Survival of the Shawangunks

“You are a survivor”

That’s what they say to you at the finish line of Survival of the Shawangunks, aka SOS, a triathlon that involves biking 30 miles and then alternatively running and swimming for a total of 18 and 2.5 miles, respectively. 

But I’m not sure I want that designation. I didn’t “survive” the race. 

Surviving would have been showing up so un(der)prepared that finishing was the accomplishment. And sure, anything can happen in a race (especially a race as crazy as this one), so there are reasons a fit, trained person might not finish. However, I felt confident going in that finishing was not going to be the challenge. The challenge was going to be getting the most out of myself and dealing with unexpected issues quickly and effectively. Because in a race with as many changeups as this one, with as many elements that I simply could not practice in training, there were bound to be at least a few issues. 

And there were.

Bike: 30 miles

Biking has been and perhaps will always be my weakest discipline. In fact, two months out from this race, I was concerned with whether I would be able to finish the 30 miles within the 2:15 cutoff time. The course starts out along flat cornfields and progresses into some rolling hills—right up until the last five miles, which are. All. Up. Hill. 

These hills were problematic for me on several levels. First, there’s the regular old speed issue: The slower you go, the worse you’ll place. And when it comes to triathlon, being slower on the bike is extra-disadvantageous because the longest leg of any triathlon is always the bike. Second, I’m not a great bike handler. In other words, when I’m climbing a hill, descending a hill, avoiding a pothole, turning, or doing virtually anything that requires attention or effort, I do not release my grip on the handlebars. And when my hands are thusly occupied, they can’t do things like rip open a packet of Gu or retrieve a water bottle—both of which would be essential to keep my internal reserves stocked up for the grueling running/swimming miles ahead.

The solution involved several gear-based adjustments devised by my friends/coaches/mentors J___ and N___.  They lent me J___’s much lighter (much more expensive) road bike, which had more gears available, which meant that I could keep my legs turning over on those climbs. They also lent me their hydration backpack so I could drink from the little dangling rubber “straw” that loops over your shoulder on my ascent rather than groping around for the water bottle cage that’s screwed in lower on the bike. It’s a good thing I had that backpack, too, because around mile 19 I accidentally dropped my regular water bottle as I was trying to get one last sip before the hills. (See? Terrible bike handler!)

Run One: 4.5 miles

The bike segment of this race concluded with dismounting and clopping across an asphalt parking lot to where we had to rack our bikes. (For anyone who has never worn bike cleats, imagine you are wearing one-inch heeled shoes, only the raised part is under your toes rather than your heel. That’s what it’s like trying to walk on flat ground in  bike cleats.) At the bike rack, a plastic bag containing my swim/run gear awaited. I don’t like to make lots of mid-race choices if I can help it, so my gear was minimal: sneakers, swim cap, and goggles. I stuffed my bike cleats, helmet, and gloves into the bag, donned my running shoes, and set off with cap and goggles in hand. (I eventually stuffed them between the strap of my sports bra and my shoulder, which is where I stowed them on every run thereafter.)

I’d practiced very few bike-run transitions (otherwise known as “bricks”) in training, so I wasn’t sure quite how I’d feel at this stage of the race. I knew the course started uphill, so even if I felt “good” I knew I wouldn’t be running fast. To my surprise, I ran the first few miles at a mid/low 7 min/mile pace, and I felt fairly in control. Of course, then the hills kicked. The iconic “Cardiac Hill” occurs in that first run, so my pace slowed, but I’d been expecting it, and all in all I didn’t feel terrible—which made me optimistic for the remaining several hours of racing.

Swim One: 1.1 miles

One of the things that makes this race unusual is the fact that you have to bring your shoes with you into the water. No other triathlons require this, because the swim is always first; you go in shoeless, come out shoeless, and then put shoes on for the biking and running segments. In SOS, you run to a lake, swim across that lake, and then get out and run again . . . to another lake. You do this three times. Therefore, if you plan to run wearing shoes, you need to bring them with you across those lakes.

How you do this is entirely up to you. Some people carry dry bags, others stuff their shoes into the zip-up section of their tri suit. My plan (courtesy of race veteran “Dr. Mike”) was to stuff the shoes up the back of the legs of my tri suit. If you want to try this at home, take a sneaker and hold it against the back of your thigh, toes pointed toward your butt, sole out. Now imagine you’re wearing spandex shorts, and jam the shoe in between the shorts and your upper thigh so they’re nice and snug and ready for a swim. That was the strategy, and it worked! The most difficult part was getting the shoes on and off my feet. In this first swim, it wasn’t so bad, because I was still wearing socks, which I had worn on the bike. (Pro tip: Don’t try to swim in socks. I gave it a shot, but after a few hundred meters I had to shed them. They somehow really impair your kick!)

This first swim was the longest and in the coldest lake. It was made even more challenging by two additional factors: First, the water was choppy. Like, really choppy. Ocean-swim choppy. The waves made breathing difficult, but it made sighting (the process of lifting your head to see where you’re going) almost impossible. And second, sighting was already difficult because there were no buoys. Usually in open water swims, there are bright orange, red, or yellow buoys floating in the water that you use in order to ensure you’re swimming in the right direction. However, in this lake there were only two buoys: one where you enter the lake, and where you exit a mile away. Suffice to say, I did a fair amount of breast stroking to get my head high enough to find other swimmers I could swim toward. Being half a mile from shore and unable to see what direction to swim is not great, especially in the middle of a race!

Run Two: 5.5 miles

The second run was probably the most enjoyable due to what wasn’t happening yet: I wasn’t feeling tired, and I wasn’t developing blisters. Also the terrain of this run was generally gentler, the path smoother, and the inclines and declines less steep. (Although again, I wasn’t as tired yet, so don’t quote me!) 

