Race Recap – Coney Island Aquathlon

Finisher Medal

This was my second year doing the Coney Island Aquathlon. Last year, I completed the Sprint Distance (half mile swim, 3 mile run) and this year I completed the Olympic Distance (1 mile swim, 3 mile run).

My finish time was 1:36:05.79 and I placed 2/4 in F40-44, 43/51 overall and 14/28 women. It was a very difficult race and I am proud of my placement. I am also proud of simply finishing. I had only gotten a few hours of sleep the night before and was feeling really sick to my stomach before the race.

In the swim, I choose to start more toward the back this time, and it worked out well. I was never kicked or hit the entire time. I was also able to get into a rhythm a lot earlier. This, however, did not stop me from having a few moments of panic during the race.

Exiting the water

The first was when I saw jellyfish swimming by at about a quarter mile in. They were about muffin sized and I wasn’t sure if they were going to sting me or what. I had to calm myself down and remind myself that it was actually kind of cool to be out there swimming with sea life. They left me alone and I didn’t see any more after that point.

The next moment of panic came between the half mile buoy and the ¾ mile one. I was sighting off the shore and just didn’t seem to be moving at all. This reminded me of my race last year when I DNF'd and I started to panic that it was going to happen again and that I was stuck in a current I couldn’t overcome. I really wanted to give up at that point. I was overcome with sadness and fear and exhaustion. However, I took some deep breathes, put my head down and reminded myself  that “slow and steady wins the race”, “don’t quit” and "just keep swimming".  After a short amount of time, I looked back at the half mile buoy I was surprised to see I had moved quite a bit of distance from it. This gave me some confidence because it meant that I must be moving forward. From that point on, I just focused on the buoy ahead of me and getting closer to it. When I finally reached the buoy at ¾ mile, I knew I was almost done and was relieved.

From there, it was a quick swim into the beach and off on the run. My run did not go so well. Because of how sick I had been that morning, I just hadn’t eaten or drank anything. I had a few sips of Powerade at the transition, but couldn’t really stomach it. I even skipped the first water station, because I just didn’t feel like it. Well, I must have been really dehydrated at that point, because about halfway through the run, I felt like I was going to pass out. At the turnaround, I grabbed two cups of water and felt slightly better. But I made it to the end on sheer willpower and just focusing on getting to the timing mat. I was in a daze at the finish. Once I was through the gate, I sort of didn’t know where to go or what to do. Mark sat me down and gave me some Powerade and I started to feel mildly better. Exhaustion overcame me and I just wanted to go home and sleep. This was unusual for me, since after a race I am usually wide awake, full of adrenaline and ready to go some more. Not this time. When we got home, I slept for about 4 hours.

I will not be doing this race again next year and I cannot recommend it to others. As this was my second year, I feel I have given this race a fair shot. This was the most disorganized and unsafe race I have ever done. Last year, it was mildly disorganized, for instance, they had forgotten the finisher medals and the run was poorly marked. But, they had insisted that since it was “new” race they would be working out the bugs.

It was worse this year. It started with my registration not making it to the race directors, so that I never received any pre-race emails. Both of e-mails regarding this went answered. So, I wasn't even sure they would have my registration when I got there. When I arrived, my name was written on a separate paper from the rest of the entries, and when they looked for my bib, they had accidentally given it to another racer and had to give me a new number. The transition area was chaos and no one was telling people where to go or what to do. They had way too few volunteers and none of them seemed to have a clue. They forgot to body mark people at registration and were running around frantically trying to write numbers on people’s hands, because at that point most everyone had their wetsuits on. When it came time for the pre-race briefing (which usually takes place on the beach) they called everyone back to the boardwalk and half the people were still in the water warming up. During the briefing, they misspoke the distance of our race telling people it was a 1 mile swim, 6 mile run. The directions were incomplete and unclear and when people asked a question, they never stated the answer over the microphone so that ALL of the race participants could hear.

But bigger than all of these issues and why I will not be doing this race again, is that is was completely understaffed and unsafe for the swim. I only saw one kayak out on the water. When we started out, it was slightly foggy and you could not see the buoys. Already, that is an unsafe situation. They had one individual standing on the jetty blowing a whistle and waving his arms randomly. I could barely see him and I had no idea what the heck he was doing. USAT rules state that you can use any stroke and that you can even hang on boats and buoys (unlike traditional OWS rules.) He seemed to blow the whistle every couple of seconds when someone stopped or switched to breaststroke. I think he blew the whistle at me once when I stopped and treaded water to fix my goggles once after they had fogged up. But, I could be wrong. Who knows? I really have no idea what his purpose was. By the number of times he blew the whistle it could not have been to call for help. There is no way that if something went sideways, like it did at my prior race where the current was so strong and many people were pulled from the water, that one kayaker and a guy blowing a whistle would be enough. If there were others out there, I didn't see them. At the point when I had panicked, the kayaker was nowhere to be seen. If I had seriously wanted to exit the water, my only way to do so would have been to swim in to the beach. If there was a strong change of current, we would all have been screwed. The lack of safety measures in the water was just unacceptable to me. There are a million things that can go wrong in the ocean and it cannot be taken so lightly, IMHO. I will stick to races where they are prepared for contingencies, like the ones run by CIBBOWS. To compare, the Grimmaldo's Mile  at the same beach had 10 kayakers, jet skis, EMTs, swim buddies, rescue boats and police on hand.

On the run, the only staff people on the course were at the start line and at the turn around at the far end of the beach. Once again, we had to dodge the weekend beachgoers on the run. Since this was only pedestrian traffic and the course was a straight line, this was ok. But near the exit of the race, the second water station ran out of water before the race was over and the location of the post-race food was totally unclear. As I had mentioned, I was in a daze at the end and someone should have pointed me to the food or at least noticed that I looked unwell. It took me wandering around to locate some water and some bagels. Ridiculous.

The overall disorganization of the race coupled with the total lack of concern for safety was just awful. Cross this one off the list.