Extrememan Half-Ironman

I really started this blog because I do such a poor job of self reporting otherwise, but this year's entries seem to have a common theme- what could have been. Let's not break that flow with this one.

We went and saw Richard II the night before and by the time we got home, settled in, and asleep, I ended up with 3 hours of sleep, and that probably includes some eyes closed brain open time. But EH always says it doesn't matter how much sleep you get the night before, so I got up and was out of the house and on the road in less than half an hour.



I got there pretty early, got a good rack spot, and once I found my head phones, I was happy. I did a good warm-up run and I was the first one in the water at about 6:30. I swam out to the first buoy and back, fixed a leaking google, got out, and looked over the course. It was long- really long. I spoke with a couple of the guys on the beach and they assured me that they had walked the beach (half a mile each way, plus the out to the buoy would be 1.2) and measured it by radar. Of course, I seem to have zero credibility as a swim-distance gager, apparently because I dislike swimming so much. No one listens. Ever. I get to do extra swimming. Joy.

I'd had a good week in the pool- 4 times in five days and somehow, my catch had improved in spite of the fact my hand and arm are attached to me. I started inside in the front, avoided any panic, kept my head down, and did all kinds of stuff I don't do in a race.

Once we hit the first buoy, the rest of the swim was brutal. Going away, we had the current coming across us but pushing us slightly forward, however, the sun was directly in our eyes, and sighting could only be done with a sideways glance. It forced me to basically act like, well, a triathlete. I had to slap feet, follow bubble trails, and swim in a pack. It was school or die.

Another re-occurring theme this year has been the hope of getting to the turn-around on a course, just wanting to hit a turn-around, and then finding out what was waiting was worse. The current was pretty strong. I didn't really worry about it. Not being that fast, it doesn't surprise me when I'm not swimming fast. I was having a problem staying off the beach and I drifting away from everyone else, but we'd been instructed that on the way back all we had to do was pass one buoy at the turn-in, so I felt had a better line and although I started taking on a little water, I just plugged along. At around 40 minutes, a bell or alarm went off in my head letting me know the swim should be over. I lifted my head, realised I was getting wicked neck chaffe, and saw the single buoy. It was hundreds of yards away. I put my head down, pointed my body at it, and kept going.

I climbed out seven seconds behind Michael at 54 minutes or so, after having swum a mile and an half (as later measured). Margit told me that I was 15 minutes behind. She seemed to think this was great and told me so. I however, thought of 15 minutes as a crushing deficit.

I hopped on the bike anyway. Four miles in, I lost a full minute because I trusted signs, a volunteer, and the guy in front of me. Wrong turns happen, this one hurt but I rode it off.

The bike was hard, there's no way around it. There wasn't any part of the course except the late cul-de-sac I hadn't been on, but still, climbing Higganum and Little City is a little work. I was only passed once, on 79. On Higganum, I threw my chain, most of the way up. Going down Clarendon I had to pass several roadies out for a Sunday ride including a Hods-chasing style decent to pass two guys in their tuck. They might not have racing, but it still would have been illegal to draft them.

On Roast Meat Hill, I peed, as I'd planned to from the time I left the water. Then I tried to eat my fourth pack of Cliff Shots. The sports drink on the course was a berry flavour not-gatorade that was not sitting well with the Lemon Lime blocks. I put the blocks in my mouth and gagged. Being me, instead of spitting the blocks out, I swallowed half. I gagged again. My response ? Swallow the rest. Moral of the story- your gag reflex IS smarter than you are.

148 was the most dispiriting part of the ride, but I worked my way back, came in seventh off the bike and started running, thinking I was about 7th.

First lap- awesome. I ran one guy with hamstring issues down right away- advised him to not start running again until he was sure that he was ok because he was trying to start and stop which is a good way not to finish. I ran some other guys down but was not sure what my place was.

Second lap- passed the guy who was the top male finisher go out, felt real strong, but on the back half of the lap, running into the wind, I started to fade just a little bit. I also started feeling kind of, well sick.

Third lap- I was struggling going out. Some guy on his second lap blew by me like Achilles, and I thought I might be dropping a pace. i wanted to and didn't want to throw up. Finally, halfway through the lap I walked for ten seconds while I sorted out the throw-up/don't throw up dilemma. I didn't. I started running again, and got passed. All I could think about was finishing, lying on the ground, and feeling like hell for a while.

I thought I was finishing sixth. I finished third, unless you count the relay. I hate getting beat by relays. And guys. And women. I got beat by one of each. I crossed the line, went down on all fours and stayed there until the paramedics came over. I went through the checklist- no blurred vision, trouble remembering who or where or when I was, no ringing in the ears, and so on. I did the list for them as a courtesy and they went back to to the van. I was fine, except for the feeling like dren part of it.

Bottom line- it was an accomplishment just to finish the race. But I was disappointed not to win and it was probably my only chance to win an half. But why complain ? I did make a great effort, I was spent was I was done. I should have been better. Maybe I'll learn something....

Hammerfest Triathlon- Age Group Blues

Hammerfest typically signifies the end of my triathlon season- except that year that I did Florida- and the transition back to duathlons and running. Not this year. With a half-ironman coming seven days later, Hammerfest was once again a tune-up for a bigger race, in fact a tune-up for a big mysterious adventure, a first time race with some last-minute course modifications thrown in, a small field and a distance I've never raced this late in the season.

The day started early- my son woke up at 4:40 AM. Here I had the luxury of going to a race a few miles from my house that starts at 7:30 AM, and I was up at 4:40...

Breakfast was coffee, a banana and some Red Bull. I got to race, found the sitters for my son- thanks, meneo family, you are awesome- and went looking for my bike, which had been racked earlier. I got in the water around 7:15, got good and warmed up and then waited and tried to decide whether to swim early or walk, as the tide was out.

I took the sucker bet and swam, and regretted it. My wave literally walked away from me and man would I regret that !

I had a good swim- head down all the way, trailing the bulk of my wave but I swam steady and ran up the hill past several fellow red caps. I was on the bike quick and this is my home course, the place I time trial, so it was a good time. Unlike past years, no one was sucking my wheel, no one passed me the entire bike. I went as hard as I could and then wheeled back in and started transition.