It’s on this run that I caught up with people from the SOS “camp” I had done a month prior, all of whom I’d judged to be formidable athletes. It felt good to breeze past them while feeling in control. The third run is going to be the tough one, I reminded myself as I pranced downhill. That’s where the real race starts.

Swim Two: 0.5 miles

Before I could get to that “tough run” though, I first had to get through the second lake swim. This one was much easier than the first, by virtue of the fact that the water was warmer and there was a yellow rope strung straight across the lake, from the entry point to the exit point. What I should have done was keep my head down and breath to my right for the whole swim so I could navigate using that yellow rope, but I was too stuck in “open water swimming” mode and kept lifting my head to look in front of me, even though there was no need. Definitely something I’d do differently next time

I passed one swimmer about halfway across, and I was three quarters of the way when a man blew by me. By the time I thought “maybe I can draft off of him” he was a whole body length in front of me—too far to catch any useful draft. I knew who it was: A___, who had been part of the camp, who had shared all of his tips and tricks, and who had said in no uncertain terms that swimming was his best discipline. I was impressed, because it’s not like I’m a particularly slow swimmer, and the guy is at least in his 60s.  But I knew I’d catch him on the run. And I did.

Run Three: 8 miles

The third run was THE run, in my mind. This was the leg of the race I really wanted to nail. It was far enough into the race that I could be sure everyone would feel miserable, and yet it was flat enough that I knew I could run it well if I did things right.

As it turns out, most of the eight miles was not just flat, but downhill. In fact, the very beginning of the route was steeply downhill, to the point of causing some serious quad damage as you try to keep from tumbling ass-over-teakettle. Thankfully that decline only lasted maybe half a mile before the pavement leveled out and transitioned back to groomed trail, and then I was off.

Now I was passing the real competitors. How did I know? Well some of them had their last names on the backs of their tri suits. That’s a sign someone’s at least taking triathlon seriously, right? Also they were all running; only one man I passed started walking, and when I saw him do it, I yelled at him to “please come along, I need company!” (He declined.) And finally, I was running fast—or at least faster than I’d expected. My plan was to run by feel, whatever a “marathon effort” should be. But thanks to the gently descending terrain, my watch told me I was cruising at a sub-7 min/mile pace. After four-plus hours of exercise, that wasn’t too bad!

About midway through this run, the trail wound past a popular climbing area. I darted around climbers who moved along the path in slow motion and cheered the way stoned Brooklynites might—with breathy, mid-octave voices that indicated they had no idea what was going on but that they were in good spirits and were happy to acknowledge my passing by. After leaving those khaki-clad groups behind, there were long stretches where I saw nothing but trees, rocks, and dirt . . . until eventually I glimpsed a woman with blond braids up ahead. Generally speaking, I’d passed a lot more men than women, so seeing her got me excited—another competitor! But soon the trail began ascending, and any ground I was gaining became moot; she vanished into the trees. I never glimpsed her again.

This ascent was the second named hill of the course, aptly called “Godzilla.” More than one person had told me they intended to walk it “so they wouldn’t cramp.” I was skeptical of the wisdom of this, so I asked a friend who had won the race a few years prior if he’d walked Godzilla. His response (after a multi-second pause to make sure I was serious) was, “Maybe I walked for a second to gather myself, catch my breath. But then I kept running.” 

All of this is to say, I hadn’t decided what I’d do on this hill before I set out, which left me straddling the two strategies: I would run (which on that gradient is more like a shuffle), then choose a tree or rock ahead, and give myself a walk break. A few steps into the “break” I’d get annoyed and choose another landmark which, when I reached it, would be when I had to start “running” again. I proceeded thusly up the never-ending hill, alternatively lambasting myself for losing sight of Blond Braids and telling myself that it didn’t matter because I wasn’t going to win this race anyway. (Plus what royally pissed me off was that I couldn’t even win this segment of the race. There is an award for “fastest third run,” but it’s an overall award, not gendered. And I might be a fast runner, but I’m not dude-fast.)

The other, progressively louder thread going through my head at this point was f*ck my feet hurt. My left foot had hurt from the start of the run, but I was now 100% confident that I’d developed blisters on the arches of both feet. I’d naively hoped that by doing a fair amount of my training runs sockless and putting waterproof Band-Aids on my heels, I might avoid damaging my feet. Alas, the best I could hope for was that at lake number three, the blisters wouldn’t burst while I wrenched my shoes off or jammed them back on.

Swim Three: 0.5 miles

By the third swim, I was feeling a little delirious (this is five hours into the race, after all), and I was excited to get this last swim done. Entering the lake required sliding under a fence and down a dirt embankment, so by the time I hit the water, I still had my sneakers on. I had real trouble getting them off, which I first attributed to doing it in the water and then to my woozy state. Only after a good thirty seconds of failure did I realize that I’d forgotten to loosen the laces.

With that problem solved, I stuffed the shoes into the legs of my tri suit and dolphin-dove in . . . only to feel sudden stabbing pain as both of my calf muscles seized up. Not now, I thought as I flexed my toes to ease the cramps. I’m so close to the end. Not now. The cramps would not let up. With every tiny flutter kick, my calves tightened from the back of my knees to my ankles, and so I did my best to move my legs as little as possible while dragging my body forward with shoulders made of lead. (No one warns you how tired running can make your arms and shoulders!) The farther I swam, the louder the voice in my head shouted, What are you going to do? How are you going to get up that last hill?

