New Jersey State Triathlon, Race Report #5

One week after the NYC Triathlon, I raced the third annual NJ State Triathlon. I've competed in this Olympic distance race since it began in 2006 and it holds a special place in my heart as it was the very first triathlon that I ever did. My first year, I finished in 2:59--my goal had been to break 3 hours. This year, more experienced and much fitter, I was hoping to go sub-2:20.

The week between NYC and NJ State was a light one for me. I had decided early in the year that I'd try to pull off good performances on these shorter races by taking training light in July and then just kick up my volume right after. Although this decision might hurt my base that I was developing for the Ironman, I think it was the right decision in retrospect: it gave my some speedwork and variety in my training and I really did end up getting the chance to nail these two triathlons.

Anyway, coming in off of some easy weeks and basically having had 0 training post-NYC, I was nervous about how I'd perform in New Jersey. Also, I've neglected my swim pretty badly this summer and with no wetsuit and no current, I was a little worried about the water.

My parents had come down to the US with some friends to watch the race... exciting since they'd never seen me compete during my three years as a triathlete. Of course, this also added a little pressure to kick it hard.

I spent two days before the race just taking it easy with the family and showing them around the area--the race takes place right near Princeton. On Saturday, I checked in at the race site and heard the standard pre-race talk. I also took my bike out for a little spin just to check on the race wheels and do a little last minute tuning. I hadn't ridden these roads since I graduated over a year before and, much fitter now, I decided to have a little fun and gun it around my old haunts.

Here's a picture of me headed out from the hotel to explore the area... I'm sporting my SBR team bib-shorts with my old Princeton jersey for kicks.

Saturday night, my parents, their friends and I all had a nice meal and then I was off to bed. I had already warned everyone that Sunday was going to be an early morning but I don't think it really hit them until I woke up at 4:45 am. My dad drove me over to the race site and I got all prepped in transition while he swung back by the hotel to pick everyone else up. I had a lot on my mind that morning--we had received news two days earlier that my grandfather had passed away suddenly--so I spent a little extra time in transition making sure everything was good-to-go and trying to clear my mind.

The week before had been a relatively easy race in my category; Ironman Lake Placid had a lot of the competition tied up. This race, however, had a really strong U25 heat and I definitely spent a good amount of time sizing up the competition.

We all headed over to the swim start (about 1km away from transition) right around 7am. I had to kill a fair amount of time while the sprint waves left... as usual I spent this chatting with people and giving a few tips/encouragement to first timers.

My wave headed out around 8:10. The start was fast but not too, too crowded. Only got hit a few times. Took me a long while to find a pace and, stupidly, I spent a lot of the swim trying to draft off of fellow racers. Unfortunately, I chose guys who really couldn't swim straight and this ended up costing me time and focus. Oh well. After the final turn, the swim just seemed to take forever and I couldn't really spot the exit. I eventually got out of the water, sprinting to the ramp out of the water. I checked my time on the way out: 32 minutes. Faster than last year, but in general, a pretty shitty time. I knew I'd have to make it up on the bike.

I gunned through transition and was out pretty fast. Having spent a good amount of time improving my transition technique, I think I was able to make up a few seconds here. The run to the bike start was long and that favoured me; I leave my shoes clipped in and slide into them while riding, so I'm able to run much faster with my bike during T1.

The bike went well. The first half has a lot of stupid turns to make up mileage and this becomes annoying. I spent a good amount of the race passing and then being passed by this one guy. At first, we were pissing each other off because everytime you are passed you're required to fall back about 10m to avoid drafting penalties. By the end, we were laughing at each other... we both had such close paces that we just couldn't manage not to do this back-and-forth.

Coming in off the bike, I had only been passed (without passing back...) once. A good sign. I gunned it through T2 and headed out for the run. It was a HOT day and I had trouble keeping cool. Thankfully, they had tonnes of icy towels and that made a huge difference. Managed 1 Gu during the run and a decent amount of fluid. By mile 4 (like the week before), I was hurting. I held strong through the final hills and had a decent kick at the end. I sprinted to the finish hurting, but ok. And, again, like the week before, I almost collapsed at the end. The race officials are so funny. They go to catch you but let you stumble as much as possible before grabbing you to avoid (if possible) getting covered in a mixture of lake water, sweat, Gu, "sport drink" and potentially other nice fluids. In the end, I was ok, lay down and checked my watch. 2:19 by my count. Personal best for the course and for Olympics in general. Nice! I'd like to think that my grandfather--an avid athlete--would have been proud.

My family gave me a little time to settle and then I grabbed my stuff and we headed off.

And now, a few pictures from the race...

Exiting the water after the swim.