My feet were numb. The toes of my left foot wouldn't go in my flats, so I widened the opening and kept trying. Started running on frozen stumps and it took forever to catch the first guy in front of me and then it started to click. I was running well, but near the turn around I saw a balding guy with glasses about 25 seconds ahead of me. i had about three miles to run him down. Last year I missed placing in my age group by 16 seconds. I wanted to do that this year. I tried, or thought I did. In the last mile, I was looking at this guy the whole way.

13 seconds after he finished, I finished. Another 4th place finish...not happy. Not happy at all. 13th overall ? Nice, but not what I hoped for.

That said, it's a great race, you can't pass up racing in your backyard, can you ? It's for a great cause, the race is a lot of fun, what more could you want ? How important can an embroidered towel really be ?

New Haven Road Race

It's hard to believe that the race was almost a week ago now.

The race looms over the early part of my September every year and I view it with a mix of anticipation and dread. On one hand, as a member of the road race board for at least the last five years, it's nice to see the Friday morning meetings, the packet stuff, the race bag pick-up and everything else materialise into the actual race, and to be connected to something which is so well run (by others, not me), so well liked, and such a big-time running event.

On the other hand, committing time at the start of the Fall semester is a real challenge, and the race it self ? Historically, this is not a race at which I run well, or at least, not run as well as I would like. I compare it to the hillier Fairfield half-marathon, where I ran a 1:18, and look at the sorry collections of 1:15s and the 1:20+ I ran last year and wonder why I never prosper at this race.

Of course, you have to go into the race with your good sense firmly in place. The race is huge. Cracking the top twenty in your age group can be a challenge- it is a national championship, after all. A guy like me is going to get beat by more than a hundred men and women, and everyone seems to bring their best to the race. So if you are ever going to run a race against the clock and only the clock, this one is a good choice.



That said, the number one race killer for me has been the fast start. I usually position myself in an area with some other runners I know, not too far from some other Hitek and Mohegan guys, whose pace I'm familiar with, about 2-3 rows in. I usually then proceed to explode over the line, get sucked into a ridiculous pace and run a 5:30 first mile which sets the stage for a melt-down somewhere in the no-man's land between miles 8 and 9, when I'm not even clear on where in New Haven I actually am anymore.

I got out in a leisurely 5:42, running along with Charlie Iselin. I had a two-day sinus infection and was on day two, so I was dry by the mile mark but I couldn't get over to the table to get water. We exchanged some brief conversation, agreeing that was too fast. Charlie's an amazingly genial guy who will work with you and encourage you if he comes up on you during a race to come along. We both backed off, but I was really thinking about the heat that was coming and how I usually suck on the back half of the course. I let Charlie start to open up a gap slowly and stuck with what I hoped was around a 6:15 pace, which was my goal for the first ten miles. A large number of women and guys I thought I'd been trying to keep off my back in a shorter race went by, but I was determined to not get into oxygen debt early.

We turned into the first hill and I climbed at about 90%, took some water at the top of the hill, and I think that was about where Ian Frankel came up on me. He's a Hitek teammate and was running what was to be his last race in his age group, I think I gave him some encouragement and kept going and soon Dave Pantin (also on the board) and another runner in my age group went by.

Through mile 4 everyone started pulling away. Charlie got about 20 seconds, and everyone else built close to half a minute. Usually this is the point of the race where I get discouraged. then I push hard up over the bridge on 10 and by the time I hit Long Wharf, I'm gassed, I feel miserable, and oh, more and more people pass me.

I let everyone go, and focused on my nutrition. At mile 5, I was going to eat a pack of Cliff Shot Blocks. I waited. I watched people's backs. I ate.

Charlie started to come back to me. I closed the gap without changing speed. I watched Ian, who'd hooked onto a woman who'd passed me about the same time. I tried to keep Dave in sight.

I hit the 10K mat at 38:50. That's a at least a minute slower than last year, I think. But I felt good, even though Mary-Lynn Currier had passed me within the last mile and I knew Kerry Arsenault (both teammates) couldn't be far behind.

The best part of my race was still ahead of me, and that was only possible because I stayed calm on Long Wharf, even though Mary-Lynn and Ian were now 20 seconds ahead by the end (Ian tends to slow up at the water stations). I kept it even and thought about closing people down. Around mile 8, Ian started to come back a little but not too much. By mile 9, I'd hooked with 3 guys who came up on my right slowly and whose pace I was able to match. We started running people down, passing Ian (who ended up getting water cramps) and then working up the hill in East Rock (where we really moved up places). I lost the guys on the downhill, which I did not want to blow up.

It was still damn hard running, downhill or no, that last 1.5 miles. Dave and the other 40-something were tantalizingly close, but I never did catch then. I trimmed all but 10 seconds of their lead away, but in the end, I wasn't able to pass them as I passed quite a few others. The next finisher after me was Mary-Lynn and Kerry was only 20 seconds back.

The 1:18:41 is a far cry from the series of 1:15s I ran, but it was a solid two minutes faster than last year, and it felt a lot better as well. More proof that a steady, solid performance feels better and lends itself to better results than a hot start and a late meltdown....

Park City Olympic

There's probably no distance I'm less qualified to race than the Olympic distance- 3/4 the distance of an half-ironman swim, but less than half the distance of the bike and run. The oversimplified math- more swimming plus less running and biking.

I should probably not have signed up for the race, either. The University where I work now holds move in day on the same Sunday, meaning that by going to the race, I miss this big event, where my staff is responsible for doing a variety of things all of which are likely to fail- although my staff did a great job this year and it ended up neither what they were doing or the prep work I'd down prior caused anything but joy and happiness.

I'm not one of great pre-race athletes in any case. I'm usually pretty quiet, preferring to slip on the ipod headphones, listen to some snow patrol, coldplay, evanescence, get in a short warm-up, and then resign myself to the race. That's right, anything that starts with a swim does not inspire anticipation, only a sort of cold dread. I mean, my goal for the race was to place in my age group, but excitement ? Not really one of my pre-race thoughts- something I should work on.

My warm-up died a quick death when a woman I'd never met started gesturing to me to follow her while I was running. At first I nearly ignored her because I assumed she was either signaling someone else or simply didn't know who I was, however, I turned to follow and there was an athlete collapsed on the ground outside a port-a-potty. He eventually claimed the overwhelmingly horrible smell caused him to become light-headed. This sport is amazing for perspective. I was busy trying not to think about how tired my legs felt after a bad week of work and training, here's a guy that needed to lie by a port-a-potty just to get his legs under him. We walked him back to transition but he refused to go to the medical tent and as far as I can tell, he raced...

