Race Morning
The race was held in Kingston, NY, which is only an hour south of Albany, so it was an easy drive down in the morning from home. Except of course for having to wake up at 3:15am, but that's all part of the game I guess.
Breakfast was oatmeal with peanut butter, 2 cups of coffee, and some water.
Packed up the car and left Albany at 4:15am.
An hour later we got to Kingston. This race had two different transition areas so I had to organize all my gear for that after picking up my packet. I knew about this ahead of time so I was mostly prepared, but at packet pickup there were others who were completely surprised.
I packed my run stuff into the provided garbage bag marked with my number and dropped it off at T2. It was nice that they provided staff/volunteers to handle the bags, but it would have been nicer to let us take the bags to our transition spots so that we would know where to go when we came into T2, but that was not the case...more on that later.
HITS provided a shuttle to take racers to the swim start a mile down the road, but it was 6am and it was a nice morning, so Anna and I walked into the sunrise together. It was pretty and a really nice way to relax before the race start instead of cramming on to a shuttle with a dozen other jittery nervous triathletes. The shuttle did not take spectators back to T2/Finish after the swim though, so spectators had to walk back. No problem for Anna, but possibly an issue for others.
When I got to transition the first thing I noticed was a huge line at the 2 porta-potties (yes, only two!) Then I noticed how tightly packed the bikes were in the racks. Tight enough that there would be no way to run out of your rack beside your bike. It looked like everyone would have to pick up their bike to avoid hitting race wheels with their pedals on the way out.
I finally set up my spot and started putting on my Rocket Science Sports wetsuit and made my way to the swim start to find out that the course had been changed the night before. WHAT?! Now, instead of a two-loop swim for the Half distance, it was a straight line of buoys out and back - buoys always on the left.
Swim
The swim start was uneventful. I quickly found myself leading the swim by the first buoy a few hundred meters in. But without turns, I had no idea how far back anyone was. So, I settled into a steady pace, tried my best to swim straight, and avoided swallowing as much Hudson River water as I could.
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| Not a bad place for a swim start |
They had started the Olympic distance athletes after the Half and Full racers, so on my way back to shore, I swim right into some Olympic athletes. With a few hundred meters before the shore I nearly smacked a woman in the face who was swimming the Olympic course. There were Olympic race colored caps all over in the water and it looked like they were all swimming toward different points on the shore. One hundred meters to the beach and I swam into a rope that sectioned off the public swimming area of the beach. It tore my goggles off, but my contacts were ok and I was close enough to shore that it wasn't a big problem.
I ran up the beach and into T1 and heard Anna tell me that I was the 2nd Half into the transition. I was surprised because I was leading the swim the whole time, but oh well.
I got to my bike, stripped my wetsuit, put all my swim stuff in my T1 bag, and then had to carry my bike out of my spot to avoid hitting the other bikes crammed into the row. It may not have delayed me at all, but it was just annoying.
When I mounted my bike I heard the announcer say I was the first Half athlete out of T1. Off to a good start! The guy Anna saw must have been wearing the wrong colored swim cap.
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| Heading out onto the bike in first place |
Swim Stats:
Time - 27:10
Pace - 1:24/100m
Overall Rank - 1/65 - Fastest swim of the day! Thanks Rocket Science Sports!
Bike
The bike started with a steep uphill. My heart rate was soaring from the swim but I let it stay high for a bit as I climbed the hills out of T1.
The lead motorcycle stayed in front of me and guided me onto the bike course. Let me first say that if you have to take an on-ramp onto the bike course, it may not be the best road to bike on. It made me nervous to ride on to Rte 9 and I was following the lead moto! I can't imagine what people behind me with no one to follow thought of the course. Even worse was that without the lead moto pointing out the turns, I would have missed several of them. The bike course turns were printed on one 8.5"x11" sheet of paper, taped on small A-frame stands, then placed right at the corner of the intersection at which we were to turn. This happened at every intersection on the course - no warning of an upcoming turn until you got there. Luckily, I had the moto.
I was alone for the first hour of the ride with the moto which was mostly uphill. There was a lot of debris on the shoulders and a lot of patchwork paving on the road, plus a ton of traffic on Routes 9, 29, and 209. It was a little scary. The first hour I averaged 21.5mph, 252W, and 163bpm.
Around mile 25 I looked behind me and saw my buddy Colin coming. I have raced against him, and not beaten him, on multiple occasions. He caught me in a few minutes and we lamented about the road surfaces, traffic, signs, etc for a few seconds before we settled into legal spacing. Once we got off the main road, the biking was great. The road around the reservoir was well paved, very low traffic, and mostly downhill! However, each aid station was manned by only 1 volunteer who was not ready for Colin and me to come through when we did. Luckily, I was the last person in the group so by the time they saw the moto, it was too late for Colin but I managed to snag a water at each station.
I stayed within 20-30s of Colin at all times because I didn't want to risk giving him a few minute lead on the run. I had a great run last month at Quassy, but I wasn't sure if I would be able to repeat that today with the heat and the pace we were biking. So, I hedged my bets and went with him at a slightly higher pace than was comfortable. The second hour of the bike was fast. 23.8mph, 248W, 156bpm. Max speed was 45mph!
We got back onto the main road, Rte 28, and followed the moto as he tried to point out cars that were merging onto 28 ahead of us. Colin almost got hit by a car that was merging and didn't see him. I was 20ft behind. I yelled and waved my arms so that the car would notice me, luckily it did and it let me pass before merging onto the road. Overall, in general, this section of the bike course was downright dangerous and careless. HITS is lucky nobody got hurt.
The last half hour on the bike I did some things that no person should ever do, in a race, on a training ride, and probably in the eyes of the law - I ran red lights at intersections. Although most of the intersections on Routes 28, 209, and 9 had police, some of the intersections had officers that were not controlling cross-traffic to let the bikers through safely. The moto, Colin, and I raced through several intersections without being assured by officers that there were no cars coming from the cross street. We hardly slowed and I guess we just got lucky. I'm not sure if this was a problem with HITS planning or the specific officers at the intersections, but the fact that it even happened is unconscionable. If HITS was putting on a Gran Fondo ride, stopping at red lights is no big deal. But this was a race and HITS should have treated intersections on the course as such. Frankly, I'm damn surprised that nobody got seriously hurt.
When we got back into Kingston and down the hill into T2 I was just thankful to be off the bike safely. I managed to stick with Colin for the last 30min of the ride, despite him pushing the pace, and we came into T2 together.
When we ran into transition, neither of us had any idea where our shoes were nor where to place our bikes. A volunteer was directing Colin to his spot and I assumed I was nearby so I followed and happened to see my number. A quick T2 and I was off onto the run course in 1st place.
Bike Stats:
Time - 2:30:10
Distance - 57.2mi
Speed - 22.9mph avg
Power - 253W
Cadence - 90rpm
Heart rate - 159bpm
Elevation - 3,314ft
Overall Rank - 2/65
Run
The first mile hit me like a ton of bricks. It was hot, sunny, and I could not get my HR under 170bpm, probably because I slightly over-biked. It took 1 mile before my GPS found satellites, so I was running off effort and HR. I have had a few HARD long runs since Quassy and I knew I could hold 168-170bpm for ~12mi on a good day. Maybe today would be one of those days, I thought.
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| Start of the run. Legs feeling like garbage. At least my form was on par though. |
I turned to go up the one big hill on the run -1.1mi, 145ft. I felt strong and averaged 7:11/mi on the way up the hill while keeping my HR mostly controlled. When I got to the top and turned around I started counting the seconds until I saw Colin. I saw him about a minute down the hill so I figured I had 2min on him by that point in the run. If I kept gaining time on him, I would be able to hold him off. But it was still early on the run, so who knows what could happen in the next 10mi.
The next few miles were mostly downhill and flat - 6:48/mi, 6:45/mi, 6:59/mi. Felt good but HR was still high and I was starting to feel it.
When I got back to transition I knew I had about a 0.4mi out and back section to run on the backside of transition. But when I ran by the sign for the turnaround came up very quickly. I asked the HITS volunteer (black shirt, maybe a staff member?) if this was the turnaround for the half. They said, yep, right here. So I thought the course was marked incorrectly, but didn't think to ask again, but I should have...hindsight is 20/20 I guess. I didn't know it yet but that turnaround sign was for the Olympic distance race, not the half! Oops.
