Race Report: Nautica New York City Triathlon

New T-shirt text idea: ‘I Just Watched a Triathlon, and Boy, Am I Tired’.

So here’s the saga. Earlier this week I sent an e-mail to the volunteer contact at the Nausea (no, make that Nautica) NYC Triathlon offering up my Sunday so that others might swim, bike, run, and talk about it for days later. Knowing full well they could have me out there at 4AM or earlier, for the 5:50 first heat start time, I cheerily let them know I would be willing to help out in the insanity. What did I hear? Nada. Not even a ‘we have all the volunteers we need, thank you’, or even an ‘our Barf Mopping Committee is fully staffed.’

So undeterred by rude event organizers, I made my way out at 6 Sunday morning to at least watch the descent into madness. Turning my travels into a nice early-morning run (and silently looking down on coffee-toting spectators while getting a 10-miler in), I made it to the finish line just in time to see some Australian team nonchalantly filing their fingernails after crossing the finish line. They looked like they were taking a brief break before heading back to their hotel’s early check-out before heading off to the next one.

At this point it would be helpful for those of you who follow such things, to let you know this was an Olympic triathlon, 1500 meter swim, 40K bike ride, 10K run. The swim was in the Hudson River; later, finishers told me the current was strong, but not ridiculously so. The Hudson is vastly improved over what it used to be, however, the average cranky New Yorker reacts with incomprehension and horror at the mere thought of sticking a toe in that water, or whatever it is out there. But the triathletes (4000 or so, I’m told), didn’t seem to mind so much. The heats stretched from 5:50 right up to 8:40. There probably wasn’t any bacteria left to cling to humans by 9, anyway…

After getting that out of the way, the bike course started with a mean little hill, and continued northward along the Hudson Parkway out of the city. Slightly uphill all the way, turn around, then downhill back to 72nd St for the next transition. The uphill wasn’t too bad, apparently, but headwinds didn’t help, either, from what I was told. After the transition, the newly-minted runners headed westward into the light, Carol Anne style, into the park. That’s where I was waiting for them, standing by the course at mile 1, clapping by myself, yelling out the only thing that can’t get you into trouble (‘Good Job!’). The whispered ‘thank you’s’ seemed more sincere than the ones you get in plain old road races, so I was glad to be there to give them I-feel-your-pain looks. As with all competitions, some participants looked great, and some didn’t, and nobody looked very happy when they had to walk. At one point, I must have seen about 25 athletes wearing prosthetics, and they were kicking ass. And I saw one guy with only one arm and no legs, riding a skateboard, effortlessly passing by. I don’t know how he did it, but I’m going to try to remember seeing him go by the next time my inner voice gets whiny during a long race.

And after about an hour in the one-man cheering section, a friend of mine running his first tri shows up, and I join him for the rest of the way. He’s a good runner, and he actually got me winded as he flew on the downhills. I hope he didn’t get tired of my sparse and direct coaching; I tried to take his mind off the course a little without telling him how he’s feeling (nobody should tell you how your feeling, how far you have to go unless you know EXACTLY, how wonderful life is, etc.). If you’re running with a friend who may not be having a great time, just stay positive enough without being so goddamned perky they want to murder you as soon as they get their strength back. Oh, and listen to them, even if they’re not saying anything, if you know what I mean.

So on we went, the miles ticked off, and he did great. Of course, after I broke away well before the finish line, I never saw him again after he made it through the decompression zone, because there was a family values reunion traffic jam. I ran into a runner later who was angry that he’d been run over by baby strollers as soon as he got out, and he was kind of right, I had been too (but I won’t complain, it wasn’t my race today). Thanks again, race organizers.

One thing I thought was odd: I asked a couple of finishers, and not slow ones at that, how long it took them to complete the separate legs, and they looked at me like ‘I don’t know, why would anybody care how long it took me to bike 40K?’ And then they had to think about it awhile to give me some kind of answer. Well, I know that when I’ve finished a grueling race I can barely remember how to tie my own shoes, but I couldn’t chalk these blank stares up to general post-race ditziness. Perhaps everybody is just relieved to be done with the damn thing, but I just assumed folks would be well into the post-mortems after the chip came off. Maybe that’s just my idea of a post-deathrace 2000 experience, looking down on myself collapsed on the sidewalk thinking ‘you should’ve downed that gel at mile 20 and shaved 17.5 seconds off your PR’.

In the end, it was a good experience to see happiness and hard work and suffering in a group setting, which must be one of the reasons we tap-tap-tap into our computers about our experiences so often. I don’t swim or bike, though I was willing to get bitten by the bug today (oh yes, ulterior motives of deep-seated masochism, Dr. Freud will see you now), though I became tired enough from running back and forth to snap pictures that I’ll reserve judgment on that. Mom, my right rotator cuff hurts from all the clapping! Whoops, just pictured that guy on the skateboard, I’ll shut up now.

And now for pictures of people you don’t know getting exercise:































































































































































‘Screw Dad and his stupid bike, I’m finishing this damn Harry Potter book even if it kills me.’