Last Monday, the day after Brians, I had a two hour run on my schedule. Monday runs are very doable for me, but there are a certain set of conditions on a two-hour Monday run.
They have to start by 5:30 PM at the latest, and preferably earlier. I have to be flexible about the route and be reachable by cell phone, in case there is an accident on 95 or something that will prevent Margit from picking up Ian at day care.
So that means doing a two-loop run, assuming the weather cooperates.
Last Monday it did not. I skipped lunch so I could leave work early. Standing in my office, I told myself that no matter what, regardless of how bad the rain was, I was going outside. Ironic, because my coach posted a few days later about how people needed to stop complaining about bad weather and get outside.
The drive home completely quashed, or rather washed out, that idea. It wasn't raining. It was pouring. The old man was snoring. The ducks were looking for a place to hide. So I pulled into the garage, grabbed the house phone, the cell phone, two hammer gels and a gatorade endurance and started running on the treadmill. Our treadmill only goes to 99 minutes, so I set the treadmill to, well 99 minutes. I then jacked up the volume on the Apple TV, which has some 40.00 speakers hooked up to it and started listening to Evanescence.
This worked for the first 40 minutes or so. When the treadmill got to 69 minutes, I reset it to 90 minutes and kept going. Running two hours on a treadmill is tough. I'd raced the day before and wasn't fresh and I was pounding along on the tread, kind of looking outside to see if it was going to stop raining.
Finally, as much as I love Evanescence, it wasn't doing it for me. The videos, which are more engaging than the songs as just audio when you are on the treadmill, don't play loudly enough. I started browsing and came up with the Boys of Summer by the Ataris. Great song, but it's not 50 minutes long.
So I decided to try something different. I have two Avril albums, Under My Skin and Best Damn Thing. Under My Skin I know inside out. It's a darker, brooding album that critics didn't like because it was uh, dark and brooding. Under My Skin I'm not sure I'd ever listened to. I only ever found out because iTunes gave away Girlfriend (from Best Damn Thing) as a free download and I found myself listening to it while waiting for the port-a-let at Eagleman two years ago and so the song stuck with me.
I turned on Best Damn Thing and yeah, it's pop-ish and silly and totally commercial. It's also about a mile away from the usual stuff I listen to, and it's probably age and gender inappropriate for me as well. When it comes to getting through a workout though, I could care less. I'll admit to the most embarrassing music I listen to- yeah, I think William Shatner's Has Been is awesome- because there isn't anything I listen to I'm ashamed of. Or I can take the abuse. My best friend from U of R beat all the shame out of me with his constant (and sometimes valid) criticism of the music I was listening to in the early 1980s.
The bottom line ? This isn't your typical bubble-gum pop. It's not just Avril's R-rated lyrics. The riffs and digs of the music were just what I needed to distract me from the last 50 minutes or so of a run that was never going to be easy.
I think the sun came out after about 60-65 minutes, when I was just getting on the back half of the run, at that point where I was no longer getting off the treadmill for anything. It had become a test of wills, and although I hated the treadmill with a passion when I got done, and felt beat down, I'd beaten it. And the music, that had been a big, no a huge help. When Best Dam Thing Ended, it went right to Under My Skin, reminding me of races Eagleman and another race in Rochester two years ago, and I was set.
I'll take that two hours on the treadmill. Just don't make me do it again...
Showing posts with label evanescence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label evanescence. Show all posts
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Monday, November 03, 2008
Ironman Florida- Pre-Race and The Swim
IM Florida is everything IM Lake Placid is not.
The venues are remarkably different. Lake Placid is a beautiful community, which may be built around a lake- Mirror Lake (not Lake Placid), but is built upon its history (two Olympic games) and its topography- the mountains and the by extension, the skiing. As much as I love it there, the town groans under the weight of athletes and spectators on race week.
PCB, on the other hand, is built to stand up to nothing less than being marketed as the #1 spring break capital of the US. Granted, half the restaurants are closed, but there's plenty of room for anyone and the only place outside the race venue where there seemed to be consistent waits was the Mellow Mushroom.
In much the same way, the swim starts are similarly different. The Placid start can't be a beach start- the beach is too narrow at its mouth and there is a dock in the way- you'd also have to swim counter-clockwise. Once you get in the water, there still isn't anywhere to go, and you have to get out there and tread until the cannon.
IM Florida is the exact opposite. The beach goes on for- well, who know. They make this cute little coral out of black mesh that still allows pretty much the whole field to stand inside. I was the third person over the mat and into the corral. Note: do NOT ask if you can put your socks, the socks you did two other ironmans in, on the glasses table. The answer is NO !
I started in the middle, in the water. They told us we could be knee deep in the water, and that's where I was. I could see the buoy, because no one was in front of me.
Let me step back. I got up early- 4:30- after another dicey pre-race sleep of probably around 4-5 hours that included a lot of sweating. Nothing like getting dehydrated while you (don't) sleep. I made some coffee, ate a banana, ran 10 minutes- up to the Sunset Inn and back. Then I ate two 'single-serving' bags of Fruit Loops. My two good IM races featured crappy cereal that I typically find inexcusable as anything except a snack- go figure.
I walked down with a friend who was a few minutes late, we got body marked and then went our own ways. Maybe it's just experience, but my last three IM pre-races have been easy and quick. I get body-marked, I get in line for the porta-potty, listen to some music- hell, I even posted to my blog from my iPhone in transition- the line to the bathroom was eight deep and I got bored. It was terribly not clever.
I heard a lot of good music off the iPod- Nine Inch Nails, Evanescence, Linkin Park.
I was not allowed to put the pair of socks I'd done at least two ironmans in on the glasses table. I was told this in no uncertain terms...
Back to the swim start. I was standing next to my friend Steve, who rightly questioned my decision to stand in the front row, dead middle, and start there. He was worried about my safety. I told him I was tired of starting off to the right. I had decided if I was going to get clobbered, I'd rather get clobbered by good swimmers than by the duffers on the fringe, who don't know what they are doing and trend large. After all, a good swimmer might swim over you, but they don't keep clubbing you after they do it. The weaker swimmers will pound the hell of you, it takes forever to get in to the buoys...
I looked back. There were people- mostly guys behind me. But not too many.
The cannon went off and I started swimming. Everyone around me was walking, but I was swimming. This is my thing. Unless my nose is scraping the sand I swimming. I paid 550.00 to swim 2.4 miles, and I'll damn well swim the whole thing.
It was the easiest swim I've had in an IM. Yes, there was traffic, and yes, I couldn't get that close to the buoys until the third green one out. But I didn't get that beat up. I did get a foot in the mush, but it didn't knock my goggles off. In fact, my first real frustration was at the red buoy, the outer marker at the turn.
Why do so many people stop at the buoy ? When I'm close to the buoy, the only thing I want to do is get around it. I'm not looking to stop and capture a mental image of the damn buoy. I just want to keep going.
The result of this site-seeing for me is that I always get pushed wide of the buoy and because of the shape of the course, it's important to start turning in, because between the outbound buoys and the inbound buoys the line cuts in.
I got across that line and came out wide headed back in. This was a serious problem the other time I did this race as I swam halfway to Alabama coming back in.
I got in at around 36:30, and despite having done the race before, I was shocked at how long it took to get from the arch to actually start swimming again.
We'd been told repeatedly while on the beach that we were allowed to swim inside the buoys as long as we cleared the two outer corner buoys. Although I've always seen this as a little underhanded, after talking with some people about it, I had come to the conclusion you still swim the same distance as long as you go around the turn buoys. I was determined to get inside the buoys. But it never happened. I swam the entire second loop on the buoys, practically running into all of them. Still, on an open course, being on the buoys for me is huge, because it means I am swimming the course and nothing extra.
I was actually hoping that I'd negative split the swim by swimming the course tighter. But my left shoulder did fatigue, and then the left calf started to feel like I had to be careful with it to avoid a cramp and kept my effort moderate. I has the same issue at the turn- people seemed to be taking it all in instead of swimming. I fought a lot harder at the turn to stay on the buoys- it was hard to see because of the sun, but there were fewer people and I did manage to get close to the buoys. I was swimming alongside a woman (pink cap) and we were going the same speed. That really calmed me.
There was certainly some craziness- people swimming into me, swimming at weird angles or frog kicking. But I got a good line into shore, swam until I could swim no more, and then hauled myself out of the water and started running. I went under the arch in 1:13 and was disappointed that I hadn't swum faster, but I got my wetsuit stripped and then ran to the shower.
At the shower, I pushed my way through people- I couldn't believe people were actually standing still under the thing. Standing still- in a race.
Next: Transition and the Bike- this will be the good stuff...
The venues are remarkably different. Lake Placid is a beautiful community, which may be built around a lake- Mirror Lake (not Lake Placid), but is built upon its history (two Olympic games) and its topography- the mountains and the by extension, the skiing. As much as I love it there, the town groans under the weight of athletes and spectators on race week.
PCB, on the other hand, is built to stand up to nothing less than being marketed as the #1 spring break capital of the US. Granted, half the restaurants are closed, but there's plenty of room for anyone and the only place outside the race venue where there seemed to be consistent waits was the Mellow Mushroom.
In much the same way, the swim starts are similarly different. The Placid start can't be a beach start- the beach is too narrow at its mouth and there is a dock in the way- you'd also have to swim counter-clockwise. Once you get in the water, there still isn't anywhere to go, and you have to get out there and tread until the cannon.
IM Florida is the exact opposite. The beach goes on for- well, who know. They make this cute little coral out of black mesh that still allows pretty much the whole field to stand inside. I was the third person over the mat and into the corral. Note: do NOT ask if you can put your socks, the socks you did two other ironmans in, on the glasses table. The answer is NO !
I started in the middle, in the water. They told us we could be knee deep in the water, and that's where I was. I could see the buoy, because no one was in front of me.
Let me step back. I got up early- 4:30- after another dicey pre-race sleep of probably around 4-5 hours that included a lot of sweating. Nothing like getting dehydrated while you (don't) sleep. I made some coffee, ate a banana, ran 10 minutes- up to the Sunset Inn and back. Then I ate two 'single-serving' bags of Fruit Loops. My two good IM races featured crappy cereal that I typically find inexcusable as anything except a snack- go figure.
