Google hosted its first 5K run today in support of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I thought that was pretty cool of them to organize it. I ran it today, and came in 4th place! Shout out to all of the disinterested fast runners who didn’t sign up (of which there are a ton). I was almost 2 minutes behind the pack of 3 leaders, but it’s still the closest I’ll ever come to winning a race!

I ran it in 21:13, or 6:50 per mile, which is by far the fastest I’ve ever done this distance (was expecting somewhere around 7:30/mile).

Finished in 1:44:41 (8:25 pace)

The Swim

As I was walking to the dock, I ran my swim strategy through my head: stay near the outside where the current is strong, breathe once every 3 strokes (alternating sides) just like in training and sight on every breath, and try to draft behind someone. The moment the whistle blew and I jumped in the water, it all went out the window. It was very windy out and the waves were really strong. Each time I tried to sight or breathe, I’d get a wave in my face.

After about a minute I managed to see something other than green water — and I noticed that I had drifted way close to the seawall and was facing nearly a 45 degree angle. I adjusted my course and swam for another minute or so, only to find myself in the same position after failing to sight again. At that point I decided to change things up — breathe every other stroke, and sight on every breath. Given the conditions, about half of the breaths or sights would fail, so I’d have to attempt to breathe/sight more often to have any chance of getting enough air and to be able to look in front of me.

The new plan seemed to work well, and I eventually worked my way into a rhythm. I got close enough to the buoys on the outer edge that I could see them while I was breathing, so I didn’t need to sight forward as often. There were a few kicks and bumps along the way with other people, but that was expected. I had purposely put my goggles under my cap instead of over them to make sure they would stay on in case I got kicked in the face.

Eventually, I saw the big pole near the swim exit dock. I had been advised to keep swimming until I hit the ramp, avoiding the sea floor at all costs — there’s so much silt there that once your foot goes in, it’s hard to pull it out… and when you do pull it out, it’s covered in things you don’t want to see. I slowed down a bit so I could swim around all of the suckers standing up, and eventually landed on the ramp where someone helped pull me out. I had no idea how long it had taken me — I figured somewhere around 30 minutes, knowing that I had lost a lot of time due to my abysmal start. My final time ended up being around 23 minutes.

T1

After finishing the swim, I had a ~400 yard barefoot run to the entrance of the transition area. I ran through the mud to my bike, got out of my wetsuit, dried off my feet, and put my socks on. While putting on my cycling shoes I realized that I forgot to rinse my feet with my bottle of tap water… and so my feet felt pretty disgusting. I didn’t really have time to think about it though. It was still cloudy but it had stopped raining at this point. I put on my sunglasses anyway to shield my eyes from water anyway, and made it out of T1 with my bike in about 6 minutes.

The Bike

There’s a steep hill out of Riverside park, and then you get on the northbound Henry Hudson Parkway and head to the Bronx. I took it easy on the first few miles to spin up and got into my rhythm. Average speed on the first 1/3 or so of the course, which was mostly flat was about 22mph. There was also a good tailwind helping everyone along. Unfortunately, the roads were pretty slick from the rain. I saw someone lose control of their bike while riding over a painted line and he crashed really hard. I decided I would take the downhills easily.

At some point along this beginning third, I passed some guy on a fancy Cervelo tri bike, complete with a time trial helmet. He was on a huge gear - you could tell because he heaved his shoulders like crazy on every pedal stroke, something the coaches told us to never do. In fact, they told us to laugh at those guys because that’s pretty much the worst thing you can do in a triathlon. In any case, the guy seemed to not appreciate my crappy entry-level bike in a low gear coasting past his, so we played tag for the next several minutes. You could tell it really got to his head. I wasn’t trying to troll him. He just kept accelerating every time I passed him.

On the way into the Bronx, you ride through a toll booth! That was pretty cool.

The toll booth is at the start of a hill up to the Henry Hudson bridge. This is right around the time I saw Cervelo Guy whiz past me on his huge gear while on his aero bars. About 20 seconds later, the fact that he was on a hill hit him hard. Still with the large gear, he was pretty clearly tired. I spun past him pretty easily and never saw him again. It was great.

For about the remaining 2/3 of the race, all of the cyclists were battling against a very strong headwind and long hills. My practice rides on 9W paid off a ton. The hills weren’t really a problem at all for me, and neither was the headwind, and I was screaming “ON YOUR LEFT” constantly, passing a lot of people.