So, the swim. I'm going to be honest here because what's the point of having a blog and not being honest ? I really was uncomfortable in the first lap of the two lap swim, so uncomfortable that I could only occasionally keep my head down- you would think after 5 ironmans that the oddly claustrophobic combination of the feelings of being left behind and not being able to breath would no longer be an issue. But it is. I was losing time and I knew it, but I sort of kept going until I was dragging my knuckles on the sand on the way in. At that point I stood up and tried to run- but I was knee deep and I could walk. What a thing- walking. All I could think of was that I was walking during the first 15 minutes of a race...

The second lap went better except for some confusion over whether to head back out sighted on the first or second buoy (this is why I need to learn to breath from both sides...). At the point I realised I was swimming at the wrong buoy, I really had a strong sense that any hope of placing in my age group was out the window. I was really discouraged.

The bike is tough. 5 loops, lots of people. Lots of 'on your left please, on your left please, on your left, MOVE LEFT'. I had to yell fairly harshly at one woman who complained that she was already passing someone. The problem was, she'd executed the pass, had five bike lengths and was still afraid to move back over. Still, I thought there was less clumping (and drafting) than last time I did the race, and except for the podium finisher who passed me on the right for no good reason, it was not a bad ride. I spent five loops trying (and failing) to catch Steve Surprise. When I saw him on the first lap I knew he had 5 minutes on me. Still, I knew I had to ride hard, but not too hard, and just try to move up.

The run- I decided to divide the 10k, which is two loops, into 1.5 mile segments (more or less) and not push too hard. I knew I could easily go out angry at myself, blow up, and end up unable to really run well. I caught Steve, then I started catching people in my age group. I drank Gatorade. I poured water and ice on my head and down my back as the heat crept up and the humidity held at 50% or more. And my age group competitors came back to me. When I passed them, I made no effort to pull away, just kept the pace.

I ran myself into third place.

What did I learn: I can be a pretty clueless triathlete. I went into the race not even knowing how long the bike route was or how long the race might take. When I came in pushing 2:20 I was surprised at how long the race was. Fortunately for me. Patience, not aggressiveness, was the right tact to take, and while the victory was a minor one, I did achieve my goal...

He was in sight when I started the run and I decided

Clinton Bluefish 5k Recap

I've only been involved in two above board races this month- a 5K at one end and a swim across Long Island Sound at the other.

I'm actually qualified to run 5ks, unlike swimming across things, but I have to say that distance training, or whatever training I'm doing these days, is not good 5k training. But I was still psyched for this race because Margit and two friends were also doing the race- my high school friend Darren and Rob Bove- ex-student employee and now friend.



I knew I wasn't really in for a great race. Our friend Minh flew in for the draft but his plane was two hours late and by the time I was crawling into bed it was after midnight. It had been, by my standards, not a good week for working out. I was tired, my knee is still less than 100%, and the race typically draws some pretty damn fast college kids, why I don't know.

I raced the way I expected to, which is that I struggled in the final mile and lost two spots in my age group, posting an 18:30 that was not that exciting.

But hey, I'll take it. What was really important was that I was sharing this race with friends- not runners that have become friends, but rather friends that have become runners. Rob ran so hard he tossed his cookies after the race. Darren had a great race and Margit was 5th in her age group- pushing Ian. Talk about perspective....

Eight Coaches, Lots of Beers, Lousy Players

In another departure from my usual type of post, today we had our 13th draft, and for the first time in a long time, every team was represented either by their coach or a stand-in- and not just any stand-in but rather a former league champion. Our league is a keeper league, and last year we protected eight players and drafted one rookie after the NFL draft. We also have abnormally large rosters- 26 players, to accommodate playing right through the Super Bowl, long after most leagues have shuttered. Yet more unusually, we started off the day running 5K- half the coaches in the league turned out to run the Clinton Bluefish 5K, which was an amazing thing, with spectacular performances turned in by Margit, Darren, and Bove.

When 64 established players and 8 rookies are already off the table, even the first round of the 17 round draft is going to include a reach or two and while there was plenty of suspense (sort of) about who the first pick would be- Ronnie Brown- there was also a palpable sense of resignation about drafting down through the seemingly endless rounds.



What amazes me- and should tell me exactly why it is I never win my league- is how the same players end up on my roster year in and year out. I went into the draft determined (as I have been for several years) to break the cycle of choosing familiarity over talent. And I started out on the right foot- I reeled in Maurice Jones-Drew, a player that was on another roster last year and plays for a team- Jacksonville- that I really dislike. But 10 of remaining 16 picks involved players on my roster last year, and I tapped the Bears, Jets, and Dolphins 8 times.

I seem to remember last year going hog-wild on Dolphins, which did nothing for me except to leave me with a lot of guys to cut as the Dante Culpepper stuck a fork in their season. Of course, the one Dolphin I should have kept, Ronnie Brown, did not survive the playoff purge.

The draft itself went pretty well and everyone seemed to enjoy it. We had a laptop for everyone, almost enough power, plenty of beer and food and although it took four hours, having everyone available was a much better experience. I want to thank everyone for showing up and getting the season- if not my team- off to a great start.

My team, on the other hand, is pretty beat.

Swim Across the Sound

Hard to believe the swim was nearly a week ago, but it was a pretty rough week, so...



I was NOT looking forward to the swim. There were a number of things about it that were not exactly what I usually look for in a day- getting up at 4 am (not something i do even for the Ironman), spending a great training day (stuck) on a boat, but mostly swimming miles from the nearest shore. I do plenty of outdoor swim training alone, but in small lakes or in the ocean near the shore. The idea of being miles from the nearest strip of land, swimming in water that is probably close to one hundred feet deep is not a good one. I was also worried that I'd be holding my six-man team back, and generally that I would simply embarrass myself. But I told myself it was for charity and in memory of Dave Parcells and I just had to get out there and do it no matter how uncomfortable.

The day turned out, quite simply, much better than I could have imagined. First, the family who donated the services of their boat where awesome, just great. I can't say enough about what a good job they did, how nice they were, and how much that made the day work.

Second, my teammates were great. First, an extra nod to recent Ironman Lake Placid competitor Howard Jones, who had a stomach virus and still swam his ass off for us. Now I have to think stomach virus and all day on a boat are about as diametrically opposed as you get. Howard spent the time in between swims keeping what little food he ate down, but he rocked in the water. Tom Coffey was our lead leg and he kept catching the people I kept losing ground on. Margit and Sue Fegleman also swam extremely well, and John and I managed half a mile every fifteen minutes.