Run Four: 0.7 miles 

The last run may have loomed large in my mind, but before I could attempt that, I had to get out of the water. It was no small feat. Balancing on sore calves atop yet another rock submerged in lake water, I did my best to shove my wounded feet into sopping shoes before scrambling up a rocky wall. (That’s right, there’s veritable rock climbing in this race!) At the top I stared around in a frantic daze until a volunteer finally pointed the way forward, and onward I went, alternatively shuffling and walking, panting all the while. Blond Braids was gone, and I knew the pros had finished eons ago, and there was no one behind me, so I made an effort, but I know myself, and it wasn’t all-out.

Thanks K___ for convincing me to do this wacky race!

My feet hurt. The chafing inside my suit hurt. But I felt calm. I was almost done.

The Finish

When finally glimpsed the timer at the top of the peak, I thought there might be a mistake. I had told anyone who asked that I’d be satisfied with a sub-6-hour finish time. But the clock I was seeing read 5:20-something. My frazzled brain tried to reconcile these numbers, but the fact was that I’d actually started later than what that clock was calculating (my age group had started three minutes after the official start), meaning I’d gone even faster.

And then it was done. I crossed the finish line. Someone handed me a towel. Someone else handed me a medal. I waited for a feeling: of excitement, relief, pride, anything. I was among strangers on a mountaintop. I’d done a ton of work to get here, but that work was what had mattered; this was just the outcome.

I think what I was feeling was contentment.

SOS 2021 Race Results:

	Time	Pace	AG Place (F25-29)	Gender Place (F)	Overall Place
Bike	1:58:25	15.2 mph	5 / 8	42 / 52	130 / 145
Run1	35:07	7:48 min/mi	1 / 8	2 / 52	7 / 145
Swim1	30:40	1:35 min/100 yd	3 / 8	12 / 52	34 / 145
Run2	41:22	7:31 min/mi	1 / 8	1 / 52	3 / 145
Swim2	16:39	1:53 min/100 yd	2 / 8	9 / 52	23 / 145
Run3	55:46	6:58 min/mi	1 / 8	1 / 52	2 / 145
Swim3	14:08	1:45 min/100 yd	2 / 8	11 / 52	45 / 145
Run4	6:19	9:01 min/mi	2 / 8	9 / 52	25 / 145
Overall	5:18:34	N/A	2 / 8	6 / 52	22 / 145

SOS Pre-Race: Switching Things Up

I’m racing a triathlon tomorrow. Surprise!

Truly, it’s been a season of surprises. 

"Tri Camp" (aka course preview)

For the first time ever, or at least in a very very long time, I enjoyed the act of training more than the prospect of the race. Now don’t get me wrong—if the race were cancelled (god forbid), I’d be pretty displeased; it’s what has kept me focused on and committed to training all this time. (I do not know how people push themselves without this sort of goal. Kudos to those who can!) Yet as the months ticked by, I realized that more than performing well on race day, I was generally looking forward to fitting this training into my life. It’s a jigsaw puzzle, but I was just generally excited to see how my body would respond to this new endeavor. Would swimming exhaust me so that my run immediately afterward was a slog? (Yes, initially, but as I got fitter the swim actually helped get me loose for the run!) Would biking ever get any easier? (Yes and no: I hate it less, fear it about the same, and am marginally better than when I started, but no one would ever mistake me for a “cyclist” or probably even “triathlete.”) Would running less mileage mean losing running fitness altogether? (No. Although how this translates to an actual running race remains TBD.)

A lot of this was surprising to me—I really tried to go into the experience with a mindset of “if I wind up feeling unfit or generally weird or lonely, it’s okay,” but I’ll admit it: I was nervous. Instead I got more (mostly) welcome surprises. A few worth mentioning:

• Despite putting in at least as many overall training hours as when I’m marathon training, I felt about a third as “beaten down” throughout the four-month training cycle. I know everyone talks about what a “toll” running takes on your body, but I’ve always thought that immensely exhausted, can’t-lift-my-feet feeling was the price of fitness. (After all, back in college when I was swimming doubles and lifting two to three times a week, I could barely drag myself up and down stairs, and I fell asleep in nearly every dark, auditorium-style class.) My “undercarriage” is less pleased with me, and I’ve chafed and blistered in brand new places, but I’d be lying if I said I missed that feeling of utter eyelid-slamming exhaustion around 2pm every day.
• Training alone is not as miserable as I expected. In the past, whenever I’ve had to do hard running workouts alone, I’ve struggled. Not all the time, not to the same degree every time, but more often than not, I failed to hit the prescribed workout 100%. This has trained me to avoid working out alone if at all possible. Yet if you think trying to find a running partner who can run your pace and is willing to run your workout at your (or their) preferred time is hard, try finding someone who is your swimming pace, interested in doing your swimming workout, and can arrive at the same (probably inconveniently located for one of you) pool at the same (very narrow window of) time. Seriously, I dare you. Try it, and then report back. Needless to say, I did every single swim set—and about 90% of my biking and running workouts—alone. And it actually wasn’t that bad.

• 

  So grateful for the guidance and generosity of friends.