I walked down with a friend who was a few minutes late, we got body marked and then went our own ways. Maybe it's just experience, but my last three IM pre-races have been easy and quick. I get body-marked, I get in line for the porta-potty, listen to some music- hell, I even posted to my blog from my iPhone in transition- the line to the bathroom was eight deep and I got bored. It was terribly not clever.
I heard a lot of good music off the iPod- Nine Inch Nails, Evanescence, Linkin Park.
I was not allowed to put the pair of socks I'd done at least two ironmans in on the glasses table. I was told this in no uncertain terms...
Back to the swim start. I was standing next to my friend Steve, who rightly questioned my decision to stand in the front row, dead middle, and start there. He was worried about my safety. I told him I was tired of starting off to the right. I had decided if I was going to get clobbered, I'd rather get clobbered by good swimmers than by the duffers on the fringe, who don't know what they are doing and trend large. After all, a good swimmer might swim over you, but they don't keep clubbing you after they do it. The weaker swimmers will pound the hell of you, it takes forever to get in to the buoys...
I looked back. There were people- mostly guys behind me. But not too many.
The cannon went off and I started swimming. Everyone around me was walking, but I was swimming. This is my thing. Unless my nose is scraping the sand I swimming. I paid 550.00 to swim 2.4 miles, and I'll damn well swim the whole thing.
It was the easiest swim I've had in an IM. Yes, there was traffic, and yes, I couldn't get that close to the buoys until the third green one out. But I didn't get that beat up. I did get a foot in the mush, but it didn't knock my goggles off. In fact, my first real frustration was at the red buoy, the outer marker at the turn.
Why do so many people stop at the buoy ? When I'm close to the buoy, the only thing I want to do is get around it. I'm not looking to stop and capture a mental image of the damn buoy. I just want to keep going.
The result of this site-seeing for me is that I always get pushed wide of the buoy and because of the shape of the course, it's important to start turning in, because between the outbound buoys and the inbound buoys the line cuts in.
I got across that line and came out wide headed back in. This was a serious problem the other time I did this race as I swam halfway to Alabama coming back in.
I got in at around 36:30, and despite having done the race before, I was shocked at how long it took to get from the arch to actually start swimming again.
We'd been told repeatedly while on the beach that we were allowed to swim inside the buoys as long as we cleared the two outer corner buoys. Although I've always seen this as a little underhanded, after talking with some people about it, I had come to the conclusion you still swim the same distance as long as you go around the turn buoys. I was determined to get inside the buoys. But it never happened. I swam the entire second loop on the buoys, practically running into all of them. Still, on an open course, being on the buoys for me is huge, because it means I am swimming the course and nothing extra.
I was actually hoping that I'd negative split the swim by swimming the course tighter. But my left shoulder did fatigue, and then the left calf started to feel like I had to be careful with it to avoid a cramp and kept my effort moderate. I has the same issue at the turn- people seemed to be taking it all in instead of swimming. I fought a lot harder at the turn to stay on the buoys- it was hard to see because of the sun, but there were fewer people and I did manage to get close to the buoys. I was swimming alongside a woman (pink cap) and we were going the same speed. That really calmed me.
There was certainly some craziness- people swimming into me, swimming at weird angles or frog kicking. But I got a good line into shore, swam until I could swim no more, and then hauled myself out of the water and started running. I went under the arch in 1:13 and was disappointed that I hadn't swum faster, but I got my wetsuit stripped and then ran to the shower.
At the shower, I pushed my way through people- I couldn't believe people were actually standing still under the thing. Standing still- in a race.
Next: Transition and the Bike- this will be the good stuff...
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Hard Easy Run
Today was one of those days I don't usually have.
I had two runs today- 45 minutes at lunch and an hour after work. I had a great run at lunch- very motivated, everything felt good, the music was sweet. It was a great break in another long day.
Then I came home. I stopped at the grocers and again at the Buds. I grabbed a Heath bar and gaffled it down before my run and that was probably a bad move.
I was on the road as quickly as you can be when you are feeding four cats every day. The run started off slow. The first seven and a half minutes took eight minutes, or rather, it took eight minutes to get where I wanted to be at 7:30. It was a nice late afternoon run, it was sunny, just barely warm enough. But I didn't really feel that good. I felt like I had little or no energy, like I was struggling to keep my pace.
I ran out through the marsh on the nature trail and the first half of the run just never clicked. This was the second late-afternoon run in the last month that felt this way- not my A game, that's for sure. But then I hit the turn-around, and things started to click. I no longer felt all wrong- whatever that means- I started getting my stride, the music sounded better.
Moral of the story: Don't snarf down a candy bar and go running for an hour....
I had two runs today- 45 minutes at lunch and an hour after work. I had a great run at lunch- very motivated, everything felt good, the music was sweet. It was a great break in another long day.
Then I came home. I stopped at the grocers and again at the Buds. I grabbed a Heath bar and gaffled it down before my run and that was probably a bad move.
I was on the road as quickly as you can be when you are feeding four cats every day. The run started off slow. The first seven and a half minutes took eight minutes, or rather, it took eight minutes to get where I wanted to be at 7:30. It was a nice late afternoon run, it was sunny, just barely warm enough. But I didn't really feel that good. I felt like I had little or no energy, like I was struggling to keep my pace.
I ran out through the marsh on the nature trail and the first half of the run just never clicked. This was the second late-afternoon run in the last month that felt this way- not my A game, that's for sure. But then I hit the turn-around, and things started to click. I no longer felt all wrong- whatever that means- I started getting my stride, the music sounded better.
Moral of the story: Don't snarf down a candy bar and go running for an hour....
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Random Thoughts on iTunes Randomization and Wifi
I was training using my iPhone as my iPod today, and my love of free wifi bit me in the behind. At my turn-around point, I did a slow arc in the parking lot of a firehouse. The music- Evanescence, dipped in volume and I heard a bing that I associate with my email. At least, I thought it was my email, but I didn't know that email reception would lower the music volume. I rode for about 15 minutes, but since part of the reason I carry the iPhone is in case there is an emergency, and I really don't get many other calls, I stopped.
I'd snagged the free wifi and my email. To my credit I didn't check it.
There's been a lot written about the randomness, or lack of randomness, of iTunes in general and iPods in particular.
1) Random is actually quasi-random, because to generate randomness, you need to use a seed, which in turn, well, what you get is not 'true' randomness. However, the title of the blog is not: This Blog is About Math
2) for all intensive purposes, the iPod is random. However, the human brain hates chaos, and will always try to assign order to random results
So when your iPod seems to hate you, or love you, or whatever, that's you, not it. It's a soulless object and it doesn't like Snow Patrol more than Air Supply- although it should.
I've recently added Air Traffic's Fractured Life to my collection, and proving I have no future as a music critic, I'd describe them as a club band who doesn't want to give up that club band sound even though they've recorded a major label album. And nothing's wrong with that, but as they sound like sort of like Coldplay doing club songs, well, I have plenty of Coldplay.
However, since I added this to my collection, the songs seem to play all the time- at least six in three and a half hours today. When you're in that last hour of your ride and you're trying to hold 20 mph climbing hills, in the wind, I'd rather have angry angst. Give me Staind, which the iPod did, after Air Traffic.
The bottom line- you do control your music. Rate it in iTunes (1-5 stars), then click on 'play higher rated songs more often.'
I'd snagged the free wifi and my email. To my credit I didn't check it.
There's been a lot written about the randomness, or lack of randomness, of iTunes in general and iPods in particular.
1) Random is actually quasi-random, because to generate randomness, you need to use a seed, which in turn, well, what you get is not 'true' randomness. However, the title of the blog is not: This Blog is About Math
2) for all intensive purposes, the iPod is random. However, the human brain hates chaos, and will always try to assign order to random results
So when your iPod seems to hate you, or love you, or whatever, that's you, not it. It's a soulless object and it doesn't like Snow Patrol more than Air Supply- although it should.
I've recently added Air Traffic's Fractured Life to my collection, and proving I have no future as a music critic, I'd describe them as a club band who doesn't want to give up that club band sound even though they've recorded a major label album. And nothing's wrong with that, but as they sound like sort of like Coldplay doing club songs, well, I have plenty of Coldplay.
However, since I added this to my collection, the songs seem to play all the time- at least six in three and a half hours today. When you're in that last hour of your ride and you're trying to hold 20 mph climbing hills, in the wind, I'd rather have angry angst. Give me Staind, which the iPod did, after Air Traffic.
The bottom line- you do control your music. Rate it in iTunes (1-5 stars), then click on 'play higher rated songs more often.'
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Winter Weather Running
Not that I know anything about anything, but I certainly have plenty of experience running in the snow and slop. I ran 5 days a week in high school, regardless of the weather. Living in upstate New York, that meant fairly frequent runs in snow, sometimes deep snow. Of course, my focus is a lot different these days. But one thing hasn't changed- a long run in the wintery mix requires a slightly different approach. I think it's a great workout, but I also think it's a certain type of workout and one that has to be approached a little differently.
You don't really get that many opportunities to do a long run in the snow when you're down here in CT, especially along the shore, and I think it's just a great opportunity to have a really good time and enjoy yourself. You do a lot of long runs and most of them probably aren't all that memorable, but a snowy run or a run in a storm- you'll remember that a lot longer because it is special.
However, if you're looking for a red zone workout (there's nothing wrong with that, maybe you're training for a late January/February marathon), stop reading this, find the nearest treadmill, crank it up to your 20K pace and elevate it to 4-5% and have at it.
Here's my tips for having a great, enjoyable long run in the snow, sleet and wind.
1) Dress just warm enough and nothing more. It's cold, it's wet, you want to get bundled up. But it's easy to overdo it and you could find yourself sweating up a storm and melting down. Or worse, you might be tempted to remove that outer layer, which usually cools all that sweat and then your core body temperature can crash. It's ok to be a little cold the first 5-10 minutes. Running is one of the best ways to elevate your core body temperature and once you do that, you'll be fine.
2) Leave the beat-up old running shoes at home. If a pair of running shoes aren't good to run in on a normal day, they aren't good enough to run in the slop either. If you're a triathlete you probably have at least 2K invested in your bike and associated gear- you can swing 80.00 for running shoes if the pair you wear really gets ruined (and they won't). Give the old shoes to one of those drives that collects used shoes.
3) Turn down the volume on the ipod- just a little. When the roads are bad, you have to be able to hear the traffic, especially snow plows. The last thing you want to do is go around a corner and find yourself face to face with a plow blade
4) If you (micro) manage your music on the iPod, take it down a notch. Add some festive holiday jingles. Snow Patrol and Stars of Track and Field's The Antarctica EP are mandatory. Nine Inch Nails and Evanescence is probably a little too extreme.
5) The big thing- take the heart beat down a good 10 beats. Your leg muscles are going to be working extra-hard pushing off the uneven, sliding 'ground'. Run at your normal heart rate and you'll be beating up your legs, which shouldn't be the point. Keep it moderate.
Pick a route you don't usually run, or run one of your routes backwards. That way you won't be watching your watch and worrying about how far behind your usual pace you are. Running for 90 minutes ? Pick an eighty or even a seventy-five minute loop- you can always add on if you're ahead towards the end.
6) Wear glasses. You'll probably be headed out into a pretty gray day, and it may seem like the right idea to ditch sunglasses that will only dim things down more or fog up. But driving snow, sleet, or ice can make it impossible to keep your eyes open, much less on the road.
The bottom line is that a snow run should be fun. A good workout yes, but you might be better off leaving the red zone run for another day. Take time to enjoy the scenery and see the world a way you rarely do.
You don't really get that many opportunities to do a long run in the snow when you're down here in CT, especially along the shore, and I think it's just a great opportunity to have a really good time and enjoy yourself. You do a lot of long runs and most of them probably aren't all that memorable, but a snowy run or a run in a storm- you'll remember that a lot longer because it is special.
However, if you're looking for a red zone workout (there's nothing wrong with that, maybe you're training for a late January/February marathon), stop reading this, find the nearest treadmill, crank it up to your 20K pace and elevate it to 4-5% and have at it.
Here's my tips for having a great, enjoyable long run in the snow, sleet and wind.
1) Dress just warm enough and nothing more. It's cold, it's wet, you want to get bundled up. But it's easy to overdo it and you could find yourself sweating up a storm and melting down. Or worse, you might be tempted to remove that outer layer, which usually cools all that sweat and then your core body temperature can crash. It's ok to be a little cold the first 5-10 minutes. Running is one of the best ways to elevate your core body temperature and once you do that, you'll be fine.
2) Leave the beat-up old running shoes at home. If a pair of running shoes aren't good to run in on a normal day, they aren't good enough to run in the slop either. If you're a triathlete you probably have at least 2K invested in your bike and associated gear- you can swing 80.00 for running shoes if the pair you wear really gets ruined (and they won't). Give the old shoes to one of those drives that collects used shoes.
3) Turn down the volume on the ipod- just a little. When the roads are bad, you have to be able to hear the traffic, especially snow plows. The last thing you want to do is go around a corner and find yourself face to face with a plow blade
4) If you (micro) manage your music on the iPod, take it down a notch. Add some festive holiday jingles. Snow Patrol and Stars of Track and Field's The Antarctica EP are mandatory. Nine Inch Nails and Evanescence is probably a little too extreme.
5) The big thing- take the heart beat down a good 10 beats. Your leg muscles are going to be working extra-hard pushing off the uneven, sliding 'ground'. Run at your normal heart rate and you'll be beating up your legs, which shouldn't be the point. Keep it moderate.
Pick a route you don't usually run, or run one of your routes backwards. That way you won't be watching your watch and worrying about how far behind your usual pace you are. Running for 90 minutes ? Pick an eighty or even a seventy-five minute loop- you can always add on if you're ahead towards the end.
6) Wear glasses. You'll probably be headed out into a pretty gray day, and it may seem like the right idea to ditch sunglasses that will only dim things down more or fog up. But driving snow, sleet, or ice can make it impossible to keep your eyes open, much less on the road.
The bottom line is that a snow run should be fun. A good workout yes, but you might be better off leaving the red zone run for another day. Take time to enjoy the scenery and see the world a way you rarely do.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Lost in Transition
starring: alan macdougall
not co-starring: Scarlett Johansson
It's been a weird season, that's for sure. Just doing an April Ironman is odd. The Griskus Sprint Triathlon was no exception.
I have a mixed history with the race. I was on a team with Ken Osborn and Guy D'Aniello that beat the entire field one year. I also sliced my hand open on my wheel one year and swam into a dock another. I went into the race this year nursing a sore knee, wearing a new uniform, and just hoping to beat the rain off the bike. But I found Evanescence's Lithium in the bathroom about 25 minutes before the race, so I had the right music.
I got off to a good start. I was in the elite wave, I started on the inside, and despite being left in the wake early, I found myself cutting a dead straight line to the first buoy while the bulk of the white caps were far off to the left. Me getting the best line to the first buoy seems hard to imagine, but I took it for what it was and kept going. The first buoy had come up quickly and I was encouraged. I was trying to break the swim into two halves. The second buoy also came up quickly and I was feeling, for me, pretty good. The third buoy ?
Not so soon. The buoys looked evenly spaced from the shore, but then again, it looks like a straight in and out. Finally, I hit the third buoy, rounded it with another guy from my wave, and got pushed back into the lane I'd just come up.
I've been swum into by a single off-course swimmer before. I have not swum into the oncoming lane of traffic before. Four guys hit me in rapid succession, knocked my goggles half off and left me ever-so-slightly disoriented. But I put my head down and swam until I heard someone telling me to get up and walk out. I ended up swimming in the top half of my age group and the top 40% of the field, which is remarkable (for me).
I came out and Marty told me I was 5:15 back.
I had a good bike ride. Not a lot to say. I only got passed by one athlete in his 30s, and I think i had a top 10 bike-split, but I'll never know, because the mat missed me as I went over it and I'm listed as having the slowest bike time in the whole field, 1:37 minutes, which is 30 minutes longer than the whole race took me. Not to be outdone by the mat, I spent upwards of 90 seconds missing my gear.
Now there's no one to blame but me that all I took into transition was a small black bag, a few gels, a hat and a pair of sneakers. Although I was careful not to cover my shoes with my wetsuit (experience has taught me not to make this rookie error). All of my teammates from the elite wave I'd caught on the bike left transition before I did. At one point Steve Surprise yelled 'back here' but it still took another 15 seconds to find the right row. I went out of transition behind Michael D, passed him, stopped to tighten a shoe, passed him again, and then bore down on the run. Eric was the first person I saw, and he said that I was 1 minute behind Steve. Ouch. I'd passed Steve on the bike around mile 8.5...
I have great teammates from Force 5 Sports, but I wanted to be the first Force 5 finisher, and I was trained and rested and ready to have a good race so that was a reasonable expectation. I passed Steve after the first mile, running really hard but feeling tired from the long downhill (it turns out the section we were on is a false flat that is actually uphill. I saw several other on the other side of the road but closer to the turnaround than I expected.
I caught Gary Rodenbaug next, who is a phenomenal 59 year old, absolute star. I tried to give him a few words of encouragement, and then set my sights on Robyn, who is another superb athlete (Gary and Robyn are fresh off nationals). Right in front of her was Bill Sheetz, one of Eric's clients. I gave them both what encouragement I could as I went by- we were climbing now and that cut into me. I passed a few more people and then duked it out and lost to one last athlete on the line.
Margit had a great race and placed in her age group, as did Robyn, Steve, and Gary. I didn't. Minus the 90 seconds lost in transition, I would have placed third, but you don't get mulligans in triathlon.
I was able to trade up my 4 dollar draft miller for a Guinness after the race, which was the best move I made all day- thanks, Mike Barry !
Did I learn anything finishing 25th instead of 15th ? Hell, yes. I went right to Eric and asked him for a plan. He said to get a flag so I can find my stuff. I think a canadian flag will serve the purpose nicely. There's no point in regretting the massive brain fart I had yesterday, and I still ran as hard as I could and moved myself back into a decent place, higher than last time I did the race in 2005.
I think I need to expect to do well more than I do. I ran hard, swam well, bikes very well, yet a mental mistake torpedoed me. Confidence isn't always a bad thing, and can actually help. While I didn't panic in transition, I also did not get the job done in an area I usually have no problem with. That's a lack of confidence.
At least that's easily corrected.
not co-starring: Scarlett Johansson
It's been a weird season, that's for sure. Just doing an April Ironman is odd. The Griskus Sprint Triathlon was no exception.
I have a mixed history with the race. I was on a team with Ken Osborn and Guy D'Aniello that beat the entire field one year. I also sliced my hand open on my wheel one year and swam into a dock another. I went into the race this year nursing a sore knee, wearing a new uniform, and just hoping to beat the rain off the bike. But I found Evanescence's Lithium in the bathroom about 25 minutes before the race, so I had the right music.
I got off to a good start. I was in the elite wave, I started on the inside, and despite being left in the wake early, I found myself cutting a dead straight line to the first buoy while the bulk of the white caps were far off to the left. Me getting the best line to the first buoy seems hard to imagine, but I took it for what it was and kept going. The first buoy had come up quickly and I was encouraged. I was trying to break the swim into two halves. The second buoy also came up quickly and I was feeling, for me, pretty good. The third buoy ?
Not so soon. The buoys looked evenly spaced from the shore, but then again, it looks like a straight in and out. Finally, I hit the third buoy, rounded it with another guy from my wave, and got pushed back into the lane I'd just come up.
I've been swum into by a single off-course swimmer before. I have not swum into the oncoming lane of traffic before. Four guys hit me in rapid succession, knocked my goggles half off and left me ever-so-slightly disoriented. But I put my head down and swam until I heard someone telling me to get up and walk out. I ended up swimming in the top half of my age group and the top 40% of the field, which is remarkable (for me).
I came out and Marty told me I was 5:15 back.
I had a good bike ride. Not a lot to say. I only got passed by one athlete in his 30s, and I think i had a top 10 bike-split, but I'll never know, because the mat missed me as I went over it and I'm listed as having the slowest bike time in the whole field, 1:37 minutes, which is 30 minutes longer than the whole race took me. Not to be outdone by the mat, I spent upwards of 90 seconds missing my gear.
