Category: 2024 Race Reports

Last week’s 15k had been almost magical in shifting my attitude and didn’t know if I could re-create the magic. So, I had some doubts about this race:  didn’t get enough sleep the night before; and wasn’t sure I had trained enough to run  20k (12.4 miles) — farther than the 9.3 miles of  last week’s race and a 10-mile workout of a month ago.

Arrived at the elementary school parking lot a solid 40 minutes before race time — checked in (using the same bib as last week’s “Boston Buildup” race), found the men’s room (even the faculty had child-height toilets!), and ran a couple of blocks.  That got me warm enough to take off a layer and meet up with high school and college friend Greg Donat (who took up running races only a few years ago and made the cut for Boston this year). I had politely declined to warm up with him — I am not running a marathon and don’t need 2 extra miles before and after a race! 

This was such a low-key affair that they didn’t have an airhorn or anything — the crowd simply surged forward, and someone near me said, “Have we started?” Coach Steve had suggested that based on my 8:12 pace from last week I’d average 8:25 today.  Frankly, I was relieved that Greg planned to run a 9:30 pace  so I didn’t have to worry about keeping up with him.

Right away, I got into enjoying the motion and the effort and the thrill of pushing — enough to continually feel that I was moving FORWARD, resisting the lag, enjoying the uphills (wow, these marathoners don’t seem to slow down at the hills!), LOVING the downhills.  Only looked at the watch to make sure it was clicking off some mileage — whoops, that first mile was a 7:40, but it felt fine, not rushed.  Kept checking in:  the left knee started aching but then stopped, this pace is sustainable, each mile marker was spray-painted in purple on the road so I didn’t have to check my time.  

Saw a guy around my age looking at his watch and I thought, “what are you checking for? You already qualified for Boston!”  Chatted with a woman in her 30s dressed in yellow jacket, and she said, “that woman ahead of us in black?  She’s at every race I’m in and she’s always ahead of me until the very end.”  Woman in yellow surges ahead, I catch up to the woman in black, and tell her about my conversation; she replies, “Oh, please, I’m twice her age!”  Later, I say, “Finally! another uphill!” to a fellow age grouper, with short gray beard and built like he’d been a tremendous athlete when he was younger, and he just laughs.

And then the downhills are so continuous, I can’t believe it; my quads are aching but I’m feeling fine.  I turn to a guy with gray hair and say, “is there an uphill coming?  Do you know?”  He ignores me!  Either he’s an asshole or he’s digging deep or he’s just deadly serious and that’s what got him into qualifying for Boston.  After the race ends, he came up to me and said, “I couldn’t hear what you were saying.”  He’s partly deaf and reads lips!

And, lo, another result better than expected:  1:44:38, or an 8:05 minute/mile pace.  My only goal with this crowd was to be in the 50th percentile, so 6/11 AG (60-69 years), 75/190 OA was fine.

After cheering on Greg’s finish, he agreed (while we tacked on another 1/2 mile) that running can be pretty joyful.  And going inside the school cafeteria to stretch, I bumped into the woman in black, and the guy with the gray beard, and a third runner in her 60s.  They all had changed into warm dry clothes and were chatting and asked me, “So, see you in three weeks?”  at the final, 25k race in the series.  

I don’t know if I’ll do another, longer training race.  But it’s a nice bunch of people, dedicated to running, and it’s nice to tune into each mile as its own celebration that culminates in a Finish Line.  

This may have been one of my best races ever, starting at an elementary school in Ridgefield, Connecticut (50-minute drive from my house), with plenty of room, warmth, and toilets….

Focused on the right priorities:  (1) don’t get hurt, because my training for a Half Ironman is progressing nicely (thank you, Coach Steve); (2) don’t look at the watch (thank you, John McD) except for when it buzzed on my wrist the first mile of the 9.3 mile course: 7:45, that’s too fast, but it was a lovely downhill on a narrow road into a sunny morning with tall, bare trees…. And (3) have FUN (thank you, Vassilis)!   Felt like I was running with all these friends and their good advice.

