NYC New Years Triathlon: Out with 2012, in with 2013

It's taken nearly twelve months, but I am finally getting around to writing a "race report" for the 2012/2013 NYC New Years Triathlon. I remember as if it was yesterday. No, wait, I don't. I looked at the notes I wrote closer to the date, and I can sort of make heads or tails of them, though at first they looked like some kind of secret code:

swag nearly picked up
roger rees
bicycle lanes
flat - two bikes
swim - hannah
good luck with that
chickens, bunny, cow
sparkling cider
better apples

So, let's use them as a framework.

swag nearly picked up: I believe this is a reference to one of the freebies that I noticed lots of the other runners had, but that I did not. I have a theory that there is very little that people won't do in exchange for a free t-shirt. The corollary to this is that, if you promise someone a free t-shirt, and then fail to deliver, that person will resent it for the rest of his or her natural life. In this case, the swag in question was a glow-in-the-dark armband/iPod holder. Everyone else seemed to have one except me. Not sure if they hadn't arrived when I picked up my t-shirt and hat, but all the same, it triggered a "what are they getting that I'm not" response. After the race, I saw one on the ground that someone had dropped. I started to walk over to pick it up, but someone else got there first, so I pretended I was walking in that direction, but for some other purpose. I also reminded myself that this was a bit of equipment that I would never, ever need, and that I don't like wearing arm-bands.

Can I also make a bid to keep people using the term "swag", an acronym for "stuff we all get", and not "schwag", which is, well, just wrong. Thanks.

roger rees: We had a celebrity in the house. Actor Roger Rees, whom I first saw on Broadway about thirty years ago in an epic adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby, was standing along the course. He lives (or at least used to) on Central Park West, so this wasn't too surprising.

bicycle lanes: I think the point I wanted to make here was that I managed to ride almost the entire way on bicycle lanes. One of the few nice things I can say about the Bloomberg administration is that the bicycle lanes have grown into a fully-formed network, allowing cyclists to go from one end of the city to the other with a little bit more security than before. Let's hope that the next mayor doesn't foul this up. I have low expectations.

flat- two bikes: Nope, no idea what I meant with this. Maybe that the course was pretty flat?

swim- hannah: Probably a reference to my friend Hannah Borgeson, an avid swimmer and fixture of the local open water swimming community. You can read her blog (and you should read her blog) here: http://40pools.wordpress.com/

good luck with that: Since I was riding alone, and since I was running a little late, and since I was really cold, I decided to take the subway part of the way to Coney Island. Frankly, I don't really enjoy the ride down Ocean Parkway - too many bad drivers at too many intersections, and the paving of the bike path - the oldest in the country! - is really poor. At the subway station, I bumped into a former colleague of mine from work. She was headed in the opposite direction, but as we waited for our trains, we had a nice catch up. I told her about my plans for the day, and her reaction was "good luck with that". Indeed.

chickens, bunny, cow: One of the best things about the Midnight Run is that many, many people show up in costume. This year I noticed more than one chicken, a bunny, and a cow. People also show up in costume for the Polar Bear Dip, but the costumes tend to be a bit more revealing. Which makes sense, in a way.

sparkling cider: as the photo below shows, they have removed one of my favorite signs from the Midnight Run. Instead of "Water" it read "Champagne", although we all knew it was really sparking cider. This year, they have given up the ruse and just posted "Sparkling Cider." Weak.

better apples: Again, no idea. Perhaps I was grumpy that the apples you get at the end of the NYRR events are Red Delicious, the lamest of all apples?

Happy New Year!

And now, the pictures, and a little video: