MOUNTAIN LAKES WOMAN A LATE BLOOMER AS A TRIATHLETE
You can’t really call Natalie Grabow of Mountain Lakes a late bloomer. She has been running for nearly twenty years and been a runner to watch in her age group at races, always placing high if not winning. So forty isn’t all that late to start running, but Grabow, who turned 60 this year just learned to swim a year ago.
“Linda Mirabella (of Rockaway) took me to her pool and showed me how to blow bubbles,” said Grabow. “That was the start of it. I really love the swimming and I thought I would hate it.”
Grabow explained that because she grew up at the ocean she never really learned to swim. Fussing with her contact lenses, getting water in her ears made dunking her face in the water very unappealing.
That was then, this is now. Grabow added cycling to her running and soon was looking for duathlons to compete at. She did the Black River Biathlon several years ago, but there aren’t that many of the two-sport events around. The Black River event has been gone for several years.
“They’re so few and far between,” said Grabow. “Most of my friends are doing the tri’s.
Thus the swimming lesson and the discovery that she loves to swim.
“I’m really surprised at myself,” she said.
This year Grabow has done two sprint races which generally feature a one half mile swim, a 15 to 20 mile bike leg and a 5K or 5 Mile run leg. She then competed at an Olympic distance triathlon that has a .9 mile swim, a 24 mile bike leg and a 10K.
With those under her wheels she was ready for even more of a challenge, a half Ironman at the Timber Man in New Hampshire on August 20th.
“I learned a lot and I loved it,” said Grabow. “I absolutely loved it.”
There are not as many women triathletes in the 60 to 64 age division as there are in road races but at the Timber Man four there were four women. Grabow had done some research on her competitors and one had qualified and competed at the Hawaii Ironman for the last six or seven years.
“I knew she would be my strongest competitor,” said Grabow.
Much to her surprise Grabow was the first of the other women in her division out of the water. She was five minutes ahead of the worrisome rival and gained another 20 minutes on the bike. The outcome was pretty well assured after that but trouble lay ahead on the run.
“My quad started cramping and my hamstring started cramping and everything,” said Grabow. “The aid stations were fantastic.”
Despite the cramping Grabow maintained her lead and came home with a win, finishing the race in 6:23:57, over six minutes ahead of the other woman.
Grabow has the Skylands Triathlon in Clinton on her schedule for the fall, but she is also back to running races. She feels she has recovered from the event of two weeks ago and is ready to race this weekend.
“I took it easy the first couple of days,” she said. “I did some swimming and biking and didn’t run for five or six days. I haven’t been injured with this triathlon training.”
“I’m even looking at Cranford [Four Mile Fall Classic] on Monday,” she said. I’ll definitely do Giralda [10K on November 13th] and the Country Squire on October 2nd.”
In October she has penciled in the Safe Dating 5K in Convent Station and the USATF-NJ cross country 5K championship at Holmdel Park.
Grabow turned 60 this summer and is thrilled to be in a new age group she said. Her competitors are surly less thrilled. At the MK5K in Denville in April this year she finished in 23:51, the identical time that she had the year before at the Montville Firecracker 5K. At the Summer Blast 5K in Rockaway in 2004 she had an outstanding 23:36 and at the Safe Dating 5K in 2004 she finished in 24:33.
Whether at the triathlons or at road races, Grabow will be the new woman to beat in the W60 division.
Published in the DAILY RECORD of Morris County New Jersey on Sunday, September 3, 2005
Copyright, MADELINE BOST 2005