Now there's no one to blame but me that all I took into transition was a small black bag, a few gels, a hat and a pair of sneakers. Although I was careful not to cover my shoes with my wetsuit (experience has taught me not to make this rookie error). All of my teammates from the elite wave I'd caught on the bike left transition before I did. At one point Steve Surprise yelled 'back here' but it still took another 15 seconds to find the right row. I went out of transition behind Michael D, passed him, stopped to tighten a shoe, passed him again, and then bore down on the run. Eric was the first person I saw, and he said that I was 1 minute behind Steve. Ouch. I'd passed Steve on the bike around mile 8.5...
I have great teammates from Force 5 Sports, but I wanted to be the first Force 5 finisher, and I was trained and rested and ready to have a good race so that was a reasonable expectation. I passed Steve after the first mile, running really hard but feeling tired from the long downhill (it turns out the section we were on is a false flat that is actually uphill. I saw several other on the other side of the road but closer to the turnaround than I expected.
I caught Gary Rodenbaug next, who is a phenomenal 59 year old, absolute star. I tried to give him a few words of encouragement, and then set my sights on Robyn, who is another superb athlete (Gary and Robyn are fresh off nationals). Right in front of her was Bill Sheetz, one of Eric's clients. I gave them both what encouragement I could as I went by- we were climbing now and that cut into me. I passed a few more people and then duked it out and lost to one last athlete on the line.
Margit had a great race and placed in her age group, as did Robyn, Steve, and Gary. I didn't. Minus the 90 seconds lost in transition, I would have placed third, but you don't get mulligans in triathlon.
I was able to trade up my 4 dollar draft miller for a Guinness after the race, which was the best move I made all day- thanks, Mike Barry !
Did I learn anything finishing 25th instead of 15th ? Hell, yes. I went right to Eric and asked him for a plan. He said to get a flag so I can find my stuff. I think a canadian flag will serve the purpose nicely. There's no point in regretting the massive brain fart I had yesterday, and I still ran as hard as I could and moved myself back into a decent place, higher than last time I did the race in 2005.
I think I need to expect to do well more than I do. I ran hard, swam well, bikes very well, yet a mental mistake torpedoed me. Confidence isn't always a bad thing, and can actually help. While I didn't panic in transition, I also did not get the job done in an area I usually have no problem with. That's a lack of confidence.
At least that's easily corrected.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Eagleman
It's been a while since I posted. After my last post I went to a duathlon, and I hate to write this because of how it sounds, but a duathlon I could and probably would have won. Instead, my left calf locked up 3/4 of a mile into the run and I somewhat shamefacedly dropped out of the race, limped back to transition and worked the first run in and the bike in. Eventually I was able to do a three mile warm-down with a friend at the race.
I did not run after that until Thursday, just three days before the race on Sunday. I went out for a forty-five minute run and confirmed two things. The first was that the calf was in good enough shape to stand up to half-marathon pace on a board flat course. The second was that my right knee was injured.
I'm not someone who talks about aches and pains as an injury- I consider an injury to be something that potentially stops you from racing or training. I'd hit a wicked pothole about a week earlier and my knee had smashed into the stem of my Elite. I forgot about it the next day. Because my calf was so sore, and because I had not been running, when I again noticed the knee felt sore a few days later I'd dismissed the pain a by-product of favouring my bad leg and driving hard on the downstroke of my pedal. For the second time in as many weeks, I was wrong.
I started icing the knee three times a day, and hoped for the best, but what was I really thinking ? I was going to go and complete a half-ironman with a bad knee a week after a few measley calf spasms had knocked me out of a duathlon ?
Yeah, I was thinking that. We got there early enough Saturday for me to shake hands with Coach Troy, get my bike tightened up by the guys from Elite, test ride, swim, and then run. The best part was the swim. I spent more like 20 minutes in the Choptank, swimming out to the first buoy and I felt like it hadn't been 7 weeks since I'd been in the murk of open water. However, I was doing more knuckle-dragging than Tyrol. On Saturday the Choptank was more like the Walk-tank. I got of the water and ran and my knee hurt for 10 out of 10 minutes.
Since there was no refrigerator in the room, icing the knee was out. I put some ironman ointment on it.
Race day- I went down to the race with Steve. I found my bike, which I had racked at about 2 PM, had been moved from where I'd placed it to the opposite side of the rack. I never did figure out why. There was no good reason for it. Call it the Amy Rice effect...
I was able to get in the water about 7 minutes before our wave went off. Avril Lavinge's Girlfriend was kicking around in my head because out the 142 songs on my iPod shuffle I could find that one but I couldn't find Evanescence's Lithium. Try having that crammed in your skull for 4 hours and 39 minutes...
The swim was different than any other race swim that I've had in that I was able to settle in and swim with the same group of guys for the whole 1.2 miles (or however far it was, some of the swimmers seem to think it might have been short). I felt like I was herding people who were not online with the buoys (I had a remarkably straight swim). Until Kenny and some of the other blue caps came roaring over me, I felt pretty good. I even passed a few white caps (men and women 55 and up, who has started 10 minutes before me). I climbed out of the water and saw the clock and my hopes for the day just crashed around me, however. 54:20.
I multiplied that by 2 and was horrified. That would be a 1:48:40 Ironman swim. What had happened ?
I have to admit to not really paying much attention to the wave schedule, and after more than half an hour in the water, I was not thinking about anyone but myself and the people around me I wanted to beat to the mat. About halfway to my bike, I realised that the clock had started well before I'd started swimming. So I subtracted 15 minutes and that left me with 39:20. Not good, as I'd done 37 the other time I'd done the race, but that was slow Ironman pace and to be honest I pretty much swim at the same speed whether it's a sprint or an ironman.
Transition was quick enough. Putting socks on wet feet is always a challenge, and I only crammed one finger in each hole in my gloves, confident I could finish pulling them on with my teeth once I was going. I beat most of the guys I came out of the water with to the bike mat and was off. Eventually I realised I'd started swimming with 20 minutes on the clock and had pounded out a 34:20 swim. Psyche !
At first I was passing a lot of guys in my age group and more than a few guys in their 30s (who had a five minute advantage being a wave behind me). I was feeling good early. My knee initially loosened up and the wind, if there was any, was at my back. I will admit to getting a little annoyed by the drafting. I really lost it when this one overweight 42 year-old who I'd easily passed went by me in a pack of five guys. I sat up, let them go- getting that 'are you all right' look you get from people who draft as they go by and you don't jump on- waited about ten seconds, and then went on a 30 mph sprint that made me feel oh so good (and then maybe not so good). My heart rate must have soared, I was breathing like, well, a sprinter, and I realised that I was being stupid. Here I'd said the previous day that I was just going to go out and have a solid race, that given the fact a week earlier it hurt to walk and also wanting to bounce back from Arizona, I was just going to try and re-establish a positive track. I was angry, and I ride fast when I'm angry, but I was probably 35 miles from the finish.
And of course the same group went by. I asked the overweight guy if he knew the rules and he ignored me, which is exactly what I should have done. I memorized his singlet, because I planned to see him on the run. Don't get mad, just run fast. Then we headed into the wind. I swear, there was wind- I would look to the side of the road and the tall grass was not moving, the leaves on the trees looked painted, but there was wind. I probably lost 3-4 minutes in the wind, but I was determined not to blow myself up in the wind. I'd needed about 1:40 to run the half-marathon last time I'd been here and that was just silly.
Oh yeah. My knee also was hurting. As I continued pushing forward, I didn't feel like I was losing any time- I was at the cadence I wanted to be at. But the pain in the knee, which was below the kneecap, had spread to the outside of the knee, the quadricep and my groin. Ow.
Then I was out of the wind. I was able to pick my cadence up. This was a good thing. While riding into the wind, I was starting to be passed by some fast 30 year olds (I have to say it, in groups of two more often than not). I was also passing exclusively 55 years old plus men and women. This is not as ego-boosting as you might think. I was saying 'You're doing great, keep it up' as I went by them, but where were the other 40 year olds ?
I found them in the last ten miles and started passing them regularly again, but I still kept it steady. I wanted to have a good run.
As I headed in the final stretch, in the last mile, I saw the overweight 42 year-old draft king running out maybe half a mile into the run. I noted where he was, tucked that information away, and headed back into transition. My second transition was really good, about two minutes. I left 4 cliff block shot packs in the back of my singlet. I never touched them...
I looked at the clock, finally knowing exactly where I was in the race, and with a stated time goal of 'under 4:40', I knew I'd have to run under 1:30, which meant being in the sixes. I thought that was going to be hard, and I would have to be patient to do it.
The first mile was good. Yes, the knee hurt and everything around it hurt. But some pain reduces function, and some doesn't, and this didn't. I kept it simple, started passing people that had passed me late in the bike. I caught the draft king before mile three and didn't acknowledge him. I just went by. After that, it was just run, although at about 5 miles, I got passed by a 40 year old who really made me feel a little embarrassed by how well he was running. We caught up in the chute after the race and he actually complimented me, and I told him in no uncertain terms that he was the one who had a great run.
I saw Mark Foster first and he was flying. Joe Whelan came soon after, then Kenny, and a little later, Bill.
The run was uneventful, which was what I wanted. I took endurolytes twice. I stopped eating, and by eating I mean drinking Gatorade, after 8 miles. That was probably too soon, but I had drank well on the bike and eaten lots of blocks. I was still passing people, although a couple of 30 somethings did slip by.
I caught Bill at 12 miles and I could see that he was having a good race and pushing with everything he had. I didn't want to interrupt him, so I just said 'hey, Bill, keep it up.'
Matt and I hooked up soon after that. We ran down another 40 year old, but he was saving something and passed us at about 12.6. Matt wanted to chase him, but I told him I was done, and I appreciated his offer but he should go. The guy was a little too much for either of us, and I was able to get back up to Matt and we did finish together...
Overall, this was not a bad race for me. I was able to come back from something that really aggravated me, overcome probably the worst pain I've raced with (and I'm sure it pales compared to what other people go through) and PR the course. My overall standing was not what I would have liked, but I think this was a good race that kind of puts me back on the road towards where I want to be.
