I competed in the New York City Triathlon in 2015 and 2016 with childhood bestie (and camp) bunkie Diana but changed in up last year when instead I bridge-and-tunneled out to the New Jersey State Tri. That was a fun experiment but I’m a city girl and had to come back to swimbikerunning in NYC this summer.
And before you ask, yes we swim in the Hudson.
I made my glorious 2018 return to the best city in the world with my friend Tiff who completed her first tri in the Garden State last year. It was easy to convince Tiff to do NY instead of NJ since she lives (and now swimbikerun trains) there. In previous years registration has been by lottery but for the 2018 race, 2XU changed it to a first-come-first-served sign up. Fearing it could sell out Tiff and I threw our names and money down as soon as registration opened in the fall making NYC the first tri I committed to racing this season. (Bunkie Diana ditched us though with the absurd excuse of parenting a new baby. Priorities. Sheesh.)
Race day was July 1st, with the 4th falling awkwardly on the following Wednesday. As most Washingtonians – including Congress and my husband – planned their extended holuday recesses I decided to drive up to New York the Friday before the Sunday race. Figuring we could get packet pickup over with Friday night – before all the itty bitty sized race-branded cute clothes sell out! – I left a little before noon planning a four hour drive. Multiple pile-ups including a holiday traffic shitshow getting onto the New Jersey Turnpike later I pulled up in front of Tiff’s building at 6:15pm – too late to make the ending-at-7 Friday Expo. Grumpily I unloaded Yoshi and the parking gods smiled after the highway gods had been such dicks, gifting me a primo West Village parking spot just a block from Tiff’s place. My spirits were revived with food and wine, ice cream and a walk along the highline, and most importantly, a good night’s sleep.
We got up early-ish on Saturday to bike up to the Expo in Midtown – a mostly uneventful few miles except for the three blocks in the theatre district where 8th Avenue’s bike lane disappears and you are left battling taxis and tourists for a little slice of road – seriously WTF city planners???
We arrived at the Midtown Hilton that serves as the race HQ and Expo and checked our bikes in time for the 10:30am safety session. The NYC Tri Expo bike-check is a stroke of genius I’ve appreciated every time I’ve done this race, and I’m happy to see it has survived as the race has changed hands from Panasonic to 2XU. It’s a massive weight off your shoulders as you try to navigate the city with bikes that are too nice to lock up just anywhere and as you attend a somewhat complicated packet pickup.
A lot of triathlons hold “mandatory” safety briefings but NYC is the only race I’ve been to where it really is required. You can’t pick up your numbers until you have a stamp that you’ve sat through their safety presentation. As I’ve said in previous race reports, I can’t blame them for the abudance of caution. Fairly or unfairly the Hudson River doesn’t have the best reputation for (voluntary) swimming, and putting on a massive race in New York City is a Herculean feat of planning. The safety sesh was about 15 minutes long, from which Tiff and I filed straight out to packet pickup. We then hit the Expo where, sure enough, all the cutest gear had already been picked clean of the XS sizes. (We each bought a pair of very adorable neon yellow NYC Tri-branded shorts only to discover their scandalous shearness later in the safety of Tiff’s apartment.)
We had planned to drop our bikes at transition on the Upper Westside – 72nd and Riverside – immediately after packet pickup but we discovered bike drop off didn’t start until 2pm so we found some food a few blocks away at the Plaza Food Hall. At around 1:15 with full and happy bellies we picked up our two-weeled steeds, affixed race numbers to their frames and our helmets, and then rode from the Hilton to transition where race organizers let us in a little before 2pm. All told we rode about five miles getting to the Expo and then to transition, which felt like a more-than-sufficient shake out for the next day.
We were advised to rack our bikes by our seats UNLESS that left the front wheel dangling off the ground – a frustratingly common occurence with my dear Koopa Troop. In the past I’ve left him racked by his seat despite the dangle but these were the tallest racks I’d ever experienced – here or elsewhere. (This is why Rev3’s ground racks are the best!!) Distressed by the ten-to-twelve inches of air between Koop’s front tire and the ground, I heeded organizers’ explicit instrcutions and turned him around to hang from his handlebars. (The next morning when I arrived I was further distressed to find that someone had turned him around to dangle insecurely from the unnecessarily high rack. I was displeased with the clear failure to communicate between all 2XU organizers and that they’d left my bike hanging so precariously for who know how long.)