  One reason it wasn’t that bad is because most of these workouts were effort-based. “Run 15 minutes at 85%” is not something I’ve done much of, nor is “swim 5x75 hard with 30s rest between each.” I’m used to knowing what pace I’m targeting and trying my darndest to hit it. Those paces, of course, are all numbers, which means you either nail them or you don’t. It’s pretty black-and-white: If you don’t, you failed. But when there are no numbers to hit, you can’t really fail. So this was, if nothing else, a nice vacation away from that little gremlin at the base of my brain who likes to pipe up right when I’m really hurting and declare, “You suck. You will never be able to do this. Every success you’ve ever had was a fluke. This is the real you, and the real you can’t do shit.”
• Another reason working out alone wasn’t so bad is because in two of the three sports (i.e., biking and swimming), I essentially was starting over from zero. A year of COVID meant a year of no swimming, and anyone who knows me knows that I don’t ride bicycles if there is any viable alternative. This means that even in the case where I do have a past self to compare to (I swam collegiately . . . it’s a long story), I know the amount of work that past performance required, and I know that I’ve barely done a fraction of that work. Therefore, I cannot compare to that swimmer. And while I’ve done triathlon before, I’ve never put in any real bike training effort. Therefore it was like being new in these sports, and everyone knows that being new in a sport is the best because improvements are visible in short order, and seeing progress is motivating.
• The last surprise was how flexible I learned to be. Sometimes pools simply were not available when I wanted or expected. (I showed up at a pool more than once only to have the gates locked, no humans in sight.) Bad weather also played a bigger role, as it’s inadvisable to bike or swim outside during, say, a thunderstorm. In these situations, I did my best to be resourceful, but sometimes you just cannot do what you planned. So call it maturity (the gremlin would call it laziness), but for whatever reason, I increasingly found myself being okay with these changes of plans. I hope I can maintain this outlook, because it’s so, so liberating.

Of course, there was one final surprise that was not so great. The fact of the matter is that I cannot seem to make it to the start line of a big race without some sort of crisis happening. This time it wasn’t my mother, father, or sister, it was my cat.

I think we'll keep her.

For those of you who have never owned a pet, you’re probably rolling your eyes. I get it! I didn’t birth this creature; it doesn't share my DNA. For those of you who are pet owners, however, I think you’ll understand that when I say my cat started throwing up last weekend and then did not eat or drink for an entire week, when she curled up in corners on soft surfaces and barely moved day or night, it was a crisis. Tabouli is four years old. She can’t tell us what is wrong, can’t point to where it hurts. And, as I learned on one trip to the vet (there were two in a matter of three days), cats are really, really good at disguising pain. (It’s apparently some sort of survival mechanism?) Thirteen hundred dollars, four stressful Uber rides, three “shot in the dark” medications, two teary breakdowns, and a whole lot of useless googling later, she magically started eating. The day before I left for this race, she went over the wet food bowl, which we kept refreshing, and took a bite. And another bite. And eventually that little spoonful of wet food was gone.

Relief is not something that is added to a person, it’s a release—like a balloon letting out helium, or whatever bad breath huffed into it. So I had about twelve hours to be a saggy, deflated balloon, and now I’m filling back up with nervous excitement. I don’t think I’ll be as full as I might have been, but I can feel the lift. That’s why we do these races: for the flutters of anticipation, and the battle on the course, the triumph at the end. I’m aiming for the finish line of the SOS Triathlon (and if you don’t know what it is, it’s worth a quick read). There’s no guarantee I’ll make it to the end, and certainly no guarantee of how I’ll place. But that’s why we race.

Timberman 2015: Starting with the Swim (Part I)

There’s something miraculous about first races. I think it must have something to do with exploring the physical limits of your own body. What will it do? How will it react? Will it team up with you to get the job done, or will you be fighting tooth and nail the whole way?

I still remember my first marathon like it was yesterday: the anticipation, the nerves. I remember the ankle I sprained the month before the race—how mad I was, how stupid it felt. And I remember the smile that I couldn’t keep off of my face from mile 1 to 26. I was so happy to be alive. I think that must be what true pride feels like.

In many ways, this past Sunday's Half Ironman—Timberman, as it was called—was very much like my first marathon. I had no idea if I was prepared, I had a very stupid setback very close to the race, and the experience itself felt surreal. I smiled for a lot of it. Not all, but a lot.

Let's rewind to taper week. At that point, I had averaged approximately 1 bike ride, 1-2 swims, and a handful of runs per week. This preparation felt like a joke compared to the time and energy I had put into marathon training the past few seasons, and I was really beginning to wonder how I would even finish 70.3 miles (1.2mi swim, 56mi bike, 13.1mi run), let alone “race” them.

Thusly, I set out my A, B, and C goals. In order of descending importance:

A – Finish the race

B – Don’t walk during the half marathon

C – Finish sub 6:30

Kate and Tara apply our specially purchased race tattoos

Goal A became virtually irrelevant as soon as I started the swim. This may sound cocky, but the moment the gun went off and I dove beneath water, with bubbles and feet and arms exploding around me, I knew I would finish. Of course, the moment I started to swim was also the moment that all the potential catastrophes I had been envisioning for the past two weeks—thunderstorms, bike crashes, exploding tires, heart attacks, vomiting, heatstroke—vanished from my mind. I was in motion, and the only place to stop was on the other side of that finish line.

Stroke, stroke . . . breath. Stroke, stroke . . . look for the buoy! That was my swim rhythm, and I stuck to it.

Now, in all honesty, I did not have the greatest swim. For starters, I procrastinated far too long in buying a wetsuit, which ultimately left me “high and dry” on race day. My only real consolation was that although swimming without the added buoyancy of a wetsuit probably added a few minutes to my race time, I also saved myself $100-150 on a piece of gear I won't wear again for at least another year.

The next hurdle was my start time. The field of athletes was broken up into waves by age and gender: similarly aged men started with one another, and the same for women. My age group (25-29-year-old women) was scheduled to start second-to-last. This meant that after waking up at 3am in order to drive to the race grounds for a guaranteed parking spot, we then had to wait another five hours to actually get in the lake and start swimming. (The race itself started at 7:00am; my group didn’t get into the water until 8:07am.)

Oh, and then there were the hundreds of other swimmers ahead of us . . . if you could call all of them “swimmers.”

Learn how to f-ing swim, I shouted inside my head as I tried to get around a man doing what I can only imagine was his best impersonation of a sinking windmill.

I'm in there somewhere fighting for space....

If you kick me, I will drown you, I thought as I veered around a woman doing some combination of breast/side stroke.