I did not run after that until Thursday, just three days before the race on Sunday. I went out for a forty-five minute run and confirmed two things. The first was that the calf was in good enough shape to stand up to half-marathon pace on a board flat course. The second was that my right knee was injured.
I'm not someone who talks about aches and pains as an injury- I consider an injury to be something that potentially stops you from racing or training. I'd hit a wicked pothole about a week earlier and my knee had smashed into the stem of my Elite. I forgot about it the next day. Because my calf was so sore, and because I had not been running, when I again noticed the knee felt sore a few days later I'd dismissed the pain a by-product of favouring my bad leg and driving hard on the downstroke of my pedal. For the second time in as many weeks, I was wrong.
I started icing the knee three times a day, and hoped for the best, but what was I really thinking ? I was going to go and complete a half-ironman with a bad knee a week after a few measley calf spasms had knocked me out of a duathlon ?
Yeah, I was thinking that. We got there early enough Saturday for me to shake hands with Coach Troy, get my bike tightened up by the guys from Elite, test ride, swim, and then run. The best part was the swim. I spent more like 20 minutes in the Choptank, swimming out to the first buoy and I felt like it hadn't been 7 weeks since I'd been in the murk of open water. However, I was doing more knuckle-dragging than Tyrol. On Saturday the Choptank was more like the Walk-tank. I got of the water and ran and my knee hurt for 10 out of 10 minutes.
Since there was no refrigerator in the room, icing the knee was out. I put some ironman ointment on it.
Race day- I went down to the race with Steve. I found my bike, which I had racked at about 2 PM, had been moved from where I'd placed it to the opposite side of the rack. I never did figure out why. There was no good reason for it. Call it the Amy Rice effect...
I was able to get in the water about 7 minutes before our wave went off. Avril Lavinge's Girlfriend was kicking around in my head because out the 142 songs on my iPod shuffle I could find that one but I couldn't find Evanescence's Lithium. Try having that crammed in your skull for 4 hours and 39 minutes...
The swim was different than any other race swim that I've had in that I was able to settle in and swim with the same group of guys for the whole 1.2 miles (or however far it was, some of the swimmers seem to think it might have been short). I felt like I was herding people who were not online with the buoys (I had a remarkably straight swim). Until Kenny and some of the other blue caps came roaring over me, I felt pretty good. I even passed a few white caps (men and women 55 and up, who has started 10 minutes before me). I climbed out of the water and saw the clock and my hopes for the day just crashed around me, however. 54:20.
I multiplied that by 2 and was horrified. That would be a 1:48:40 Ironman swim. What had happened ?
I have to admit to not really paying much attention to the wave schedule, and after more than half an hour in the water, I was not thinking about anyone but myself and the people around me I wanted to beat to the mat. About halfway to my bike, I realised that the clock had started well before I'd started swimming. So I subtracted 15 minutes and that left me with 39:20. Not good, as I'd done 37 the other time I'd done the race, but that was slow Ironman pace and to be honest I pretty much swim at the same speed whether it's a sprint or an ironman.
Transition was quick enough. Putting socks on wet feet is always a challenge, and I only crammed one finger in each hole in my gloves, confident I could finish pulling them on with my teeth once I was going. I beat most of the guys I came out of the water with to the bike mat and was off. Eventually I realised I'd started swimming with 20 minutes on the clock and had pounded out a 34:20 swim. Psyche !
At first I was passing a lot of guys in my age group and more than a few guys in their 30s (who had a five minute advantage being a wave behind me). I was feeling good early. My knee initially loosened up and the wind, if there was any, was at my back. I will admit to getting a little annoyed by the drafting. I really lost it when this one overweight 42 year-old who I'd easily passed went by me in a pack of five guys. I sat up, let them go- getting that 'are you all right' look you get from people who draft as they go by and you don't jump on- waited about ten seconds, and then went on a 30 mph sprint that made me feel oh so good (and then maybe not so good). My heart rate must have soared, I was breathing like, well, a sprinter, and I realised that I was being stupid. Here I'd said the previous day that I was just going to go out and have a solid race, that given the fact a week earlier it hurt to walk and also wanting to bounce back from Arizona, I was just going to try and re-establish a positive track. I was angry, and I ride fast when I'm angry, but I was probably 35 miles from the finish.
And of course the same group went by. I asked the overweight guy if he knew the rules and he ignored me, which is exactly what I should have done. I memorized his singlet, because I planned to see him on the run. Don't get mad, just run fast. Then we headed into the wind. I swear, there was wind- I would look to the side of the road and the tall grass was not moving, the leaves on the trees looked painted, but there was wind. I probably lost 3-4 minutes in the wind, but I was determined not to blow myself up in the wind. I'd needed about 1:40 to run the half-marathon last time I'd been here and that was just silly.
Oh yeah. My knee also was hurting. As I continued pushing forward, I didn't feel like I was losing any time- I was at the cadence I wanted to be at. But the pain in the knee, which was below the kneecap, had spread to the outside of the knee, the quadricep and my groin. Ow.
Then I was out of the wind. I was able to pick my cadence up. This was a good thing. While riding into the wind, I was starting to be passed by some fast 30 year olds (I have to say it, in groups of two more often than not). I was also passing exclusively 55 years old plus men and women. This is not as ego-boosting as you might think. I was saying 'You're doing great, keep it up' as I went by them, but where were the other 40 year olds ?
I found them in the last ten miles and started passing them regularly again, but I still kept it steady. I wanted to have a good run.
As I headed in the final stretch, in the last mile, I saw the overweight 42 year-old draft king running out maybe half a mile into the run. I noted where he was, tucked that information away, and headed back into transition. My second transition was really good, about two minutes. I left 4 cliff block shot packs in the back of my singlet. I never touched them...
I looked at the clock, finally knowing exactly where I was in the race, and with a stated time goal of 'under 4:40', I knew I'd have to run under 1:30, which meant being in the sixes. I thought that was going to be hard, and I would have to be patient to do it.
The first mile was good. Yes, the knee hurt and everything around it hurt. But some pain reduces function, and some doesn't, and this didn't. I kept it simple, started passing people that had passed me late in the bike. I caught the draft king before mile three and didn't acknowledge him. I just went by. After that, it was just run, although at about 5 miles, I got passed by a 40 year old who really made me feel a little embarrassed by how well he was running. We caught up in the chute after the race and he actually complimented me, and I told him in no uncertain terms that he was the one who had a great run.
I saw Mark Foster first and he was flying. Joe Whelan came soon after, then Kenny, and a little later, Bill.
The run was uneventful, which was what I wanted. I took endurolytes twice. I stopped eating, and by eating I mean drinking Gatorade, after 8 miles. That was probably too soon, but I had drank well on the bike and eaten lots of blocks. I was still passing people, although a couple of 30 somethings did slip by.
I caught Bill at 12 miles and I could see that he was having a good race and pushing with everything he had. I didn't want to interrupt him, so I just said 'hey, Bill, keep it up.'
Matt and I hooked up soon after that. We ran down another 40 year old, but he was saving something and passed us at about 12.6. Matt wanted to chase him, but I told him I was done, and I appreciated his offer but he should go. The guy was a little too much for either of us, and I was able to get back up to Matt and we did finish together...
Overall, this was not a bad race for me. I was able to come back from something that really aggravated me, overcome probably the worst pain I've raced with (and I'm sure it pales compared to what other people go through) and PR the course. My overall standing was not what I would have liked, but I think this was a good race that kind of puts me back on the road towards where I want to be.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Shamrock Duathlon
These race reports are going to start coming out of order, I guess.
I have to admit to not being especially committed to the race. Oh, I wanted to do it all right. I qualified to compete at worlds last year at this race, and while it was not a qualifier again this year, I wanted to go back and race. By the same token, I'm training for a half-ironman and didn't hold back on my Saturday workout. There was also the feeling that perhaps the best thing for the family as a whole was not me chasing up to Glastonbury on what seemed destined to be a rainy day.
So I didn't put on the race wheels, replace the missing bottle cage, test ride the bike after having the front chain-rings replaced. I did prep the coffee maker, mix my gatorade, and get up at 5 am and drive up to the race, however. I got there all too early. While I got a great parking spot, registration didn't even open for another 15 minutes. They were very, very strict about opening registration at 6:30 am, and strangely, the race started 15 minutes late.
I don't like to spend a lot of time on my bike before a race. I did pump the back tire up a bit, which is also something I hate to do, but I just made sure it was in the right gear and racked it, then went for a 5 minute run. Wearing arm warmers and a cycling jersey, I was too hot. To the south, thunderstorms seemed to threaten, to the north the sun was out. It stayed this way as I listened to Evanescence (it was hard not to stay with the ipod when the DJ was playing a baseball park organ version of the Addams Family Theme Song).
Just before the race I switched to my EH jersey. I stood next to a guy, who, I kid you not, stood with one foot almost completely over the starting line. Baffled yes, but sure I could out run him, I said nothing.
The race started. As usual, I felt as though I was off to a bad start as six or seven guys ran ahead of me and another 4 or 5 surrounded me. Greenwich (my next post) all over again. But Mike Guylay was just 3-4 seconds ahead of me so if anything, I figured I was running too hard. As it's a two loop run the first loop is a feel me out affair, but it quaickly became obvious that I was going to finish the top run at the rear end of the top 5. A friend, Sue Lathan, randomly drove by in her red VW bug, confusing me on the way to her soccer game.
I realised on the second loop that I had a chance to do well in the race. I hung on, passed my wat into fourth, and hit transition in good shape (although the eventual race winner was about two seconds behind me).
I was second out of transition behind Mike, but he had to climb a grassy hill in his bike shoes and then mount going uphill. I ran by him, got on the round, started pedalling without my feet in the cages, and looked up. There was a police car. Why was there a police car ? Oh sh!t, I realised, I was in the lead. That lasted for 3 miles, then the race winner and Mike zoomed by me, 10 seconds apart.
