Sunday, the 20th; New York City Triathlon

Quite a day. Yes, I’ll start putting verbs in sentences.

Backstory: Last November 1st, registration for the NYC Triathon opened up at midnight. Since I like to have a goal race on the schedule before finishing the current one, I thought it would be interesting (to put it one way) to register for a triathlon before doing the NYC marathon, then several days off. I’d watched the ’07 triathlon that year and run with running pal Tim during the final 10K. It looked like ‘fun’. So the morning of the 1st, I went on-line to register and got through. Just as I was about to get my confirmation I received notification that my credit card number had not been approved, which is weird since I didn’t have credit card debt. I shrugged it off and decided to call Mastercard after a while. And that was my mistake, for by the time I cleared up the problem, whatever it was, triathlon registration had closed. Never mind I had registered for over two dozen marathons on-line with a credit card, Mastercard thought someone had stolen my card and registered in a triathlon. At that point, I decided that anybody who actually stole a credit card number to register for a triathlon deserved to be in one. And fate had decided I wasn’t doing this one in July, so that’s how it goes.

Moving forward to July of ’08… I had decided to join the spectators along the course, which in this case, meant crowds of spouses with children and a parent or two, all wondering out loud why their beloved so-and-so is crazy enough to swim, bike and run all in one day. But still holding up homemade signs that tell Megan or Matthew that ‘you’re the best’ and to ‘go’ as if that was some late-breaking race strategy.

I set my clock for 5AM and run two miles to the start on Manhattan’s west side and the Hudson River. I bring a dozen tiny water bottles in a back pack for anyone along the course who might need it, only to find out that water bottles are really heavy. By the time I get to the start, the elites have already gone into the water, as well as the over-60 men and the first few groups of women. Fortunately, I run into running pals Tim and Bryce, fresh from the Patriot Half two weeks before. They’re ready to go, and feeling good.

So they get into their assigned groups and wait to head onto the pontoon jutting out in the river. The weather is warm, but not as bad as it’s been. I head back near T1 along the water and watch swimmers complete the 1500-meter course. After spending most of the year working on my swimming technique (as in ‘not sinking’ and ‘learning to love it’) I discover that as for swimming style, anything goes. Really? All that work on swimming and all I see are triathletes doing backstrokes and doggie paddling and flailing? ‘What’s up with that?’ is the only creative question floating around in my brain. What I didn’t know, and would find out later, was that the hapless swimmers were getting a full Japanese horror movie-style attack from stinging jellyfish. The jellyfish moved in as the swimmers waited to enter the river, and when it was time to dive into the water it was already alive with prehistoric creatures racing humans to T1.

Now, I’m fairly intrepid and well, can tough out a few things, but stinging things in the water? I would not have been happy. Especially since I’m allergic to bee stings. And as a child, watched many, many stinging jellyfish pass by while staring over the side of a boat in the Chesapeake Bay. And once in a while you’d see one with a red blob in the middle, fondly referred to as ‘bloodsuckers’. I could go to a Herschell Gordon Lewis film festival and not bat an eye, but show me a bloodsucking jellyfish and I’d lose my recent breakfast, lunch and dinner, in that order.

So I imagine some swimmers were creating new freestyle strokes to escape the nasty little things waiting for them in the water. I know of one swimmer who had a jellyfish go down the back of her wetsuit, and stay there. Nice.

Well, in the end, everybody I spoke to said they got stung repeatedly, but ‘the stings went away after a while’. Well, that’s peachy, but I still wouldn’t have been particularly thrilled to be greeted by Jurassic organisms at the start of my first triathlon.

I went to T1 and managed to see Bryce go by on his bike, and realized I’d probably missed Tim. So I headed closer to where the swimmers were coming out of the water, on another pontoon. They would crawl out on a ramp, and head back up another ramp to the shore and an asphalt bike path and a somewhat longer trip to their bikes.

By this time it’s 8AM or so, and I realize I’ve probably missed seeing Tim, since his swim had started about 7:35. And then there is a commotion. A volunteer on the pontoon is screaming at people to get out of the way. More volunteers arrive on the pontoon, and I can see they’re working hard to get someone out of the water. A few minutes to by, and I see a gurney hurtling down the ramp to the pontoon, and swimmers going up are almost knocked back into the water. Things start to get really quiet.

And after another minute or two, the gurney moves back up the ramp to the shore, and again, departing swimmers are almost tossed back into the river. Volunteers start screaming at people, mostly spectators, to move back.

All of us standing there didn’t say a word, but we were all thinking the same thing: whatever this is, this is serious. And we want to look, but then again we don’t want to, and we shouldn’t be in the way, whatever is going on. But you still feel helpless. So we keep looking for friends and loved ones, and it’s difficult. Because you know there’s a swirl of activity next to you with at least a dozen volunteers and aid workers trying to revive someone, someone that somebody else could be looking for along the course. And all I can see is a tall man, towering over this prone body, giving the most intense CPR and chest massage I‘ve ever seen. And one other volunteer holding the swimmer’s right arm at the wrist, desperately searching for a pulse. And this goes on. And on. For fifteen minutes.

Meanwhile, swimmers come out of the water, and if they can see what’s happening, they don’t let on. Finally, with no actual road for cars to get to the location, two ambulances roll into the area along the footpaths. Whoever has been getting CPR is taken up to one of the vehicles and taken away.

I slowly head back to Central Park and begin to wait on the running course for my friends to get there. And they do, about an hour or so later. I get to cheer on anyone who is willing to hear me. And that’s quite a few, since the temperature and humidity rise enough to make the run really, really unpleasant. At this point the only pleasant thought I have concerns writing a congratulatory letter to Mastercard for it’s diligence against credit card theft. Today, after all, I am happy to not be competing in this event.

In the end, my friends finished and finished well. Some people complained that the officials made no mention of the jellyfish situation (officials explained that they did not want to ‘alarm the swimmers’). Later that day, when I checked the triathlon website there was no mention of any casualties on the course. I figured, or at least hoped, things had turned out OK for the swimmer I saw getting CPR.

And as some of you may know, that was not the case. The swimmer was a 32-year old guy from Argentina, and he had gone into cardiac arrest while in the water. And he was probably gone by the time they got him on dry land. But I’ll never forget two things about watching this: first, how long it took for the ambulances to arrive. And secondly, this guy’s right arm hanging limply off the side of the gurney. It was so white, it looked like chalk. I’ll never get that out of my head. I must’ve known then it was probably too late.

I’d like to write more, but I don’t think I’m able to properly discuss what all this means. Of course, I wouldn’t offer cautionary observations on why human beings should, or shouldn’t push their bodies to physical limits. I do that myself on occasion, and I have no real regrets. Then again, I’m uncomfortable with the ‘he died doing what he loved’ argument, true as it may be. So I guess I know what I wouldn’t say or write, which is indicative of something.

I do know that human tragedy can occur at the office, in a hospital room, on the street, or anywhere. And ‘anywhere’ just might include ‘at a race’. Unfortunately, that’s been all too true this summer.



Above is a picture I took as the swimmers left the water. Notice the crowd of people on the right. Even the silhouettes of the trees look dark and ominous.



P.S. In lighter news, thanks for checking on me, those of you who do. The summer has not been so great, and I didn’t want to whine or complain about it because it’s pointless to do so, so I clam up. But I’m OK. I do wish the year would stop flying by so fast, though. I’ll promise to write more about the drama and comedy of the last couple of months… not that it’s all that interesting, but you know, you know what it's all about...