New York City triathlon

Last year I did a hundred races all over BF Texas and NM. Not that Roswell isn't a nice place (it isn't), but I wanted something a little more glam for my 3rd full year competing. I did local tris at Ft. Bliss and Ruidoso, a tri clinic and race in Boulder, Colorado and this past weekend was New York City. September will have me in San Diego for another Olympic distance. I also signed up for my first 70.3 in October in Tempe. Big year for me and Nora! Onto the race report from NYC.

I was more than a little intimidated going in to NYC for 2 reasons:  this was only my 2nd Olympic distance and the race had close to 4000 entrants. My "biggest" race is Eagle in the Sun. My only other Olympic was the Elephant Man last September a-a-a-and my times sucked (45 minute swim, 90 minutes on the bike and over an hour on the run for a total time of 3:31 - you may remember reading about it). My fears were unfounded though as it was ran very smooth and I killed the race. I was also worried about the weather and the day before the race was hottest day of the year for NYC. Thankfully, it rained Saturday night and killed some of the heat.

My goal going in was to break 3 hours. Distances were mile swim in the Hudson, 40k on the bike, and 10k on the run. Got to transition at 5 and got set up. Race was wetsuit legal and the swim was in the Hudson so wetsuits were definitely in the picture. The swim was with the current but it got weaker as the day wore on and I was in a later wave.  We jumped off a barge into the river and off we went.  The swim was easy for sighting because there was a whole line of kayaks and boats to the riverside (2 swimmers died last year so they were a tad protective) and on the other side was the bank of the river. The only thing bad about the swim was the dead fish and debris that I kept bumping into. I can't tell you what the debris was as I was afraid to look but it felt pretty dang solid. I was hoping for a swim time of about 30 minutes. I got out in 23 minutes! Current helped for sure but 23 minutes!

 Long run from water exit to T1. Thanks to Brightroom for this shot.

Kept on keeping on to get to biking. Course included a steep short climb out of transition and then lovely scenic miles on the West Side highway of New York. It was hella hilly. There seemed to be people breaking down and waiting for SAG support all over the place but I guess that's to be expected with the number of athletes involved. There were also some pretty nasty crashes with one guy taken off in an ambulance.   I managed to dodge the carnage and kept a pretty decent pace and got off the bike in 1:17. I was hoping for about 1:15 but with the hills and the heat, that was good for me.

George Washington Bridge in the background

 Sidebar -  I'm sure somebody more technically adept than me could make this blog and the photos integrate more seamlessly so please forgive me if this blog looks like it was put together by a 3rd grader. I'm a father and husband first, lawyer second, triathlete third and somewhere way down the line comes the part of my life where I get to work on my computer skills.  Sorry for the digression. Where were we?

Got back into T2 and had a fast change to get out on the run. Went straight East out of transition up 72nd street into the middle of Central Park.  This park is a work of art and world renowned as a center of leisurely recreational activity.  It is great for that if you're moving at a "leisurely" pace.  If you are, however, running a 10K after swimming a mile in the nasty polluted Hudson and then biking 40K in 90 degree weather up and down hills, it is quite challenging.  Nora's law school buddies were very kind the night before the race to tell me, "Oh, you're not running in the north half of Central Park are you? That's very hilly!" Thanks guys, but they were right.  It was up and down but blessedly pretty shady the whole way and had lots of aid stations.  I was proud of my effort and my 5K and finishing splits were pretty close.  Finished the run in 55 minutes for a total time of 2:42

I think you can tell I didn't leave a lot in the tank

 I was ecstatic with my results. I couldn't believe it to be frank.  I knocked off 49 minutes from my previous Olympic distance time!  I was even more shocked to find out that I came in 6th in my division out of 45.  To top it all off, I was then told that I qualified for the U.S. National 5150 Championship by finishing in the top 15.  What a mind blower.  I saw a whole new look of admiration in my wife's eyes. That meant more to me than she'll ever know, especially since she's been there from the very beginning baby steps into triathlon and supported me so much.  I know it meant a lot to her too to see me do well.

All in all, all I can say is wow.  Keep up your training, stay consistent, and you never know how far your body will take you.

How not to apply sunscreen

I've actually heard of this happening which makes it all the more embarrassing that it happened to me but I post as a cautionary tale to all my fellow athletes.  If you're going to be riding for an extended period, like the 3 hours I did on Sunday, make sure you apply your sunscreen BEFORE you put your shirt on. Also, if you want a really cool tramp stamp sunburn, don't worry about your lower back where your shirt may ride up your back while your riding.