I would have felt sorry for the man doing elementary backstroke, except as you may have noticed, I get a little bit mean when I swim, so instead I tried to tamp down my annoyance and gave him an extra-wide berth. After all, he obviously wasn’t going to avoid swimming into me.

All of this nonsense, combined with my failure to swim good tangents (i.e. close to the buoys), resulted in a swim time that was decidedly less impressive than it should have been. However, my own personal race plan was to “cruise” the swim, and if I did nothing else, I stuck to the race plan: not too much effort, but not too little, either. When I reached the shore, I felt just the slightest bit fatigued but mostly eager to get on with the next part of the race. It was time to get on the bike.

Click here for Part II: Bike Course  >>>

Race Strategy: Don't Drown

Leading up to the Governors Island Swim, I was decidedly nervous. Before this race, I don't think I had ever under trained for anything. Overtrained, yes. Slept inadequately, yes. Eaten the wrong foods, drunk the wrong drinks, or failed to eat or drink anything at all, yes. But I had never gone into a race knowing for certain that I had not put in the appropriate amount of work. Until Sunday.

To give you a more complete picture of my lack of preparation, in the month leading up to the race, I completed no more than five swims, each consisting of 2,500 yards or less. The race around the island would be 2 miles--or 3,520 yards--long. Furthermore, all of my "training" was done in a 25-yard chlorinated pool whereas these 2 miles would be swum in the salty, murky, turbulent waters of the East River.

But never mind all that.

Fortunately for me, instead of making me panic, nervousness makes me talk. And because I knew how poorly prepared I was, I started talking at least before the race. "Boy I sure hope I don't drown," was my favorite mantra, even though I knew full well that, as a lifelong swimmer, my chances of drowning were about slim-to-none. I just needed to remind myself (and everyone around me) that I wasn't prepared to race this swim, so merely finishing should be achievement enough.

Meaning, shut up and swim.

By the time I stood, burning the soles of my feet on the concrete sidewalk leading up to the starting dock, I had successfully managed to quash my competitive spirit. I wasn't ready for this race. I wouldn't be winning any awards. And frankly, I should be satisfied if I could get to the finish without too much trouble. And I was pretty happy with that outlook.

That is, until I hit the water.

What I like best about open water swimming is how it can become a bit hypnotic. With no walls, no flip turns, and no lane lines, you fall into this rhythm of stroking, breathing, and sighting that makes swimming seem easier than it ever feels in a pool. Sure, the waves tossing your body around like a rag doll and occasionally smashing you right in the face when you were about to take a breath. But you can ignore most of that, eventually, and just count. One, two three, breathe. One, two three, head up.

The start, however, is this whole other scenario. First you're in line, waiting and waiting, and then suddenly your feet are at the edge and some guy is screaming and waving his arms frantically, indicating that you need to jump in! Now! You launch yourself into midair, and when your sweaty body hits the water, your heart rate goes through the roof. You can't see a thing, and you come up sputtering, trying to get your body horizontal, looking around wildly for any feet that might be aimed directly at your head. Race organizers might call this a "staggered start," but there's nothing staggered about taking ten strokes and finding yourself forced to swim overtop two six-foot men in wetsuits, an old guy doing breaststroke, and a skinny lady whose zig-zagging elbows indicate that she probably never raced competitively before.

God I love open water swimming.

Long story short, I finished the race without too much trouble. The worst part was probably the fact that I couldn't see the final "finishing line" dock in time, so I didn't finish with an "empty tank." Swimmers were already lounging around on the grass beyond the finish chute by the time I got there, but not too many, so I figured I might not have finished at the very front of the pack, but at least I wasn't last!

Here's how the race panned out:

Race Length	Finishing Time	Overall Place	Gender Place (All Women)	Age Group Place (F20-30)
2 miles	39:23	31/210	14/82	4/19

Brooklyn Bridge Swim Results

If the goal of this race was to swim beneath the Brooklyn bridge (which it was), I cannot claim that I was successful. However, I did see the Brooklyn Bridge, as I swam in a huge arc between that bridge and the Manhattan Bridge.

Ultimately I was able to finish beside the final spire supporting the Brooklyn Bridge on the Manhattan side, which is where I needed to be, so here is how my performance compared to my fellow swimmers. (Lots of other people must have swum off track, as well, because my results aren't terribly unfavorable!)

Results for this race:

Race Length	Finishing Time	Overall Place	Gender Place (All Women)	Age Group Place (F20-30)
1k	19:54	36/366	15/141	3/18

Post Nav-E Sink or Swim - Ironman Thoughts

The day was gorgeous, the water was perfect, and the company was grand (thanks P___ and A___!). I could not have asked for better conditions than these for last Sunday's 2.4 mile Nav-E Sink or Swim. Granted one woman tried to drown me at the beginning of the race and another tried to drown me at the end (which, I must add, is bad form: at the beginning it is acceptable because of the crowded start conditions; at the end there's no reason to swim so close to someone else that you're whacking and yanking at their limbs). Still, I prevailed, and actually managed to enjoy the swim a good deal.
In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I seriously contemplated whether, when I emerged from the water, I theoretically had enough energy to get on a bicycle. After all, I was swimming amongst a whole slew of triathletes--as was made apparent by the literal sea of wetsuits, which "pure" swimmers would not wear--and I had just completed the full swim portion of an Ironman. Was 112 miles on a bicycle after that swim so out of the question?
In a word, yes.
Certainly, I wasn't exhausted. In fact, if it were just a marathon I would have to run, I would consider it within the very close realm of possibility. However, riding merely 40 miles on bicycle exhausts me. The thought of 112--with or without a swim beforehand--seems almost unachievable. Except, of course, for the fact that plenty of other people can ride that distance . . . and then run a marathon afterward, no less.
So I am not completely ruling out the possibility of someday competing in an Ironman race. First however, I'll finish the Pittsburgh Olympic Triathlon this summer, and then we'll see what's what.
Results for this race:

Race Length	Finishing Time	1.2 mile splits	Average Pace	Overall Place	Age Group Place (F25-29)
2.4 miles	1:01:09	31:11.2 / 29:57.8	24:58/mile	52/262	5/7

How To Squash a Swimmer's Ego in Fewer than Five Words

"Are you a triathlete?"
-Asked of me this morning, by a very fast swimmer who my friends and I have dubbed "Colgate" for the cap he wears.
Not getting the joke? The title of this forum is all the explanation you need.