When I was back in Manhattan (through the toll both in the other direction), my first water bottle was empty so I was going to switch the positions of my bottles to put the full one in the easy-to-reach cage. I had practiced this manuever several times: hold the empty bottle between my teeth, move the full bottle from one cage to the other, and put the empty bottle back. While putting the empty bottle back, I lost my grip on it, and the bottle came out of my hand. Thankfully it was the empty bottle I lost and not the full one, but I did remember that race officials will disqualify anyone who leave trash on the course. I thought for several seconds about whether I should turn back and pick up my bottle, but by then I had moved too far. I looked behind me, hoping that there weren’t any race officials that saw me. I don’t think there were.

There was another switchback at 59th street, about 1 mile before the end of the ride. As planned, I switched to a very low gear, spun really fast, and stood up on my pedals every now and then to warm up my legs for the run.

After the race, I found out that I ended the swim in well over 2000th place. By the end of the bike I was in 952nd place. I finished the 25 mile course in about 81 minutes.

T2

This was pretty uneventful - in and out of transition in 2 minutes. I paused briefly to stretch my abs which had recently been a problem in my brick workouts. The sun was coming out, but I put on my hat anyway in case it would start to rain again. I turned around my race belt so my number would be in front of me instead of behind, and ran out of transition.

The Run

The run begins in Riverside Park and goes along 72nd street into Central Park. There’s a brutal hill, but as with the bike I knew to expect it so it wasn’t so bad. You run through a tunnel (where I had to jump over a gigantic puddle) to get to the street, and that’s where you start to see all the spectators. There were a lot of people and it was a lot of fun. The cops were still allowing cars to pass through the intersections, and I almost got hit by a bus driver who wasn’t paying attention. I took the first mile very slow (probably ~9:30 mile) to make sure I wouldn’t cramp, then accelerated once I got to the entrance of Central Park.

This is around when I noticed a sharp pain in my left ankle. My bones and muscles were fine, but I noticed that the velcro strap of the timing chip was digging into my upper heel. It wasn’t bleeding, but it had cut through many layers of skin at this point and was getting worse with every footstep. I didn’t really think about it too much and just kept going.

Central Park is familiar terrain to me, except the run course goes clockwise (backwards) so it was odd seeing everything from the other perspective. I had done the run in that direction once before, so I had a general idea of where the hills and flat sections were. It was pretty uneventful - I spent most of the time passing other people who were walking up the hills. I had made it through the swim without floating on my back and spun my pedals through the entire bike course, and I had no intention of walking on the final leg. The 3 smallish hills on the west side were a blur, the Harlem Hill came and went, and I sped up a lot in the final stretch down the 72nd street transverse. The course ends with a loop around Bethesda fountain and onto the ironically-named Dead Road and I really pushed the pace at the end. I ended with an average 8:55 pace — certainly not record breaking but not bad.

The finish

At the finish line, you walk down a narrow path where people hand things to you: an ice-cold towel, a bottle of water, a bottle of Cytomax, and a finisher’s medal. I took off my timing chip and saw the laceration on my heel, which was a little painful but not too bad. As I slowly made my way through the gigantic crowd at the end I passed through another alley where they had tables set up with tons of bagels, coconut water, and muscle milk. There were several hundred people lined up to take photos. I didn’t realize how long it took, but apparently I spent an hour just trying to get through the crowds. Eventually I made it to my destination, the tent where they give you your timing receipt that lists your results. I finished in 2:48:33, well ahead of my goal of 3:15:00.

I finished the NYC Triathlon this weekend in 2:48:33, well ahead of my goal! This is my race report. Part 1 is about everything leading up to the race. There’s probably more to write about the preparation than the race itself, which was a blur to me.

Saturday

I woke up at 5AM to do a quick 10 minute swim and a 10 minute run. Later that afternoon I’d be biking 20 minutes from my apartment to the transition area for mandatory bike check-in and to pick up my timing chip. I felt good, and after a week of tapering I had to restrain myself from pushing hard.

When I got to the transition area I found that my designated rack was in the far back corner, which meant I would have to run the farthest possible distance during the race to get to/from my bike. The race organizers had laid tarp on the grass in most of the transition area, but there wasn’t enough tarp to cover the ground where my stuff would be. It was forecasted to rain on race day, so that would mean I’d be running and carrying my bike through a lot of mud. I kept that in mind so I could think about it when I got home.

