Saturday 10K: 42:50 (6:54)

Sunday 4M: 27:15 (6:49)

This time I managed to hit 27:00 even (6:45 pace)! No race next week, but I have 2 races the following weekend.

Official time: 27:10 (6:48 pace), a new PR.

This race had about 3 times as many runners as the last race, and I was bumped back to the 2nd corral (where I belong, anyway). My time was 43:16 (6:58 pace), which I’m very happy with given the hilly course (and the uphill finish). Given that I still managed a pace pretty close to my 4M pace, I think I might be able to chop a lot of time off of my next 4M race.

No race next week, but I’ll be preparing like a madman for the Brooklyn Half on May 19th, followed by the NYC tri in July.

My time in the last race got me upgraded to the fast corral for this race. I managed to keep up with them and finished in 27:31 (6:53 pace), beating my last 4M time by almost 2 minutes.

Except for Apr 15, I will have a race pretty much every weekend until May 19th, which is the Brooklyn Half, and the 9th and final race to get me qualified for the 2013 marathon.

I finished in 21:25 (6:55 pace). I just came back from a ski trip, but I still managed a strong finish that I’m happy with. This isn’t my fastest time (I was 12 seconds slower than my PR), but my PR was set on a flat course, and this race was very very hilly. I managed to get even splits the whole way through.

Today is also the first week of a spinning class I’m taking, which I’m hoping will get me in good enough shape by Spring to do justice to my fancy new Cervelo bike.

Unofficial time: 29:16 (7:19 pace). I just came back from a week of vacation in Costa Rica so I was a bit off my game, but it’s still a very good time for me and I hope it only gets better from here. This is the first of 9 races this year to qualify for the 2013 NYC marathon.

I also lotteried into the NYC triathlon this year (July), and will be doing the New Haven 20K again in September. I’m also hoping to do the Brooklyn Half in May, but registration for that hasn’t started yet.

Next race is in 1 week.

Update: official time was 29:15.

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.