Once racked, Tiff and I subwayed back to her West Village apartment where we cleaned ourselves up, and then took turns K-Taping each other’s various injuries. My chiropractor had taped my back earlier in the week to take pressure off the still-slooooooowly-healing pinched nerve in my shoulder blade/neck. I’d then taken pictures – or rather asked strangers at the pool to take pictures – so Tiff could replicate it. Then I returned the favor laying a grid over Tiff’s bottom-right rib where she’d fallen off her bike the week before.
Once we’d humpty-dumpty’ed each other back together again we each took a turn in my Normatec boots – obviously I will be bringing my squeeze squeeze sleeves to all race weekends going forward! – and then met her parents and sister for an early bird pasta-fest at her favorite pre-race restaurant, Gradisca.
After dinner we went home, turned on some SVU – Benson and Stabler have a calming race-eve effect for both of us – and laid out everything we would need so that we could just get up and go at the ungodly hour at which our alarms would sound. The NYC Tri is the earliest race I think I’ve ever done with a 5:50am start time. The bike course is a closed 13 mile stretch of the West Side Highway and shutting that heavily trafficked bad boy to cars must be a giant headache for race organizers. Plus the early start mitigates the inevitable surface of the sun race day conditions.
It won’t be a surprise that a race that takes place in the first couple weeks of July always manages to fall on one of the hottest days of the year. In 2015 the run course was cut short for heat after I’d already finished the whole thing, and in 2016 organizers cut the run before anyone was even in the water. This year in the days leading up to race day Tiff and I watched with horror as the predictions crept up to the triple digits. By the night before the Sunday forecast had officially passed 100 degrees.
As we tucked ourselves in a little after 9pm, trying to get in at least six hours of shuteye, race organizers posted a cryptic Instagram post to stay tuned for a “Race Alert” regarding the course. Naturally we, and everyone on social media, assumed they were about to announce that they were shortening the run due to the heat. I obsessively refreshed the app until 9:45 waiting for official word on what this unhelpful Alert actually meant before I finally gave up and put my phone away to sleep.
I fell asleep easily which was a relief, but I woke up repeatedly througout the night. At 10:30, the first of such unwelcome arrousals I checked Instagram again only to find race organziers had “updated” their previous “Alert” with a follow-up call to just stay tuned in case they released more info. We’d gotten worked up for no reason and heading into race morning the course was unchanged.
Our alarms went off at 3:30 and we each got up with surprising ease – I’d been mostly up since my final wake-up at 2:47am. The temperature was already 81-feels-84 at 3:30 but still no word on course changes.
Race Morning
Tiff and I were ready to go pretty quickly. At 4:15am we headed downstairs with our bags and breakfasts – bagels her mom had been kind enough to bring us the night before! We easily hailed a cab outside her building – HUGE props to Tiffany for living on the West Side and making our lives so much easier in terms of logistics! – and asked the driver to get us as close to 72nd and Riverside as he could minding road closures.
As we rode uptown we watched people stream out of just-now-closing bars and clubs, still up – and in heels – from the night before. Moments like that I think back on how much I and my life, routine, and priorities have changed over the last 15 years. I used to be those still-up revelers, and I had some fun – fun that I would not take back for anything. (Except for my near miss with Panamanian prison – that I might take back.) But in that pre-dawn moment, speeding uptown with my transition bag at my feet and peanut butter bagel in my hand, all to exercise for (hopefully less-than) three hours I wouldn’t have traded places with the club kids for anything. (I imagine if asked the feeling would have been mutual.)
72nd St was already closed to cars so we ditched the cab at 71st and Riverside a little after 4:30am. From there we only had a five minute walk leaving us plenty of time to set up before the mostly-women’s yellow transition closed at 5:15. (The majority of male athletes were in the red transition area, slightly to the north of ours. Since the race was over 70% men though the transition areas weren’t quite split and ours was mostly women plus the pro men and some other divisions,)
Given the heat we had let air out of our tires the day before so refilling them was the first order of business. Race organizers and the on-site mechanics had provided pumps but the ladies in the yellow transition were also generous – duh, triathletes – so we were able to quickly borrow pumps and get our wheels back to working order. I visited the small bank of portas inside the transition area which meant a long line but it moved quickly enough and I had bathroomed just in time to for officials to kick us all out at 5:15. Then it was time for our long walk north.