I rode the next 14 miles alone, in fourth, on roads that seemed beaten down and damaged by recent rains, up hills, down hills, struggling, breaking on the endless 90 degree turns because I was in third and wanted to finish. And then, with a mile left, I got passed, but by someone I knew I could drop on the run. I stayed loose, came in, racked my bike, and by the time Mike got his shoes on, I was able to watch his back the whole second run. The first woman zoomed in as I headed out and I thought 'Better ask coach for some bike time'.
For 3.1 miles, I chased Mike and the race leader, and while I put time into both of them, i still finished third. I needed to ride faster and run even harder.
I think I could have won Sunday, but I came third, and that's a pretty good result for a guy like me.
Just don't ask me about the drive home.
I have to admit to not being especially committed to the race. Oh, I wanted to do it all right. I qualified to compete at worlds last year at this race, and while it was not a qualifier again this year, I wanted to go back and race. By the same token, I'm training for a half-ironman and didn't hold back on my Saturday workout. There was also the feeling that perhaps the best thing for the family as a whole was not me chasing up to Glastonbury on what seemed destined to be a rainy day.
So I didn't put on the race wheels, replace the missing bottle cage, test ride the bike after having the front chain-rings replaced. I did prep the coffee maker, mix my gatorade, and get up at 5 am and drive up to the race, however. I got there all too early. While I got a great parking spot, registration didn't even open for another 15 minutes. They were very, very strict about opening registration at 6:30 am, and strangely, the race started 15 minutes late.
I don't like to spend a lot of time on my bike before a race. I did pump the back tire up a bit, which is also something I hate to do, but I just made sure it was in the right gear and racked it, then went for a 5 minute run. Wearing arm warmers and a cycling jersey, I was too hot. To the south, thunderstorms seemed to threaten, to the north the sun was out. It stayed this way as I listened to Evanescence (it was hard not to stay with the ipod when the DJ was playing a baseball park organ version of the Addams Family Theme Song).
Just before the race I switched to my EH jersey. I stood next to a guy, who, I kid you not, stood with one foot almost completely over the starting line. Baffled yes, but sure I could out run him, I said nothing.
The race started. As usual, I felt as though I was off to a bad start as six or seven guys ran ahead of me and another 4 or 5 surrounded me. Greenwich (my next post) all over again. But Mike Guylay was just 3-4 seconds ahead of me so if anything, I figured I was running too hard. As it's a two loop run the first loop is a feel me out affair, but it quaickly became obvious that I was going to finish the top run at the rear end of the top 5. A friend, Sue Lathan, randomly drove by in her red VW bug, confusing me on the way to her soccer game.
I realised on the second loop that I had a chance to do well in the race. I hung on, passed my wat into fourth, and hit transition in good shape (although the eventual race winner was about two seconds behind me).
I was second out of transition behind Mike, but he had to climb a grassy hill in his bike shoes and then mount going uphill. I ran by him, got on the round, started pedalling without my feet in the cages, and looked up. There was a police car. Why was there a police car ? Oh sh!t, I realised, I was in the lead. That lasted for 3 miles, then the race winner and Mike zoomed by me, 10 seconds apart.
I rode the next 14 miles alone, in fourth, on roads that seemed beaten down and damaged by recent rains, up hills, down hills, struggling, breaking on the endless 90 degree turns because I was in third and wanted to finish. And then, with a mile left, I got passed, but by someone I knew I could drop on the run. I stayed loose, came in, racked my bike, and by the time Mike got his shoes on, I was able to watch his back the whole second run. The first woman zoomed in as I headed out and I thought 'Better ask coach for some bike time'.
For 3.1 miles, I chased Mike and the race leader, and while I put time into both of them, i still finished third. I needed to ride faster and run even harder.
I think I could have won Sunday, but I came third, and that's a pretty good result for a guy like me.
Just don't ask me about the drive home.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
The One that Got Away...
Warning: If painful urination disturbs you, stop reading. Also, I may take a day or two to post this in its entirety.
I can't help but feel like I let a great opportunity slip away at about the 9 mile mark of this Ironman, when my determination to finish wavered. I have to be honest, I don't know how athletes with families do two or even three Ironman races a year- outside of doing one and then qualifying for Hawaii and going there. But carving out the time and suffering the expenses of doing an Ironman is a lot of work. I wanted to have a really good Ironman race this time- we didn't have the time to make a real vacation of the trip and I was there to race, plain and simple. And I kind of laid an egg. It will be about a year and a half at least before I race the distance again. And I'll be old...
Well, maybe not. Old at least.
Anyway, without further rambling reflection, here's my impressions of the race.
Pre-race: I got up at around 4:15. I ate a banana. Note to self- never do that again on the morning of an Ironman race. I drank a cup of coffee, jumped on my MacBook, checked the weather- predictions of wind- checked EH's board and my email, then made sure that everything was in my special needs bags and woke up the brood. I grabbed a red bull and threw it in my dry clothes bag for after the race and was down at the start by around 5 AM, the suggested time. Note to everyone- at this race, that's massive overkill. I was body marked, had dropped off my bottle of high-test gatorade endurance formula on my bike, checked the inflation of my wheels with my thumb, and off-loaded my special needs bags by 5:15. 1:45 to race time ? That's way too long for someone who swims the way I do to think about the race.
I hit the road and did a ten minute jog. My calves felt a little twitchy. Since it would be close to nine hours before I started running, I thought that was fine. I then went to the port-a-let. Note to the race director- why would you only have six port-a-lets for over 2100 athletes in the transition area ? Fortunately, there were four others tucked away about 100 yards from transition with basically no lines. I switched the shuffle to sequential play, cruised on over to Evanescence, found a quiet place to lay down. About fifteen minutes later (probably actually ten) I decided to check something that was bothering me about my bike.
I didn't want to put an x-lab on my bike but with the tubular wheels, but what choice did I have ? You can't fit anything under my seat, certainly not a tire. I had tightened it up as much as I could, and it was tight- as long as I didn't move it laterally. I'm not sure how I determined that would be a problem lying on my back, but it required more tightening. I called back to the room but the second of our two Park Tools was missing, so I headed over to the special needs bags. I had this vision of the x-lab bouncing off the top of my back wheel, stopping and ripping it off and then having to ride 10 miles with it in my right hand wondering where the frak the aid station was. I was able to tighten it. I removed the particular wrench I would need if further adjustments were required, and stuck it in the gear bag on the left side of the x-lab. I would never see it again, although I heard it one more time, bouncing on the raod at about 40 miles.
I did not start putting my wetsuit on until 6:20 because they weren't going to let us into the water until close to 6:40- it's an open water start a good 100 metres from the entry-point. It was about then I realised I had a full tube of chammy butter but no bodyglide...
The Swim: For the first time in my life, I floated in the water, on my back, and didn't end up choking up more water than the Titanic's bailing pumps, while waiting for the race to start. Although I suck at treading water, I was determined not to have to rush to the line prior to the start. I was able to stand on a wall some of the time, but I spent the last ten minutes right on the line, all the way on the outside, and when we started, I was off the line.
I was also soon being swum over by people who know how to keep moving even though they are catching only my back and legs and not water. Someone reading this please explain how you can catch nothing but other people's wetsuits and zoom forward..
The course is a one loop out and back- ironic, really. Both the run and bike are 3 loops, which is really annoying, yet the swim is a single loop. Go figure. So you start thinking straight lines, only the course is curved. It took me a while to get back to the line- I felt like I was off on the right against the wall forever, but by the halfway point I was head-butting bouys- literally. I was swimming along and hit two consecutive ones. The first one startled me, because I didn't see it coming. I looked up. There were a bunch of people way inside the bouy (this seems like cutting the course to me, but again, feel free to explain while it isn't) and another bunch way outside. I was alone. Which can only mean sticking on the buoys was the long way round.
It was a scrum at the turn bouys. It's always a scrum at the turn bouys. I come from a team sport background, and if people hit me like that playing say, some sort of hockey, it would be time to drop the stick and go- and I was a goalie...
As always, I got forced wide at the bouy. I tried getting back inside. I heard/felt my left shoulder pop at least twice, but there was nothing i could do except finish.
I climbed out at 1:18, tied for my slowest swim ever, and- that was hard. I was a good six minutes off where I wanted to be. Six minutes ! I took two or three seconds to stand still, until I shoook that thought off and found a peeler. I got most of the suit off standing up, flopped for the leg pull, and then ran through the crowd of swimmers to my bag.
T1: Better than Lake Placid. Fewer choices, better organised. Only one little mistake. No sunscreen. Hey, the swelling in my left arm went away Tuesday...
Bike: I promised myself no matter how annoyed I got, I would not sit up and let someone drafting me go by... so I sat up three miles into the race. I didn't want to start racing early, although this guy would draft by me six or seven times during the race (and pass me once on the right). I was thinking I was six minutes off and therefore needed three minutes on the bike, or a minute a loop. Thoughts like these sound so good in your head...
I didn't have a chance to see the course ahead of time, but as I headed out on the 18.5 mile portion of the out and back, I was moving fairly well, however, I felt like I was in a crosswind. I got excited about, of all things, getting to the turn-around, which was on what passes for the biggest hill on the course, and hoped the crosswind would be more at my back. Up I climbed. I had started out so well- I took electrolytes and food in the first mile of the course, my foot felt good, I was fighting my way up through the ranks.
I hit the turn-around and words actually came out of my mouth 'What the frak ?' The wind was unbelievable and nearly unbearable. It wasn't a crosswind at all, it was a dead on breezefest at about 20 mph. I put my head up and started trying to lug the mail. i tried to keep eating and drinking, but my mouth was dry constantly from the wind, I couldn't eat my combos, and I was only taking one bottle per rest stop. I was keeping up with the planned amount of electrolytes, which were half what I needed. My fault....
I'm not going to say anything else about drafting. It is what it is. There were some people out there drafting, there were some people riding clean. Except for a pair of forty year olds that went by me several times working together, I felt more able to let it go this time, and let's face it, even the drafters were working hard into the wind.
Things got dire for the first time at 70 miles when I tried to pee a second time. I started to urinate and immediately had to stop because of the incredible burning sensation. I've had this before, but never this bad. Each time I stood up, more urine leaked out (because I'd stopped in mid-pee) and the pain was- not refreshing. I finally got ice cold water at a rest stop and stupidly poured the entire bottle on my crotch. This releaved the symptom but failed to solve the problem...