The event is very well run. The number of boats and jet skis with police officers on them and the Coast Guard who protect us from the seemingly endless stream of IDIOTS with boats (and the caps are deserved) can't be spoken about enough. What you here about how stupid power boat drivers can be is true and then some, but we were always safe and no one came near us except other swimmers.

What really surprised me though was how much (with the exception of the final swim into Captain's Cove, which was unspeakably foul) I really enjoyed doing something I'd been secretly dreading. I actually swam well, for me. I got caught up in working with my teammates and trying to get the job done. We might have been the 29th team (out of about 39), but we still did pretty well on the day and when it was all over, while relieved, I wasn't dying to get off the boat or amazed that I'd survived. Instead, I'd swum at least two miles, done what I had to do, helped raise some money, and had a good time.

Eric talks about stepping outside our comfort zone. this was definitely where I started the day, but not where I ended it...

Swim Across the Sound

I'll warn each of you that I am once again soliciting small donations for a swimming event, this time the Swim Across the (Long Island) Sound.

Now, I know what you're thinking here:

a) Can't this guy just swim for free ?
b) Should he really be using 'swim across' in a sentence that also features the pronoun I ?

Fortunately, I am not actually attempting to Swim Across the entire Sound- that's a 15-17 mile journey (depending on tide and navigation abilities of your boat captain). I'm on a six person team, who will no doubt make sure my one-sixth of the journey is as short as possible. Even better, if you'd prefer to give money to support Margit's swim, she's on the same team as I am (poor Margit).

But here's where it gets serious: We're swimming to honour the memory of Dave Parcells, who was the guiding force behind this annual charity event. Dave died while swimming the Tampa Bay Marathon Swim earlier this year and his passing has affected a tremendous number of people.

Here's what my teammate John Brennan said about Dave and the Swim: "The Swim Across the Sound has always been a great event to benefit a great cause for St. Vincent’s. Dave Parcells made it even greater over the years with his tireless devotion to the event and the sport of endurance swimming. He was a great man, friend, and most importantly a great father. To those of us that do extreme sports Dave was super human with his drive and courage from Ironman races which pale in comparison to not only his single crossing of the English Channel but also to his double crossings of the English Channel. Dave passed away suddenly in April doing the sport he loved the most while competing in the 24 Mile Tampa Bay Marathon Swim. You will be missed Dave but never forgotten. So please help out this year and make this swim in David’s memory a great achievement for St. Vincent’s. Thank you.

The best thing is that this time you don't have to send a check (those of you who have supported my plunge efforts have had varying success getting your checks cash in a timely fashion). You can go to Active.com and donate.

Please consider a small donation to this worthy cause, and yes, I'll cough up pictures of the swim after it's over (along with some sea bilge)...

What is the Swim?
The Swim Across the Sound was inspired by people whose lives had been touched by cancer and who were determined to turn that experience into positive, active steps to help others. One of the region's most exciting and compelling athletic events, the Swim involves amateur solo swimmers and relay teams, swimming 25 kilometers from Port Jefferson, LI to Captain’s Cove in Bridgeport to raise pledges to help cancer patients and their families.

While the Swim marathon is the marquee event, the Swim has grown dramatically, sponsoring more than 30 events annually to raise funds to help support cancer survivors, such as the Tour de Sound (bike ride), Aquathon, Sikorsky Walk to Fight Women's Cancers, Teen Smoke Stoppers, and a Circus for Special Children.

The Swim’s mission is committed to breaking down the barriers to access for cancer screening and prevention programs. It is also committed to providing education about how people can minimize their risks for cancer and improve their chances of surviving the disease. The Swim supports no research, but has a unique niche, providing services 34 cancer education, screening and prevention programs of which many are free. The Swim typically offers help for services that traditional health insurance would not cover. In addition, the Swim helps cancer patients on a case-by-case basis to fit an individual’s specific needs.

St. Vincent’s Medical Center Foundation along with a young man who had lost a leg to cancer launched the Swim in 1987. The purpose was to raise awareness of the impact cancer could have on an individual and their families and help raise funds to help these patients deal with real life issues. The Swim raised a total of $5,000 in its first year. Since then the Swim has grown dramatically, raising $2.5 million in 2004 and helping more than 18,000 cancer patients and their families.

For several years, the marathon swim was the only fundraising event. In the early 90's, after several successful years, the race was converted into a professional marathon swim across the Sound. It became part of a professional marathon circuit and many of the world's best swimmers began coming to Bridgeport to compete in this exciting event. The Swim returned to its amateur roots in 2003, converting the swim marathon back to all amateurs.

Talk to anyone who takes part in the Swim or its other events other as a competitor, volunteer, sponsor or fan and you'll quickly understand why the Swim is so important. The fact is, everyone knows someone whose life has been changed by cancer, and through the Swim everyone can help. The race against cancer is a war that must be fought on many fronts, and all are important. We believe that cancer prevention and early detection (when cancer is most curable) provide the best opportunities to make the greatest possible impact on the greatest number of people with the funds we raise.

Whether by providing no-cost/low-cost mammography screening, helping teens stop smoking, or assisting patients undergoing cancer therapy, the Swim brings a message of hope that the direction of cancer can be changed. None of the successes of the Swim would be possible without the special volunteers and donors who support us. The hundreds of supporters who join each year makes all this possible.

Today, the Swim has become one of the most successful fundraising events of its kind in the USA. Please join the Swim in turning the tide against cancer.

Tour Delivers ?

It's clear reading the papers, the cycling sites, and all the respected news outlets that there are only two ways to look at this year's Tour- either a complete disgrace in need of major reworking for next year, or the obvious end of the sport.

Of course, it's true that no amount of cheating can be tolerated in sport. Once you tolerate it, the whole underpinning of sport is taken away. However, clearly not all cheating is equal. Doping (especially in cycling), point shaving in sports that are decided by a point system, hoping on a bus in a marathon- these are all unforgivable. Doping in football and baseball is clearly forgivable, however- you have Bonds, McGuire, and other be-muscled home run freaks in baseball. In football, remember you have to test positive twice before you are even suspended for four games, and no announcement is made as to why a player fails a test. In triathlon, Nina Kraft failed a test after winning in Kona, yet somehow the Ironman soldiers on gamely.

