With 3130 competitors, one of the largest Triathlon events in the country
Sunday August 7th, 2011
Swim 1.5k in the Hudson River
Bike 40k along the West Side Highway
Run 10k in Central Park
Well, here it was. The "A" event of my season. All the training, planning, four previous events to increase my experience level, fund-raising for the American Cancer Society Team Determination, all done. Now within just a few hours on an early Sunday morning, it would all be over.
Sunday August 7th, 2011
Swim 1.5k in the Hudson River
Bike 40k along the West Side Highway
Run 10k in Central Park
Well, here it was. The "A" event of my season. All the training, planning, four previous events to increase my experience level, fund-raising for the American Cancer Society Team Determination, all done. Now within just a few hours on an early Sunday morning, it would all be over.
Honoring Friends and Loved Ones
During the race, I wore the tri-top colors of Team Determination, and carried ribbons of memory and honor pinned to my race belt. On these ribbons were the names of friends, family-of-friends, friends-of-friends and my own family. Cancer survivors and those struggling with cancer, as well as those who had succumbed to it. Honor and best wishes to them and thanks to the more than 60 people who donated so generously to support my entry in this event. We raised more than $5,300 to support the American Cancer Society.
From my own family, I carried the names of my mother, Mary Lou Meese, who died of ovarian cancer, my father David H. Meese, who passed away earlier this year and survivied prostate cancer, and my beautiful wife, Karen, who is a breast cancer survivor, and with whom I celebrated our tenth anniversary this summer.
Let's get this out of the way - the results
Overall time: 2:34:34
Place: 9th in division (out of 97), 413 overall (out of 3130)
Swim 1.5k (0.93 miles): 17:37 - pace: 1:04/100 yards
T1: 6:45
Bike 40k (24.85 miles): 1:17:33 - pace: 19.23mph
T2: 1:42
Run 10k (6.2 miles): 50:59 - pace: 8:12 min/mile
Summary: Very happy with the results, an amazing experience and lots of fun!
For the stragely curious or other athletes, I posted the logs from my bike computer and running watch here:
Pre-Race
Event logistics started Friday. Attended the Race Expo and mandatory athlete briefing Friday afternoon at the Sheraton, NY on Seventh Ave. I wanted to do the 3:00 briefing but it filled up - with 75 people standing - so I had to wait until 4:00. New York, man. Crowds. Get used to it. More entertaining than informational, it seemed to be structured for people who just weren't going to read the very complete Competitors Guide.
But I got my hand stamped on the way out, and then was allowed to officially check-in for the event, get my yellow bracelet with my race number on it (my passport to the transition area), and pick up my race packet with the helmet, bike and bib race numbers in it. That done, a quick swing around the expo to see all the lovely things that Triathletes buy, and pick up some freebies. Then I was outta there.
Saturday I drove in with my buddy, Jon, who was also doing the event. We parked near 79th Street and took our bikes down to transition. Wow - the maps of transition areas didn't give any indication of the activity level we would find down there already. Athletes, friends and volunteers all over. Lot's of people arriving from all points of the globe with all their gear.
We took an organized tour of the transition areas, including all the walk-thru, run-in-from-swim, bike-out, bike-return, ramps, circles, barges and pathways, up and down. As a first-timer to the event, that could have been very confusing without a little tour. It was pretty confusing even with the tour, but we got the gist.
Then it was time to hotel-up. Jon and I were staying a different places so he dropped me off. I checked in and then went right out again to get a pre-race massage. I usually like to do that two or three days before an event but that just didn't work out last week. Oh, did that hurt - but I needed it - I was tight.
Left there at six and went right to a diner near the hotel (it had started to rain at this point, and it was expected to rain all night), and had a simple meal including some pasta. Back to the room, repack and organize for the morning and in bed by 9:15pm. I am usually pretty good for sleep-on-demand and I was asleep in ten minutes. Okay, I did prepare for this night by going to sleep early - at ten, and then nine o'clock over the last five days.
3:00am: up and drink a Naked Juice fruit smoothie (now my standard Olympic race morning routine). Back to bed, and almost back to sleep.
4:00am. up, shower just to wake and warm the muscles. Run through my stretch routine. Dress and out of the room at 4:20.
Grabbed a taxi on Sixth Avenue and had him stop at an all-night grocery for a cup of coffee. Then the drop-off at 72nd Street - now buzzing with activity at 4:30am. My gift to the taxi driver: a quick briefing on West Side road closures for the rest of the morning.
The Race
What a crazy race. A little of everything - rain, storms, winds, the dark of night and finally, sun shining on through. Lot's of crowds - competitors, armies of blue-shirted volunteers and spectators.