Results of the 10k swim

We did it!

And I even won an age group award....

Results for this race:

Race Length	Finishing Time	Overall Place	Gender Place (All Women)	Age Group Place (F25-29)
10k	1:36:42	63/240	20/102	4/16

Now, the question is: will we do it again next year? Will we attempt something even longer?

NYC Triathlon, Part II: The Swim

Not caught up? Read Part I.

R___ and A___ stay with me until we see the first batch of athletes plunge into the water, and then it’s time. I strap my goggles around my head and lick the inside lens of each one before suctioning the cup to my eye. We moved forward in a mass of bodies, and right at the starting line, there they are: my mother, father, and R___, shouting their heads off and waving signs on sticks reading, “Tri ur hardest, Allison!” and “We don’t tri, our daughter does!”

I’m grinning like a nut until suddenly, I am on the barge and the row of white caps in front of us has disappeared. Nineteen other women and I move to the edge of the barge and sit down on a hard red mat, dangling our legs over the water. A few seconds pass and then “brrrrrrrrr!”—the horn goes off and I launch myself into the water.

I had intended to get a good strong push off of the barge, but when I shoot my legs out behind of me, my legs make contact with absolutely nothing. With grayish-green water clouding my vision, I feel a quick second of panic before I start clawing my way forward. The water is choppy, with waves either blocking my view or hitting me squarely in the face each time I lift my head. After several mouthfuls of briny water, I decide to breathe exclusively to my left side, to allow the waves to wash over my head instead of hitting me in the mouth. This is when I discover that every 250 meters a “mile marker” sign is attached to the shore-side wall, indicating how far we have swum.

Soon I have left all of the white-capped swimmers behind, and am now surrounded by purple caps. What’s next? I think. What color was in front of purple? It turns out the next wave is blue. Now I am surrounded by blue-capped swimmers.

This is awesome, I think. I have never swum so fast! I am over halfway through the swim, and my adrenaline is still pumping. Just don’t leave it all in the water, I tell myself. Calm down, because if you spend all of your energy here, you’ll have nothing left by the time you get to the run.

I pass athletes doing everything form freestyle to backstroke, breaststroke, side stroke, and even one man in a red cap doing doggy paddle. Suddenly, I glimpse the triangle of orange finishing buoys in sight. I do my best to almost-sprint for the final 200 meters, and then I bump into other athletes at the dock before being gripped and hauled out of the water by a male volunteer. He passes me along up the ramp, with other men gripping my elbow and forearm as my legs stumble and buckle, until I am able to will them to stand.

I make it out to the path, where I follow a line of other athletes performing the same tip-toe run along the pavement toward the transition areas. By the time I cover the 700 meters of pavement to the transition area, the soles of my feet are on fire. I throw my goggles and cap on the ground beside my bike and unroll my socks onto my feet. Shoot, I realize as I reached for my right biking shoe. I forgot to un-Velcro the straps on my biking shoes. I rip them open as fast as I can and stuff my feet inside. Donning my rain-spotted sunglasses, I smash my ponytail under my helmet and clip the strap under my chin. This is why it pays to be a good swimmer, I congratulate myself as I unrack my bike and wheel it down the empty row. No other women had arrived to claim their bike, and the path is clear straight to the exit. What a mess that would have been!

The bike path out of transition is actually the same path that the swimmers use to run to the transition areas. Swimmers run on their right, bikers ride on their right, and so long as no one crosses the center line, crisis is averted. The bike path then takes a sharp right turn, followed by a steep hill that cuts directly through a crowd of spectators. At the top, I follow a roundabout, turn left, and am suddenly on my way up the West Side Highway, off to complete the second part of the race.

Circumnavigating Lady Liberty

We had stood in line at Battery Park, ridden the ferry, eaten a sandwich, picked up our race caps, stretched our legs, taken team photos, and were now in line with 235 other barefooted, goggle-adorned swimmers, trooping across the liberty island to line up for our race: The NYC SWIM Liberty Island Swim.

When we reached the railing that ran along the southwest corner of the island, we stopped and were instructed to line up numerically, by the race number scrawled on our caps and arms in black permanent marker. The sky was slowly darkening, and the choppy water rocked the ferry in front of us back and forth. As I found my place in line, a few raindrops pricked my skin. Please, I thought, don't let it rain until the race is over. I personally didn't care about getting wet--I was about to jump into a river, anyway--but with no sun and a relentless breeze, goosebumps had already risen on my arms and legs. If it rained while I was in the water, the sweatshirt and sweatpants I had packed in my bag, which was now sitting exposed at the fenced-in bag check area, would be useless.

"They'd better hurry up," said a a voice behind me. I turned to find a tall, pale boy looking at me. He had that underdeveloped, bony look that most fifteen-year-old boys have, where their muscles look a slightly soft and misplaced on their bodies, and their facial features are just a bit too big, giving them a somewhat comical appearance. He shook his head.
"Why are the giving out the timing chips like this, anyway?"

I looked around until I found what he was referring to: race organizers were walking up and down the line of swimmers, calling out numbers and removing black plastic timing chips one at a time. Other volunteers were trailing behind, passing out velcro strips to attach the chips around our ankles.