Pretty obvious that having fun was (and always should have been) the most important priority.  I kept checking in on the status of the ship’s vitals (Mile 4:  hamstring tweaking; maybe my posture needs adjustment, or slow it down?) and of the captain’s mental state (“Oh, no, that guy is passing me!… That’s not a helpful thought. I won’t think about it. What a beautiful day!  Ooh, another downhill!”)

Here I was, racing with these folks who were preparing for the Boston Marathon (I qualified for Boston but didn’t make the 5:29-minute cut that Boston’s race directors imposed to reduce the field from 31,000 to 20,000 runners). So I sometimes felt like an imposter, but recognized “that’s not a useful thought; I won’t think about it; damn, what a great day!”  Everyone around me is dead serious, no one saying a word.  In contrast, my jaw is hurting at Mile 7 from smiling so much.

Miles 8 and 9 were uncomfortable, but arrived sooner than I expected (another benefit of not looking at the watch!), leapfrogged with another guy my age wearing a shirt from a triathlon we’d both done, got passed by the young woman who I had passed early in the race and who had gas left in the tank for a wonderful sprint, and I finished still smiling.

And the metrics were great!  Steve had predicted I’d run 9:00-9:15 minute/miles (based, he forgets, on the reasonable workouts he had given me), and I finished in 1:16:22 – an 8:12 minute/mile pace.  And my heart rate average was 143 bpm — totally reasonable, middle of the range.

For once, I was merely curious  about my results relative to others in the 60 and older range.  Turns out pretty good:  5/18 for AG (60-69 year old men, not including the 70+ guys who were included in the “Veterans” category), and 67/177 OA.   But more importantly,  I had fun.  Now, THAT’s a sustainable attitude to take me through another season.

Dawn at Lake Welch, Harriman State Park, NY.*

It is much harder to write about the races that don’t end on or close to the podium, and to find victory in them anyway.  

I had downgraded first from the Toughman 70.3 triathlon to the Olympic distance (because weddings and other family travels had prevented sufficient training), and then from the Olympic triathlon to the Olympic aquabike (because I have hernias that suddenly flared up and told me that I can’t run; this is what it means to listen to the body…). So, finding that I could still swim and bike without a problem, I was lucky to find that Toughman provided a swim/bike option. 

It’s just as well that race day pickup was prohibited because Friday’s check-in was the most disorganized cluster I’ve ever known.  When we arrived at 2:30, there were 10 people ahead of us; we didn’t finish until an hour later, when at least 30 people were waiting! I recognized a referee from other local races who muttered, “This has been a rough week, today…”  

* To add insult to injury, and consistent with the disorganized check-in, there were no photos or results posted for the Aquabike after the race! (Luckily, I grabbed results from the tracking app…)

Race day itself, I learned that Aquabike is a THING, especially at this so-called national championship event (for which you could register without qualifying at an earlier race). While I had assumed that most participants would be, like me, downgrading because of a running injury, I was sadly mistaken. Some guys waiting at the starting area had travelled from New Hampshire, Indiana, and Florida for this race. THIS was their sport. They were SERIOUS swimmers (“how fast do you expect to swim?” “Oh, in open water, I can only do around 1:14 min/100 yards”) and apparently strong cyclists as well.

The lake is beautiful, and it’s a mass start from the beach. Horn goes off, we run in, and I’ve got a good line on the 5 buoys going out, short turn, 5 buoys coming back. Despite a race official telling me the day before that the water was 68 degrees (“yeah, that’s what it is historically”), it felt like a beautiful 73-75! So the full sleeve wetsuit was almost too warm. Swim felt strong – I had improved my stroke and was enjoying an efficient pull — but apparently I settled into a comfortable rather than a challenging pace. Finished the 1.5 km/0.9 miles in 28:19 (that is, 1:50 min./100 yds.) Meh. (5 days later, on a relaxed recovery swim in the pool, I averaged 1:48). I really need more killer instinct on the swim… But here’s improvement: Legs didn’t cramp up coming out of the water! And yes, the guy who did first place in my age group did it at 1:14 min/100 m.