Top Ten Reasons You Know You're a "Real" Triathlete

In the order they came in my head:
1. You are not only on first name basis with the bike store and running store owners, you have their cell phone numbers AND they immediately return your texts.
2. You can't pass a flag without checking for wind direction, even if you're in your car.
3. You take two showers a day.
4. You get to take an island vacation and instead of thinking about lying on the beach, you start scoping out running routes and planning open water swims.
5. On a related note, baggage for any out of town trip includes running gear and goggles.
6. You know the lap swim schedule for every pool in town.
7. A day off from work makes you happy because now you can work out whenever you want.
8. You think it's sane to do a 3 hour brick workout, burn 2000+ calories, and then look at the labels of sports drinks to see which one has the least sugar.
9. The inside of your car looks like a going out of business sale at Sports Authority.
10. You've come to accept the necessity/vanity of the 2 hours it takes to shave.

Feel free to discuss among yourselves and add to the list.

Plan for the year

I've been derelict in my posting. I'm not even about doing 13 sprint triathlons this year. Did that last year and had a blast but this year I'm going to more scenic places than Roswell and Amarillo. I'm also going to ramp up the distances.  I'll be doing the New York City Triathlon on July 8 and the San Diego TriRock Triathlon on September 9. Both are Olympic distances.

For the NYC tri, I'm competing as a contestant for the Challenged Athletes Foundation and raising charity dollars. The Foundation provides prosthetic limbs and wheelchairs for athletes So far I've raised $2,505 with incredible donations from people like fellow triathlete Brooks Vandivort and fellow runners Colleen and Craig Marusich.  My goal is $3000 and anybody that wants to contribute to a very worthwhile cause can click here Rob Lovett CAF donation page.

I'm also going to do the Eagle in the Sun Triathlon also in September. Then I'm going to Costa Rica for a week in November to learn surfing. Fun times!

Not a 'wannabe' anymore

Its official. I have to change the name of this blog. Savvy KFOX news reporter Kandolite Flores called me a triathlete so it must be true. I'm not a wannabe anymore!

Winter blues

Man I hate when it gets cold. I know that's a relative term considering that I live in El Paso, but it still sucks going to swim when it's dark and cold outside. It just doesn't compute for me. I detest biking indoors and now daylight savings time kicks in tomorrow which might as well mean "no daylight time." I remember back in college that I thought the Monday after daylight savings time should be a holiday just so we could celebrate the extra sleep.

I also got sick for the first time in over two years and was OUT for 2 weeks. This month marks 2 years that I've been training and I thought at some point you got to the point where training becomes second nature but it's still a chore for me. A chore that too easily slips to the back burner when one isn't competing and the winter blues set in. This is problematic considering that I signed up for the Flying Horse half marathon here in El Paso and the Vegas half in December.

I did manage to drag my sorry butt out of bed yesterday and ran 7 miles and felt surprisingly good considering I've ran maybe 4 times since the Elephantman. I ran into Brian Carter at the Walk a Mile in Her Shoes charity event and was grousing about my lack of motivation. He kindly invited me to ride with him and Mike Baker. I was a little intimidated because Bryan is a stud triathlete and Mike is a legend. Showed up this morning and off we went! I found out that Mike has done 40 Iron distance races including 8 at Kona - freaking 40! Great guys and we knocked out 50 miles the last hour or so with a 50 mph wind.

I feel good about my fitness level surviving my dip in enthusiasm and am back on track!

Elephant Man Butt Whupping

Did my first Olympic distance triathlon in EB last Sunday. Just writing about it now because haven't had time and I needed the time to gain perspective on the race. The race was a 1 mile swim, 27 mile bike, and 6 mile run. My thinking was to be under 3 hours based on my performances in sprints this year. A confluence of events caused me to rethink my strategy race morning.  First, I already had enough points in the SW Challenge Series so, unless I got first place in my division, it wouldn't effect my point standings if I came in 2nd or last in my division. Second, I looked around at the start and holy cow there were some studs there! There were teams from Univ of Arizona, the Black Dog Tri team, and overall some big dudes that looked like former Navy Seals that all had their game faces on.  Having no particular ego-induced delusions about my own athletic prowess, I meekly asked Coach Gretchen at the transition area, "Uh Coach, would you be pissed if I just 'experienced' this race?"  For those of you who don't do these masochistic events on a regular basis, when you don't have a good race you just say "I wasn't racing that event, I was just using it as training."  Works like a charm.  Gretchen told me this is your first Oly, this is a very, very difficult race, it's the last race of the season - just have fun! Well, that's why she's a good coach, so that's what I set out to do.