Naturally, taking this kind of attitude clearly ignores the frequency with which doping comes up as an issue in the Tour, which has simply had too many doping scandals. This year was especially shocking after the last few years, when a steady stream of doping incidents took out Tyler Hamilton, Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich (the only one of the bunch earning a double-raspberry for also dabbling in recreational drugs), and finally Tour 'winner' Floyd Landis. It was expected, well, maybe too strong a word- hoped- that 2007 would be the year the peleton rode clean, and I think that media started beating the 'now or never' drum so loud, so early, that they roundly believed this was the Tour's last hope, and in some cases I get the impression that certain sports writers can't heap enough dirt on the sport fast enough, just so they can get rid of it.

Which is not to say that the positive Vinokourov test wasn't shatteringly bad for the sport and an indication of a serious problem. The other two positive tests hardly seem to be on the same level as this one. Vinocheatkov won two stages and tested positive after BOTH of them. The Rasmussen thing is a different mater as UCI and Rabobank both dropped the ball on this one. If he'd been banned before the start of the tour, articles about how the Tour was 'decapitated by doping' would not have embarrassed the race AND the sport- and to be fair, these articles were unfair in that Rasmussen didn't actually test positive. Did he dope ? Maybe, probably, almost certainly. But the only crime anyone has on him right now is being a great big danish ass.

Morale in the peleton was low and that's probably a better indication than the all the ink and photons wasted on slamming the sport. Clearly cycling has a huge problem it needs to deal with, but I think the hundreds of thousands of spectators who caught the Tour live, the millions more who tuned in, are saying that they still love the sport- and in its last day, it delivered a massive time trial that had the real drama cycling fans want- 3 riders separated by a scant 31 seconds. This was not like the Lance years. The Tour's winner was in doubt yesterday until Levi crossed the line, Cadel crossed the line, and Contador crossed the line. The Tour was, in the end, unpredictable and exciting, even thrilling, when the talk was about the race and not the doping.

I still find it hard to believe that so many competent sports writers seem to be excoriating cycling while turning a blind eye to other sports. There's an old joke about what the only thing dirtier than field is- track, of course. BALCO was more than Barry Bonds, Bonds is just the largest, most well-known product. And the lid is starting to come off regarding the steroid problem in football- Dr. James Shortt admitted prescribing banned substances to several Carolina Panthers, including Todd Sauerbrun- the punter for christ's sake, the punter ! It might seem unbelievable that a punter would use steroids- but Sauerbrun was the strongest and for two years the top-ranked punter in the league- and also one of the most unstable, with 'aggression issues' including on-field and off-field outbursts.

I think the Tour has to answer these doping questions to the best of its ability and the sport needs to give cthe Tour the tools it needs to have a clean event. At the same time I think it's also time to stop kicking cycling while it is down and instead look across the sports spectrum.

Start by doing something, something serious, about Barry Bonds !

Vineman Half-Ironman Race Report

No, I didn't sneak out to California to do this race. A former Athlete's Foot-Hitek teammate, Jenny Meyer, sent out this race report and it's such a great one that I asked her if I could share it on my blog and she agreed. So without further interruption....

Friends, Black Swans, Fellow Crushers of Bone

Yesterday I completed the Vineman 70.3 Half-Ironman Triathlon. I did not drown, fall on my head (again), or re-break my feet. I have a fantastic white outline of a bathing suit on my otherwise scarlet back, but that is the worst of my injuries as of this morning's inventory.

The race took place in the heart of California's wine country - not whine country, as my brother Robert admonished me on the drive across the Golden Gate Bridge to Santa Rosa. At the expo, I saw more shapely, immaculately-shaven legs than I have ever seen - on men. A man with a Schwarzenegger accent explained all the race infractions that would earn you time in the penalty tents on the course - sort of like in hockey. I started getting nervous. I reeeeally didn't want to get a time out. Robert elbowed me when they started talking about the penalty for peeing in the vineyards.

Triathlons are so weird! You have to have so much stuff. Everybody seems to have a better idea of what's going on than I do - but then, that's something I'm used to. The swim took place in the Russian River. 1.2 miles. I watched people calmly piling up their creams and gu's and biking paraphernalia, while I was just praying that I left the right shoes in the right places and trying to inconspicuously rip the price tag off my brand-new wetsuit. I got in the water and panicked. I couldn't breathe!! ... duh, it's water. Pick up your head, dummy. And yes, I peed in my wetsuit, and I loved it. Sorry, Mitz. From that point onward, the swim was fun - when I wasn't being kicked in the face or groped underwater. When I got nervous, I just had to remember to breathe.

Ooooh it felt good to get out of the water! I saw Robert, in his Stanford kit and ready for his own ride, grinning at me from the sidelines as I ran my bike up the embankment. "BONECRUSHER!!!!!!" I bellowed as I clip-clopped up the hill (those were laughs of abject terror, right?). The bike ride was... well, boring. Beautiful, don't get me wrong. 56 miles. Vineyards, golden hills, yada yada yada. But you couldn't get within 7 meters of the person in front of you or you'd be penalized for drafting. And I've never biked that far without chit-chatting with people or stopping for breakfast. I was going along at a decent rate, drinking a lot, getting passed by dudes with aero helmets and disk wheels. I felt pretty snazzy with Rob's aerobars attached to my ride, although I think I was the only "competitor" with peanut butter sandwiches duct taped to my handlebars. I couldn't enjoy the scenery so much because I was just trying not to get a time out. I was also concentrating on not falling off my bike, and I was worried about getting a flat. In the spirit of full disclosure, I have to confess that I did indeed pee in my bike shorts. More than once. If you don't think we can be friends anymore, I'll understand. Best part: 5 miles from the end of the bike portion, I saw a girl in my age group (you have your age written on your calves) hop off her bike to help one of the aero-helmetted guys who got a flat. I heard him protest, and I heard her say "your race is probably more important to you than mine is to me." So classy. "You're awesome!" I yelled at her. (Nobody would ever want my mechanical assistance, I'm pretty sure. But I'm also not that noble.)

