Wednesday, July 27, 2016

NYC Triathlon 2016


    

I had a very nice day.  Luckily, the older guys got to start early, so I was finished before 9:30 am, when it was still only in the low 80’s.  I had a great swim (I was 157 out of 3377 in the swim—love that tide going out in the Hudson), and a pretty good (for me) run, but had bike mechanical issues and took a long time in each transition, so overall it was a good day, which could have been very good, but for the bike issues, and I finished at about the midpoint of my age group; when I did it 7 years ago, I was in the 33rd percentile.  It was the ultimate SGC triathlon: out front in the swim, then spend the rest of the day watching people pass me on the bike and run.  Full results here.  However, know that they cut the run course short, it was an 8K and not a 10K to get people out of the heat -- and around 10:30 or 11:00 am, well after I finished, they started sending runners up 72nd Street directly to the finish (1.5 miles) so they wouldn't be out in the heat.

I had a blast.  It’s a great party and they do a nice job running the event, but the logistics are amazingly difficult.  It’s the athletic version of the typical NYC story – “It’s impossible to live here/I couldn’t live anywhere else.”

The top right picture is from the finish line festival after the race.  I look a lot more dubious about the experience than I actually felt.