I’m not sure if there is really anything I can add to the pages of praise already strewn all over ST for this race but I do not intend to leave my sofa today and am therefore going to try.
This is, quite simply, the race you’ve been looking for since you first got into multisport. I’m hardly an old-timer myself but if you’re exhausted by seven night minimum stays, $600 entry fees and the never-ending hand-wringing about drafting then I suggest you get yourself to New Paltz next year - this is what long distance “athlon” racing is supposed to be. I’m not the first to bang this drum but if you are looking for the hardest, fairest, best run race you’ll ever do, if you’re looking to learn something important about yourself for the price of a good dinner and if you already have so many branded T-shirts and baseball caps that all you really want after a race is a stein of cold beer and the respect and applause of your competitors – then do not miss the chance to race American Zofingen.
My weekend began on the Friday night when we drove up to a friend’s house overlooking Cold Spring and the Hudson Valley. It’s a spectacular property and a definite step up from camping which has been my accomodation of choice in recent years (with mixed results). Saturday was spent ambling around Cold Spring, getting a 5 mile gentle jog in and then heading up to New Paltz to drive the bike course and to meet up with a bunch of friends from my old tri club at the Gilded Otter. Close to a perfect pre-race day but given my time again I’d have skipped driving the course which, views notwithstanding, did nothing whatsoever for my nerves. In case anyone did have any ideas about drafting off me, dinner was a huge spicy jambalaya, some fruit and half a bag of soft licquorice. On the advice of ML I also targetted a PB with three excellent “Wee Scottish Strong Ales.” After a night spent in the traditional manner (imagining minor issues with my bike that required hours of tinkering and greasing), we finally got to bed and slept pretty well till the alarm at 5am.
It’s about an hour’s drive up to the course from Cold Spring and to keep myself occupied I played DJ which, on such a momentous occasion, required nothing more than playing Ennio Morricone’s theme from “A Fistful of Dollars” as loud as possible on repeat – that is how to get psyched up for a race. As we pulled into the race area things were already in full swing and as part of the first race off I had mercifully little time to dwell on the next 8 hours. A quick trip to the head, some air in my tires and a final check that everything was where it needed to be brought me quickly around to 7.25 and the call to the start line.
Run 1 (31.54 1st overall (one short course guy went faster))
I hadn’t had chance to preview the run course but from everything I’d heard I figured it should suit me pretty well. I love uphill trail running when concentrating on foot placement keeps you in the moment and doesn’t let your mind wander to how much your legs hurt. On the downhills I’m too uncoordinated and my feet are too big to really love the technical stuff but from what I heard most of the* *descents on the course were actually wide open trails – perfect. When the gun went off my sig line said it all. Instead of the usual NYRR sprint to the first corner the pace was very modest as the first timers paced themselves out of fear and the more experienced guys did so from experience. After a couple of open fields we hit the first trail and with a fairly steady pace I found myself at the front with only 1 guy close behind me and another couple perhaps 15 yards back. As we wound up through the chilly forest the gaps gradually stretched and once I opened my stride up on the descent following the second climb I was suddenly completely on my own. Except for the occasional volunteer and some early morning birdsong the forest was completely silent. The clear bright sunlight was just beginning to stream through the canopy and as I ran through grassy glades and over streams the whole experience was just incredibly exhilerating. Finally after one last little up and down kicker I left the forest and began the run back to transition across a couple of fields. I knew my lead was sizeable and figured that even if it didn’t last long my sponsors would get some good TV time (if, of course, I had sponsors or AmZof was televized).
Bike (4.57.20 7th overall)
“I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that’s real”
- Johnny Cash (I know, I know Trent Reznor but seriously - Johnny Cash)
Transition was smooth (36 seconds 2nd fastest overall) and I rolled out down the hill to the main course behind a local cop car. The descent wasn’t as sketchy as it had looked on the way up and the volunteers did a great job of holding the traffic at the bottom.
EDIT - just realized I’m being seen off here by an Appletiniless DaveRoche. Probably tied for the best cheerer out there with my teammate Paul Santini.
What to say about that first hill? For those that don’t know the course as soon as you hit the road you turn left and join what is without doubt the hardest hill on the course. I’m told it hits 23% at times and it. just. never. ends. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt weaker on a bike than I did right then and have no idea what the cops in the lead car must have thought (“Lead guy? Really?”). I sucked so badly that at the top I got completely off my bike to check if the rear brake was rubbing. It wasn’t. Any moment now I was expecting to get passed as I am a very nervous descender and there are two turns on the way back down this hill that really throw me wide for some reason. I hit a respectable 47mph at one point but I knew others would be going much faster that that and would be taking the upper turns far more aggressively. To my surprise though I made it to the bottom still in front, made the sharp right, got in my bars and started cranking away across the countryside. At dinner the night before I’d joked with Ben Lloyd - a very experienced athlete who knows how I like to race - about how I was likely to go off too fast and blow up. To guard against that I’d made a real point of noting a couple of stretches at which to take it easy. The hills don’t count as there’s nothing you can do about those but there is a long section of false flat on Butterville Road that I made myself promise to ride in the little ring without looking at my speed. Somewhere along there it finally happened and I got passed with a whoosh. If Bob Costas were to wheel out one of his 10 Kona commentary chestnuts at this point it would have been “In the Ironman…passes like this…are rarely reversed.” Fortunately I didn’t need Bob Costas to explain that to me – one look at this guy’s rapidly dissappearing legs told me all I needed to know. On the forested climb along County Road 8 I got passed again and a couple of miles later 2 more guys shot past. I don’t know the other athletes that well but assumed one of these four was Josh Beck, the pre-race favorite.