The swim – again, yes, in the Hudson – is a point-too-point 1500m. (For the uninitiated Americans out there, 1600m is a mile.) Plus you have to get past the men’s transition before even reaching the swim course, so all told, after setting up transition ladies have a long walk, just shy of a mile and a half to get to the start.
In the crowd the journey took Tiff and I about 25 minutes. As we walked I continued to nibble my peanut butter bagel and some pretzels, and I sipped at a gatorade trying to force down some calories despite the nerves and the heat suppressing my appetite. We moved slowly but it was hard not to notice how hot and humid the day already was, even as the sun had just come up. I tried to ignore the waves of anxiety about the temperature and heat index that passed over me like hot flashes; nothing I could do about the weather so I just had to go with it.
Once we reached the start area we went straight to the porta jons behind the gear check trucks. The potties were plentiful my tummy was very happy to be able to go twice before the race started. From there we dropped gear check bags with clean clothes and our flip flops – items we knew we’d crave if and when we finished this scorcher of a race.
By the time we’d used the portas and checked our gear it was time to wetsuit up and wish each other luck. The river was a decidedly-wetsuit legal 72.8 degrees – about 6 degrees cooler than it had been in my previous gos at this course. In 2015 I’d worn my long sleeve wetsuit in the 77 degree water and hated every second; in 2016 I’d gone wetsuit-free in the 76.5 degree water and been comfortable but of course I’d missed the speed and buoyancy of a wetsuit. This year I got to put my new sleeveless Zone3 suit to its first test and it was perfect in teh slightly-cooler river.
The Swim
The pro field went off at 5:50am and around 6:15 Tiff and I zipped each other into our wetsuits and hugged goodbye. She was in the first wave of women 30-34 which was the 13th wave of the morning. I was in the second round of women 35-39 – even though I am 34!! – or the 16th wave of the day.
The swim is conducted as a time trial start, with 15 athletes entering the water every 20 seconds. It’s an efficient way to get a huge field of competitors going safely and race organizers did a great job keeping everything moving along. I’m wasn’t paying attention to the exact time I entered the Hudson, but working backwards from the finish line it must have been around 6:35am. It seemed even earlier than that as I never felt like I was waiting around bored; the whole pre-race process and corral situation flowed well and it felt like I was in the river within a few minutes of zipping into my wetsuit.
The time trial start worked great and I as soon as I was in the water I felt like I had plenty of space to find my rhythm without any fisticuffs. I tried to take a path to the right towards the center of the river to get as much benefit from the current as I could. Between the fast and helpful tide and the wetsuit I felt buoyant and comfortable. I was afraid to work too hard, not wanting to set back my recovery from the pinched nerve in my back/shoulder that had hampered the preceding 6 weeks or training and racing. I just took it easy, went literally with the flow, and 21:54 I was reaching for the hands of volunteers who were helping athletes up a ramp onto a dock out of the river.
In any other olympic distance race 21:54 would have been unthinkably fast and exciting but for this course it was nothing special and I knew I had a lot of time to make up. Despite the hustle I knew was called for, I took a moment under the showers that line the swim exit; I’d learned in years past to give my face a good scrub to discpatch the socalled “Hudson Mustache.” I rubbed my face and brought my hands down to see the river grime I’d picked up in the swim. Objectively gross I guess but it really doesn’t bother me. Satisfied that I’d cleaned myself at least somewhat I got to running the half mile back to the yellow transition.
Along the way I assessed my bladder situation. Despite concerted efforts during the swim – including slowing down the last 500m to really focus – I’d failed to get myself to pee. In both my previous NYC Tri outings I had spent precious time peeing in T1 and I didn’t want to do it again this year. I felt like I had to go a little but not to bad, and figured that feeling would pass once I wasn’t focusing so hard on it. I made it back to T1, again took special care to wash the Hudson off my feet before putting my bike shoes on, and was in the saddle after 7:51 – inverse to the swim, an almost 8 minute T1 would be terrible in just about any other oly but here it was fine.
