New York City Triathlon Race Report

7/20/08 New York City Triathlon. 1500 meter swim, 40 kilometer bike, 10 kilometer run.

Where to start with this race...Well on Friday morning I left Ann Arbor with Julie Parrish, my training partner, on a long road trip to NYC. We made pretty good time, despite getting slightly lost (thank goodness for iPhones!!!) and settled into our hotel. Saturday was busy with race preparation, we had the mandatory pre-race meeting, the expo, packet pickup etc. Then we had to take our bikes down to transition and rack them for the night. I got really lucky and happened to have the 2nd best rack position in the entire transition area which I was really excited about. We grabbed some food from a corner grocery store and ate on our way back to the hotel and then promptly went to bed once we arrived since we would be waking at 4:00AM the next morning.

Race day came too early for my liking. But we were up ate a quick breakfast of oatmeal, 1/2 of a Clif bar, a banana, and some Naked juice and then we were headed out of the hotel by 4:45AM. After a long wait for the shuttle bus we finally made it to transition by about 5:30AM which gave us about 15 minutes to get setup before the transition areas closed at 5:45AM. Thankfully I'm a transition minimalist so setup was a breeze and I was out by 5:45 with no problem.

I watched the Pros finish their swim and then walked up the Hudson to swim start. My wave wasn't until 7:03 so I waited around a bit and then put my wetsuit on about 15 minutes before the start. The first surprise of the day for me came the second that I jumped off the barge into the water: the Hudson is brackish. I'm not a fan of sea water so this was an unwelcome development. My second surprise of the day was equally bad, in what is billed as the fastest USAT 1500m swim in the country there was no current at all due to the incoming tide. This was very disappointing to me as I was hoping to finally have a quick swim. The next surprise was even worse, about 500m into the 1500m swim I received my first ever jellyfish sting...right to the face. Being allergic to wasp stings I was justifiably concerned about what might happen so I quickly swam over to one of the rescue kayaks and asked what I should do. I was told to just finish the swim. Well I decided that I would hang onto the kayak for a couple of minutes to make sure that I wasn't going to have an allergic reaction and drown. Once I started swimming again I got stung a few more times including once more to the face. Finally I made it to the end of the swim and made my way out of the water. 30:34 was NOT what I was hoping for. My face was still burning like hell from the jellyfish stings.

There was a bit of a run from the swim exit to T1 but I made the transition to the bike in a very respectable 3:53 which was the 7th fastest in my age group. Then I was out onto the West Side Highway for the bike. The course was a bit more rolling than I was expecting, most of it was hills though none of them were particularly bad, I would say that it was a moderately difficult course. I was feeling really strong and had passed quite a few people in my age group in the first half of the bike course. Then about 1/4 mile from the turn-around at the half-way point my rear tire went flat. I'm still not entirely sure what caused it but I was not happy at all. My wheel cover had slid a bit so I ended up struggling with that for a while to get it realigned with the valve so that I could inflate the tire. Once I had the new tube in and the wheel mounted up 12 minutes had passed (according to my bike computer) which was incredibly frustrating to me because I can usually change a clincher tire in about 3-4 minutes. Once I was back on the bike I was still feeling strong so I pushed pretty hard back to T2. Bike split was 1:25:06, not what I was hoping for but given the flat tire and the amount of time that cost me I can't complain about my performance when I was actually pedaling.

Came into T2 and my beautiful transition spot was occupied by a photographer, he wasn't just in front of it, he was IN it with his camera bag and a huge tripod sitting EXACTLY where I needed to rack my bike. As I ran in I yelled for him to get out of my way and literally had to push my way past him to get to the bike rack. On with the running shoes, grab the visor and race belt and head out onto the race course. T2 took me :56 and would have certainly been faster had the photographer not been in my way. But I can't complain too much as my T2 time was in the top 10 for the entire race (excluding Pros and Elites). Looks like my transition practice is paying off!!!

The run was HOT and HUMID. It really felt awful. The course was a little more difficult than I expected, like the bike course there were almost no flat sections. Very rolling but no really big hills. The heat took a major toll on me and I ended up running an 8:22 pace to finish in 51:59

Overall time for the race: 2:52:26. Not pretty.

Doing the race was a "good" experience for me, and by "good" I mean it probably built character or something. I did NOT have a good experience of the race and I am unlikely to do it again. Oh well, that's how it goes sometimes.