Into transition at 4:30am. First time I ever set up a T in the dark, and the rain. Did I mention it had been raining all night, and still was? I had left a plastic bag on my bike seat, just because I had one, not because I didn't think the seat would be wet as soon as I sat on it the next morning.
I had just about exactly enough time to set-up, with the announcer letting us know every five minutes how little time we had left. Sipping my coffee in between tasks: set the correct gear on the bike, clip-in and rubber-band the shoes, transition mat, sneakers, watch, visor, helmet, face towel, glasses. All set. That could have been nerve racking, but I had practiced setting up so much the previous morning, I was just running the drill.
Just as the announcer said that transition was now closing, and all athletes must now make their way to the swim start, I remembered I hadn't taped any Gu to my bike frame. I turned around and took care of that - and that was the only potential transition hitch. Darkness foiled!
The rain had taken the temperature down to about 72F and, of course, the clouds were was keeping the sun away. Beautiful thing. Last year the event was held in the middle of a typical New York August heat wave.
There was a trek of about a mile and a half to the swim start. I jogged some of that to warm up. I also did some deep breathing and fast breathing to warm-up the lungs. That seemed to work pretty well instead of a pre-swim, which wasn't allowed at this event (they said that the current is so strong that anyone getting south of the start point won't be able to get back, and I'm pretty sure they're right - this ain't no lake!).
The start was delayed about 40 minutes because a car had flipped over on part of the bike route that goes over the West Side Highway Northbound. They did an extra careful job cleaning up after the crash because they didn't want everybody to flat out there on broken glass and other detritus. This gave us plenty of time to chat with compatriots in our age-group pens along the riverside.
I have to say the roads were in really great condition right out to the edges - very clean. They must have swept the whole thing overnight. Can you believe they closed the entire Northbound lane of the West Side Highway for us? So cool!
The swim delay was a good thing, because it gave the current time to build in our favor a little more. The original start time had us in the water right at slack current.
Swim
I had a strong swim and finished third in my wave, without really pressing too hard. I took Michael's advice and took it easy in the first 200 yards for some additional warm-up, and even after that, kept the pressure on, but took it fairly easy. We figured that with the current shortening the overall time for the swim leg, any advantage gained there would be smaller than usual, so it wasn't worth the risk of going out too strong and stealing from the bike & run legs.
Finished the 1.5k in 17:37 - a 1:04/100yds pace. Nice little current boost! My normal 100 yard swim pace is about 1:20/1:30. Overall rank on the swim was 127 out of 3130 - top 4% - I'll take it.
The "Time Trial" swim start was better than I thought it would be. The only starts before our Orange Cap (Male 55-59) wave were the Pros and the Elites. I was in the fourth line of 20 jumpers in the Orange cap group (20 jumpers from the front edge of the barge every 10 seconds) - so the lead guys in our wave were 30 seconds ahead of us as soon as I hit the water.
I got a good long jump out from the barge by launching myself from a crouch, with my right toes hooked over the edge, and leading off with my left leg (practiced last week at the YMCA). I know it was a good start because as soon as I got prone, the first thing I kicked was the shoulder of the guy who started next to me - already a full length behind.
I worked my way steadily past most of the Orange wave in the first 500 yards, by which point the crowd was pretty thin. The water was choppy, with a Northerly breeze standing up little waves in the Southerly current. The messier the better for me, is what I always think. I think it throws other people off more than me. I took a few waves in the face and then got in sync with them, breathing right after each wave crest. I also found breathing on the left side, I didn't get so much chop in the face, and I could sight off the seawall - which was pleasantly distracting because it was lined with spectators and had big distance marker signs every 250 meters.
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| Out of the water - and now for a half-mile run to transition - really? |
At 76F, only just wetsuit legal, the river water itself was as I remembered it from many other times swimming in the Hudson. It's a river. The water color is brown. It's a tidal estuary. It's brackish to salty. Bonus: the overnight rain seemed to have cleared the floating surface silt ("scum") that is standard for the river. Typically swimmers will exit the water wearing a beard of this stuff.
Every time I lifted my head to sight forward, I could see the dimples of rain falling on the water. A pretty little bit of morning haiku amid the madness.
Shockingly, I lapped a few blue-cap Elite females in the water. No worries, they would probably kick my butt on the bike in a few minutes.
To keep a straight line, I was sighting off the kayaks to the right, some dainty little yellow-flagged buoys set by the organizers just inside the kayaks, and the seawall on the left. Then I picked up a tall mast straight ahead in the distance for a while. When I arrived at the boat with the tall mast, I realized it was on a mooring at the side of the course. By that time I could just see the finish barge in the distance. I was the 3rd Orange capper out of the water.