"They should have just given us the chips when we signed in," I agreed. "We had to pick up our caps then, anyway."

The boy grinned in relief and extended his hand. "Hi, I'm Chris."

"I'm Allison."

We continued to stand in line for the next 30 minutes, discussing our swimming backgrounds, the differences between open water and pool swimming, and our expectations for this race.

"I just don't want it to rain," I told him.

"Oh, I hope it rains!" he replied. "That'll give me an advantage."

"Are you trying to win or something?"

He looked hopeful. "Nah, but I'd love to finish in the top ten."

Right at that moment, we both heard a woman call out his name. "Chris? Chris G___?" He raised his hand and waved, and the woman came over to him. "Chris, I'm so glad I found you. I have your medal. Is your family here?" He nodded. "Great. I'll just find them and give this to them. Congratulations again."

As she walked away, I turned back to him with raised eyebrows. "So you really are trying to win this race."

He shook his head adamantly, explaining that it was just an age-group medal and insisting that the field was too competitive. "There were swimmers from all over the world here to do this race!"

Sure, sure, I thought, but you would still like to win.

Finally, we were given the go-ahead to file over the dock and onto the ferry. One by one, we jumped off the side and into the water and treaded together in one huge jumble, bumping and kicking and splashing one another in an effort to stay between the two orange start-line buoys.

At last, the final swimmer had entered the water and we were ready to go. They gave us the countdown and . . . go! Arms and legs flailed as we pummeled and struck one another in an effort to get to the clear water ahead. My heart surged as I tried to keep from being pushed under by swimmers behind me while avoiding the feet of those in front. Every time I turned to take a breath or raise my head, waves crashed into my face. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't. . . .

I was clear. I had made it past the old woman in the flowered bathing suit who kept cutting me off and the man in the wetsuit who kept swimming up on top of my legs. The feet of the person ahead of me made a burst of bubbles I could follow, and my arms suddenly felt loose and strong. Stroke, two, three, breathe. Look ahead. Stroke, two, three, breathe.

I passed four buoys, the northern dock, and then five more buoys. I could only see a few swimmers ahead, their pink caps bobbing above the murky green-gray water. And there it was: the southern dock! There was the finish!

My arms felt even stronger, and I surged forward, increasing my tempo and pulling with all my might. There was a man ahead to my left; could I catch him? I breathed to my left, keeping him in sight as I decreased the distance between us. How far was it to the finish? Two hundred yards? Five hundred? There was no way I could keep up this pace for five hundred yards. It had to be closer than that.

My shoulders burned and my lungs ached. I accidentally breathed to my right and was rewarded with a mouthful of salty Hudson River water. But I was almost there.

With my last few strokes, I cut in front of the man I had been chasing and yanked myself up onto the ladder hanging from the dock. Panting and dripping, I shuffled forward onto the mat and into the corral. I had made it! And it wasn't even raining.

Results for this race:

Race Length	Finishing Time	Overall Place	Gender Place (All Women)	Age Group Place (F20-30)
1.2k	20:24	31/236	15/99	4/19

Also, for anyone who's interested, my waiting-line buddy Chris finished 14th overall and 4th in his age group (M10-20) with a time of 19:34.

Next open water swim: the Little Red Lighthouse 10k on September 24, 2011. Stay tuned!

Swimming History Revived

Technically speaking, I can say that I have swum for almost all of my 25 years of life. In fact, still technically speaking, I have competed in swimming for almost two-thirds of that time. However, I didn't get "serious" about swimming until the summer after my senior year of high school. That was when I joined the Woodland Hills Aquatic Team (appropriately abbreviated WHAT).

WHAT was one of the local club swimming teams--the cheapest and most accessible team, for me at that time. I had actually wanted to join WHAT much earlier in my swimming career, but when I first made my case somewhere around eight or nine years of age, my mother told me that I could either swim on the club team or I could keep my other extracurricular activities (which, at the time, included flute and piano lessons, tap dance class, basketball, and a once-a-week paper route). I chose the more well-rounded route.

Instead, I swam for my community team every summer starting when I was 8, up until I graduated from high school. I also joined my high school team swim team in my senior year because I quit playing basketball...that's a long story. However, the important thing is that by swapping basketball for swimming my senior year, I met the best coach I have ever had: G___. G___ taught me to love swimming and training and competing in a way I had never experienced before. He was the most motivating coach I have ever met, and when our season ended, I approached him and asked whether I could join the club (WHAT) team, which he also coached. He said yes.

Thus began what I consider my "true" swimming career. Rather, it could be considered more of an education in endurance training, since it ultimately set me up to become a long-distance runner, as well. But progression went as follows:

Summer 2004: Joined WHAT. Trained through the spring and summer--first time in a long-course (50m) pool.

Winter 2004/2005 (Freshman Year): Went to college at University of Rochester (UR). By happenstance, roomed with swimmer. Swam on my own during the pool's open lap times.

Summer 2005: Returned to train with WHAT, this time with the goal of joining the UR team.

Winter 2005/2006 (Sophomore Year): Given permission to "walk on" to the UR team by the coach, with the understanding that I could be there if I could/would do the work. I did the work. I was the only swimmer left behind when the team flew to Atlanta for the year-end meet.

Summer 2006: Trained again with WHAT.

Winter 2006/2007 (Junior Year): Discovered that I am a middle-distance swimmer; trained for the 100 and 200 free in particular. Only competed half the year because I went abroad in January. Found a pool in England and swam on my own to stay in shape for the summer and following year.

Summer 2007: Trained with WHAT. Received a call halfway through the summer from the head coach at UR, informing me that I would be "unable to perform at the level the coaching staff was now expecting" and that I could stay on as a "team manager" if I wished.

