New Jersey State Triathlon Race Report

I raced in the olympic distance New Jersey State Triathlon on Sunday, which is held in Mercer County Park, in the south central part of the state, not too far from Princeton.  It is the largest triathlon in New Jersey, and is very well run.  They have a sprint on Sat and the olympic on Sunday, which keeps the overall number of participants down for each day.  There were 1350 sprint finishers and 913 olympic finishers.  I was 837 out of 913, and 100 out of 101 in my age group.  I lost 14 minutes with a flat tire on the bike, which cost me a good 60 places overall, and a couple of spots in my age group.  In all, really had a lot of fun in the race, despite having to swim with no wetsuit (which was frightening to me), getting a flat on the bike, and having to run in the extreme heat and humidity.  Would definitely do this race again!

Race started at 7:30am.  Left my house before 5am to arrive before 6am, to make sure I had plenty of time to get ready to go.

Swim – 50:17 – I am not a swimmer at all and never did an open water swim with no wetsuit.  Wetsuits were not allowed as the water temperature was 86 degrees.  I was very slow, and kept getting asked by the lifeguards if I was OK!  Got passed by many waves behind me.  But slow and steady does get it done, and I was surprisingly not last out of the water, a good 35-40 people were slower than me

T1 – 3:41 – with no wetsuit, transition time was much faster than previous races!

Bike – 1:40:39 – at 25.5 miles, was actually longer than the typical 40k of an olympic distance bike ride.  As mentioned, I lost 14 minutes with a flat tire.  Boo!  Otherwise the ride was great.  I averaged 18 MPH on the flat course and was happy with it.

T2 – 2:10 – scarfed down an entire sports bottle of Gatorade and took my time getting things done

Run – 1:15:11 –  the run was simply brutal.  The temps were up to about 90 degrees and the dewpoint was pretty high in the upper 60’s.  There was also a lot of sunshine.  While the run course had shady places, about half of it was in the sun.  Did a lot of walking.  There were thankfully plenty of water stops, and at some of them, they managed to have cold water.  Some also had ice, and at 4.7 miles, they had towels dipped in ice cold water, which was amazing, and helped me run much of the last 1.5 miles into the finish.  As horrible as the run felt to me, and as slow as it seemed, this was my best placing in the individual events.  I finished 717 on the run so outran most everyone that was at the back of the pack like me.  In fact, way more than half of the field took longer than 1 hour to run the 10k, which gives you an indication of how rough it was.

Overall time – 3:51:55

In summary, really enjoyed this race, my 2nd olympic distance tri and 5th overall.  I have room to improve in all areas, and am looking forward to my next tri, on Oct 3, in Red Bank NJ.

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