Sprinting up from the swim exit into T1.

Running my bike out from T1 to the bike mount point.

Headed out on the bike and getting ready to put my feet in my shoes.

Defeating the purpose of a Giro aerohelemnt by looking down at something...

Running my bike into T2.


Headed out on the run.

About 1/2 mile into the run.

Grabbing some aid at about the 3-mile marker.

Headed out to the second half of the run.

Finished and ready to grab my stuff and go home.

My parents first time watching a triathlon!

Sue and Blaine--cheering section and official photographers.

Cleaned up and headed home.

Lots of thanks to Sue for providing most of the great pictures!

Nautica New York City Triathlon, Race Report #4

The Nautica NYC marked the beginning of my 2008 triathlon race season. The event, an Olympic distance triathlon (1500m swim, 40km bike, 10km run), was a pretty lightweight challenge given my Ironman training and was a good chance to just go all out and see how I could do. From the moment I got out of the water, I had planned to go as hard as possible and, in the end, this seemed like a pretty successful strategy.

My only beef these days with Olympic triathlons is that they're pretty short for the amount of preparation involved. Having not raced anything but road races since my Half Ironman last October, I had completely forgotten what goes into a race weekend. On Saturday, I spent an hour checking in at the official race hotel and then took it easy for the afternoon. Later that evening, I hauled over to the west end of Manhattan to get my bike checked in and prep my transition area.

By the time I arrived home from all of this, it was 9PM and I still hadn't started getting my nutrition and swim and run equipment ready. It took about two hours to get everything ready (since I hadn't done real race prep in so long) and by 11 I was finally ready for bed.
I managed to squeeze in 5 hours of sleep and then got up so I could eat a little and get down to the race site. Although my wave didn't leave until 7am, the race started quite early and the transition area was closing at 5:45.

Unfortunately, when I went downstairs, I found that a massive party had gone down and a bunch of drunk people had moved all my nicely prepared gear in every direction. After 30 minutes of scrambling to find my heartrate monitor, shoes, wetsuit, etc. I was finally out the door. I greeted the local corner drug dealer and hopped in a cab headed down to the west side.
The transition area buzzed even though it was only 5am. I took my time doing final preparations on my bike and running gear and laying things out nicely. At 5:30, I met up with other guys on my team; we all Body-Glided up, grabbed our wetsuits and made the 1 mile trek uptown to the swim start.

The race consisted of swimming about a mile down the Hudson River, hitting transition, biking north on an out-and-back 40 km bike course, transitioning again and then making the final haul--a 10km run--into and around Central Park.

The swim went quite well, although currents weren't nearly as favourable as expected. I tried to do some drafting but the group broke up a fair amount and this was tough. Adding to the difficulty was avoiding the many jellyfish--only got stung 4 times-- and navigating around the physically challenged wave. (As an aside, hats off to these champions. Everything from the legally blind to people with various amputations, these guys really made you realize what can be accomplished with hard work and dedication.)

I finished the swim in about 22 minutes, jump up on the make-shift pier and gunned it to transition. I wasn't really sure how far back I was but I suspected that my swim had been pretty weak (I've neglected this leg far too much this year). As I ran towards transition (which was more than 500m away), I passed a bunch of guys. This was all in keeping with my plan to go as hard as possible and not worry about blowing up.

Out on the bike, I blew past a bunch of people in my age category in the first 20 minutes. Then, I just started picking off people from the swim waves that had left 30 minutes before me. My legs were screaming, especially on the hills, but I settled into a decent pace and felt reasonably good out on the bike. The aero helmet and Zipp 404s really added to my confidence and, in the end, I think I took down about 400 people on the ride.

Getting back into transition, I was worried about my legs. I hadn't done much short course preparation this year and was pretty sure that a hard ride was going to kill me on the run. But, in the end, the legs were pretty good. I made it out of transition, worked my way up the first hill and then picked up my pace as I headed for the Park.

Things didn't start to really hurt until about mile 4 of the run and, at this point, I was so close to the end that I just sucked it up. There was a brief moment of in-the-mouth-vomitting but other than that, things went pretty well. Passed a good number of people on the run and gunned it at the end. Crossing the finish line, I had no feeling for how I'd done in my age category, but given that I nearly fell over a few steps after finishing, I knew that I had given it my best. I was also quite happy with my 2:25:29 as it was a personal record.

A day later, I checked online and found out that I had come 3rd for U25 men and had qualified for the age group national championships out in Dallas. Now, I'm just debating if I can race those post-Ironman. More to come on that front.

And now for a few pictures from the race...

On the way out on the bike, drinking from my aero bottle.

Downhill coming back around kilometre 21.

Drinking from the aero bottle.