance triathlon next weekend. Just to round out the season. Why not?
