NYC Triathlon 2008
I did the New York City Triathlon again this year, it was fun, but tough. I didn’t train as much for it this time, especially the swim, but I did ok. This year Joanne, Mom, and Dad all came to the race to cheer me on and I’m really glad they did. You can see from this picture the effect a fan club can have on a runner. I was also very afraid of bonking this year, so I ate a lot, probably too much, in the days leading up to the race, but I did survive in the end.
The swim was pretty rough. I took a calculated risk and didn’t worry too much about training for the swim. It takes a lot of pool time to shave a minute or two off of a mile swim, which doesn’t matter so much in a two and a half hour race. As a result, I was passed by people from at least four different waves. It didn’t help that the current was much weaker this year than last (start time 7:15am), that there were big tentacly red jellyfish in the Hudson, or that my un-wetsuited jersey unzipped at some point. I only realized that my jersey had turned into a parachute as I got out of the water, at which point I also noticed the stinging pain in my nipples.
The bike was better than the swim. My glutes didn’t die and I managed to put up a pretty decent time without aero bars, even though it seemed like everyone else was riding a cervelo. They would pass me on the downhills, but I would pass them right back on the climbs, which there were quite a few of, as I’d learned last year. My glutes did start to heat up towards the end of the ride, but they kept working the whole time, perhaps because of the hill repeats I’d done in training or the extra effort I went through to properly fuel during the race.
On the run, I thought I was way behind. I was told around mile 2 that it was 9:30am, which I thought meant that my time was already 2:45. In reality, it meant that my time was 2:15, which I didn’t realize until around mile 5, when I passed another Columbian who had started in the wave before me. I felt fine running across the finish line, but as soon as I stopped running I nearly passed out. After I finished, Joanne told me the athlete-tracking text message system said I finished in 2:41 with a 28 minute swim. But my time kept improving after I’d finished, my official time was 2:37:19 with a 24 minute swim, the discrepancy being attributable to a late start. This is 2 minutes worse than last year, but the heat and humidity set the field back even more and I moved up from 95th to 52nd in my age group. Graham did quite well, even with an injured leg and his friend Matt Worstell finished 4th in our age group again this year.
For my reference later, there are lots of stats online from this year and last, some pictures taken by professionals, some pictures taken by my mom, and a video of me crossing the finish line.