I wrote this for the Just Finish community. It took a lot longer than I thought it would. I'm tired, and there's a glitch at JustFinish which won't allow me to post, so I'm posting the thing here.
Argh!
----
It happened so quickly. Jim, my boyfriend, and I were moving from Chicago to New York, when all of a sudden, it hit us: we have a do a half-Ironman five days after we get to New York. And then, two days before the race day itself, something else hit us: Wait, what? The race isn't Sunday, but Saturday?
Oh.
Fortunately, we'd had the foresight* to pack all of our triathlon gear before the movers took everything out of our home in Chicago. Into two suitcases went our wetsuits, running shoes, triathlon shorts and tops, bike shoes, and helmets. And, thankfully, one sports bra and one pair of socks.
I say "thankfully" because, as of today, I still have not unearthed the box containing either my socks or my sports bras.
I'd like to take a poll at this point. How many of you are aware that New York has hills? Oh, good. I'm glad to see that you all knew what we had conveniently forgotten after living in the prairie flat lands of Chicago, because at least some of you will go into races in New York with decent training. Jim and I are training for an Ironman in July, so we thought, okay, this won't be a piece of cake, but it'll be doable.** We did not, however, bank on the fact that packing and saying goodbye to the aforementioned flat lands would be both time-consuming and exhausting. It was so time-consuming, in fact, that neither of us did anything resembling exercise in the two weeks prior to the race.
We got to the racecourse OK, leaving our boxes behind for the day, and, casting angry looks at the cloudy sky, turned on the radio to hear this forecast: "sun and clouds today, with some showers." Boy, I said, I'd like to be a meteorologist. I get to say just about anything and the chances are one in five I'll get something right.
We got marked up and started setting up TA, then struggled into our wetsuits*** for the pre-swim. We glanced at the water, took note of the orange buoys, and then dipped our toes into the surprisingly warmish water of Lake Welch. It was at this point that I began to have an inkling that there might be some untoward magicks all over this course, because when I looked at the buoys again, why, <i>they weren't there.</i>
And then it started to rain. I floated up to my neck in lake water, where it was warmer than air temperature, and looked in vain through my goggles for the buoys. No such luck; they'd been covered entirely by a thick layer of what the English call "pea-soup fog," and what I call "pain in the ass." Time went on, creeping steadily toward race start, and then they delayed by 15 minutes, and then, as the buoys stayed floating between ether and reality, the race directors called the swim and we were told to get our sneakers on for a run-bike-run.
We were told that we were going to run a mile and a half total on an out-and-back course, and would you believe that I actually considered adopting my run-walk strategy for even this section?**** In the end, I jogged it and was passed by someone looking to be a strong octogenarian.
I finished the jog second from last and hopped onto my bike. Quick transition, since I didn't have to struggle out of my wetsuit. The bike course looks like this:
Why, yes, those *are* ugly hills! The Harryman is rumored to be the hilliest triathlon course on this side of the pond. On this continent. In this country on this continent. We do four loops of this 14-mile course in order to make the 56 miles needed for a half-IM, and since the course ends with a 2-mile slog up a hill of roughly 4-5% grade, there was massive sucking of wind and grinding of gears each time we completed a lap.
Lap one was gorgeous. The course has a lot of great rolling hills and some beautiful scenery, and since it was still foggy and rainy out, the only time I didn't enjoy the course was when it rained on me while I was moving at 30 miles an hour down a hill. By the end of the first lap I was nursing a bruised lip from an over-zealous raindrop or fifty and pissed. Still, I thought to myself that if I could just hold that lap time (1:06), I could finish the bike course in well under five hours and slog through the run.
I can't really describe the scenery to you: there was fog everywhere, and you could almost imagine woodland creatures hiding in the shrubs, leading quiet lives, not being able to see or hear you. The fog had two other eerie effects: You never really knew where the hills ended or were, and you didn't actually ever feel like you were moving. Neither of these is desirable, but it didn't lessen the overall other-worldly feeling of the course, which was highly enjoyable. Also, this meant that the entire race was done in nice 60-degree temperature.
My second lap was pretty rough. I got lapped by the front-runners on the course, which wasn't really a surprise--Jim's first lap was close to 45 minutes, after all--but it was marginally disheartening to feel my arms start to cramp. I learned, too, that when you put your Camelbak on, it's a good idea to check and make sure you aren't carrying anything extraneous: a massive multi-tool, for instance, or an apple (?). My pack sagged off to one side, creating a huge weight on my left that rapidly led to a cramp in my lower back. I'm sure the weird calisthenics I was doing while riding didn't do anything for my second or third splits (1:15 and 1:24, respectively).
The third lap was OK. Another cyclist stopped to talk to me and I almost told him to go away. My fourth lap I passed and then got passed by the same girl just a mile to the finish. That was marginally annoying.*****
I went into transition and dropped that annoying Camelbak, slid on my running shoes, and went out for a small 13-mile jog. By this time the sun had come out****** and I was covered in a fine layer of crust and any gnats that got near me, since they just stuck to my crust. My legs didn't work all that well during the first mile, but I settled into my run/walk fairly well, until the aid station at Mile 8.5 came about, and I ate a banana, six pretzels, drank 8 ounces of water, and slugged down a gel.******* Then, since my legs had stopped working and I discovered that I had a new, somehow already pained muscle (lower abs! holy crap!), I opted to run the flats and downhills and walk the uphills.
That worked until the end of the race, which, thankfully, is on a flat. My final time was 8:09, which, even if you factor in my regular 1.2-mile swim time, is about an hour faster than my first time doing this race four years ago.********
I think this is a good thing. But now I have to go unpack my boxes, and find my kneecaps, which I think richocheted off my legs when I sat down to go to the loo this morning.
*This is the last time foresight will appear in this blog post. Treasure it.
**cf "foresight," above.
***Note to self: two weeks off training=unseemly layer of pudge.
****Believe it.
*****Read "marginally annoying" as "&#($#!"
******"marginally annoying"
*******read "ate" as "hoovered, like a pig deprived of its daily slop for a week."
********I finished that race followed by my own motorcade of vehicles with blinking lights on them.