T1 in 2:44; was toying with arm warmers, but adrenaline masked the chill and left them behind.

The ride was gorgeous, though rough road, and hilly – but I knew the hills from riding the course with Alan Gold two weeks earlier, getting lost, and then driving it. (He was racing the Olympic tri – and later on race day would WIN FOR HIS AGE GROUP beating 2nd place by 0:21 seconds! GOOOOOOO, ALAN!). I decided my goal was just to do ride as hard as I could, since I wasn’t pacing for a run afterwards; a 9 or 10 RPE (relative perceived exertion). And I passed quite a few people to start, keeping my wattage around 220. But whoever came out of the water 8-10 minutes earlier wasn’t waiting for me, and then the triathlon racers started to pass me. Mostly younger; a man and a woman crested a hill with me and then going downhill passed out of sight, jockeying for position; how did they go so fast? I finally passed a guy with “70 [years old]” written on his calf; I said, “You’re killing it!”; he said, “I come from good stock.” Tried harder to make sure I at least beat him…

Ultimately finished the ride in 1:21:05 (= 18.6 mph). Despite my efforts! Bottom line: finished the race in 1:52:07; 11/11th for AG, 34/63 male, 42/109 overall. Meh!

So on the one hand, it’s obviously disappointing to rank so poorly. On the other hand, the racing felt good, I had fun (without taking it easy), was competing with some stellar guys who apparently focus on this sport, and didn’t have the edge I normally have by being able to catch up on the run. What the heck, I did another race, it’s the end of the season, and I’m getting hernia surgery next week. Next year will be better!

I promise you:  if you read to the end of this, you’ll laugh.

Along with paying for a NYC law office I scarcely used for the past 12 months, I also paid for the subscription for this dormant website.  Turns out both were reasonable investments (though the rental obviously cost much, much more): now that I’m fully vaccinated (finally, an advantage to having asthma!) I’m occasionally back in the office and this weekend, BACK TO RACING.

It was with some trepidation that I prepared for this race, not because  of the sprint distance — run 2.1 miles, bike 10 miles, run 2.1 miles — but because of the weather: 32^o F (that’s 0^o C, for my international friends).  Which was fine for a run, but pretty awful for a ride, and I’d frankly been riding indoors all winter to avoid temps like that.  Plus the race was a 40-minute drive from my northern suburb to Brooklyn, BEFORE adding in time to find parking…  I didn’t review the “last minute”details until 9 pm the night before, only to learn the race didn’t begin at 8 a.m., but at 7 a.m.!  

So, I had to get up at 4:30 (Rachel wisely choosing to sleep in another room), take in my nutrition, feed the cats, drive, and try to get there an hour before race time (to get my bib, set up bike transition, use the yes very cold portable outhouse and warmup).  I had parked my car and ridden into the park — and I needed help to unclip my helmet, my hands were too cold to feel the clasp! In the transition area, everyone is wearing masks, but squeezing bikes into only 4 racks. Looking through the swag bag to get my racing chip ankle bracelet, I found, in advance of the race, the medal we all received for participating (just like Little League trophies – “everyone gets one”).  I held it up to my freezing colleagues and said, “We can go home now!”

A time-trial cycling race was already under way, but at 7:00 a.m. the starting waves for this duathlon were so casual that the race director said “who wants to go next?”  I was only somewhat warmed up, but I figured the sooner I started, the sooner I could finish and go HOME, so at 7:05 I crossed the blue and red racing mats – all alone. 

