Ironman US Championship 00:00:00

There comes a time in every man's life when he must decide whether or not to jump into a river polluted with raw sewage.  This was my time...

BOOM!

7:00AM had arrived and the age groupers, as we are called, began trickling into the river, jumping from the barge.  It was exciting and hilarious all at once.  From my ferry, 4th in line and waiting patiently to dock, we watched as the athletes jumped in.  Most did a simple jump, a few belly flopped to our amusement, and only a couple thought to cannonball.

The swim portion of the Ironman was never in danger of being canceled, it seemed.  The rationale was quite simply, the proportion of sewage that made it's way into the river those couple days- about 3.4 million gallons- wasn't that big a deal.  It wasn't much more than is normally in there, I guess.

As my ferry turned to dock with the barge, the toxic levels of the Hudson were the farthest things from my mind.  I wanted in.  My fellow athletes wanted in.  We tried to be patient as we emptied onto the barge and pushed forward, but we were excited.  Everyone was psyched.  It was an amazing and electric atmosphere.

I looked toward the course, the hundreds of swimmers already in the river, and up at the George Washington Bridge in the distance.  "That is so bad ass!" I pointed and gave everyone around me my opinion of the view.  I exchanged some high-5s with teammates as we crossed the timing mat, and seconds after, I was in the water (feet first, but I should have cannon-balled).  So I began to swim.

We file onto the lower level of the barge.

The water was salty, as I had expected. The field was fairly spread out.  Most kept close to the buoys, sighting off of them.  I stayed away and sighted off the GW Bridge west tower.  I knew where I was going.  No need to cling to the buoys.  That gave me an advantage, since it meant I could be off on my own, practically undisturbed, and I could be relaxed and just swim.  That advantage may have been negated because I wasn't getting as strong a current pull as the others probably were.  In fact, there were times where I felt it was actually driving me toward the shore.

The kayak people- race officials, I guess- waived me more toward the buoys a couple times.  Rather than argue, I veered toward them more.  But I kept relatively straight, aiming for the GW Bridge tower closest to New Jersey.  That's where the transition area was.  That's where we're getting out of the water.

The second half of the race seemed to go much faster, which makes sense since that's when the current was forecast to change.  It suddenly got more crowded as all the swimmers veered toward me and the exit.  It also got disgusting.

The Hudson River has a layer of sludge at the bottom.  You can't step onto it- it's not ground.  Not dirt or rock.  It's sludge.  If you try to step and push off the "ground", your foot and leg will sink into it and get stuck.  It's muck.  It's disgusting.  With thousands of swimmers thrashing about in shallow water, the water turned grayish-brown.  Even though I could reach the bottom of the river with my elbows, I dare not stand up until I was on the ramp that led to land.  Volunteers reached out and pulled us up.

"That was pretty disgusting," I commented to one.

"Dude, you were in the Hudson," was his reply.

There were actually showers for us to run through to wash the shit off our faces, etc.  But some guy stopped and stood under it for who knows how long.  I didn't hang around.  I went around and made my way to the strippers.

No, not that kind of stripper.  These were volunteers who helped get our wetsuits off.  Rather than wrestling with it myself- it's the tightness that makes it difficult- I had two people peel it down, sit me on the ground, and rip it off my legs.  Quick.  I slung it over my arm, made my way through the field of blue bags grabbing mine before the volunteer could find it.  I shuffled along toward the changing tent.  Ed spotted me and called out my name.  It was great to see him so early on

Hi Ed.

The changing tent was steamy.  Not in a good way.  It smelled of sweaty dudes.  A bunch of teammates were around- we must have gotten out of the water at the same time- and we all got out of our river clothes and into our cycle gear.  Coach Scott specifically suggested we change out of whatever we swam in because the Hudson is disgusting.  He feared the smell may catch up to us after a few hours.

I wasn’t speedy about it, but I got my gear on and fuel in my pockets, and was out ready for my bike.  I grabbed it and walked it to the “mounting” line.  I looked over my shoulder at the clock.  It read 8:18AM or something.  That meant I definitely was faster on my swim than expected.  Good.  On schedule.

Swim> 0:52:01

Transition 1> 0:08:54

Bike Start: 1:00:55 [next entry]