Orissa's Triathlon Adventures: Racing again after forever!!!

I had an absolute blast at the NYC Triathlon! Where else can you swim in the Hudson, ride on a closed off Henry Hudson Parkway, and run through Central Park?

Swim – 1500m; 22:05 minutes (1:19/100yd) Hahahaha!

There’s a strong current in the point-to-point swim so I literally had my fastest swim time for the 1500 m I’ve ever had. This year the water was supposedly the cleanest it’s been in years (for which I’m grateful for) but I swear I hit two dead bodies and one possibly live one. There was a section of water that stank and I remember thinking to myself, “How can water stink?” LOL

After exiting the swim, there’s a long run back to transition and I will admit I am a wimp when it comes to running barefoot on anything that’s not carpeted or padded. I am proud to say that I did run/shuffle the whole back to my bike even though my T1 time is pathetically slow. And I’m sorry to the Elite racer I ran into as she was headed out for the run. My swim addled mind couldn’t figure out which way left was.

Bike – 40k; 1:24:40 (17.6 mph) – Pretty conservative bike, but I think it saved my legs for the run.

I hopped on my bike and took off on the course, which I knew had a short, steep uphill right out of T1 and I was prepared for the people around me to stop. What I wasn’t prepared for was how bumpy and rutted it was. Luckily the folks around me all rode up the hill and we all maneuvered around the bumps without running into each other. This was a super fun bike course; completely closed off to traffic on the Henry Hudson Parkway. Slightly hilly on the way out, you get to ride through a toll booth and over a bridge. You’ve got some awesome descents where you can pick up the pace before you turn around and go up one slow, steady climb before it’s mostly downhill all the way back. One thing that surprised me by the riders in NYC - they either don’t know how or don’t like to descend. Every time we hit one, they would sit up and coast! I pulled over to the left and shouted “On your left” as I would pass groups of people just cruising. Crazy! Then of course I hit a bump pretty hard in the road and I was like, “Shit, I just passed all these people like a douche and I’m gonna be here on the side of the road with a flat.” Luckily, that didn’t happen and I was able to keep on riding.

After cruising back into the T2 I was feeling great and wondered how the run was going to feel. The temperature in NYC was very warm and the day before we had all been notified that the run had been cut down to 5.22 miles due to the heat. Of course, I was like this isn’t heat people – come race in Texas! But this race is really big (~4,000 racers) and there are two transition groups. I was lucky to be in the first one, as the second transition group takes off 20 minutes after the last wave in the first one. I image that they had to deal with the heat way more than I did.

Run – 5.22 miles 45:13 minutes (8.47 min/mi)

I had only done a few bricks since getting back into training from my hand injury and I was really curious to see how I would hold up. I told my coach that I wasn’t really trying to hit any certain numbers, I just wanted to see how racing felt. Surprisingly, the legs felt decent when I started the run and that gave me a huge boost of confidence. The run went down 72nd Street and it’s closed off and people are lined up along the barricades cheering for all the runners. It was super cool looking around at the tall buildings and seeing the landmarks in NYC and it just made me super excited to be there. Then we entered Central Park and I’m keeping a great pace and it was so hard to do because it was so easy to get distracted by seeing all the new stuff. A few times I told myself to look around and see the sights of running in Central Park! The course was pretty much open and it was neat to see how many other runners and bikers and roller bladers were in the park doing their normal weekend routine. My watch kept beeping off the miles and finally I’m down to one mile to go and I’m still feeling great. I had forgotten to look at my watch for the last two miles so I really have no idea what my pace is or how I’m doing but I’m having so much fun I don’t really care. Then I’m turning into the barricades towards the finish line! As I crossed the finish line and walked through the volunteers and other racers I couldn’t help but say out loud to the people next to me that I felt like I could have run that extra 1 mile. I don’t think everyone agreed with me but I was so happy to be feeling great!

Total time – 2:43:57 – Overall, I’m very happy with this time. I said I had wanted to be at 2:45 and even though the run was cut short, I would have only gone over a few minutes. That’s a win to me!

I found Brian and Aixa waiting for me by the food tables and we were all happy with our races and excited to talk about our adventures. I’m so happy I finally decided to listen to Aixa and do this race. It’s extremely well put on and super coordinated, especially for being in such a big city as NYC. It’s definitely one that I would love to do again one day and I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants a fun race in a city that has tons to do!