Cynthia TRIes a Swim Bike Run
It was finally Jersey Girl Triathlon race weekend and I was a melting pot of nerves, excitement, anxiety, impatience, joy, and dread. Taper week before any event always unearths these suppressed feelings that I’ve compartmentalized during training. The difference this time was all the additional logistical things I had to do before and during the three-part race.
To help ease the excitement, I went to the last free beach yoga session at Spermaceti Cove on Sandy Hook in the morning the day before the race. I put my towel down on the sand, listened to our instructor’s 20-minute spiel about how not to compare your practice to anyone else’s and eased into the 40-minute gentle flow while the rough waves of the Atlantic Ocean roared behind us. If the weekly weekend ocean swim in Long Branch wasn’t canceled due to rip currents, I would have been practicing that leg of the triathlon. The waves were intimidating on the ocean side, and I hoped the bay would be calm enough for the next morning.
After the yoga session, I got a croissant and strawberries at the end-of-season social and drove to the race site to do my 3.1-mile shakeout run on the course. The bike racks and some of the tents for the event were starting to be put up. It was getting real!
I was still a bit restless and for some reason decided that it made more sense to spend the afternoon meal prepping 2 pounds of turkey cutlets for dinner and the upcoming week instead of chilling out and ordering us the typical comfort pre-endurance event meal of chicken parm. I was procrastinating setting up my transition bags by being productive with my nutrition, but it only made me feel extra flustered by the time my boyfriend got back from his motorcycle ride. I gave him instructions to put the turkey cutlets in the oven at 5:30 so that when I got back from the course orientation at 6pm we could eat right away.
I had been texting questions to my triathlon veteran friend, Lisa, all day and found her at the orientation. We followed the race director and listened to the Q + A about the race. By a show of hands, it was most people’s first triathlon so I wasn’t alone in my inexperience. I decided to leave my bike there overnight despite my worries about the wind or deer knocking it over (yes, the young bucks might think it’s a toy).
I drove the few miles home and felt pumped to race the next day. I stuffed my face with pasta and cutlets and then despite how tired I was, I couldn’t sleep well at all.
I woke up a few minutes before my usual 5 a.m. alarm on Sunday and had coffee and LiquidIV. I didn’t have much of an appetite and couldn’t finish my measly English muffin before heading to the race. We parked in Lot J and took the school bus over to the transition area to set up. I laid out my towel, sneakers with socks, helmet, water bottles, etc. Before I knew it, I had to line up along the bay.
Mark wished me a great race and I was herded down the rocky path to the cove where all the Jersey Girl Triathletes in their pink swimcaps would start their swim. Because of the nature of this sprint triathlon, the race was a time-trial start to keep people spread out. Once I got to the beach, the swim didn’t look intimidating at all; there were lifeguards on surfboards and “swim angels” every 20 yards or so (unlike unsafe CrossFit events *cough cough*) and the farthest buoy at 150 yards looked really close by. I got super confident and amped up like I used to for swim meets and was determined to outswim those ahead of me.
When we were told to go, I rushed into the water and all that excitement suddenly turned into “oh shit”. I had way TOO much adrenaline; my face wasn’t in the water yet because I would have immediately swallowed the salt water down the wrong pipe. It was like I forgot how to swim again. I was a little chilly and I’m used to the shock of the cold, but between all the people in the way ahead of me and my heart rate maxed out too quickly, my body just didn’t want me to do freestyle fully yet. I was annoyed at myself and did breaststroke as fast as I could around the older ladies that were floating on their backs with the swim angels. I had to tell myself to pace myself and calm down.
I wasn’t even freaked out by the open water for this since 300 people already started before me; I was just plain too pumped up. When I feel this way in a running race, I’m able to concentrate on nasal breathing and slowing down my pace until I’m ready to speed up again. In the water, I can’t relax as easily with the thrashing people around me. I swam my slowest stroke around the halfway buoy and kept dodging around the other swimmers. I finally had what looked like a clear path in the last 50 yards for me to freestyle sprint my way to shore. This part of the swim felt great and I felt like myself again, and I was mad that I didn’t start my freestyle sooner. I felt my hand brush the sand and stray seaweed at the bottom of my stroke, which indicated it was shallow enough to stand up. One-third down, two more to go.
On my wobbly mermaid legs, I climbed up the sand and followed other ladies toward the transition area. Most of them were walking slower than a tourist in Manhattan, and I had a time goal in mind, so I dashed around them and ran barefoot on the grass to the ninth bike rack where my mountain bike awaited me.
I launched my bum onto my hot pink towel, hitting my tailbone hard on the ground. It wasn’t the smartest way to sit down, but I was on a mission. I accounted for wet feet, but didn’t think about the grass and other things that could stick to me. It felt like it took so much longer to make sure I didn’t feel like the Princess and the Pea when I put my sneakers on; the friction of the tiniest irritant in a shoe can make me bleed. Once I was sure that my sneakers were double-knotted, I sipped some water, threw my helmet on, and ran my bike through the grassy transition to the paved mounting area. I was once again speeding past others in transition out of impatience and to give myself more space on the bike leg of the race.