I started heading back out for the 2nd lap and saw Colin again. So I was starting to get thoughts of taking the win. I still didn't know I had cut the course short.
About 1km back onto the run course I started getting very nauseous. I doubled over and thought I was going to puke, three times. I managed to get to the aid station, got some water and headed up the hill again, although this time there was a decent amount of walking involved.
When I got to the top I started counting the seconds until I saw Colin again, but it took over 4min for me to see him. At that point he told me that I cut the course short. Apparently, the half course turnaround sign had not even been set up when I had come through on Lap 1. After the race Colin, who had been about 2 minutes behind me, told me that as he was coming through the spot where I turned around, he was following a HITS staff member who was running in front of him with the turnaround sign to place it in the correct spot, 0.4mi down the road.
After I heard I had cut the course, I immediately became disheartened and many thoughts started racing. First was, well, shit, I was right! I should've pressed the volunteer again at the wrong turnaround point. Second was, well that's a big DNF for me! Third was a unique thought - what if I just continued and ran the missed section twice? I would end up running the whole distance, just not in the right order. But would that be ok? If I won the race, would it feel right? It probably wouldn't. I think the win would require an asterisk.
I thought the most straightforward and honest thing to do was to DNF. So, I got to the bottom of the hill, took off my chip, grabbed some coke, and started walking my way back to the finish line to turn in my chip. After a few minutes Colin caught up to me and I tried running with him for a bit. He told me about the volunteer running with the sign and said he didn't really want to take the win this way, which I completely understand. But I couldn't hang with him at that pace after I had been walking for 6min so I told him to enjoy the win and I'd see him at the finish.
I made my way back to the finish line and turned in my chip. Then I walked away and saw Anna running up to me a few minutes later. She told me that the officials knew about the mistake and would have counted my run as legit if I had just run the missed section twice like I had thought about. But at that point I had already turned in my chip and I was resigned to the DNF.
What really irritated me about this is that the HITS Timing official at the finish told Anna they were trying to find me on the run course to tell me to run the missed lap twice. But they were not actively trying to find me, they were just waiting for me...at the far end of the turnaround that I missed once already! There were no lead bikers on the run course and the aid stations didn't seem to have any communication with the staff at transition/finish, so there was no way for anyone to communicate with me on the course. That was the most annoying part of it all. They knew about it and were "trying" to inform me how to fix it, but they weren't actively trying to catch me on the course or communicate with me.
In the end, I'm just disheartened in own my decision to follow the direction of the volunteer/staff at the turnaround. I thought it wrong, but with the swim course change at the last minute, I wouldn't have been surprised by another course change.
Run Stats:
Time - 1:34:21
Distance - ~11.5mi
Pace - super varied, lots of walking after DNF
HR avg - 163bpm total, probably 170bpm while running
Overall, I'm underwhelmed and relatively upset after my experience with HITS Kingston and my first impression of the HITS race series. The last minute swim change, the disorganized and cluttered transitions, the frightening bike course, the confusing course markings, the lack of volunteers to direct athletes, the lack of volunteers at aid stations, and the misdirection on the run course were enough to make me not want to do another HITS race if that is the way all their races are organized. I heard similar comments from friends about HITS Hague last month, but I wasn't there so I don't know how that one really went. All I know is that my first experience at a HITS race was awful. Some of these things taken alone would have been fine. I can understand the swim change, especially because of river currents, but they didn't do a great job publicizing the change ahead of time. The misdirection at the turnaround sign was frustrating, but that kind of stuff happens sometimes. But the general feeling of disorder and a lack of attention to detail all over the course and throughout the entire day, as well as the terrifying bike course left me with a feeling of revulsion.
So yea, that's the whole story. Sorry for the negativity, but I did warn you. I do truly hope that HITS improves the quality of their races. It is important to have non-Ironman options for long course racing in the US. It benefits all triathletes to have competition in the long course triathlon market. Anyway, that's all...thanks for reading!