When I racked my bike, I picked up my timing chip — a black plastic-covered token with a velcro strap, which they were distributing that day instead of race morning due to the forecasted rain. I then went on the transition tour led by one of the volunteers and visited where exactly I’d be getting out of the water, into and out of transition, and which direction I had to go. This was probably the most useful thing to go to - I would definitely have gotten lost on race day if I didn’t go to this.

As I was leaving the area to go home, I also noticed that a lot of bikes had large garbage bags covering the seat, handlebars, and geartrain in anticipation of the heavy storms predicted for that night. It made sense — soggy handlebars/seats and squeaky geartrains are no good. I started to get worried, so before I went home I found a nearby supermarket, bought some garbage bags, and went back to the transition area to cover up my bike.

When I got home I realized I had to change my plans for transition. I had planned to set up my cycling shoes/socks, running shoes, helmet, sunglasses, and so on in a certain way, but since it was going to rain I came up with a different way. I’d have a large garbage bag on the ground so my stuff wouldn’t get muddy. Then, I’d have 2 duffel bags sitting on top of it: one to hold the T1 gear (helmet, cycling shoes, sunglasses, race number, a bottle of tap water to rinse mud off my feet, and a towel), and another to hold the T2 gear (running shoes, backup pair of socks). During T1 I’d open up the first bag and shove my wetsuit in there, and in T2 I’d open up the second bag and swap my cycling shoes for running shoes. Everything would stay covered, so I wouldn’t have to worry about shoes filling up with water.

After deciding on that I tried to go to sleep at 8PM. The plan was to wake up at 3:30AM, eat something, and leave my apartment by 4:30 so I could get to transition in time to set everything up.

Sunday

I didn’t really get any sleep. When it was 3AM I gave up and just decided to get ready to leave. I ate my usual breakfast (bagel, granola bar, and a glass of water), strapped my timing chip to my ankle, and left the apartment with all my stuff. Leaving earlier turned out to be really lucky, since I ended up waiting nearly 20 minutes for the train. I got to transition at around 5AM, which gave me enough time to set up my bike (saddle bag, water bottles, inflate the tires, check the gears and brakes) and lay out all of my stuff. It rained pretty hard and I was glad I covered up my bike with garbage bags. It was still raining, so laid the garbage bags over my duffel bags. I grabbed my wetsuit and Gu and started the long 1-mile walk to swim start.

The race was supposed to start at 5:55AM. My wave was the last wave to go, and I estimated that I’d be jumping in around 7AM. Upon arriving, though, people were talking about a 20 minute delay. Apparently there was a car crash nearby and they were waiting to clear it out. They eventually started the race about 40 minutes late. By then, the sun had come up, and the rain slowed down a bit.

The pros jumped in first. I watched them breeze through the Hudson in perfectly straight lines, everyone drafting behind the guy in front of them. It looked so calm and orderly. When the age groups jumped in, it was pretty chaotic, but more like what I’d expected to see. When they were about halfway through, I put on my wetsuit, chugged a Gu, and headed to the corral.

To be continued!

I’m tapering this week. It’s nice to get a little rest finally.

Predictions:

• Swim: 30 min
• T1: 10 min
• Bike: 90 min
• T2: 5 min
• Run: 60 min

Last week I started the triathlon coaching sessions with the JackRabbit group. Training is going very well. I’m feeling good about the swim, routinely swimming more than the 1 mile about 3x per week, to the point that I think the bike is now the weakest part of my race. It’s difficult to find time and a good place to train on my bike, but recently I’ve definitely been skewing my workouts away from running (which I am happy with) and more toward cycling and swimming.

The one swim session and one bike session we’ve had so far have proven to be way useful already. Just a few little tips on form and I was swimming laps way faster than I ever have and going up steep hills on my bike with energy to spare. As far as total distance goes, I’m right around where I want to be.

My goal time: 3:30:00 or a factor of 2 of the winner, whichever is first. As long as I don’t get lazy while training I feel good about reaching that. Stretch goal: 3:00:00. I’m going to be training hard for that.

This month I started ramping up on the amount of swimming I do, which is by far my weakest leg of the triathlon. The first few times I went to the pool I struggled quite a bit, trying to remember how to swim (I had taken lessons when I was like 10 years old). I’ve found that proper technique makes an enormous difference.

