So the weekend started quite nicely. I had to goto one of those company wide meeting type things, of course when I get there the parking garages were all full, so after a while I park on the street and just decide I'm going to have to feed the meter. So times progressing and I have to step outside to go feed the meter, I get back in to see them doing a raffle for an iPad. I had literally just walked back in the door and made it to my seat when they called my number. Rock on free iPad.
So after the meeting I drove up to my parents house, some epic traffic but uneventful. We left there first thing in the morning and drove down to NYC. We were staying in the Hotel Wellington (54th and 7th). Got a great deal on Amex travel, and got to use points. It was in an older building, but nice employees. The room was kinda small but it was just the 2 of us, so it wasnt a major issue. Location was awesome.
So after checking in we hit the expo, it was a couple blocks down in the Hilton. The expo was pretty nice, on the smaller side. Had some samples of Pom and other various fruit drinks, had several good ones. Toyota had a setup raffling off a free bike (haven't heard anything so I doubt that I'm winning twice in a weekend). Got some free bags/etc. I also realized that I left my sunglasses in the car, which was now unreacheable unless I wanted to spend 40 bucks to get it out of the garage. So I bought a new set of sunglasses, they're pretty cool, they transition from being mostly clear to fairly dark, which is great for races like disney which start before sunrise and finish after.
So NYC makes you attend a safety briefing before grabbing your packet, useful for people new to the race, explains the transitions, etc. Its pretty quick, some people complain about it but its really not that bad. They're pretty entertaining about it too. Grabbed my packet, got the 4th to last starting wave, which normally means slower water, but this year low tide was at 9am so we were in pretty fast water.
So after packet pickup and expo we hit the Carnegie Deli for lunch, great pastrami. Massive portions. After that we walked around, hung out, until it was time to go take the bike down to the transition for checkin. So if youve never done the NYC triathlon and are planning to do it, the easiest way to get the bike to transition is to bike along one of the streets until you get to the river by Chelsea Piers. Then you just hop on this little trail and bike the 2 or so miles into transition. Checkin was a breeze, overinflated the tires a little to make sure I had the correct pressure the next morning.
The downside of that 2.5 mile bike trip which is nice and quick is that you dont have a bike on the way back. I had backed running shoes so I jogged back, but man was it warm out. Once that was done, I hopped into a shower and got ready for dinner.
We hopped the subway out to Brooklyn and went to Queen Italian Restaurant. We went there last year as well. Let me tell you this place is phenomenal. The best appetizer they have there is a special during the summer where they make their own mozzarella cheese. You basically get a giant ball of it along with some accompaniments like dried sausage, asparagus, etc. So good. We split chicken parm and pasta so that wed both have room for dessert, or so we thought. They give a pretty large portion of chicken parm, again with the nice fresh cheese. Very well done, crispy chicken with nice sauce and melted stringy cheese. Amazing. The pasta was pasta, but good sauce. We also got 2 desserts, they have an amazing cannoli, and Portia got some kind of chocolate tart. Both top notch. And the service there is impeccable, everyone is so nice, and the owner is this nice gentleman who wears a suit every day, and greets you at the front door as you come in, and checks up on you throughout the evening. We even had the same server as a year before. So if anyone is ever in NYC and needs good italian food, I cant recommend this place enough.
So onto the actual race, I woke up at 4:30 to hop the free bus to transition. Did the last minute stuff, set out shoes, number belt, etc. Grabbed my wetsuit and started the 1 mile walk to the swim start. Insert 2 hours of nothing (my swim wave started at 7:55 a few minutes late but not bad). Let me tell you the water in the Hudson River is FAST. 2 out of the 3 years Ive done it, its been fast, last year we had slack current. Youre actually begging the race officials to start because holding onto that rope gets tiring for the couple minutes youre waiting in the water. We finally get to go and after some jostling I settled into middle/back of the pack and swam. The water was a tad rough so I did some breast strokes every 10-15 freestyle strokes to make sure I was going straight. The bouys arent as nice as the ones in DC where theres no way you can possibly miss them. Theyre these little things, at one point I almost had swam out of the course, hence the adding in some breast strokes. After about 20 minutes I was done with the swim (yea the water is that fast).
As were getting to the dock the water gets really murky its like swimming in oil. As your head turns underwater, poof, blackness. Poof sun, poof black. They had volunteers on the dock who were even nice enough to pop your wetsuit as you ran down off of it and onto the course. You have a 300 yard run if youre in red transition barefoot to your bikes. Grabbed the bike, hydration pack, took a swig of the water bottle on the bike and put it back. I also popped one clif shot cube and grabbed my thing of jelly beans and put them in my pocket. On the way biking out of transition and onto the course (its really bumpy, gravelly, and hilly with lots of sharp turns so if anyone does this race next year trust them when they say be careful, Ive seen several people wipe out here), I hear something rattle against my bike yup there go those jelly beans. Oh well, could be worse I suppose. You get up and onto the Henry Hudson and start biking north to the bronx. The road surface was ok, there were a few spots. It has some serious hills, but its an out and back course so while youre swearing biking up to the tollbooths, youre like this is gonna rock on the way back. My bike computer shows my max speed as 38 mph. Same token while youre flying down on the hills on the way out youre like note to self, big hill on the way back after Moshulu. Obviously Im a slow swimmer, and were chasing down waves in front of us, so there was quite a lot of passing going on on the northbound part of our trip. Obviously every so often youd here the whoosh whoosh of the disc wheels and some bolt of lightning in lycra would fly past me. I heard one crash going the other way, but thankfully didnt see it, it sounded like snapping twigs. There were water bottles on the course every so often, and youd occasionally see someone w/ a flat. The heat didnt feel too bad on the bike, hit the turnaround with no major issues. At the turnaround I grabbed water from the bottle as I had been using my hydration pack, and wanted to make sure I had some in it for the ride back (it was cold thanks to filling it with ice). I ran out of water at about 3 miles to go so I just knuckled down, pushed to the last turnaround, and biked back. After the turnaround its all uphill to the transition basically.
Put the bike away, grin on my face as Im well under pace for beating my PR. Im talking if I could run a good 10k I couldve come in under 2:30. Flying. So I grab a couple more clif bloks, and bolt out of transition, grabbing water. Im noticing lots of walkers etc, esp as the trip out of transition has a huge hill. Caused some crashing and bumping. Headed out onto 79th street for the mile run to central park. Cruising along nicely, but man its starting to feel hot as hell, and you can feel your muscles/etc churning cause you cant get enough air in with the humidity. Saw the wife at the turn into the park, hit a waterstop, and kept going. After about mile 2.5 I had to go down to a jog because of the heat, it was brutal. The frequency of water stops after 3.5 was really nice so eventually I got back on pace but it was really upsetting there for a while. Finished the run in 48 minutes, so I still got a PR with 2:37, but no sub 2:30. Hit the Accenture VIP tent (yay for sponsoring the race). Saw some friends, grabbed some food. All in all a great race.
Then of course followed by a 20 minute run.
yikes! Tough ride!
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