Diamond in the Rough/Metroman Race Reports

At the beginning of the season I scoped ‘Diamond in the Rough’ as a definite possibility. With its long swim (1 mile), long bike (27 miles) and short run (5 miles) it seemed a race tailor-made for me. Unfortunately, as a great procrastinator – and apparently a bit of a commit-a-phobe – I kept putting off registration again and again. Until six weeks ago when I finally decided to just do it. And, of course, the race was sold out.

Since I – apparently – have a racing compulsion I couldn’t just kick back and enjoy a weekend without racing and instead found the Metroman Tri on the Boardwalk in Asbury Park, NJ. While not ideal for me with a short bike (22 miles) and long run (6 miles) it did have the added bonus of being only 15 minutes from my parents' house and on the boardwalk where I spent my childhood summers. Also, it had a cool format: The top 15 finishers of the intermediate distance would get to compete in a super sprint ‘Dash for Cash,’ a $1000 winner-take-all mini tri with a 350 meter swim, 5 mile bike and 1 miles run. Cool.

And then Karen P. points out that Diamond in the Rough is still open! Why the link I used told me it was sold out I have no idea, but I so loved the idea of the long swim/bike, short run format that I signed up immediately, figuring I could cajole a refund from the Metroman people.

As it turns out, race directors are – understandably – fans of keeping money in their pockets once it’s there, so no refund was available. I even asked about switching into the sprint distance race, figuring I’d be on some pretty tired legs by then, but it was a no go, so I just chalked it up to having a REALLY good workout for the weekend.

The nice part about Diamond in the Rough is that it’s relatively close to where my cousin lives, so at least I’d have a place to crash the night before, though an early departure was still necessary given that there was no day before packet pickup. I gave Sarah L. a lift out to the race and after dropping her off spent about an hour riding the first and last thirds of the bike course. I’m glad I did. There were a few technical downhills and one relatively long uphill that were nice to know about in advance. I was surprised! I always thought this area was pretty flat, but the bike course turned out to be pretty hilly. But on a good day, it was the type of course that really suits me.

The morning of (fueled by a huge cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee) I got there plenty early and got my stuff together. Was a feeling a bit flat, but hoped to find some spring in my step once the race got underway. I was pleased to find numbered racks. I wish more races would do this as it keeps the congestion down. Though, a small tip, once you learn the flying mount you can grab some extra space farther down unnumbered racks as you’ll be able to run through transition much faster without your bike shoes on…

The swim was very nice. One mile in relatively calm water at the mouth of the Chesapeake. I especially liked having orange sighting buoys with yellow ones at the turns, makes things much simpler when you’re out there. There was a bit of current, though it seems a lot of people in my wave didn’t realize this until it was too late. I aimed to the right of the first turn and hit the buoy perfectly. But a glance to my left revealed a few of the other swimmers at the front a good 75 yards to the left of the first turn. I even heard that a few people were so far wide that they had to be chased down before they crossed the bay!

I exited the water about a minute back of the leader. Not bad considering I lost the finish buoy in the sun and was accidentally swimming towards a fishing boat that sure LOOKED like a finish buoy in the morning light. Minor correction and a few lost seconds later I emerged from the water in 2nd. As I was leaving transition I saw the leader just heading out onto the road…with a cool police escort! Having been denied that fun ‘pro feeling’ at Harrisburg I had a new goal: Chasing down the leader and getting my own police entourage!

I kept it pretty mellow for the first few miles out of transition, but I knew the course was about to get harder, so I got ready to make my move. 3 miles in we hit the first hill and I closed the gap to the leader quickly and made my pass, nabbing the two motorcycle cops and SUV that were leading the race. (Apparently I also had a truck following me, it was like the President was cycling or something!) I knew the first half of the course was significantly harder than the first, so I decided to go hard early and hope to get some recovery on the back half.

It seemed to work and I was cruising along decently the whole way. Ironically, as cool as it was having a lead vehicle in front, there were a few times when the driver didn’t seem to realize how fast a cyclist can go downhill and I ended up beside the car with him gunning the engine to get ahead. It was a little nerve-wracking descending without being able to see some of the upcoming turns and I did probably get a little more exhaust in my lungs than I would have liked, but I ended up with the fastest bike leg of the day and came into transition with nearly six minutes on the next racer. (Though of course I didn’t know it at the time!)