This was the closest all pandemic that I came to a virtual race:  going as fast as I can without any bunny to chase or monster to run from, ignoring my watch and feeling the heart rate rise, following the racing staff’s direction to turn left to avoid the bicycle route, panting before I reached the first mile because there’s no pacing on a race this short, noting the pretty lake on my left, and it’s over.  14:26 = 7:07 minute/mile pace.  (Having recovered from plantar fasciitis that kept me from running for 6 months in 2020, this was my fastest pace in over a year,) 

Rush into T1, change running shoes for bike shoes, throw on my warmest yellow jacket (because THIS guy is not going to survive freezing temps with anything less), which probably costs me some time. Another, younger guy has arrived panting and gets out only slightly behind me (no wardrobe change for him).  T1 takes me 1:28 minutes –not great.  

I run to Bike Out, get on the road, clip in and start to ride as fast as I can, but with the transition from run to bike, I feel the lactic acid aching and my legs feel like lead and that guy who was just behind me goes zooming off, leaving me as if I’m standing still.  (Felt like living inside the indoor biking platform Zwift, which I stopped using because I was getting dropped by avatars of other guys riding in real time…)

The bike course is three, 3.35 mile loops around the park.  Again, no one around me (except the TT guys whipping past, as far as I could tell — but I later learned that the winner of our race had averaged 30 mph on the bike!)  Tried as hard as I could, but realized I wasn’t applying myself consistently, sometimes going for higher RPM, sometimes going for heavier gearing, cautious around the Saturday morning joggers and dog-walkers… Finished in 32:53, or 18.7 mph.  Not very fast; there’s definitely room for improvement.

T2 was faster, back into running shoes (my orange, springy Nikes!), start with a stumbling gait, and I look for where to turn but there’s no sign or anybody at the first driveway and I see a sign that says “Do Not Enter” so I keep going straight and I realize as I’m going uphill, I don’t remember there being a hill on the run… And I realize I’m on the 3.3-mile bike loop!  

Oh, well.  I had determined that this was a “C” race with Coach Steve (after Coach Debi Bernardes announced her retirement, I started training with Stephen Redwood of www.triendeavors.com, a Brit living in Greenwich, Connecticut — a bona fide GMT… Wait for it…. Wait for it… Greenwich Mean Taskmaster) and I’d rather go a little further and make sure I had missed the turn (note to self: REVIEW THE RACE MAP!)  than go back down hill and have to turn around again. This was definitely harder than the first run, and when I finally pass a young woman who had been chuggin along on the bike I realize there is no way this woman had passed me, she’s done a shorter run, and I definitely was running an extra 1.3 miles.  Do the best I can, but no burst of speed at the end as I finish in 24:52 = 7:26 avg. min/mile (first mile in 7:51, second in 7:17, third in 7:06!)  Solid.  Total time:  1:14:03.

So, here’s the funny part:  I immediately tell the race director that there was no one at the turn and I had run the bike course, and he shouts across the transition area, “Sharon!?”  Apparently, Sharon had grown bored after less than an hour and left her appointed post…  Race director says, “go talk to the timing official” by the computer at the finish line.

I wait for the timing official to deal with other complaints, and he says, “you want to lodge a complaint about the course?”  I said, I guess so. He says, “let’s see, what was your pace on the first leg… Could we add in 20” per mile?”  Sure, I said, this is great.  He says, “Okay, instead of 1:14, your official time is 1:04:33.”  Great!  Thank you!  “But that doesn’t change your standing.  You still came in 2nd for your age group.”  What? I said.  Even with the extra 1.3 miles I came in 2nd?  

Wait. How many guys in my age group?

“Two.”

Told you I’d make you laugh!.

And who beats me?  This guy Matt A. Hayes, a guy who had “friended”/followed me on the Athlinks website the day before the race — and Athlinks say he has done 554 races!  He clearly had been doing his homework, looking up his competitors among the race registrants.  OK, Matt the Mysterious wanted this win more than I did — well done, Sir. So, I guess I have a new nemesis for local races…  (Don’t be jealous, Zander, I’ll still train and race with you.)

