These reports get longer and longer, but I promise, a dramatic ending.
I’ve done this race every year since I started doing tris, a half hour away on the other side of Westchester County. This wasn’t my “A” race — it couldn’t be, realistically, as it was two weeks after doing the Toughman Half, from which I had to recover, then build up, then taper. 3 years ago, my goal had been merely to survive this race, my first Olympic; but now, despite the recovery/taper thing, I wanted to nail it. So, got there with plenty of time, and bumped into so many friends from my town and prior races – Teresa, Tom Andrews, John McDermott, Alan Golds, Drew Ahkao, Dave Bertan (guess that was after the race; he was the first to tell me, “sign up for a sprint, it’s just a sprint!”), BJ Wilson all the way from “upstate”, Vadim (on the beach before the swim); and Ken Fuirst (photos, photos, fresh from his cross-country bike trip) and Bob Gusick, both from HIGH SCHOOL – a real community event, like the kaleidoscope of a wedding where folks from different parts of your life are all together in a room.
And Drew and Ken are pumped up for me, and asking/telling me that with my season so far, I could podium, and I manage to answer, “my strategy? My strategy is not to think about the podium. I can’t race like that.” And no blame on them, it’s terrific to get their support, but I have to admit, I’m already fantasizing about the finish line rather than the present, and I have to get my head together. The swim beach has a big area to the left of the starting corral for warming up right up until wave 7 is finally called, and that’s great. The water is 71 degrees or so, just on the cusp of justifying use of my full sleeve wetsuit (or “weresuit”, a nice typo; grrrrrrr!) which is faster than my sleeveless.
and there I am, chatting up friends and strangers alike, and when the announcer says for each and every wave “you’ll swim to the right of the buoy” instead of “leave the buoy to your left”, it drives me nuts. (O! C! D!). All the old men (50-59) corral together and I boldly go to the third row right next to Alan (who took second for his age group last year) and HONNNK, we’re off!, running into the water.
And all I want to do is get through the first 5 minutes of intensity and get past the panic and then get my groove on and I actually swallow some salt water but manage to cough it out while I swim and sight and then immediately, shamelessly, start drafting. Follow the froth, touch the feet of whoever is ahead of me, he’s too slow, grab the froth of the next guy, I am scarcely sighting for the buoys and delighted as we pass the first one on our left, then out beyond the jetty and I am breathing to the right for every stroke, when I breathe to the left I somehow start to lose Mr. Froth. I really should pass this guy rather than touching his feet EVERY stroke (every other stroke might be a better measure) and draft off someone faster, but the ease of swimming is sooo clear when I momentarily lose my “host”, I’m frankly too scared to switch, until we’re heading back towards the beach (hooray!) and my lead is pulling off to the left (maybe to get rid of me) so I jump ship like a good rat and grab another guy’s froth and I am IN and on the beach!
My watch says 26 minutes, a 1′ PR for .9 miles, but the race mat is outside of transition and clocks me at 27′ – which is still a 2 minute PR for this course. So, when I’m out of T1 at 29:00, I am delighted. (It helps that THIS year, I went to the right row and could find my bicycle…). The racks looked pretty full, but it’s hard to know how many guys in my age group are already way ahead of me on the bike. The bike route winds through the town of Rye, and lots of traffic-area turns (“thank you, Officer!”), and I’m going pretty hard, some slight inclines building to mile 8 and so-called Claire’s Hill at mile 10, but it’s really not much compared to the terrain we ride on the West side of the County, what’s hard is the road itself, which is pretty good for the Connecticut portion but pretty horrendous on the New York side.
And damn! There’s a truck on the course! When they say not closed to traffic, they mean it! Big green monster, moseying along, and I’m doing 20+ on a flat area, and now I’m not yelling “on your left” to another cyclist but coming behind and then next to the open passenger window and yelling “i’m passing on your right side! Your right side!” passing a lot of people in earlier, younger waves (which, of course, is gratifying), getting passed by some guys here and there, and not seeing anyone 50-54, but out of nowhere comes this guy in navy, with “50” on his calf, and he’s passed me as if I’m standing still, and a few minutes later I realize that was Bruce Cadenhead (who lives just up the road from me in Dobbs Ferry, and once again made the US team at the Nationals this year whereas I had a more humble result in that race) and there’s only two slots left on the podium, baby, cuz Bruce is in the house.
And I hit a bump, and dammit, my left elbow pad bracket slips (I had specifically tightened it yesterday!) and I figure that if the bracket can slip down it can slip up as well so I tug on it and… The elbow pad bracket snaps off in my hands. Which I stuff into my back pocket; littering can cost you a penalty, right, Coach? It’s Mile 18. Seven more to go with compromised, sometimes painful aero position. And damn these bumpy, New York roads! At one point, big guy with 56 on his calf yells at a guy who’s loping uphill in the left lane and tells the slowpoke to get out of MY way. Thank you, Pedro! (i guess because we took the time to exchange names, we were both going too slow…)
Got through dismount with no problems (ugh, wait to the end of this report) and transition felt good and no stumble as I put on the racing flats and GO. The run goes out through Rye Playland’s boardwalk, there’s Ken cheering us on again!, and I’m doing 7:15s and in the bottom of heart rate zone 3 and I don’t know if I can keep it up and aren’t some of those guys running towards me after the first turnaround in my age group?, no other old guys near me but apparently quite a few ahead of me, Ken reminds me to pump my arms, and it’s only mile 1.
Chugging along, keeping my feet light and I’m standing tall, flat suburban streets, something like 5-7 water stops for 6 miles, grab and go for most of them but paused at mile 4 (where I was starting to feel that familiar “can we stop now, please?” And again wondering, “whom am I asking?”) to pull it together, I am pushing as hard as I can but slowing down to 7:38 and at the turnaround there are those familiar guys again, and it doesn’t matter that I’m passing collegiate athletes and guys in their 30s, the guys I want to pass are too far ahead to catch. I pull through, trying to break 7:30 min/miles, at least, and then burst through onto that last grassy 2/10th of a mile to the FINISH! LINE!
And i’ve done 45:12, or 7:18 min/mile avg, some 40 seconds faster than last year’s 45:55 (7:20).
Ultimately, I did 2:28:10, almost a 5-minute PR for this course (last year I called my 2:32:59 a “2:32”; this year it’s a “2:33″…) consisting of 2 minutes off the swim, the same bike time, almost a minute off the run – and 2 minutes off T1 (because I found my bike right away, this time…). for 8/77 AG, 46/768 OA.
I’d LIKE to sum up with how it’s taken me three days to get over my misdirected disappointment not to have ranked better in my AG, and instead to find the better bottom line: a 5-minute course PR is an achievement worthy of the endeavor, and the only thing I really can “control” or at least own and take some degree of satisfaction. I’d LIKE to finish that way, but I can’t because of the awful denouement:
After the race had finished, i’d had a massage, had some beer, saw high school friend Scott Shaefitz playing bass with band (wow!), turned on my phone to call my wife, I saw and responded to her text: “call me soon, something has happened.” Turns out, my parents actually DID show up to cheer me on, and saw me come out of the swim, missed me coming out of T1, but at the end of the bike, Dad had crossed the street so he could photograph me at the end of the bike and Mom stayed by the dismount area and A CYCLIST JUMPED THE CURB AND HIT MY MOTHER! Must have gotten his cleats stuck in the pedals, or attempted a flying dismount. And, she tells me (from the ER at the hospital!) this guy just grabbed his bike and continued with his race! Oh, my God, I am so frightened her pelvis or some other bone is shattered, she’s mumble, mumble years old and a broken bone could really change her life, and I say goodbye and shout the bad news to all the Hastings folks gathered post-race (so much for THAT photo opp) and drive too fast to the hospital and… She’s ok. We wait awhile with Dad to get CAT scan results, and she has a severe and painful bruise on her backside, but ultimately no broken bones and no head injury. She takes Advil instead of the prescription painkillers and is using a cane – but she proudly chalks up her doing so well to doing her daily exercises.
And it’s a shame she didn’t finish (DNF) the race, because she’d be the youngest in her age group, and had a real chance at the podium.