Hit the run, this time with a mountain bike escort. The guy was super nice, but a little chatty. I responded to the first couple questions he asked me, but clammed up quickly. Race leader or not I had 5 miles to go and for all I knew there was a super fast runner 2 minutes back…


Passed ‘Mile 1’ in 5:13 which led me to believe perhaps the course was not exactly measured properly. I mean..I've attended a few sneaky speeds, but doubted I'd dropped a full minute off my run pace! My suspicions were confirmed when ‘Mile 2’ came by 7:15 later… Hit the turnaround a few minutes after that and checked my watch, figuring whenever the next runner came by I could double the time and know how far up I was. As the seconds ticked by I got more and more excited. It took over two minutes for the next runner to appear, giving me a four-plus minute lead. With less than 2 ½ miles to go I figured that – barring disaster – I should be able to stay away.

As I came into the last mile, I was psyched at how many people heading out the other way were encouraging me. I got lots of cheers and more than a few saw me continually stealing glances over my shoulder and let me know that there was no one back there. Still, I never trust that my run is enough to stay away, so I did check periodically, but in the end I managed to stay clear by about 3 minutes and pulled off my third win of the season, and my first win at a distance over a sprint. It was certainly satisfying. I was even asked for a post-race video interview (though where they’re going to show THAT I have no idea! I wouldn’t bother trying to TiVo it on Versus…)

So, it was nice to stand on top of the podium and enjoy the moment, but I had to rush up to NJ because…it was time to go to packet pickup for the Metroman Intermediate being held the next day on the Asbury Park boardwalk!

I had time for a quick ice bath after visiting with my grandma and family for a bit, then headed to bed early (for me, 10:30) to try to get as much rest as possible. Tomorrow was another long one and had a super-early (6:30 AM!) start. Great… Such an early start meant I’d literally start this race less than 24 hours after starting the last one. Would my legs hold up? I had no idea. But great things cannot be accomplished without trying, so at 6:15 I was standing on the Asbury Park shoreline and considering the orange buoy floating far away in front of Convention Hall (which is best known as Bruce Springsteen’s preferred rehearsal venue, though even the hardest working man in show business doesn’t start THIS early…) There were a few notable competitors lined up with me for the start, including local pros David Silver and John Kenny, plus pro cyclist Saul Raisin, formerly of the Credit Agricole team. Looked like I had my work cut out for me!

The horn sounded and I started my first ever ocean swim tri. Fortunately, as a shore kid, the ocean doesn’t intimidate me, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to swim in! Some big swells made sighting quite a challenge and I broke my normal rule of not following others. I couldn’t see a thing! Hopefully the guys in front could!

Somehow we got to the turnaround, though I only ever spotted two of the four buoys going out. On the way back things got even harder as the swells grew and sighting became a bigger issue. Normally dark goggles are the way to go on all but the cloudiest of days, but this race was so early they were making it impossible to pick anything out! I actually had to stop and pull them off for a moment to get my bearings. Much to my relief I spotted the buoy marking the turn into shore and got underway without too massive a delay. I ended up exiting the water in 5th, about 1:30 behind the leader. Not too huge a deficit, and 10 places ahead of the magic super sprint cut-off.

I managed to make up one place in T1 and hit the bike course determined to give it my best shot. Would the legs respond the day after another race? Only one way to find out. It was nice to have Mike H.’s words in my head as I started. He likes to remind me that racing with confidence is a lot easier than racing defensively, and as I started to reel in the pair of guys ahead of me I decided that today I would leave it to the others to ride with me and we’ll see what happened on the run course.

It worked! Only 4 miles in and I’d moved up to 2nd place. The course was two loops and very crit-like, with probably 25 turns or so to negotiate. Times like this I really dig the new HED C2 rims, on good pavement you can lean the bike WAY over and feel good doing it. It’s amazing how much less intimidating it is to do this during a race!

9 miles into the 22 mile ride I saw the leader and made my pass, which took me past the transition area in 1st place. Very exciting as my mom, dad, sister and aunt had all braved the cold, dark morning to come see me race. I was excited they got to see me come by leading the race – and with another escort vehicle!