I saw Mom and Rob at the transition area, where I yelled "I DIDN'T FALL OFF!!!". Slipped blithely into my running shoes (sort of) and started trucking into the run. Now, maybe you'll remind me of this when I start making noises about doing an Ironman: the run felt AWFUL. Like starting at mile 20 of a marathon, and then doing 13.1 miles. It was around noon, and the course was hilly, and the sun was beating down with sadistic insistence. I was passing people the whole time, but at a dead shuffle. I finished the entire event in a total of 5 hours, 41 minutes - achieving my goal of under 6 hours. Finisher 678 of 1800+ finishers, 125th woman, I think. Slower on the bike, but faster on my feet.

So... I think it'll always be the marathon for me. Less stuff to worry about, more socializing, more exuberance. Lower center of gravity, less far to fall. The triathlon means slow, prolonged discomfort. I can see how one might prefer the zany smorgasbord, but I couldn't thoroughly enjoy any of the disparate pieces out of consideration for all of them. Those of you who did Lake Placid yesterday - dang. Are you able to move?

Jenny "The Bonecrusher" Meyer

Tour de France Woes

I'm not a cyclist, and most of what I know about the sport comes from a few amateur cyclist friends and of course, watching the Tour on TV.

Today's events, first the withdrawal of Cofidis after Moreni tested positive, admitted to doping and was taken away by French police in irons, and then of course Rasmussen being fired, certainly put the sport in a tough, tough spot.

What surprises me a little bit is how hard my wife has taken it. Personally, I think that if cycling is really trying to clean itself up- meaning the teams and the coaches are no longer facilitating doping by their athletes- it is going take more than one season. Cycling certainly has a bad history of doping, with plenty of disgraced athletes, and I think that the sport is on the verge of sponsorship meltdown, with the tipping point where the sport never recovers somewhere extremely close.

Yet at the same time, I look my favourite spectator sport, NFL football, and can't help but think it's little better off when it comes to athletes doping- although much better off in other ways, including sponsorship fatigue, where the Michael Vick meltdown is probably a bigger issue (see Nike). I think the league has a better drug testing system, but I don't think they test often enough, have tight enough controls, and the smokescreen of athlete privacy is used to prevent the general public from learning the extent of the performance enhancement drug problem the NFL has. The league is populated by literally super-human men of such bulk and speed that it simply defies any statistical explanation of how the population is producing so many men so large and so gifted- gifts that often lead to pain and suffering in later life.

The Tour is a beautiful thing, a wild, undulating mass full of personality, rivalry, excitement- and disappointment. But the last few days, it seems like mostly the later. Which is too bad. I'd miss it if it were taken out of my July...

Lake Placid- 2008

Turns out even signing up for Ironman Lake Placid is gruelling.

I logged on at 8:45 this morning, signed into my Active account, searched for and found the Lake Placid entry, and started reloading every five minutes or so. I was there last year in line and seemed to remember something about not everyone in line getting into the race or something like that. I was unable to sign up because we still debating taking the Hawaii slot, although I did make it to the head of the line before things went south.

Back to this year. Around 9:30 I reloaded the page, clicked on register and got a confirmation page saying online registration was CLOSED. OK, I've heard of Ironman races closing quickly but half an hour BEFORE they open. I let out a howl, which frightened a co-worker.

A moment later, an announcement showed up on the page indicating that on-site registration demand was going to delay online registration and that a message would be available at 1PM. Not online registration, but a message.

Well, around 12:30 the message changed to announce that 800 slots were to be made available at 1:00 PM. I was out running at the time but caught it ten minutes later. Around 12;50 they announced at the awards banquet that 800 online spots were going to be available. I got a call from Steve.

I hit reload again at about 12:58, got in and registered, as did Margit. The race closed in under ten minutes !

IM Lake Placid

It's always a tough day when we are here in CT on race day. For me, for both of us to some extent, Lake Placid is the race, but a new job for Margit and a new furnace were enough to shelve plans to head up this year, although as late as yesterday Margit was still talking about me jumping in the car and driving up.

Instead, I got up and ran early so we could take Ian to the Beardsley Zoo. It was a beautiful morning, a little windy maybe but as I was running back up the road in Indian Neck and the sun was stretched out long across the still water, no boats moving yet it made me think about just how special it is up there- and how Branford in the morning, before the traffic gets going, isn't such a bad place either.

It's ironic- if you had told me when I was 18 that one day a year the world would kind of stop and the only place I'd want to be was the Adirondacks, I'd have laughed, living about 2 hours south in the foothills north of the Capital District. Running and biking about 1000 ft of climbing from my high school parking lot to Grafton State Park (biking on a 3 speed touring bike), I never really thought much about doing either in a race- I just happened to have a friend who lived off Route 2- and I can't say I enjoyed it. Of course, I also wouldn't have guessed that a year later, I'd be selling the family house and moving away for good, making coming back to Upstate New York a lot less ordinary.

We have a lot of friends doing the race this year- Howard Jones, Ken Osborne, and of course Steve, not to mention Chris Schulten, who judging by his top 40 position, just about ready to ask for that pro card...

It's such a tough course- harsh but fair ? I don't know. I just hope everyone has a great race, or had a great race, or enjoys being in one of the world's truly special places, doing a truly special race...

Trumbull Sunset Run

Prior to the first time Margit did Lake Placid the Trumbull Sunset Run (once part of a Trumbull Series- anyone remember that ?) was a regular part of my yearly race schedule/last minute decision making process. This is only the second time I've run the race in the last six (?) years however.

With Ian, it's pretty hard for both of us to run a race unless we get a babysitter. Margit has pushed Ian through a number of races, including a remarkable 4 mile journey last year at the WAASC St. Patrick's Day Race in which she scored for AF-Hitek. But there's no question that isn't the same as racing. When Marty told me that not only was I welcome to come and run gratis, but that he'd enlist his own family to watch Ian while we ran. All this while Marty was busy directing the race.

When people tell you that Marty is special, well, a lot of people never really get to see it. They only see him on race day and not the rest of it, the guy that throws dinner parties for 50 people to say thank you for helping out. He took the time to email and tell me to come to his race, run free and bring Ian and margit and he'd take care of that too. And he did.

I'm still a little off my form, and I'm certainly no competition in my age group for George Buchanan, who came off winning two races in the last week to add a third place tonight, but I'll take my 18:12 9th place finish and be thankful that I have a friend like, and that the entire racing community has a friend like Marty Schaivone.

Blocks versus Gu

My coach recently suggested that we adjust my workouts to focus on speed rather than distance, so I thought that I'd adjust my nutrition to match. Normal on my long bike rides I take Cliff Shot blocks, which are my preferred food, and Gatorade (a single bottle).