T-1
Okay, I said it was a crazy race. Here's one reason why: out of the water, I cut right and ran along the river walk while I peeled the top of my wetsuit down. Then I stepped over to the side, and peeled the rest of the thing completely off. This would only make sense if the transition area was about 800 yards (1/2 mile) away - which it was! I didn't want to run in the wetsuit - it's like slowly cooking yourself while making like the march of the penguin kings. So add that to the event and you can see why my really snappy T1 time was 6:45. Many bikes still in the racks around me when I got back into T - a testament to my compatriots who were still yet to come in from the swim.
I had practiced transitions for two hours Saturday morning and it really paid off. T1 went perfectly, even though I had to make a small last-minute change: due to the rain and dim light, I decided to use my regular glasses with a croakie instead of the sunglasses which hold themselves in place tightly. Glasses on, then helmet, pushed the bike out of T past the mount line, jumped on board and the slipped the feet right into the bike shoes. Away I went.
Bike
Felt strong on the bike right away and throughout the ride. This was enhanced because I was early onto the bike course, so it wasn't crowded. I had been worried about riding in close company with a lot of people I didn't know in the rain. Riding in the rain is dangerous enough already. I've done plenty of it. Never really by choice, sometimes you just get caught out there. I had decided to take it easy and err on the side of caution if things started to look dicey. I didn't need to become collateral damage in some big pile-up.
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| 37mph on the West Side highway Northbound. Wet and wild! Note the flailing ribbons. |
As it turned out, although it was still raining lightly, I didn't have much company on the ride. I passed a bunch of people (Elite, really?) in the first three miles and then things got really lonely. I was out ahead and keeping a good solid pace. I really did hit 37mph on one section of the highway that looked almost flat but was actually a long shallow descent. There wasn't very much of anyone to pass (I wasn't catching the pros or most of the elites), and there were very few people catching up to me. I got passed by maybe a dozen people the whole ride, and five of those came in the last two miles.
I didn't see the pros and elites coming back on the other side of the highway until I was well North of the Hudson River Bridge tolls (rode right through the toll booths - what a pisser!). Riding over the Hudson River Bridge was amazing. It's very high and the view is spectacular. Usually, when you're driving, it's very distracting, but there's a lot of traffic and you don't get much of a chance to look.
About 11.5 miles up to the turn-around on the Moshulu Parkway in the Bronx (there's a first for me - never been on the Moshulu before) and back down. After clearing the toll booths again, the road opened up. That Northerly wind had piped up and was right on the nose. Really had to grind it out to keep the bike moving. But at that point, I was also trying to manage my level of effort to save some legs for the run. Delicate balance. All the way down to the 57th Street turn-around, a mile back North, and then loop-de-loop back down into the transition area.
A quarter-mile flat runway at the bottom of the ramp gave me plenty of time to get my feet out and planted on top of the shoes, and then do a side-standing stop and rapid dismount. I had the T so down that I managed to adjust one shoe with my foot till the crank arm arrived at the 9 o'clock position so the shoes didn't drag along the ground. At the Massachusetts State Tri, I didn't do that, and one actually popped off the pedal and I had to stop running, go back and get it.
T-2
Good quick T2. no socks, no problem - the new running shoes are well broken-in now.
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| Hard to believe there are 3100 people in this race! I was early out of the water and had a good bike leg, so at this point, I didn't have much company |
Run
Coming up from T, there was Karen and the boys along the fence cheering me on (and taking this photo). I ran over to high five them all before running on. Pretty quick pace across 72nd Street and into the park. I wasn't looking at the watch - just going on perceived effort - I liked what I was doing and I knew I probably wouldn't be able to hold it but I felt it would work for a while.
Around and up and down and back and forth weaving along through the park. Some moderate hills to deal with. I took three or four 12 beat walking breaks: I just count slowly to 12 and then start running again. Two of those through water stations. Others at the top of a hill just to get my breath and HR back down again.
Average HR 156bpm for the run. Good solid race-pace push. Picked up the pace in the fourth mile to lose a guy in my age group that I had been trading leads with, and chatting with, for about three miles. I had been running behind him for a while, and planned to dog his heels all the way in and then sprint past him in the last half-mile, but he started to slow a bit, and I had some gas left, so I decided I needed to run my own race from there. G'bye.
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| Gavin & Braden |
Entered the finishing chute. Coming around the final bend, there was Karen and the boys again with a big sign "GO! DAD GO!" with pictures Gavin had made to go with the banner "Swim, Bike, Run". Finished strong through the huge blue archway, the sun shining now, music blaring and the announcer squawking.
Great day. Solid result. Boy were my legs sore last night.
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