I kept pushing it on the second lap, despite knowing there was still a long way to run. I decided if someone else wanted to win the race, that was fine, but I was going to make them hurt a bit on the bike leg to do it. As they say, train your weakness, race your strength…

Hit T2 and my dad shouted that I was 1:40 up on second place. Damn. That’s not much with 6 miles to go, but I wasn’t about to give up now. Had a minor bobble coming out of T2 when the volunteer pointed the wrong way at the exit. Fortunately something felt off to me and I stopped to ask ‘Is this the run course?’ I got a rather shocked look from the next volunteer as she frantically motioned for me to turn around. 10 lost seconds later and I was on my way.

The cool part about the run was that it took place on the famous Asbury Park boardwalk. It was two loops with each incorporating a run through the old Casino and Paramount theater. I was still in first and – despite knowing the run is my weakest leg – determined to hold on to the lead for as long as I could. I figured I could at least make it through one of the loops.

At the first of the four turnarounds I spotted second place, now about 1:20 back. He was making up time, but looked like he was hurting doing it. 3rd and 4th looked a little stronger, but they were a good deal behind. And only one more competitor had made it to the run course but the time I passed transition the first time.

I completed the first loop in just a hair over 17 minutes, which was exciting indeed. Unless I had magically gained incredible speed overnight, the run course was short! I certainly wasn’t going to complain about that! Having less than three miles to run was an enormous confidence booster and at the third turnaround I notice that second place was still :40 back, the same amount he’d been a mile and a half before. Things were starting to hurt, but as I passed through the casino for the fourth and final time I knew I only had to hold on for another 9 minutes or so and though ‘Well, I might as well win if I can…’ I even made a rare strategic decision: If second place was going to catch me it was inevitable anyway, I didn’t have enough in me to up the pace and keep him away...but I’ve discovered I can actually summon a decent finishing kick when need be, so I decided I keep my pace (which was an impressive, for me, 6:15 per mile) even if he got close and try to run him down in the final straight. I have to say, to even be in the position where I felt like I could use the run portion to my advantage was very exciting. Special thanks go out to Josh B. for the sneaky speed and Mike and Kara for keeping my self-confidence high when it starts to wane! And, of course my family, it was extra motivating knowing I might get the chance to win in front of them!

Finally hit the 4th and final turnaround and 2nd place was still :40 back, just had to keep it strong to the end. It hurt to do it, but felt great to cross the line a winner. I still can’t believe I managed to do it two days in a row! Equally as exciting was coming through with the fastest bike split by over 2 ½ minutes. I can’t deny beating a former ProTour rider is a huge confidence booster, even if he has been out of the action for a year or two…

But wait, there’s more! As promised the top 15 in each gender had one more race, this time a super sprint with a winner-take-all prize of $1,000. Got about 45 minutes to rest and rerack my bike in a mini-transition area, and we headed down to the beach for the start of my 3rd race in 25 hours! This time it would be a quick 350 meter out and back swim to the first buoy of that morning’s race, a 4.5 mile bike course and one mile on the boardwalk. Most of us opted to go sans wetsuit given the short swim and long run up the beach and when the horn blew it was a mad dash into the water. The sprint speed of the swim combined with the cold water sent me into the red quickly and it seemed tougher than ever to get to that buoy. Also, my timing chip strap, which had stayed nicely secured under my wetsuit earlier was now unraveling with no neoprene ankle to hold it in place. Though it managed to stay attached, I was dragging a long black strap behind me all the way up the beach and towards T1.
In a repeat of that morning’s performance I exited the water in 5th and left T1 in 4th. I managed to catch 2nd and 3rd in the first mile, but had about a minute to make up on super swimmer pro (and Columbia swim record holder) John Kenny and only 4.5 miles to do it. As I passed the two guys ahead of me, 2nd place managed to go with me and he and I traded places in a bike leg that was a lot closer to a crit than it was a tri. I think we both recognized the uniqueness of the event and, while we may not have always dropped back a full 10 meters with each pass, we did our best to stay out of each other’s draft by staying wide each time. I wish some other athletes could have seen us as I think it was great example of ethical racing, even when you can’t drop the full length back.

