Race Report: Westchester Triathlon - September 25th, 2011

So this was a total unexpected bolt-on event. My friend Jess, who I drafted onto our Reach the Beach running team, convinced me to sign-up for it at the last minute. And I'm really glad she did, for obvious reasons I'll talk about below.

I know some friends were thinking: 

Good God, man! isn't it enough? You've done five triathlons and a running relay already this season - you really need to do another???

Although there's no good answer to that, I can say very simply that since I'm all trained-up, and I love the excitement of the races themselves, why shouldn't I do it (as long as Karen will let me)?

Since the event was booked up solid and there were no spots left, I had to call on a few friends for a favor (thank you, Julie at Pacific Swim, Bike, Run and Liz at Team in Training CT!!).

This is a local event - it takes place about 20 minutes from home in Rye, New York. God bless the local events. The logistics are so easy, so the preparation stress is low. Pack the night before, throw the bike in the car, show-up at the crack of dawn and go like hell...


It was a gorgeous, warm-but-not-hot day. The sun, still low at the 7:30am swim start, was sparkling hard off the Long Island Sound for the out and back swim. This made for some difficulty sighting during the going-out section. I had a great swim. I stroked well without really pushing myself out of shape too much. Out of the water in 26 minutes.

The bike course is basically a long series of climbs to the top of the course beyond Westchester Airport, and then a long series of descents back to the start. The climbs were not steep - except for the last one - and I was able to maintain a pretty good pace even going up. The roads were open enough, even though the course wasn't closed, that I was able to press consistently, passing easily when needed, and maintain a good strong race-pace push. 

Coming back down into Rye, I was duking it out with a shirtless guy from my age group for several miles. He would go forward in the climbs, I would reel him back in on the descents. That went on all the way into the bike finish.

We were making 27-32mph consistently coming down, which no doubt contributed to an respectable 20.5mph average over the 25 mile ride.

Felt pretty good going into the 10k. A very flat course, I managed to pull it out at an 8:37/mile pace for 53'29" finish. Not a spectacular performance, and not quite as good as the 8:12 pace I set at New York, but one I was very happy with.

So, beside the pure adrenaline rush of participating in an event like this, on a day like this, two big reasons to be thrilled with the day:

1. I pulled 3rd place in division - and a nice little plaque that says so
2. Being on the podium qualified me for a guaranteed spot at the infamous San Francisco triathlon, Escape from Alcatraz, next year.

Of course, that last item falls into the "and you did so well, look what we have for you" category. I had heard of Escape before, and had thought I was not interested yet in doing a big "destination" event like that. If you don't qualify, the only way to get a spot is through the lottery - not impossible, but because it's one of the most famous and long running tri's in the world, not that easy.

So, what the hell, I guess I'll have to seriously consider that when I start doing my event planning next year.