The Bike
The bike course starts heading back on the almost the same flat half mile we’d just run to T1 before hanging a hard right up a short steep hill onto the West Side Highway. Organizers remind athletes in the safety briefing and while racking the day before to leave bikes in a low gear to be ready to climb. Really you have a couple minutes of flat pavement to shift down so it’s not too imperative, and you don’t want a gear so low that you’re not moving on the flat section. It’s a crowded stretch so you can’t pick up much speed, but I set myself up to start in a medium gear and pick a few people off before hitting the hill to the main bike course.
My slow swimming means I do a lot of passing in the first few miles of the bike course, so I cut a path to the left and got ahead of as many people as I could even as we climbed. Once up the mean little ascent onto the Highway there’s a narrow stretch where the passing becomes difficult and things always get a little backed up. Ultimately it takes a mile or two to find enough space to buckle down and really ride.
And really on this course there’s never much room to just go. I don’t know that it was a USA Triathlon sanctioned race this year as they never asked for my USAT ID, but whether it was or not, there is basiclaly no way to avoid breaking drafting rules. You can’t sustain sufficient bike lengths between athletes even in good faith. You just have to ride as safely and respectfully as you can and despite the crowding I felt happy and given that tri-people are the best there were lots of shouts of encouragement as I passed people and vice versa.
Maybe this is because one great benefit of having our transition comprised of mostly women is that you end up surrounded by women on the bike. It was so collegial and people called when they were passing and while there were some seriously strong athletes out there no one was unpleasantly aggressive. Except for the guy who cut me off around mile 22 to get a good shot from the photographer stationed there, and the guy who very dangerously passed a woman a few lengths in front of me to her right during a sharp u-turn at mile 23.
That’s something this course has several of – no not noxious oblivious men aged 50 to 55 – sharp technical turns. There’s some technical turning getting on and off the West Side Highway. Then the course is an out an back which includes tight u-turns at each end- the second of which is around mile 23 immediately following which you have to get back up a hill you just descended; this means you don’t get to milk gravity on the descent because you have to slow considerably to take the turn safely, immediately after which you have to power up the same hill you just rode the break down, practically from a stand still. The crowding makes the bike handling that much more challenging.
In addition to the technical handling challenges, it’s a decently climby course: 1060 ft of elevation gain over 25-and-change miles. (25.4 per my garmin.) The big climbs aren’t too steep – they’re more long grinders at miles 5, 7, 13, and 17. The middle two are half a mile and a full mile long respectively, so they can be a slog. The out and back also means you can’t fully enjoy any downhills on the first half of the ride since you know you’ll have to get back up the damn things after the turnaround in the Bronx.
Hills and u-turns aside, it is a beautiful ride – and if you’re from NY it can be kind of surreal riding the West Side Highway free of cars. There are a few moments especially heading south back through upper Manhattan where the view across the Hudson is stunning. Every time I’ve done this race I’ve had moments where I just sit up and take it all in, and no matter the shape you’re in or how you’re race is going, you can’t help but feel immense gratitude for the experience. Despite the usual heat this year was no different.
This year wasn’t particularly different in terms of performance either, but that was a mostl conscious decision I made just a few minutes into the ride. I had made the brilliant decision to do NYC and Rev3 Williamsburg back-to-back weekends. Williamsburg was originally going to be a 70.3 but I downgraded to the olympic thanks to the pinched nerve that had thwarted so much training through May and June. Still two historically scorching race Sundays in a row had me a little worried and I wasn’t sure which to prioritize. I didn’t want to lay it all on the line in NYC on a 100 degree day and have nothing left in Virginia the next week. So after spending the first ten minutes in the saddle fighting the crowds for a enough space to pick up some speed I decided it was already not my day. I still worked my ass off but I made a concerted effort not to go all out – to hold back a little bit on the bike and run and hope it would pay off the following Sunday.
Opting for restraint made for a pretty pleasant bike ride! I never felt too put-out from exertion, but I still passed enough people to feel productive. Just before the halfway point turnaround I passed Tiff who was cruising along on her new road bike looking strong. I called out to as I rode by and remember just feeling happy and good. That feeling stuck around the whole bike course. I made sure to drain the gatorade in my aero bottle and it was early enough that the impending heat wasn’t too noticeable yet.