The cycling leg consisted of 2 laps for a total of 9 miles going up and down Hartshorne Drive, which overlooks the coves on the bay side of Sandy Hook and my home on the other side. I practiced this specific route two times before race day, so I was familiar with the two tiny inclines that I would change gears for on the flat course. There were a variety of bikes out there; some had mountain bikes just like me, and others had road bikes where they click their shoes into the pedals and have a more streamlined geometry to prevent drag. I didn’t bother buying a road or tri bike until I knew if I wanted to do this sport, so I knew that my speed potential was limited by the weight of the bike and design of the handlebars. Regardless of my amateur status, I had a strong pace. The wind pushed me southbound, and became an obstacle northbound. I had more space on the first lap since the more experienced triathletes were finishing up their leg, but it got crowded on the second lap as more beginners finished up their swim. I was calling out “on your left!” every minute or so and when I caught up to a cluster, the wind slowed me down too much to get past. It eventually spread out a little bit and I was able to pass the woman I had been following the past 3 miles.
I slowed down in the dismount area and leapt off at the last possible moment since those ahead of me dismounted sooner. I started running with the bike up the grass toward transition when I remembered that I wanted to stop my Garmin’s bike timing. While running fast with the bike to the right of me, I let go of my right hand from the handlebar to push the button on my left wrist and caused my bike’s wheel to turn unexpectedly and I dropped my bike. I was still standing when onlookers asked if I was ok, I was just shocked for a moment. I picked up my bike and ran through the transition area, mad that I made such a rookie mistake.
The second transition, T2, was much quicker for this race because of my mountain bike. I was already in my running sneakers, so all I had to do was swap my helmet for my hat and drink more water. I didn’t finish my cycling water bottle and didn’t know how many water stations there would be on the run leg, so I made the quick decision to carry my giant half-filled SmartWater bottle for the 5k run.
As expected from practicing my T2 a few times during training, my legs felt like Jell-O coming out of transition. Photos and videos of this part of the run make me look like my toddler niece learning how to put one foot in front of the other. I was catching my breath, trying to find my cadence and appropriate speed and effort for this short distance. My water bottle sloshed around as I passed other competitors on Officer’s Row. I felt kind of slow just because of my labored breathing and dehydration, but my pace was appropriately somewhere between my 10k and 5k running pace. As long as I stayed locked into it, I would have enough energy for a big push at the end.
The running route took us along Officer’s Row and then zig-zagged on the small roads past Fort Hancock and Battery Potter to the turnaround point near the lighthouse. There were only 2 water stops, so I was glad that I brought my annoying bottle along with me. I hoped I would finish the bottle and surrender it before the finish (to pick it up after), but as Mark cheered me on in the last half mile, I gripped it tighter and exaggerated my arm swing to lengthen my stride.
I could see the curve toward the finish line and several ladies ahead of me. Even though I didn’t know if they started before or after me because of the time trial start, I pretended we all started at the same time and let my racing instincts kick in. I had a one track mind, put my “game face” on (as my former teammates on a football league called it), sprinted past my competitors, and I reached the finish line before the announcer could finish mispronouncing my last name over the loudspeaker. I collected my medal while my vision went blind for a second; my indicator that I pushed myself hard enough to make it count.
Lisa greeted me with a high five (she got first place in her age group) and after chatting for a bit while catching my breath, I went to look for Mark, realizing that he had my phone on him. I stood on a picnic table and wandered around trying to find him in the crowd of female athletes and their own significant others. I eventually found him near the transition entrance where I eventually had to go collect my things. “You did GREAT Hun, I’m so proud of you!” he grinned as he embraced and kissed me. He said I looked strong throughout the race and that my results were probably really good.
I checked the race results page on my phone and kept refreshing the page, wondering when my time would pop up on the screen since it had been a significant amount of time after. I started getting paranoid that my time chip didn’t collect my hard efforts, which happened on a 5k earlier in the summer (and I was the team captain!). I clicked on different links on the page and finally found my results, which confused me further.
I got first place in the Athena category! I forgot that I checked off “Athena” when I signed up because it asked me if I was 150 pounds or more. I thought that was a strange question at the time, considering I’m tall and muscular and I saw many athletes of all different shapes and sizes competing. Also, I was confused why there was a weight class when this is an endurance sport, not a power sport like powerlifting or MMA. Even though I’m not at my leanest, what did weight have to do with this competition? Regardless, I still beat the runner up in that category by 2 minutes. If I wasn’t in the Athena category, I would have been 10th in my age group and 57/468 overall.
Finish Time – 1:10.55
300 yard Swim – 7:36
T1 – 3:30
9 mile Bike – 32:52
T2 – 1:33
3.1 mile Run – 25:24
I was on an endurance high for the rest of the day. From sitting in traffic on the way out of Sandy Hook, to our celebratory dim sum binge for lunch I was wide awake and alert. I wanted to nap but my body wouldn’t let me, and I couldn’t sleep that night from being restless in a different way than the previous night.
The following morning, instead of taking a rest day, I was back at the pool. At work, I started browsing the Ironman website to see some available 70.3 races available in 2025. I just might have unleashed a new hobby. No matter what distance I do next, I’m now a marathoner and a TRIATHLETE.