I repeated my prerace approach from Socorro and rode my bike from the hotel to the transition area.  If you have the chance to do this, I highly recommend it as your family doesn't have to get up at dawn, you bypass all the traffic and hiking to transition area, and you get a little warm up/equipment check for free. Besides that, you look cool riding to your race with your tri gear on your back (at least I think so).  Had a large contingent of local tri geeks in attendance. Training partners Brooks Vandivort and Art Sanchez were carrying the big stick and doing the 70.3 (both 1sts for them, which leads me to question their sanity because this race will definitely not be my first 70.3). Cody H. did the 70.3 as well and is a stud of all studs for doing so (he knows why).  Gretchen, Jason M., Greg G., Juan E., Lowry B., Dr. Mark and a host of others were doing the Oly.

As stated, the swim was 1 mile in open water although all agreed it looked a lot longer than a mile. My number one goal for the swim was to survive as the longest open water swim I had done was 500 yards in a pond at Dexter that's maybe 5 feet deep and that took me 12 minutes. I was less than enthused about swimming a mile where I could never touch the bottom.  I've been working hard on my swimming though so I figured 35-45 minutes would be acceptable.  The water was 78 degrees and no wake, no wind at all so perfect conditions. I wore a sleeveless wetsuit for the first time because I feel too constrained in the full.  I kept up with the pack for the first 100 meters or so and then settled into a quasi rhythm interrupted by frequent sight checks.  I can't swim a straight line to save my life but managed not to take too many detours.  I stopped one time early on b/c my wetsuit strap kept wrapping around my right arm and was driving me batty (note to tri newbies - make sure your strap is tucked in).  Overall, I kept a very steady pace but slow and managed to come out of the water in one piece in 45 minutes.

I really don't think there's any way to mimic open water swimming in a pool. You just have to swim in big bodies of water which we are unfortunately lacking in El Paso.  I suggest all local triathletes pool our money (pun intended, ha ha) and get us a nice man-make lake in which we can train.  We could call it Lake Proud in honor of uber athlete Diana Proud who just passed from ALS. Diana Proud local legend
Food for thought.

This race has by far the longest transition of any race I've entered. Turns out when you have a triathlon with an open water swim, and the body of water is at a record low level, you have to go a long way to get to the parking lot that is serving as a transition area.  And you have to go up a big ass hill, barefoot, in the sand.  At least I had a cheerleader in my corner.

This particular 8 year old cheerleader had just completed his race the day before with his old man running up the hill beside him yelling encouragement including that he was being passed by certain other 8 year olds.  So he dutifully told me, "Dad, he's passing you!" at about this point. You can see the burst of speed I put on while telling him there's a long way to go.

Thanks to my beautiful wife for taking the photos and also encouraging me all the way.

My calves cramped up when I sat down to have my wetsuit stripped but it stopped when I stood up.  Got on my bike knowing that sub 3 hours was probably out of the picture due to my swim and decided to push hard but not kill myself and enjoy the experience.  

Even with that, I managed to pass 30 people on the bike (yes, I counted).  The bike course has an elevation change of over 1000 feet because there are some good climbs in and out of some canyons. I had no problems on the bike despite the rough road surface and felt pretty good coming back into transition and my bike split was 1:33.

On to the run.  For perspective, Clay Mosley won the 70.3 in a time of 4:44.  I heard him say afterward that the run course was the hardest he had ever been on.  It was brutal.  No flat terrain, up and down winding hills, no shade, no relief.  I took my time like I've never done before, walked most of the uphills and finished the run in 1:06 for a total time of 3:30.

Do I regret not pushing myself more and putting up a more respectable time? Absolutely not.  I enjoyed the experience and for a first time oly distance on such a hard course, I'm happy with it. I even managed to have some encouraging words for other athletes and a smile on my face for parts of the race.

The race itself was well-organized with tons of helpful volunteers.  The race director? Not such a nice lady but I'm kind of spoiled by race director extraordinaire Gabby Gallegos who always had a smile on her face even though there were over 500 athletes at the Eagle in the Sun asking lots of questions.  I think Kori just wants everybody to show up, race, and keep their mouth shuts. I was very leery of her going in due to some comments she made after the Dam It man Triathlon but kept a open mind.  I know now how she earned her reputation as she was very terse and dismissive when I tried to ask a couple of questions.  That being said, the race was organized and executed beautifully so personal dislike for her communication skills aside, I give the race a thumbs up.