The final mile is similar to the first in its tight turns and crowding – it also winds a narrow path off the highway making passing basically impossible. I would venture that until the last mile I was putting up an average over 18mph, but after being forced down into several minutes around 15mph I couldn’t maintain it. I finished with an official bike time of 1:24:46. My garmin says the same but read the course as a little long so gave me an even 18mph average whereas official results are a little stingier with an average of 17.59mph. Either way I finished feeling ready to run after playing it cool in the saddle.
The Run
What a difference not having to run a half mile into transition makes! At 2:13 – not even a very good transition – T2 was more than five minutes faster than T1. Having held back on the bike I felt good going into the run. The day was starting to heat upominously and I still wanted to take it a little easy to leave some reserves for the following weekend, but I didn’t want to be too conservative. When I last raced NYC in 2016 I came in 29th in my division and this year I wanted to be top 20 so I still had to do some work to bring it home.
Immediately out of transition the run course winds up a short steep hill, similar to the on-ramp to the bike course. I was ready to go but didn’t want my heartrate to spike too hard on this climb. I took it easy jogging by a number of people walking it and once at the top and onto 72nd street heading east toward Central Park I started to step on the gas. This half mile or so along 72nd is one of my favorite parts of the NYC Triathlon: after swimming and biking mostly sans audience, suddenly there’s a swell of crowd support. And the entire street is shut down to traffic which means a many lanes-wide stretch of street all to ourselves.
Given the transition exit ascent and always needing a few minutes to find and evaluate my legs, mile 1 was a restrained 8:10 according to my Garmin, but the course was a touch short so my official time tracked me a little quicker. Being my strongest discipline and the uncompetitive placement I’m always in when I get out of the water, I have grown very accustomed to passing lots of people on the run, and I almost never get passed myself. (To be clear, this is due in much greater part to my abyssmal swimming than to my run prowess.) So I was not having it when I heard a woman gaining on me down 72nd. It took all of my will power to stay and let her overtake me, prioritizing my overall 10k performance and stamina above my ego. I side-eyed her as she passed, my stomach seizing when I saw that she looked to be my age, but still I maintained my sustainable pace. Once she was in front of me I glanced down at her calf and was relieved to see “R” for relay, in place of her age group; she wasn’t my competition after all. I congratulated myself for staying the course while also regretting a bit my compulsive competitiveness.
In the Park we hooked a right-turn to head south. This was a change for 2018. Previously the course hooked left and north and included the sadistic and wonderful Harlem Hill. Organizers changed things up this year for the stated purpose of allowing athletes a more scenic skyline view towards Central Park South. I think it was really for safety given the historically sweltering conditions. Harlem Hill is a beast on a cool day when you haven’t already swam and biked 26 miles. Even without that bit of mountain climbing the course remained hilly because you just can’t avoid it in Central Park, and despite the heat I was happy to have some climbing – a run strength – to pick off a few more athletes on my way to the finish line.
In mile two I started to pick up the pace, feeling strong and still chasing a top twenty a finish. The second mile was also going to be the flattest fastest opportunity for speed so I wanted to take advantage. I dropped into the 7:30s and felt out a rhythm. I felt like I could have pushed into the 7:20s or 10s but thoughts of Williamsburg seven days away stopped me. Even in my restrained acceleration about halfway to mile three I approached someone familiar: my non-nemesis relay-runner from mile one (aka from like six minutes ago.) I was elated to be passing her back, despite not being in the same division – I just get that hung up on being passed in the run. It’s a sickness, I know. (And one I wish I could catch in the water.) She was running with a guy and as I passed them I heard him telling her to just maintain her breath and stay steady. Again I felt a surge of guilt over my competitive streak collide with my glee to have regained the physical – if not moral – highground.
Mile two clocked in at 7:37, which I was happy with and tried to maintain through mile three. Halfway to mile four though the course charts a quarter mile climb that forced my feet back into the 8s. Mile three’s final time slowed to 7:57 – barely clinging to a sub-8. While I recovered from that hill mile four flattened out and even trended downhill. I regained some speed but the day was really getting hot and this middle section of the run didn’t offer the shade protection of the first few miles. Not wanting to burn out with 2.2 miles (and Williamsburg) to go I contented myself with a 7:45 – holding back and trying to get control of my heartrate before mile five which would be almost entirely climbing – including the biggest hill of the run.