Winter 2007/2008: Took morning shifts at my job at the campus coffee shop to replace the time I had expected to be at practice. Swam 2-3 days a week with the community masters team (hosted at the UR pool).

Spring/Summer 2008: Graduated. Moved to NYC. Started running in lieu of swimming. Found city-subsidized pools and started swimming again.

2008-2009: Taught my new 30-year-old friend how to swim.

Summer 2009: Met open water swimmers; started swimming at Brighton Beach.

Summer 2010: Competed in my second-ever open water race (NYC Aquathalon).

Fall/Winter 2010/2011: Formed Chelsea Chubs with other swimmers at public pool.

Spring 2011: Competed in my first swim meet since 2006.

Plans for this summer (2011):

1. JUNE: Liberty Island Swim (1.2k)
   
2. AUGUST: NYC Triathlon (Olympic distance, 1.5k swim)
   
3. SEPTEMBER: Little Red Lighthouse Swim (10k)

Also, now that I am back in "competition" mode, I dug out my old "personal bests" from college and updated them according to my latest performance. Here is how the times compare. All-time bests are in red. One might argue that I am in the best "long distance" shape of my life right now...!

Event	2005 (Soph)	2006 (Jr)	2011 (Masters)
50 free	31.44	29.86	n/a
100 free	1:08.6	1:05.81	1:05.84
200 free	2:23.61	2:21.98	2:25.34
500 free	6:26.41	n/a	6:24.19
50 back	n/a	37.5	n/a
100 back	1:23.7	1:17.36	n/a
200 back	n/a	2:43.86	n/a
100 breast	1:30.2	n/a	n/a

Stars and Stripes Aquathlon

Imagine jumping into a river with 250 other people and then trying to swim through two buoys, approximately 20 feet apart. All at the same time. And yes, everyone wants to be the first through the opening, because this is a race.

That was my experience today, as I participated in the NYC Swim association's Aquathlon. I got kicked, punched, slapped, and pummeled from all directions as I and the other 279 participants attempted to get through two buoys, 1.5k down the Hudson, and up the ladder back to land--at which point we were by no means finished. Then there was the task of shedding our goggles and cap (plus a wetsuit, for those swimmers who wore one), donning our socks and sneakers, and racing up the West Side Highway, from 56th to 83rd street, and then back down again--a 5k run that completed the race.

My results are below. Overall, I am pleased with my performance, seeing as it is my second-ever open water race and also my second-ever mutli-event competition. I'd like to see it as one step closer to becoming a triathlete (because having completed one sprint-length triathlon last summer does not qualify me for the title of "triathlete"); however, I'm not sure whether I'm going to summon the motivation to dive into competitive cycling.

In the meantime, I have other concerns. NYC marathon training starts this week, so long run updates will be coming soon. Stay tuned....

Race Length (swim/run)	Overall Time	Swim Time	Run Time	Overall Place	Gender Place
1.5k (1 mile) / 5k (3.1 miles)	00:51:06:20	00:27:44:95	00:23:21:25	22/280	5th

Alex's Flipturns

I went for a session with the Shiverers at the King Alfred Leisure Centre. In the lane next to me was this boy who looked to be about half my age. Before we even got in the pool, I could tell he wasn’t a serious swimmer since he didn’t pull his shoulder-length brown hair under a cap, but from the condition of his hair, he probably still attended a good many sessions—the ends of his hair was turnig that whitish swimmer-blond color caused by the chlorine in the pool.
My assumption that he wasn’t a “serious swimmer” was further supported by the fact that he barely completed one lazy fifty for warm-ups, whereas all of the other swimmers did two-hundred meters or more. However, once we began swimming, I realized that this kid was actually fairly fast; probably faster than me. His technique wasn’t good: he created way too much turbulance in the water to have an efficient stroke and, as a result, I ended up with mouthfuls of poolwater every time I breathed to his side of the lane. Still, when he gave effort on our sprint set, he could keep up with me and sometimes even passed me. This ability was particularly amazing because of the fact that every time we reached a wall, flipped, and pushed off, he would bulldoze into the water, head-and-shoulders first. I, meanwhile, tucked my ears between my elbows, extended my arms in a point over my head, and kicked a good half-body’s length ahead of him before he could get any momentum going with his stroke again. Effectively, I streamlined; he didn’t.
After observing this on every single wall it bothered me so much that I finally resolved to say something. We were resting at the shallower end between sets when I turned to him and asked, “How old are you?” It took him a moment to realize I was speaking to him, but eventually he responded, “Thirtehn.” “Do you compete?” “Ya.” “You’re really quite fast…why don’t you streamline off the walls?” He looked confused for a minute while he processed what I had said, and then ducked his head a little with an embarrased smile. “I cahn’t.” I paused. “You’d go so much faster if you did. Like, I bet you’re faster than me.” “Ma coaches allwhys get on meh about thaht.” He looked away, effectivly ending the conversation.
Still, I couldn’t leave it alone. At our next break, I had to ask, “Do you coaches just bug you about it all the time, or do they show you? Like, teach you?” He looked at me oddly. “Streamlining I mean,” I added. “Naw, theh just tell meh.” I could tell he didn’t want to talk about it, but this was really bothering me. A thirteen year old swimmer who didn’t streamline! This would never be permitted in the States. Not on any club team I had ever swum for.
I wanted to take him into the shallow end and show him how to do a proper flip turn. I wanted to explain why he needed to push off on his back and how streamlining would make him faster if he practiced it. But how could I do any of this without insulting him and embarrassing myself? Who was I to try and act all knowledgable? I was just some college-age American who couldn’t even beat the twelve-year-old swimmer in my own lane. How could I claim to know better than their coaches?