15 minutes Longer?
A few days before the race, I received an email stating to all competitors the race will be 15min longer. Which was confusing because depending how fast you are, 15 minutes can mean anywhere from a 1/2 mile to a mile in distance. Or it could be that the current could be flat so you wouldn't have much of a push or the current could be against you so a mile will take you longer. For me it was too much to think about, considering all the other variables with a hectic life.Day of the race; the start time was at 3PM and checkin was at 1PM, it felt like an after school track meet. Normally I am up at the crack of dawn rushing to the race site. On my way to start of the race I stopped off at a Vitamin Shop to pick up some gels for the race. At the same time Rod Stewart and his son were in the shop, I was ahead of him, I paid and then quick moved to side so you can quickly purchase his nutrition bar. He noticed I recognized him and he said hello with a nice smile. I said hello back and left the store, this an very nice New York moment. As I was walking out, I was thinking about the 2 Rod Stewart songs I had on my playlist when I would workout.
As nice as the encounter was I had to focus back on the race at hand, not only these races are hard but they can be dangerous. Swimmers at these distances have disappeared their bodies never recovered and their an element of risk. I would think about my Dad and my Uncles retired military men, who have risked their lives just in training. You can't think too much about it or else you will never do anything, but if you don't think about you can be reckless and unsafe. To prevent to panic, I would do a gear and self check.
- Goggles have them
- Wetsuit has a hole but good
- I am rested? (no still recovering from 3 weeks of long nights at work)
- Stress level low because I am sleepy
- Hydration felt topped off
- Nutrition, had nothing solid all day everything so far has been liquid meals could be an issue
Check In
Arriving at the race site, I immediately checked in found a patch of grass on a lawn and fell asleep. for more than an hour, being so tired from work. This isn't my usual social self, but I was able to snap a few pics to post onto Facebook after the race, this was all the mental energy I had then.After a while it was time to line up; I put my wetsuit on and the small hole that got larger. Nothing I can do and remembering past experiences with malfunctioning wetsuits, jellyfish and swimming against the current. The hole in my wetsuit seemed like nothing, soon we were getting into water waiting for the horn to blow. We got our final directions from the race director, he told us that the orange marker will be a 1/2 mile apart from each other.
With this information I planned my nutrition strategy, so for the 6 miles I would take a gel every 4th markers I had 3 gels. The first gel I took before starting (very important, don't wait till you run out of fuel to take on fuel). I knew my body will store about 50mins of energy before I run out. The plan was to gel 0 for the first gel, get me to the first 2 mile in under 50min. Then take gel 1 in the race for the next 2 miles and the last gel for the last 2 miles. So at the end of race I would have about 210 calories to carry me to the finish. With gels I just bought and them tucked in my wetsuit and in the water we are ready to start.
The count down began. 10, 9, 8, 7, (why is this count down taking so dam long) 2, 3, 1 go. I tend to go out quickly to shake off any potential drafters then I try to catch up to the groups that may have started ahead of my group. We starting in a man made bay in 59th street, we quickly reached the first marker indicating the real start of race and we where swimming a line aiming at the George Washington Bridge which looks like a tiny kids toy. I imaged if there was a rope between me and the bridge pull me towards my goal.
Lost One
Right away I lost one my gels since it was tucked inside the selves of my wetsuit. No problem I just had to recalibrate my nutrition plan and exceptions. So I would have 1 gel for 6 miles of racing, adjusting for the situation I would save the gel for mile 3 or before I felt my nutrition fade. Of course I had no water to take with my gels. So I expected the sweet glob going from the back of my throat and eventually sits in your stomach. It takes about 10 minutes for you to feel the pick from the sugar. It's important to take gels before you feel your energy level drop. The fact that I had only one gel for the race there is nothing I can do about that, so I kept my mind on swimming. Each 1/2 mile markers came fairly quickly estimating about 10 to 12 minutes. I had no watch to so I was racing on feel for time and distance. Happy there was some current but not like New York City Triathlon current. The race director planned his races with some currents but not much, a few times he had races where the current wasn't in your favor. This current was moderate so it came down to being a strong swimmers for these races.The first 1 to 2 miles I felt like sleeping my eyes were very heavy, if I stopped I felt like passing out. Maybe I should have had some coffee before the start of the race. Given that only had 1 gel, this sleepiness meant the my heart-rate was very low and it was a good thing. My fuel system was fat not sugar at this point, the cold water helped as well. I didn't want to think about my nutrition as an issue but as a challenge of the race I had manage. One of my closest friend David Lee is one of the best Free-divers in the world. I have learn a lot from him over the years. His sport of Free-diving is doing a lot of work with very little of what the body needs. For David it is Oxygen for at this point it's calories. To keep in a positive frame of mind, I would think about Free-diving and the things David would do. We often exchanged each others workouts and talk through various challenges, sleep, relationships, job, training and mental tricks to manage while you are suffering. I used on of his a few of his mental tricks he used while he set all of his world records. It really helped with the challenges, the first thing is to quite the mind, David would medicate for a few hours before an attempt. At critical stressful points were it was hard to quite the to prevent panic of any kind. He focused on a signal positive mental image.
