9/26/2010
Rye, NY
First of all, I must say that this was probably the best-organized, biggest race I have ever been to; they had a huge expo with lots of free samples of PowerBars, Muscle Milk, and various other sporty brands that I spend too much money on. In our race packets, we got awesome polyester sweatshirts instead of the typical white cotton t-shirt, and we also received Coleman flashlights (?). We drove to Rye the afternoon before the race to pick up the packets, so we got to play in the ocean on a beautiful beach, which was quite pleasant.
Swim: 24:54 (166th/910 men & women)
The swim was very chaotic; they started us in waves 3 minutes apart, men first (age categories, so youngest up through oldest), and then started the women after. So, the whole time I was swimming through old men, trying to avoid drinking too much saltwater (good sodium replacement, but terrible taste and dehydrator). The ocean plus wetsuit made me feel quite buoyant, which was nice, and the water wasn’t ridiculously wavy; the bay was pretty sheltered, so there were some waves, but it didn’t feel like full-out ocean. It was very hard to tell which buoys I was actually trying to head towards, though, and some of the support kayaks were the same color as the buoys, so that was confusing...
Bike: 1:14:04 (~13th/222 women, 203rd overall)
Ok, this bike was not like a normal triathlon; it felt like a full-out road race. Well, let me make that more clear – it felt like a crazy, mishandled road race, where 1000 riders encompassing all the categories rode together, but they started the A and Intro/D men together, then started the fast women behind all the men, and…you get the picture. I was a bit upset by this arrangement, because it meant that I spent the entire race trying to maneuver around triathletes who didn’t know how to corner or avoid dangerous situations (i.e. stay to the RIGHT of the road and look before you cut in front of people!).
I know cyclists always make fun of triathletes for not knowing bike handling, and usually I say that of course they don’t, because you don’t need crit skills to do a fast time trial…but here, I definitely wasted a lot of time trying to pass people who slowed to almost a halt while going around corners. It was kind of like a race-long “moving-through-the-pack” drill such as Coach Nicole would teach.
It was actually really funny passing men with aero-helmets/tri-bikes/disk wheels, because they would basically be riding on the yellow line with the assumption that no one would possible be going faster than they were. Then, this little girl would call out “on your left!” Haha. Great fun.
The course was pretty easy, pretty fast. I haven’t been riding as much as I did in the spring/summer and still am having bike adjustment/shifting problems, but I cranked it pretty hard and basically hammered the last 5 miles. I figured, since I’m terrible on the run no matter what, I may as well make up as much time as possible on the bike.
Run: 49:58 (8min/mile) (290th overall)
The run was surprisingly good for me! First time I’ve broken 50 minutes in a 10k since high school (which isn’t an impressive time by any means, but it still made me happy). I saw Scott when I was about 2 minutes into the run, and thought “Shoot, he’s 50 minutes ahead of me?!?” (well, the men started ~25 minutes in front of us, so it wouldn’t be THAT bad)…anyway, then about 5 minutes later the course made a loop and went back the way we came, so I felt relieved to know that he wasn’t that far in front of me.
No sign of Katie, Philipp, or Piotr during the race, so I hoped that meant that they were doing well (they were).
Usually, inspirational signs or people cheering a lot kind of annoy me (like, “No, I’m NOT almost there!” and “I’m in pain, leave me alone!”), but at this race it was great. The little kids competing to hand out gatorade and gels were very cute, the cheering made me feel in a good mood, and the guy who shouted to me “I hate this f*cking place” made me laugh.
So, I felt pretty good, pretty fast (must be those despised track speeds I’ve been adding to the end of all my slow runs ), and managed to come in just under 50 minutes.
Overall: 2:32:39 (19th/222 women, 194th overall, 4th in age category)
My long-term goal for an Olympic (like, a real length one, without any short legs or weird distances) was to get down to 2:35. 2:45 would be a pretty average race for me, so I figured 2:35 would be fabulous (considering my run time never seems to improve no matter how much or how I train). Anyway, after this weekend, I need a new goal now!
Super fun trip, with lots of good scenery, freebies, and companions, and not overly far away from MIT. I hope they keep this one in the NECTC next year.
-Shaena
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