It may sound ridiculous but even though this was my slowest swim and run and overall time for a Half Ironman distance triathlon, this was a good race and worth the trip all the way to Haines City, Florida (halfway between Tampa and Orlando – also known as “Nowhere”, FL). Racing buddy Scott Schiffer, who has family in Tampa, generously picked me up at the airport, and we have two full days to casually travel, pick up race packets, eat at a good fish restaurant…

We pick up our bikes from Tribike Transport (I know, I know, it’s expensive, but I fly with my bike so infrequently and the hassle of disassembly and reassembly and the round trip airline cost for a bike box, plus the worry of damage… just easier to have the bike shipped down by truck and taken “home” to NYC bike shop). And eat dinner again (good Mexican, but dangerously spicy pre-race; fortunately, no problems).

Some 1,900 racers showed up, from everywhere: big contingent from Brazil, a team from Britain, on my age-group’s bike rack Dave from Ottawa and two guys from Germany. In our hotel we shared breakfast with Dan (or Dale?) from Phillie: 76 years old, attempted 6 full Ironman races, DNF’d twice (failed to make the maximum time cutoffs) but signing up for more, anyway – and going to Kona this fall. I really admire that persistence. And courage. Lot of first-timers at this distance, too – and some first-time triathletes. (Pretty scary to start with a 70.3, IMHO.) And some experienced guy who saunters in to rack his bike at 6:20 before Transition closes at 6:45, from Gainesville, FL; he’s done this a few times before, I’m sure, and I fully expect him to podium.

Fresh water lake – which we practiced in the day before – for the 1.2 mile swim. The temp is 79.6 degrees, so wetsuit illegal. I have a swim skin, which I’m not sure is effective (I’m already pretty streamlined in a one-piece tri suit) but I’ll take what I can get. Guy waiting ahead of me in the starting wave for the gray-swim cap age group (a cruel color choice!) is on the USA Team and I fully expect him to win; only later, when he comes in 15th, I realize that he’s among the finest at the Olympic distance, and THIS is a different animal.

We stand in the weedy mud and OFF WE GO. I am pretty relaxed, planning to be smooth and build speed, and so close to the first sighting buoy in this counterclockwise “M” course that I end up leaving the buoy to my left – but I get a lot of clean water, passing folks with purple and even red swimcaps (okay, they are among the Very Slow, but it’s still gratifying – and maybe THAT’s why I don’t swim harder), until the first turning buoy – and then I’m working to avoid people doing breast stroke, even getting my head smacked by a woman doing backstroke (another good reason to put on goggle UNDER the swim cap) and the buoys are more crowded and I’m sighting a lot more to make sure I’m lined up in the right direction to get around the big orange cylinder buoys at the “V” part of the course, and this is only halfway? – my arms are high and relaxed on the recovery and I’m rotating smooth and a full finished stroke and engaging those hips (in retrospect maybe not catching and pulling with enough power, because I’m conserving for the rest of the race and passing people, right?) and it feels great except for the lousy shallow finale (swim or stand? Sink into mud. Stand? Sink into mud). But I later found that i had a lousy result: 42 minutes, 25/83 for AG. (Turns out, I swam an extra 1/10th of a mile – so my pace was 1:50 min/100 yds. – apparently my sighting needs a lot of work!

Oh, well. It felt great. Which is part of a successful race, in my book. (And a sign that I need swim lessons again. Good, the season is young.)

T1 goes pretty well – took a chance with “something new on race day”: before put on helmet, throw string attached to sunglasses over head to keep sunglasses from sliding – it works better than as practiced; and run out in socks, then put on shoes before mounting line – hard to know whether it worked better than running in cleats, and I’ve not practiced shoes attached to pedals…