2 Miles In
After the first 2 miles I am waking up and I am feeling better, the George Washing Bridge we were aim for, started to look a little bigger. Small increases in the size of the bridge made me feel good because I was making progress, even if it was small. The race felt more like pack swimming as if we were dolphins in pod, not really tiring to pass anyone just keeping the group together because the finish is long way off and so was the shoreline. If you needed to pull yourself out of race you couldn't just stand up and say I am done nor could you swim over to side and hang on to wall. We were in middle on the a very wide river with waves bobbing you up and down in the water. At times you had to time when you head hit water in relation to waves in the water to avoid or minimize a slap in the face. Even though you could pull over to a boat and ask to be pull out of the water. I told myself that wasn't an option, here I am in the middle of the Hudson with now were to go but to the finish line.To manage my effort I focused on good swimming technique, everything any swim coach have ever told me I replayed in my head. Earl Walton told me to drive my hand in the water, which creates a pulling effect like the force of a boxer punch thrusting you forward. Wes Hobson, noticing that I need to drive a little harder as my hands pass my hips to create more power before my recovery. Doug Stern tell me to curl my toes to flatten my feet so they acted like flipper not brakes in the water. Both Doug and Wes tutoring were apart of clinics, Earl was my main swim coach. Normally I am on auto pilot when I swim, but to maintain a positive mindset I went back to my training. After all I am just swimming, during the race I kept my mind switch from being quite, swim technique to positive thoughts soon I was close to 6 miles nearing the George Washington Bridge. My energy level was good but I new "the wall", "the bonk" was coming. Good news I only had about a mile or so to go to the little Red little house. Soon we are under the bridge I am feeling good, I had my gel about 2.5 miles ago and starting to decline just as planned so nothing to panic about. Needless to say I didn't see the finish line, I did this race before the finish line is suppose to be here. Where are the banners, the people food and the finisher t-shirt?
Are we there yet?
Ahead I saw another large marker in the middle of water. Okay so I passed underneath the bridge towards the race marker, than I saw a few others after that. Daylight was starting to fade, I still couldn't see the race finish a few of us in our swim pod stopped and looked up. We saw something in distance which looked like the race finish. One person, just said it over there we can make it to over their, they just as confused and disappointed as I was, so I wasn't alone. With her leadership we pushed on, my muscles were in a state of complete failure, it's just like soldiers being pushed to edge, growing up close to a military base and my farther being a Army Captain at the time, I have seen and heard the stories of complete muscle failure, which is the goal during that kind of training. You can't push pass it because physically you are depleted. So there was nothing to panic about nor be shocked about accepted it and keep moving. Then I remembered a quote from David Goggins an Ultra-marathon runner "When you think you are done, you are 40% into what you think you can do". I just replayed that quote in my head. At that point, I needed clean water to drink and some nutrition.
Looking back at the bridge
As I looked back the bridge which I thought was the goal, that was getting smaller and smaller. We didn't have any current helping us at that point. The sun was going down, I was beyond hungry and just wanted to get out of the water. A structure and started to get closer where I could make out the finish banner. It looked like a doc of some sort, it was't clear if that was the finish but I aimed for it, doing my best to keep up my tempo good form. My stoke count became greatly reduced, I kept pushing as hard as I could. Soon I saw the finish ramp were swimmers were getting out of the water. I did my best to sprint for the finish at that point I know I was swimming more than 2:20 min per 100 meters to get to the finish. That last 1/4 miles felt like I was swimming in slow motion. I was being cheered on by people on the deck, not because I was swimming fast and strong. But because I struggling and one of the last people in the water. Once out the water, grabbed the first bottled water and found a corner on the floor to sit and eat a banana. I was cold but I didn't care, I just needed food and water. I was sure what to feel about the race, I had to switch my mind to another the very next morning. So I packed up and headed to home to rest and prep for a 6AM start time.Days Later
Days later as I was out for a run, I happily ran into my neighbor and friend David Holly he was running back from a pool workout and I we chatted while I tried to keep up with his fast pace. He is getting ready for a IRONMAN (where I know he will be a top finisher as an elite). I told him about the race over the weekend, he me told that the little red light house turned into ended up being 7.5 miles long race. But I was in that race, maybe I wasn't paying attention, I thought it was 6 miles and I internally miscalculated to distance (Oh the email about the race bing 15 minutes longer ). I knew I had a disappointing finish compared to my other races that weekend. So I didn't look at my results at all, when I finally did I wasn't that far down and instead of swimming 6.2 miles I did 7.5 at a pace of 24min per mile.A few things I learnt this weekend is that nutrition planning is very important. Physically you do these races by yourself but you aren't really alone and it takes the support of fellow competitors, friends, great mentors coaches and family mainly my Dad being a great role model. My Dad is an Army Captain (retired) who focused on using head before anything else. He is a great leader to his men and a hero to many. So my rattle battle this weekend was nothing compared to my Dad's long and active weekends.