Hit T2 in second, but barely and actually got beat out to the run due to an uncharacteristically slow bike dismount. We were only 30 seconds back from the lead, so I had made up some ground, but it wasn’t enough and I could only hold on for third. Still, I did win my first ever cash prize of $100 for my victory in the first race which I found very exciting. Add in the two bagels I ate and you could almost say I made a profit on the race!

All in all a VERY full weekend but very fun, too! Thanks for reading!

Philadelphia Race Report

I would love to say the best part of the Philadelphia Olympic Tri was that I got a best time. Or that the point-to-point swim was a cool new experience. Or even that the weather ended up being nearly perfect after a week of terrible rain.

But I think the best part of the weekend was getting to see the sights of Philadelphia. All of them. From the car. You see, Kara S. and I were both signed up to race and not knowing anyone else there we figured we could meet up, check-in and find something to eat as a pair, thus saving a little time and effort without confronting the city by ourselves. (Despite living in Philadelphia for six weeks during tour rehearsals, I am beyond clueless when it comes to the city’s geography…)

Things started off with promise. We managed to locate the expo with no problem and get checked in. (Even had a celebrity sighting when David Morse appeared at the T-shirt stand!) My hotel was only a mile or so from transition so we dropped my car there and headed out to find the house where she was staying. This is when we got the first hints there might be trouble. You see, I’m what you could call ‘directionally challenged.’ I get lost. A lot. If it weren’t for my Garmin, I’d probably be long since lost to the wilds of the Pennsylvania road system. But we figured between the two of us we’d be able to get around fairly efficiently… The plan was to drop her stuff and drive as much of the route ass we could. Shouldn’t be a problem with one driver and one ‘navigator.’

Wow, was that ever faulty logic! It would appear that two heads are NOT better than one when both are attached to people who get lost so easily. Finding the house where she was staying was fairly straightforward, but coming back over and attempting to get the car on the race course was a bit more challenging. (In fairness, it’s virtually impossible to drive much of it. Some parts were closed and others are ridden against the flow of traffic in the race.)

After a few poor attempts to get on the path we realized things were just not going our way. If I recall the conversation went something like this:
“Is this the way down?”
“I don’t know. It looks like it.”
“Oops, that’s blocked off.”
“Let’s try this way.”
“Hmm, OK, I don’t know what this street is.”
“Where are we now?”
“I think we make a right here.”
“Oops, missed that turn.”
Etc, etc…until at some point (I believe it was me given the language, but I suppose it could have been Kara) one of us said, “F^&% this, let’s just eat. They’ll have signs and volunteers on the course.”

And with that we pulled past Fairmount Park, made a left and promptly found ourselves in the middle of one of the City of Brotherly Love’s scariest ghettoes… After it became readily apparent this was NOT where we wanted to locate sustenance, we headed back – yet again – towards my hotel, knowing that at the very least there was a mall located nearby.

Of course, being the culinary snobs that we are, we were not going to be satisfied with ordinary chain food. After all, the is a major metropolitan city, surely there’s some cool, off-the-beaten path place where we can find a decent burger (Kara’s ideal pre-race meal) and some simple pasta (my own preference.) A trip down City Avenue brought us past a number of options before we hit St. Joseph’s University. Awesome! A college town! There’s got to be good eats here!

Well, I’m not sure where the student population is going for food when classes are in session, but wherever it is, they do an excellent job of hiding it. By the time we’d driven past the entire school, literally nothing appeared. We crossed Route 30 only half-joking that if we made a right, we’d eventually get to Lancaster and at least there we’d know where to get some food.

After a looong search – and helpful hostess at the Olive Garden – we learned the location of a local Houlihans. Perfect. And where was it? You guessed right. Basically across the street from my hotel…so pretty much exactly where we started! But at least we were on our way. We just had a few miles to go, but the highlight of this sightseeing tour had to be Kara’s exclamation just as we were about to reach our location:

“Oh wow!”

I only wish my words could convey the excitement in her voice. My head turned in anticipation as I expected Bruce Springsteen or the Pope or maybe Barack Obama himself to be passing by on our right…then Kara concluded: “It’s the Pennsylvania College of Osteopathic Medicine!” I guess exercise physiologists just see the world a little differently… (Sorry, Kara, but this part was simply to funny to leave out!)
But we had finally reached our destination. Houlihan’s sat just to our left off of City Avenue, just had to… Oops, not left turns from City Avenue! Looks like we were headed back across the Schuykill River again! But there IS a silver lining. Our combined lack of navigational skills DID allow us to see a bit of the bike course (as we attempted to relocate a restaurant we’d already spent an hour searching for) AND a full-size driving replica of KITT, the black Trans Am made famous by the TV series ‘Knight Rider.’ I have to tell you, I am such a Knight Rider nerd that I could have won the race and this moment would STILL be the highlight of the weekend!