The 56-Mile bike ride is wonderfully flat, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve been warned that this is not coastal Florida and it has hills, but 531 feet of elevation compared to the 5,000 feet we cover in Westchester County over the same mileage? Rolling hills or no, the road surface is almost pristine (except for after Mile 45, when the road surface becomes a bit coarse) compared with the winter-ravaged roads chewed up with potholes on which I train, and I have never stayed in aero position for so long. And as Scott had predicted,my Garmin stop watch says I am completing 5-mile laps in 15 minutes (20 mph), sometimes 16 minutes, sometimes 13, and it feels in control and strong. I’m following my nutrition and hydration plan, finishing almost two bottles of water in the first hour, tossing the cheap bottle I bought at the previous day’s expo at the aid station and making a teenage volunteer squeal as I swerve in to reach for a replacement bottle (missed that handoff; get one at the end of that station; have to slow down more and PRACTICE that maneuver!); eating carb-filled bars a little earlier than planned because starting to feel hungry; salt tablets every hour…

Wind picks up at Mile 25 (Dark Sky weather app had predicted 13-14 mph winds), and a Brit who passes me says “That’s rather unfriendly, isn’t it?” But even with the wind, I’m keeping up the speed, and thinking I might be fighting for 6th or 7th place because I’ve passed more guys in my age group than have passed me. (Nope. The woman who shouted to her husband on my rack that “around 8 guys have left ahead of you” was wrong- she wasn’t counting the guys across the aisle of bike racks…). At mile 40 I realize how lucky we’ve been that it’s been cloudy, because the SUN comes out. And those predicted temps in the mid- to high 80s become real. Not too bad on the bike, with the wind cooling us (glad not to use the aero helmet’s plexiglass shield), but the run is going to be rough… Finished in 2:46 (20.15 mph), a PR for this distance; I had expected to be closer to 3 hours; all that time on the trainer this winter has produced results. And moved up six slots, to 19/83 AG.

But: it’s a three-part race, isn’t it?

T2 is very fast – slip on the racing flats and GO. First mile is supposed to be my slowest, but it’s downhill out of transition, and I clock in 8:15 which feels ok… (arghh! A rookie mistake!) – but that heat and humidity are more than rough and my heart rate rapidly climbs into the 150’s (zone 3) and then, incredibly, the 160’s (zone 4),p. And Mile 2 has a long, long hill… to be tackled three times on this looping 13.1 mile course. By mile 4, I am hurting… By Mile 6.5 i was wishing the race was done. And by mile 8 or 9, I’m not only walking the aid stations (“Water! Ice!”), but walking a 1/4 to 1/2 mile after them and praying for not sub-9 minute miles but sub-12’s…

To keep running, I had told myself when I got to That Hill I would walk, and there were a LOT of people walking (except for the wheelchair athlete somehow powering up it, inch by inch; what amazing strength!), but I. Did. Not. Walk. And I feel awful, but know that I am going as fast as I can and offering up my best and not looking at my watch and taking it one painful mile at a time and there is the blessed turnoff for the chute to the finish line (lots of people going for another loop – or two,) and they announce my name and home town and I am HOME across the finish line.

Thank God.

Lousy metrics (other than the bike ride): 2:08 run (9:38 min/Mile, a full minute slower than my best run at the end of a 70.3), 5:45:03 total time (10 minutes slower than the Poconos 70.3 two years ago – which was also painful.) BUT: between getting passed and passing other age groupers I moved down only two slots to 21/83 AG, 328/1,800 (approx) OA.

And as I said: it felt like a solid race. Dumb, beginner’s mistake to start the run so fast; I should have walked and gotten my heart rate down, not out of so-called “weakness” but to be in control. But at least I had a chance to learn that again before this July’s full Ironman. I’d like better results, of course – but I couldn’t give more than what I gave. It’s my first race of the season, my first complete tri in 18 months and my first 70.3 in almost 2 years; I had not trained in any heat; and I DID it. I own it. This was the best I could do, today. A PR on the bike is great. I. need to learn again how to tap into my running strength off the bike, but I know that is possible with more training.

Like I said: I know, it sounds ridiculous. But this was a successful race. And if I can learn from this one and the upcoming Devilman Olympic distance in May, I can get stronger in time for Lake Placid…