I felt satisfied that I’d already turned in a strong enough performance to ensure my 10k average would be sub-8 min miles so I let my pace slow as I hoofed it uphill. My fifth mile mirrored my first with an 8:10 average. I wasn’t too bothered by it as I felt like despite the rising mercury I’d set myself up for a strong final 1.2 miles. Around me people were fading fast in the sun but I had gas left in the tank. I had to keep climbing in those 8s the first quarter of this final mile but once I’d crested the top of the last big hill of the day I opened the speed back up. I enjoyed a half mile descent dipping back into the 7:30s and 40s, holding reserves to sprint the final .2.
Once the course flattened back out at the bottom the hill I had to fight to maintain a sub-8 average – the heat was definitely starting to take me down a peg or ten. It was 9am but already pushing 90, and that was without considering the heat index. In the last few minutes of the run I went from mostly-comfortable to mostly-agony and I was relieved when I passed the mile six marker and knew I was almost done. That last mile had dropped back into the 7s but barely and it was time to sprint home. I dug out what I had left ignoring my prior concerns for Williamsburg. I dropped lower into the 7s and then 6s and crossed the finish line all the way down at 5:44/mile – a pace I can sustain for maybe ten seconds.
But ten seconds was all I needed and I finished the run with an official time of 48:56 and an overall time of 2:45:39. In those last few miles I’d been doing the math and set myself a game-time goal to come in under 2:45 overall, but I just couldn’t (/wouldn’t) maintain enough speed uphill so I missed that mark by 40 seconds. I entertained a fleeting thought that I should have pushed just a tiny but harder but I shook that idea away feeling good that instead I’d race smart and left myself something to work with the following Sunday.
As I crossed the finish line feeling spent and close-to-overheated I looked up and saw a familiar face – my Rev3 teammate Joe! I hadn’t expected to see someone I knew in that exhausted moment and I was ecstatic to see him. I gave him a big sweaty hug and thanked him for being there. The surprise of a friend at the finish line added to my post-race high as I collected my medal and water and made my way out of the finish area. On my way out a volunteer was pouring ice water over athletes and I took him up on the offer – it felt great and I was drenched but on cloud 9 as I headed to gear check and to wait for Tiff.
Finishing toward the front of the pack means it’s fast and easy to collect your gear, which was good given how drenched I was. I got my bag, found space on a bench and quickly swapped out my waterlogged sneakers for flip flops. Then I just sat and took it all in, feeling great to be done and happy with my performance. I was in my Rev3 kit and two people sharing the bench with me commented on how much they love Rev3 races. Gushing about my favorite race org added to my post-race happies as I waited for Tiff.
She finished about 20 minutes later having performed fantastically on a hard course in difficult conditions for her second tri. She even beat me by literally one second in the swim – she’ll be beating me by many more seconds than that in no time. (Maybe as she quickly surpasses me she can impart some swim-wisdom…but I’m probably a lost cause.)
We met up with Tiff’s fam, perused the finishline festivities, watched the pros collect their prizes in awe of how fast they are, and happily changed into dry clothes. We stopped by the results truck where I discovered not only had I cracked the top 20 as I’d hoped, I’d in fact rounded out the top ten in my F35-39 age group and I was in the top five for the run. I was and am pretty ecstatic with tha result and feel like I’m closing in on the podium in these bigger races.
It’s a long schlep back to transition but there are shuttles from the Park back so we caught one of those – it was easy and quick. We loaded all our gear into backpacks and remounted our bikes for the 3ish mile ride back to her apartment. (Seriously, Tiff, please never leave the West side because it makes life so much easier for at least this one day of the year.)
We were home by 11:30 and then showered as fast as we could so we could brunch before going to see an absolutely insane one-woman play at 2pm. (I may have become a jock but I’m still a theatre nerd at heart.) It was an epically productive day and by the time we finally went to sleep – after sating ourselves on dumplings and bao and scallion pancakes (and wine) a mere 20 hours after our 3:30am wak-up – we felt we had really earned the rest. And Tiff and I agreed we will be back for NYC Tri 2019…who’s with us?! (Bunkie Diana??)