Last week, I swam 1600 yards, which is almost the full distance in an Olympic triathlon. Of course, I had to take a few breaks. My goal right now is to be able to swim the full distance without stopping (at whatever pace), by March. I will hopefully be in the pool at least 3x a week. This leaves not a lot of time for running and cycling, but I want to at least convince myself that I can survive in the water.

My plan after that (April-May) is to start combining the workouts (swim+bike, swim+run) to build a decent baseline. Then, at the end of May, I’ll have a coach (I signed up for group training classes at JackRabbit) and I’ll follow whatever program from that.

I also finally got around to prettying up the graph on the right sidebar! It now shows cycling and swimming in addition to running, and you can hover over the bars for details.

It looks like my mileage has gone down, but it has actually gone up as I’ve added regular cycling to my training. I’ve also started swimming. I’ll update the graphs at some point.

About a year ago, I set two goals for 2010: run a half marathon (done), and bring the odometer to 1200 miles. It looks like I’m going to be somewhere around 1100 by January 1st, but I’m going to count this as a win anyway, because I started cycling near the end of the year and have racked up some 350 miles, and have started to do a little swimming. I’ll get around to updating those graphs at some point to reflect all of this.

This is all in preparation for the NYC triathlon, which I registered for last month. The target date is August 7, 2011, and my tentative goal is to finish in 4 hours or less.

Right now, I go running/cycling 3 times a week, and do both on weekends. Typically on weekdays I run or cycle for an hour. Today I biked 19.5 miles, then got off the bike and ran 5 miles. I felt good, and I think I’ll be in decent shape for the race. Swimming will be, by far, my weakest leg of the race — starting next year, I’ll be upping this to 4 workouts per week, eventually ramping that up to 6 in the last few months of training.

Yeah, I can’t believe I’m actually doing this, either!

I completed my first 20K race today in 1:53:09, well ahead of my goal of 2 hours!

I ran the first few miles intent on not overexerting myself, and stopped at most of the water stations. I felt good at the start, running at a slow 10:00 pace and watching people pass me. I knew that I had probably started too far up the field when I overheard stuff like “yeah, so I’m going to run 20 miles next weekend” coming up in casual conversations.

The first water station was 2 miles in. My first mistake was probably that I drank too much water at the first station (I drank the whole cup). I was more afraid of dehydration than I was of some stomach discomfort. Given the weather, I probably didn’t have to worry about dehydration, and the consequence was some cramping that started right after. But oh well. At that point you really have no choice but to suck it up and just run. What am I gonna do, quit 2 miles into the race? I learned my lesson after the first station and drank only a couple sips at each mile. I didn’t need that much, it turned out. I guess training in 100-degree New York weather really made me wary of dehydration.

By the 3rd mile I had settled into a steady pace and was starting to pass people again. I hit the halfway mark at exactly 1 hour and 9 seconds so I think I paced myself pretty well to hit the 2 hour goal. Stomach cramping aside, my legs and lungs and heart were still in good shape so I gradually picked up the pace (and in the end, ran the second half of the race 7 minutes faster than the first half). Now, this isn’t a competition against other racers (certainly not at my level) but passing people for most of the race felt pretty encouraging. The people and the bands cheering everyone on was good too. Most of the race seemed like a blur, and every mile after the 6th was at least 10 seconds faster than my previous mile.

I picked up the pace a lot on 11th and 12th miles, which really brought on the stomach pain. But I had planned on being in a little pain on the last mile anyway. And the moment I saw the finish line, I sprinted past probably 15 or 20 other runners.

Next time, I’ll work on pacing myself better. Today, my only goal was to finish in 2 hours, and my slow start was somewhat intentional so as to not let the adrenaline get to me. If I start a little faster, and not save up so much energy that I can do a full-blown sprint at the end, I’ll probably improve a little bit.

Next up: I’m thinking about doing the NYC Triathlon next July. The graphs on the right side may start to get interesting.

I finished last week with a 12.1 mile run, which is the longest I’ll go before the race on Labor Day. I felt good at the end of it, so I’m feeling confident about race day. My goal is to finish in 2 hours, which I’m on-track for.

Over these next two weeks I’ll be toning it down a lot to give my legs a break.