On Saturday, with a two hour ride and 30 minute run brick scheduled, and coming off a short race where I used Gu, I decided to take 4 Gu, the same Gatorade, and give the workout a go. The ride was simple- 1 hour in B, 30 minute time trial in C, 30 minutes in B, and the run in B. I decided to aim for a 42 mile ride that would take me out to Madison and up towards Durham from Hammonassett, with enough legitimate climbing to make it a serious 2 hour ride and also prepare me on the off chance we went up to Lake Placid.

Much as in a long race, your nutrition rarely hurts you while you are still on the bike. It can happen, but it's infrequent. The ride went well. I got the 42 miles in at the 1:56 mark, including over 22.4 for the time trial on rolling terrain, pulled into my driveway, tossed my helmet and shoes, put my running shoes and cap on and started run.

The run is hard, with a hill right at the beginning, and two other decent hills in about 33 minutes, although I was aiming for about 31 minutes with a solid B effort. The initial climb always makes you feel gassed and you have to remind yourself that you've gotten off the bike and climbed, that there's a downhill around the corner...

No reason to bore anyone actually reading this with the actually blow by blow of a thirty minute training run, so in short- I was gassed on the run. I did run a solid B pace, but it felt like an uneven C pace.

Verdict- Gu might be all right for a sprint race of about an hour, it simply isn't up to a two and a half hour race or workout without other supplemental nutrition that makes me wonder why you'd choose it as part of your nutrition suite. Now of course, that's just me. And just me is sticking with Clif Blocks.

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.

Independence Day 5k

Wow. A record crowd showed up for the 5K in Milford (USATF-CT Championship race #3). 400 hundred race day registrations, which was enough to blow through the all the registration forms, race goody bags, and force Marty to delay the race by twenty minutes.

I was certainly not expecting much. I did do three hour plus runs in the week since the Fairfield race, but not were speed workouts. With my knee being sore still, it's much easier for me to go out and ride- 60 miles on Sunday, 42 in 2 hours yesterday. I rode hard yesterday, pushing in the wind and going after some decent hills.

As the sanctions representative for USATF-CT and a member of the LDR committee, it's great to have such a large crowd for the race. As an athlete, well, the guys that show up because it's a USATF-CT race are better athletes (than me, that's for sure) and that means my name sinks down the results list like a stone.

Holiday races tend to offer one feature other races may not- costumes. Guys in red,white and blue top hats, suspenders or other patriotic gear. This year, I saw a guy in his late 60s or early 70s in cowboy boots. He started, unbelievably, in the third row. He apparently ran the entire race in the boots- no socks. I'm thinking some really scary blisters happened there.

The front was really tightly packed and as often is the case I wanted to get a team box going but there were only three of us standing right there. First Chad Brown was nice enough to move his feet a little, then I got some help from one of my teammates and managed to get off the line. My right foot had actually been turned out and back, which is not how you want to start a short race.

Sort of. The race featured some pretty serious false starts, which I won't go into because they were accidental and did not affect the finish. Meanwhile, although I was in the second row, the middle sagged backwards while the ends went forward. The race starts up a sort of sloping grade. Hill would be a strong word, but not much. I was in about 60th place as we took the first turn. I was behind a number of women, several kids in basketball shorts and high-tops, this guy Rodney with the the big head band, and possibly, although I can't confirm it, Doc Whitney.

It could easily turned into panic time, however, a number of people around me are people I should be either right behind or in the area of as I watch them run away, so I settled in. My knee had been bothering me all through the warm-ups, during strides, and I tried doing a knee-bend once and that was definitely a bad idea. However, as I started running hard- but controlled- it really didn't bother me. In fact, it might have helped me have a better race by forcing me to run a little slower.

I was just over 5:30 for the first mile and I seemed to be out-dueling people on the hills. There was a lot of back and forth and a few guys passed me, but I felt like I was having a good, controlled race. I hit 2 miles at 11:20 and still going ok. Marty saw me when I gave the V sign and he called out my name.

I was a little gassed in the last mile. I haven't run a 5K since Christopher Martins. I let one guy get passed me, but other than that, I held my won as we took the last turn. I was sure Kerry was bearing down on me and teammate or not, I didn't want any women beating me. That's silly, I suppose, but oh well.

I went through at 17:48. Wow ! First, it's kind of sad that 17:48 would excite me. Five years ago, I was still running sub-17s on really good days. Of course, I was probably running 5-6 days a week back then, still doing speed work, and so on.

However, it's a good time for me. The last time I broke 18:00 minutes was a 17:59 at Christopher Martins in 2005 and it was my fastest time since a 17:47 at the Corporate Challenge in August 2005. It was also 20 seconds faster than last year, although last year's race was my best training day before Lake Placid (I followed up the race with a 98 mile ride, my longest of the year outside the Ironman). 18:08 was the closest I had all last year, even the one race I won...

Better still, teammates of mine were the top man and woman- Kerry for the women, Oscar for the men.

But the biggest shocker of all- Charlie Hornak shaved his head...

iPhone

This is a little change of pace for this blog, but I wanted to add my impressions to the myriad of iPhone blogposts.



Getting the iPhone my wife had promised as a birthday present was and wasn't an easy task. My wife's aunt's 70th birthday party was Friday, so standing in line at the Apple Store in Westfarms was not an option for me. I'm not sure I would have wanted to do that anyway, although I did stand in line for 10.4 there, which is the first time I've stood in line for the release of anything. My plan was to get online at 9PM EST and order one online, eat the ten dollar shipping and hopefully have it next week.

One flaw in this plan. Well, two flaws. I took my MacBook with me to the Higgins household, where the wireless is free and the yard is large enough that war-driving isn't an issue. I felt kind of bad about this. 9PM was likely to be right around that awkward time when we either should have left half an hour earlier or we would need to stay later to get Ian settled. The second was there was no guarantee that- the Apple Store would be able to handle the load, that there would be many phones being sold online, and so on.

I got on the site and although I got a few http service unavailable, I was able to get through the ordering process. However I stopped short because the estimated shipping time was 2-4. Weeks that is. Weeks ? I was willing to wait, trust me. But I was thinking I'd be waiting a week or so. Not a month.

