Lifetime Fitness Panasonic NYC Triathlon

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Despite my many years of being a short course non drafting specialist, I had never raced the NYC Lifetime Fitness Panasonic Triathlon! This race did not disappoint as I loved the race course, venue and crowd. New York is such a special city and always exciting with the hustle and bustle and famous sites. I ended up finishing first and winning the equalizer challenge (which is a race within a race amongst the men). The women have never won the equalizer at this race before, so I was proud to bring home the first crown for the women.
I arrived into New York City early prior to the race to work with various partners and sponsors. Nate and I got a chance to see some of the city, walk and run through Central Park, take a photograph in front of Trump Tower, and see many famous hotels! I also had the opportunity to really rest and recover, which helped me prepare for Sunday.

The day prior to the race, I conducted television interviews and photo shoots (this race will be airing on Fox5 in New York city in August and will also be shown on Comcast Sports). I checked out the swim start and transition area the day before the race and was surprised to see how large the two transition areas were…over 4500 participants! The swim consisted of a point to point 1500 meter down river current swim, the bike was a single loop rolling bike course and a one loop rolling run course. Both the bike and the run was hilly, with not many flat sections throughout the course.

Race morning, I woke up around 2am, and had my alarm set for 3:30AM. I did not really fall back asleep as I knew it was going to be a very early morning.  I had my usual pre race breakfast of peanut butter banana bagel with 1 bottle of Glukos energy powder.  At 4:10AM, I left my hotel room and biked down to the course. It was crazy exiting the hotel room, the streets were still bustling from the night before. It looked like it could be 10pm, not 4:20AM!!! This race has the record for the earliest start time….women went first at 5:50AM followed by the men at 6:01…and 36 seconds. The water temperature was warm….around 76 degrees. New York City was following suit with the rest of the country and experiencing a heat wave. With the pros starting so early in the morning, the heat was not much of a factor for us.
I tried to stay calm and relaxed before swim start and when the gun went off, I wore my Blueseventy PZ4TX swim skin along with the Blueseventy Element Goggles. I swam in second position for about 300 meters before I took the lead. There were not any buoys in the water, but you knew that you had to stay somewhat close to shore. Towards the end of the swim, I saw the exit ramp and swam over to the left side of the river. The steepness of the ramp took me by surprise! I completely stumbled and fell running up the ramp and ended up exiting even with Helle. I did not want to lose out on the swim prime since I had been leading the swim and sprinted to the timing mat. I ended up edging out Helle and focused on quickly getting into my Skechers GoRun Ultra Road’s before running the nearly 1 kilometer to my bike.

I was first out of transition on my Fuji Norcom Straight 1.1 out fitted with: SRAM e-Tap Wireless components, Zipp Firecrest 808 front Tubular with Zipp Tangent SpeedSL Tire, Zipp Super 9 Tubular Disc with Zipp Tangent SpeedSL Tire, Zipp Vuka Stealth Base Bar with Ski Tip Extension’s, Quarq Elsa R Power-meter, ISM PS1.0 Saddle, Speedfil A2 drink system, Sampson Stratics-Carbon-Ti pedals, Along with wearing my Rudy Project Wing 57 Helmet, Rudy Project Tralyx SX Red Fluo Glasses, and my Sarah Haskins Triflare Blue Poppies Triathlon Suit. Helle and Erin Jones were just  behind me as we climbed the short, steep hill out of the park.  Once I was on the highway I was surprised how great the surface of the roads were! I think much of the roads were recently repaved, so I could focus on pushing hard and focus less on the obstacles in the road! At the halfway point, Helle passed by me, but after a couple of miles, I passed her back. It was great to have her right there, pushing me to my best. I led the bike until about the last 100 meters into transition, Helle passed me right as we were about to exit our bikes.  I used 3 packages of Glukos Orange Energy Powder mixed with 36 oz of fluid.  Here is my Quarq Elsa R pwoermeter file presented by TrainingPeaks.

I put on my Skechers GoRun4’s and grabbed my hand flask filled with two Glukos Fruit Punch Energy Gels along with my Mission EnduraCool Techknit Cooling towel, and T1 ProRace belt as quickly as I could and exited just a couple of seconds behind Helle. The start of the run was up a steep, uphill pitch. We started off the run fast and I focused on not losing any more time to Helle. After 800meters, I closed the few second gap and then focused on staying right with Helle until about 1 mile. I wanted to push this race from the start and never feel “comfortable”. I surged at the 1 mile and then cruised until the 4 mile mark where I surged again.

At 4 miles the gap went from ten seconds to about 25 seconds. Running through central park made the run go by fast as there was very little flat running…you were either running up or down! The last mile, I began to wonder where the men were. I did not hear anyone close behind and with 800 meters to go I got word that the men were not in sight. It always feel awesome to be able to break the tape. All the hard work and sacrifice you had put in the months prior to the race have paid off.

Thank you to all the volunteers, race directors and race supporters who worked hard to put this race on. It was such a well done, awesome event! I will keep everyone posted of the air dates on television. Now it’s time for a little downtime before preparing for the later part of the season! Win #45! I appreciate every one~! Thank you to family, friends and sponsors for all your support.