I tried to drink more, but it was too late. I went back to trying to pee and for the rest of the ride, the result was always the same, so painful I had to stop. I made the second lap and headed back out on the third, but I didn't push as hard with the wind at my back the way I had the first two times. I wanted to be strong coming in, get in the port-a-let with a bottle of water, and get the hell out on the run.
I kept up with the food and the gatorade or water and made it out to the turn on last time. On the way out a guy passed me (for no reason I could tell) on the right, even though there was one bike width between me and a bridge and a ton of room on my left. I gave him a piece of my mind, but I let him go instead of chasing him down. I felt a little worried about the peeing thing because I knew it meant my electrolytes were not right and I was dehydrated, but I had a decent third lap. The wind was stronger on that lap than the others, and the entire ride in to Tempe, even though it was my slowest lap, I was passing and dropping people. By the casino, people were going maybe 10 miles an hour. It was as bad a wind as anything I'd seen.
T2: I knew my bike was around 5:40 (all I had on my computer had been cadence, 85-100 for the ride), and that was not as good as I would have liked. Also, I was sunbaked. I got changed, got sunscreen, hit the port-o-let with a bottle of water, and poured that on myself as I peed. I was able to bear the pain, which was good as I had another two days of it to deal with. I was back on the road in about 4:30.
Run: Wow. My IM was torpedoed by my run. Would I have ever thought ? No, not really. But take a look at my face and tell me I wasn't feeling bad...
I had an OK first loop. By OK, I was running mid-eights, which is not the 7:56 average I wanted. As usual, the first five miles were too fast. I tried to go out on 8's, and was at 38:30 at 5 miles. So I backed off, a little too much, and finished the first loop running in the 8's. Soon after I finished the first loop, I started to feel- wrong. Byv wrong, i mean I just did not want to run anymore. I was going uphill into the wind- I wasn't sick, I wasn't so legsore I couldn't keep moving, I just felt wrong.
I cracked. I'm not going to make excuses, I'm not going to look down the lens of history at what was right or wrong with anything up to that moment. I needed to keep running and I didn't. I though if I gave myself three minutes, I'd be OK. But I wasn't. The 11 minute plus average on the second lap tells you how much I ran versus how much I walked.
The good news. I never gave up on finishing. The bad news. Finishing has never been my goal, or something potentially outside my ability.I never stopped moving forward. I kept walking even though I was ashamed to be walking, had never walked before- and oh yes, I suck at walking. When I was walking, I was being passed- by other people who were walking. I may be a good runner, but I am a suck-ass walker. I didn't let it get to me when I passed the same people over and over. I ran when I felt good, walked when I didn't.
I took water and cola. I even tried pretzels. Note to self: NEVER AGAIN PRETZELS. You know that powder they mix with water to make cement ? Next time, hand me a mouthful of that. Combos, with their extra cheese and salt, are fine, but the inside of a regular pretzel is just, well, like a beige dirt.
At mile 14, a volunteer almost grabbed me and forced me to accept additional sunscreen. Ah, blessed volunteers. Probably the only thing that prevented the amputation of my left arm.
The third loop was a little better. More running. Perversely, I ran best and hardest into the wind and uphill, and worst or walked the easier parts. What really got me going again, and allowed me to run the entire last five miles, was a brief conversation I had with a 19 year old who was also walking. I was trying to encourage him and he said, 'Hey, let's run to the bridge.' I never walked again after we started running.
I finished. I was glad I finished. I was mad. I was- drained.
Wow. That's some hair gell. Still spiky !
Post Race: I collected my bike, my two transitions and my dry clothes bag, huddled under a space blanket, drank a red bull, and tried to negotiate a ride home. Unable to do that, I rode my bike back to the hotel on the opposite side of the road from where people were still headed out on their second and third run loops. I went home, washed out my wet suit and hung it on the balcony, posted to my blog, and waited for the family to get back.
I later went and watched people finish from 14:30 to 16:00. Wow, some impressive efforts here, older athletes, first timers, people with real enthusiasm, and the champagne celebration for the race winners.
I may not have had the ironman I wanted, but I had an Ironman, my fifth. I got to explore a new place, hit a great pub- Gordon Biersch. And when I think about the wheelchair athletes and the people who crashed on the bike and still finished, what right do I have to complain ? And hey, I survived another 2.4 mile swim...
I can't help but feel like I let a great opportunity slip away at about the 9 mile mark of this Ironman, when my determination to finish wavered. I have to be honest, I don't know how athletes with families do two or even three Ironman races a year- outside of doing one and then qualifying for Hawaii and going there. But carving out the time and suffering the expenses of doing an Ironman is a lot of work. I wanted to have a really good Ironman race this time- we didn't have the time to make a real vacation of the trip and I was there to race, plain and simple. And I kind of laid an egg. It will be about a year and a half at least before I race the distance again. And I'll be old...
Well, maybe not. Old at least.
Anyway, without further rambling reflection, here's my impressions of the race.
Pre-race: I got up at around 4:15. I ate a banana. Note to self- never do that again on the morning of an Ironman race. I drank a cup of coffee, jumped on my MacBook, checked the weather- predictions of wind- checked EH's board and my email, then made sure that everything was in my special needs bags and woke up the brood. I grabbed a red bull and threw it in my dry clothes bag for after the race and was down at the start by around 5 AM, the suggested time. Note to everyone- at this race, that's massive overkill. I was body marked, had dropped off my bottle of high-test gatorade endurance formula on my bike, checked the inflation of my wheels with my thumb, and off-loaded my special needs bags by 5:15. 1:45 to race time ? That's way too long for someone who swims the way I do to think about the race.
I hit the road and did a ten minute jog. My calves felt a little twitchy. Since it would be close to nine hours before I started running, I thought that was fine. I then went to the port-a-let. Note to the race director- why would you only have six port-a-lets for over 2100 athletes in the transition area ? Fortunately, there were four others tucked away about 100 yards from transition with basically no lines. I switched the shuffle to sequential play, cruised on over to Evanescence, found a quiet place to lay down. About fifteen minutes later (probably actually ten) I decided to check something that was bothering me about my bike.
I didn't want to put an x-lab on my bike but with the tubular wheels, but what choice did I have ? You can't fit anything under my seat, certainly not a tire. I had tightened it up as much as I could, and it was tight- as long as I didn't move it laterally. I'm not sure how I determined that would be a problem lying on my back, but it required more tightening. I called back to the room but the second of our two Park Tools was missing, so I headed over to the special needs bags. I had this vision of the x-lab bouncing off the top of my back wheel, stopping and ripping it off and then having to ride 10 miles with it in my right hand wondering where the frak the aid station was. I was able to tighten it. I removed the particular wrench I would need if further adjustments were required, and stuck it in the gear bag on the left side of the x-lab. I would never see it again, although I heard it one more time, bouncing on the raod at about 40 miles.
I did not start putting my wetsuit on until 6:20 because they weren't going to let us into the water until close to 6:40- it's an open water start a good 100 metres from the entry-point. It was about then I realised I had a full tube of chammy butter but no bodyglide...
The Swim: For the first time in my life, I floated in the water, on my back, and didn't end up choking up more water than the Titanic's bailing pumps, while waiting for the race to start. Although I suck at treading water, I was determined not to have to rush to the line prior to the start. I was able to stand on a wall some of the time, but I spent the last ten minutes right on the line, all the way on the outside, and when we started, I was off the line.
I was also soon being swum over by people who know how to keep moving even though they are catching only my back and legs and not water. Someone reading this please explain how you can catch nothing but other people's wetsuits and zoom forward..
The course is a one loop out and back- ironic, really. Both the run and bike are 3 loops, which is really annoying, yet the swim is a single loop. Go figure. So you start thinking straight lines, only the course is curved. It took me a while to get back to the line- I felt like I was off on the right against the wall forever, but by the halfway point I was head-butting bouys- literally. I was swimming along and hit two consecutive ones. The first one startled me, because I didn't see it coming. I looked up. There were a bunch of people way inside the bouy (this seems like cutting the course to me, but again, feel free to explain while it isn't) and another bunch way outside. I was alone. Which can only mean sticking on the buoys was the long way round.
It was a scrum at the turn bouys. It's always a scrum at the turn bouys. I come from a team sport background, and if people hit me like that playing say, some sort of hockey, it would be time to drop the stick and go- and I was a goalie...
As always, I got forced wide at the bouy. I tried getting back inside. I heard/felt my left shoulder pop at least twice, but there was nothing i could do except finish.
I climbed out at 1:18, tied for my slowest swim ever, and- that was hard. I was a good six minutes off where I wanted to be. Six minutes ! I took two or three seconds to stand still, until I shoook that thought off and found a peeler. I got most of the suit off standing up, flopped for the leg pull, and then ran through the crowd of swimmers to my bag.
T1: Better than Lake Placid. Fewer choices, better organised. Only one little mistake. No sunscreen. Hey, the swelling in my left arm went away Tuesday...
Bike: I promised myself no matter how annoyed I got, I would not sit up and let someone drafting me go by... so I sat up three miles into the race. I didn't want to start racing early, although this guy would draft by me six or seven times during the race (and pass me once on the right). I was thinking I was six minutes off and therefore needed three minutes on the bike, or a minute a loop. Thoughts like these sound so good in your head...
I didn't have a chance to see the course ahead of time, but as I headed out on the 18.5 mile portion of the out and back, I was moving fairly well, however, I felt like I was in a crosswind. I got excited about, of all things, getting to the turn-around, which was on what passes for the biggest hill on the course, and hoped the crosswind would be more at my back. Up I climbed. I had started out so well- I took electrolytes and food in the first mile of the course, my foot felt good, I was fighting my way up through the ranks.
I hit the turn-around and words actually came out of my mouth 'What the frak ?' The wind was unbelievable and nearly unbearable. It wasn't a crosswind at all, it was a dead on breezefest at about 20 mph. I put my head up and started trying to lug the mail. i tried to keep eating and drinking, but my mouth was dry constantly from the wind, I couldn't eat my combos, and I was only taking one bottle per rest stop. I was keeping up with the planned amount of electrolytes, which were half what I needed. My fault....