As for the race itself (if you’re still even reading at this point!) my dad and I rose at the glorious hour of 4:30AM to arrive at the race by 5. Parking was a breeze and arriving so early almost left TOO much time. With my transition area set up quickly, I couldn’t help but wonder what I should do while waiting for my 7:10 swim start. Philadelphia has kind of an usual format that includes a point-to-point swim from the St. Joseph’s Boathouse up the river, which means you have to board buses in order to get to the start. I’m just glad the weather was decent as this meant a 45 minute wait at the boathouse (since all athletes were admonished to get there very early lest we miss our assigned start time.) Of course, given that mine was the third wave, the wait was relatively short. Some people wouldn’t leave for almost an hour after us. Despite having race amenities like bathrooms and drinks at the swim start, mostly it seems it would just be boring to wait around that long!

Finally, after a hilarious ‘Star Spangled Banner’ that was accompanied by – no joke – ‘Jungle Boogie’ due to some weird crosstalk in the PA, the pros were off and my wave made its way down to the dock at the start. The swim did have a slight current, though nothing like the torrent that graced a recent Harrisburg tri, so I got to T1 a little ahead of schedule. First male out of my wave (Though there was a fast girl who kept pace with me. I never did find out who she was…) but I had to do a bit of tricky maneuvering at the exit. Some people were so excited about completing the swim they stood at the exit celebrating. On the plus side, there is a great photo of me leaping an orange cone to get around somebody on my way to collect my bike!

Dashed out of T1 and onto the first of two loops of the bike course. Because of our poor recon the day before I really had no idea what to expect out there…and I was greeted by a big hill to start my day! A little tough on the legs to start, but the nice part was, being in such an early wave left me a nice clear path for the most part and I had some room to maneuver and pick decent lines on my first trip around the course, which would prove useful on the second loop, which out to be…

THE MOST CONGESTED BIKE RIDE IN ALL OF TRIATHLON! OK, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but only slight. I’ve never seen anything like it. The large packs people stretched across the road actually aren’t that bad. No, much worse are the guys who think they’re cycling badasses, so they park themselves on the far left of the lane rather than have to swing out to pass people. Honestly, staying to the right is not all that hard. Much harder is trying to squeeze into the 3 inches of space between the yellow lines and some guy on his brand new P3C who’s holding about 16 MPH… (Apologies if that sounds elitist, but yelling ‘On your left!’ 500 times in 12 miles can put you in a bit of a mood…

But I did manage a pretty decent split and manage to hit T2 still leading my age group. Now if only I could hold it together for the run…
I have to say, while I had some issues with the course marking and general safety of the Philly bike course, at least the terrain was varied and interesting. The run was anything but. Leave T2, run a mile, turn around, run 3 miles, turn around, run 2 miles. Flat, fast…and boring. Only a half mile in and I was passed by a guy who was absolutely flying on the run, no hope of staying with him. It took the next guy until the 3 mile marker to pass me, but he was running quickly, too, no shame in not keeping that pace. But the one that hurt was being passed by the 3rd guy with only a mile to go. Mostly because he wasn’t a particularly good runner either, just ‘less worse’ than me. Perhaps if this hadn’t been my 5th racing weekend in a row I could have gone with him, or even not let him catch me, but in the end the legs didn’t quite have it and I had to settle for 4th in my age group, 15th overall amateur. On the plus side, I finished in 2:04:25, by far my fastest time at the Olympic distance, and I had my fastest 10K split yet. My ‘Sneaky Speed’ is very sneaky indeed. So sneaky most people don’t even realize I have it!

As a footnote, and not to editorialize too much, I would have to recommend against this race. For the money, it’s rather unspectacular and the crowding and organization really left a lot to be desired. Just my two cents for anyone thinking about their schedule for next year. Unless you can guarantee a Knight Rider sighting, I’d say pass…