That brought me, in 5th place, to the bottom of the second major climb of the day all the way back up the mountain and across the top.
Compared to the first climb I felt much better and even began to dream that my earlier issues had just been due to the fast transition from run to bike – perhaps I was finally finding my legs? I wasn’t in danger of putting any time into the front four but I could see no-one behind me and so took the time to eat a Cliff Bar and enjoy the stunning Catskills views. I also started to drink but realized with disgust I’d made my usual home brew (50% OJ, 50% water, a bunch of salt), far, far too salty – it was almost undrinkeable. I was really angry with myself for making such a dumb mistake and that with only one bottle on my bike this was going to be an issue. I knew there was an aid station at the end of the loop but that was a long way to go without liquid on what was rapidly becoming a very warm day.
Sadly that was not to be the worst of my problems as I finally began the fast descent down Main Street towards Kerhonkson. My eyesight isn’t the best and the dappled shows thrown by the strong sunlight was making picking a clean line through the worst parts of the road very difficult. With a huge bang it finally happened and I hit a pothole hard. My foul orange juice jumped out of my frame and dissappeared, half my food jumped out of my back pocket and as I skidded down from 44mph I realized that my front tire was totally flat – classic snakebite. My first thought, as anyone within earshot will attest, was “F*CK!” but my second was that things could have been a lot worse. Getting a tire back on my Renn disk is a 20 minute ordeal but my H3 is much easier and I was able to get going again in a solid if unspectacular 3.30 or so having given up (I think) one more place. A couple of miles further on is the hard 180 degree turn onto Granite Road and as I tried to take the bend I realized I’d put far too little air in the tire leaving it squirrely and sluggish. I only had one cannister left but pulling into Accord I finally decided to use half of it to top up the tire and to keep my fingers crossed for the rest of the course. This is me finishing the first loop and begging my long-suffering wife to try and find me a spare CO2 for the next time I came round:
The remaining two loops of the course were every bit as hard as you’d imagine as the temperature and the hills got got higher and the prospect of setting off on a 15 mile rock scramble drew ever closer. My bike issues didn’t let up as my disk developed an awful sounding creak that had me off the bike several times looking for cracks or rubbing. On the upside though I started to see team mates out on the course from other races and Ben Lloyd caught up to me and we egged each other over the hump on the third loop.
Run 2 (can’t do the maths – not that impressive)
Just when you thought the bike course couldn’t get any sicker the climb back up to the pavillion will break your heart. As steep (though mercifully not as long) as the first climb up Mohonk mountain it’s also packed dirt so as you get up out of the saddle and crank out every one of the 12 watts you have left in your legs all it does is make your back wheel spin – uggh! Eventually I made it to T2 back into 5th place as I think one guy had to drop out on Granite Road on the first loop. If I had horse blinkers at this point I would have worn them – the last thing I wanted to see was people enjoying the beer and the sunshine and as quickly as I could I shuffled up through the pavillion and out onto the run.
I was still trading places with Ben Lloyd for a while but as we hit the first climb I found, to my shock and amazement, that I could still run after a fashion so I begin to stumble into a little lead. I actually managed to run the whole first loop in a respectable 40.26 and as I got back to the pavillion someone shouted “seven and a half to the front, 6 minutes to second!” In my delirious state it didn’t occur to me that he must have thought I was in a different race and as I started the second loop and began to pass other long coursers I imagined that I was running myself into the money – 4th!, 3rd, 2nd! I’m rich! Sadly, it dawned on me towards the end of the lap that these were almost certainly guys doing their first loop and that I while I was unlikely to get caught I wasn’t going to be catching anyone either. I’d like to say that realization demotivated me hence the slowdown (44.40, 50.43) but the truth is my legs just died and I physically did not have the strength to run uphill from the middle of the second loop onwards. By the third loop even the downhills were agonizing as every step sent daggers of pain up my quads and my muscles took it in turns to cramp in protest at the abuse. Finally, finally though I rounded the last bend and allowed myself to begin to dream of cool, frothy beer in a large stein. Of endless, delicious food that was not Gu and of lying back on a grassy bank, basking in the sun and reflecting on how lucky I am to be able to experience a day like this. 5 minutes later and I was there.