I'm not going to say anything else about drafting. It is what it is. There were some people out there drafting, there were some people riding clean. Except for a pair of forty year olds that went by me several times working together, I felt more able to let it go this time, and let's face it, even the drafters were working hard into the wind.
Things got dire for the first time at 70 miles when I tried to pee a second time. I started to urinate and immediately had to stop because of the incredible burning sensation. I've had this before, but never this bad. Each time I stood up, more urine leaked out (because I'd stopped in mid-pee) and the pain was- not refreshing. I finally got ice cold water at a rest stop and stupidly poured the entire bottle on my crotch. This releaved the symptom but failed to solve the problem...
I tried to drink more, but it was too late. I went back to trying to pee and for the rest of the ride, the result was always the same, so painful I had to stop. I made the second lap and headed back out on the third, but I didn't push as hard with the wind at my back the way I had the first two times. I wanted to be strong coming in, get in the port-a-let with a bottle of water, and get the hell out on the run.
I kept up with the food and the gatorade or water and made it out to the turn on last time. On the way out a guy passed me (for no reason I could tell) on the right, even though there was one bike width between me and a bridge and a ton of room on my left. I gave him a piece of my mind, but I let him go instead of chasing him down. I felt a little worried about the peeing thing because I knew it meant my electrolytes were not right and I was dehydrated, but I had a decent third lap. The wind was stronger on that lap than the others, and the entire ride in to Tempe, even though it was my slowest lap, I was passing and dropping people. By the casino, people were going maybe 10 miles an hour. It was as bad a wind as anything I'd seen.
T2: I knew my bike was around 5:40 (all I had on my computer had been cadence, 85-100 for the ride), and that was not as good as I would have liked. Also, I was sunbaked. I got changed, got sunscreen, hit the port-o-let with a bottle of water, and poured that on myself as I peed. I was able to bear the pain, which was good as I had another two days of it to deal with. I was back on the road in about 4:30.
Run: Wow. My IM was torpedoed by my run. Would I have ever thought ? No, not really. But take a look at my face and tell me I wasn't feeling bad...
I had an OK first loop. By OK, I was running mid-eights, which is not the 7:56 average I wanted. As usual, the first five miles were too fast. I tried to go out on 8's, and was at 38:30 at 5 miles. So I backed off, a little too much, and finished the first loop running in the 8's. Soon after I finished the first loop, I started to feel- wrong. Byv wrong, i mean I just did not want to run anymore. I was going uphill into the wind- I wasn't sick, I wasn't so legsore I couldn't keep moving, I just felt wrong.
I cracked. I'm not going to make excuses, I'm not going to look down the lens of history at what was right or wrong with anything up to that moment. I needed to keep running and I didn't. I though if I gave myself three minutes, I'd be OK. But I wasn't. The 11 minute plus average on the second lap tells you how much I ran versus how much I walked.
The good news. I never gave up on finishing. The bad news. Finishing has never been my goal, or something potentially outside my ability.I never stopped moving forward. I kept walking even though I was ashamed to be walking, had never walked before- and oh yes, I suck at walking. When I was walking, I was being passed- by other people who were walking. I may be a good runner, but I am a suck-ass walker. I didn't let it get to me when I passed the same people over and over. I ran when I felt good, walked when I didn't.
I took water and cola. I even tried pretzels. Note to self: NEVER AGAIN PRETZELS. You know that powder they mix with water to make cement ? Next time, hand me a mouthful of that. Combos, with their extra cheese and salt, are fine, but the inside of a regular pretzel is just, well, like a beige dirt.
At mile 14, a volunteer almost grabbed me and forced me to accept additional sunscreen. Ah, blessed volunteers. Probably the only thing that prevented the amputation of my left arm.
The third loop was a little better. More running. Perversely, I ran best and hardest into the wind and uphill, and worst or walked the easier parts. What really got me going again, and allowed me to run the entire last five miles, was a brief conversation I had with a 19 year old who was also walking. I was trying to encourage him and he said, 'Hey, let's run to the bridge.' I never walked again after we started running.
I finished. I was glad I finished. I was mad. I was- drained.
Wow. That's some hair gell. Still spiky !
Post Race: I collected my bike, my two transitions and my dry clothes bag, huddled under a space blanket, drank a red bull, and tried to negotiate a ride home. Unable to do that, I rode my bike back to the hotel on the opposite side of the road from where people were still headed out on their second and third run loops. I went home, washed out my wet suit and hung it on the balcony, posted to my blog, and waited for the family to get back.
I later went and watched people finish from 14:30 to 16:00. Wow, some impressive efforts here, older athletes, first timers, people with real enthusiasm, and the champagne celebration for the race winners.
I may not have had the ironman I wanted, but I had an Ironman, my fifth. I got to explore a new place, hit a great pub- Gordon Biersch. And when I think about the wheelchair athletes and the people who crashed on the bike and still finished, what right do I have to complain ? And hey, I survived another 2.4 mile swim...
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Final Thoughts
I took this after I got out of the water today. The last day before the race is not the easiest preparation day, and yet-
My secret shame is that I enjoy opening up my athlete area or my email and getting my final workouts before the race. 15 minutes of each is the day before workout. There's a lot of pressure getting those workouts in during the last six weeks or so before the race and more than ever when it's dark early, and cold outside. So not being stressed out about the workouts is definitely a help. There's a certainn luxury in say, running for 15 minutes and going home, done.
So where do my thoughts turn the day before the Ironman. Oddly, this train of thought- should I consider the Ironman just another race, or something really special ?
I think this question is answered differently for every person. For me, no answer is good, as I think both are the coward's way out- for me, and only me. I cannot stress that enough. After all, it's just a race, just our 'other' life. But for me, neither answer works. To say it's just another race is to trivialise my A race and also give me an out if I don't have a great race. After all, not all my races are good races or races where I have my best performance.
To say it is a big deal also gives me an out. It's such a big race and how can you expect everything to go well ? It's the best of the best competing against you, the pressure is on, so many things can go wrong...
I thing the middle road is the only one for me. Yes, it's a big race, and yes, it's just another race. If circumstance and my own fortitude co-operate, i may have a good race, I may even do something memorable, for myself if no one else. Regardless, if I finish, I will write a time in the book, and either have something to live with or something to be, it's hard to say, proud of. In any event, I plan to enjoy the day.
And when it's over, have a beer. Or three. Maybe even a massage.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Last Run- Going Under
Day: Sunday
Length: 81 minutes
Temperature: 35 degree F
Wind: 15 mph
Precipitation: Flurries
Wow. I'm out on my last run yesterday and those are the conditions- as I am preparing to run in 80 degree heat, it's snowing. On Easter. Now I once saw a foot of snow on Easter, and that's not like that, but it is still a little crazy.
I ws testing out a new pair of Brooks I bought at Sound Runner. They are great shoes but they're mid-weight racing shoes, so on a cold day they are a little stiff. Still, once I get going I started to feel good, the music sounded great...
I've been listing to a lot of Evanescence and my favourite song is 'Going Under'. Now, for anyone who knows how I swim, which needs no description, this is part irony and part bad thinking on my part. This should not be my theme song by any stretch of the imagination. Or should it ? I am at once at risk of going under and not coming back up, and guilty of not getting far enough under water, so in a strange way, going under is exactly what I need to be doing more of.
I was running on the Hammerfest Course and right after the turn-around I passed a guy going the other direction- tall guy, running shorts, good stride. I was thinking how I was on my last training run, plunking along and I was going to be run down by some twenty-something out for a Sunday run. I have a little bit of an ego problem that way- I don't like to be passed, never have. But I have a strict rule about never looking back, at least when I race, although i do sometimes make exceptions when I'm training. I finally looked back around 4 minutes later and surprise- I'd gapped the guy in a major way.
It reminded me what I always forget during the off-season. Triathletes sure are a fast-looking bunch. Most of the men- and women- are taller, thinner, have cool bikes, cool kit, and at least look the part. Me, I'm short, kind of heavy for my size (5'4", 138). But speed isn't about how you look- and when you look at other athletes and think, wow, they look fast, you're just taking energy away from yourself and giving it to them. I can't change how look, or I've given up making anything more than a miminal effort, but I can think fast, I can go steady, and maybe, just maybe, have the race I want to have, me against the clock. I might even look up my IM PR just to have it in the back of my head...
Length: 81 minutes
Temperature: 35 degree F
Wind: 15 mph
Precipitation: Flurries
Wow. I'm out on my last run yesterday and those are the conditions- as I am preparing to run in 80 degree heat, it's snowing. On Easter. Now I once saw a foot of snow on Easter, and that's not like that, but it is still a little crazy.
I ws testing out a new pair of Brooks I bought at Sound Runner. They are great shoes but they're mid-weight racing shoes, so on a cold day they are a little stiff. Still, once I get going I started to feel good, the music sounded great...
I've been listing to a lot of Evanescence and my favourite song is 'Going Under'. Now, for anyone who knows how I swim, which needs no description, this is part irony and part bad thinking on my part. This should not be my theme song by any stretch of the imagination. Or should it ? I am at once at risk of going under and not coming back up, and guilty of not getting far enough under water, so in a strange way, going under is exactly what I need to be doing more of.
I was running on the Hammerfest Course and right after the turn-around I passed a guy going the other direction- tall guy, running shorts, good stride. I was thinking how I was on my last training run, plunking along and I was going to be run down by some twenty-something out for a Sunday run. I have a little bit of an ego problem that way- I don't like to be passed, never have. But I have a strict rule about never looking back, at least when I race, although i do sometimes make exceptions when I'm training. I finally looked back around 4 minutes later and surprise- I'd gapped the guy in a major way.
It reminded me what I always forget during the off-season. Triathletes sure are a fast-looking bunch. Most of the men- and women- are taller, thinner, have cool bikes, cool kit, and at least look the part. Me, I'm short, kind of heavy for my size (5'4", 138). But speed isn't about how you look- and when you look at other athletes and think, wow, they look fast, you're just taking energy away from yourself and giving it to them. I can't change how look, or I've given up making anything more than a miminal effort, but I can think fast, I can go steady, and maybe, just maybe, have the race I want to have, me against the clock. I might even look up my IM PR just to have it in the back of my head...
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