I drove up to the Apple Store in Westfarms after calling to confirm they were in stock. The local ATT store was out of stock, so that was my only option. I walked in, was taken directly (although the store was packed, the line was short to check out. I bought the phone, turned around and walked out and drove home.

I didn't get to activate it until six hours later. That took all of 5 minutes (I was already an ATT customer).

I've been using the phone for a day now and here's what I've found:

The phone is incredibly easy to use. I actually kind of like my Treo 700P, but only compared to the cell phones I loathe. I am still not good at dialing with the touch screen. No such issue with the digital number pad on the iPhone. It's a joy to use. Recording a greeting ? How cool is it that you don't have to dial into your voice mail ?

The internet. The ATT coverage in my area is rated as good (on a scale of moderate to best). On the wifi at home, it rocks. On the ATT network- it works. It's good enough. It looks awesome, the flip orientation is great, and if you have the fingers for it you can move around the internet pretty damn well.

The camera- that's the biggest letdown. I'm a recent convert to the value of a camera on a phone. My Treo camera is simply a better camera which takes pictures with more vibration than the iPhone seems to tolerate.

Music and video playback. I was surprised how good the two tiny speakers on the bottom of the phone are and how good they sound.

Syncing- awesome, just awesome.

Running New Haven- Undressed

It's funny how some race courses retain their basic charms and feel year round, while others- don't.

I was looking to do a longer run today and the way my schedule and day care worked out, the only option to do that was to do it at the end of my work day at work. That means running in West Haven and New Haven. A run up to an hour I can do in the area of Yale Bowl, but I was hoping for 75 minutes, so I decided to try something different.

I headed up 139 to 34 and hung a right, ran down to 10 and once on Route 10 I was on the race course. Of course, on race day, the road is closed, there are cheering people spread out all over the course and there are water stations. At 4:15 on a weekday, there's mostly just a lot of traffic, punctuated by the fairly regular interruption of sirens from police, fire, and ambulance (I saw at least one of each during my run).

New Haven is one of those races that just wears you down. Technically, it's a relatively flat, unquestionably fast course. In the real world, the course eats we amateurs up. It's almost always hot (like it was today, although today was worse), humid (again like today), and the course sends you on a series of upgrades and uphills.

Running from work starts with a decent climb, a tough downhill, and then a decent flat stretch before turning downhill on 34. That part of the run was easy, but once I turned onto 10 I pretty much felt the course. I was in the grass on the opposite side of the road, there was a lot of traffic, but the tunes were good, the knee was manageable and I was looking forward to getting on the bridge and climbing.

I got over the bridge, around the underpass below 95 and started working my way towards Long Wharf. I usually feel like I'm struggling in that stretch. If I started out too fast, that's where I fade. I turned onto the that street IKEA is on and by some ironic twist, I hit the exact place where the 10K mat is at 37:10 or so. Right on schedule, except I hadn't run 10K to get there. I went under another underpass and I was on Long Wharf.

Long Wharf, at least today, looked to be subtly uphill. But that wasn't what I really noticed. Let's just say that Long Wharf on race day is a sanitized placed. Hopefully whatever happens on Long Wharf stays on Long Wharf, or at least in the cars on Long Wharf it happens in. At the end of Long Wharf I wrapped back onto Water Street, headed for Route 1.

Route 1, Downtown New Haven.

Tough road.

Tough neighbourhood.

Even the churches have bars on the windows. No one should have to live in a place where the churches have bars on the windows. No one.

Of course, it's all too easy for me to breeze into a rough neighbourhood during a hard run, feel bad about it, and then get on with my own upper-middle class life and go back to my nice suburban house, two-car, two-garage, one child in great day care. There's something pointedly wrong about that.

Towards the end of this section of the run, the song Nightswimming came on my iPod. I've been given a little ribbing about having this song on my iPod and there's no question it's a downer. I have a little bit of history with the song- songs about swimming in general- but this is one that I associate with Lake Placid. I'm running along and there are literally shards of glass underfoot with each and every step. There were places where the sidewalk simply ended, just a dirt path. Abandoned buildings and businesses and lots that grow over and aren't grabbed up by greedy developers to be re-developed and re-sold. Bars on doors.

Depressing. No question. I realise I'm getting an emotional undercurrent seeing these things which is basically the same one I get when I hear the song and think about Lake Placid the years I'm not doing that race (like this one). Some places have a pull on you, but let's face it, there's a big difference between doing a race and well, having to live and work somewhere that's, well, just unpleasant, some place where there are bars on even the screen doors.

And then it happens. you break through to the route 10 crossing, the song changes from Nightswimming to Nickleback's Figured You Out, you pick up the pace and leave it behind you. And as you head for the final, long hill, you get U2's Beautiful Day (talk about a song that evokes Lake Placid) and the sun very coincidentally comes back out, and it really is a beautiful day. And you wipe the sweat off, you jump in the car and head off to day care, the workout good, the workout over.

But there's this nagging feeling you're still missing something...

Fairfield Half- Marathon

Still in post-season mode. I decided to run Fairfield last night but was certainly not trained for it. On Friday I'd gone out and done a 75 minute run/40 minute time-trial brick and Saturday I'd ridden for three hours and mowed the lawn. I'm still icing the knee and my legs kind of hurt, so it was interesting decision, still, since I was planning on otherwise running for 90 minutes, I figured why not add an hour of driving time and a 35.00 t-shirt. You can never have enough of those.

Besides, I had a cool new kit to race in, courtesy of Dave Greenfield. My Elite Bicycles singlet and tri-shorts were just dying to be hauled through what is usually a brutal race. What makes the race so hard is a combination of factors- a top-notch field and a flat first two miles makes for over-cooking the early miles, the hills can wear you out early, if they don't get you the three mile downhill probably will, and the scorching humidity will broiling you in the home-stretch.

Today, for a change, coming off a 55 degree night, the heat was not a serious factor. And as Chris Schulten put it 'I looked like I was running comfortably.' In a sense this was ironic, because my knee was still hurting when Chris saw me (first mile), and because my calves hurt the entire race (on and off, but with lots of on). Nevertheless, my goal was to run comfortably, make the race a hard training run. I need to keep pushing myself because my legs tend to feel better the day after a good run or ride, not worse.

I went out about 6 minutes, which, while fast, was reasonable. I had some people around me I felt I could run with, I had a good mini-nutrition plan (Power-Gel at 2, 6, and 10 miles.) Except for being cut off by the same runner three times in the first three miles as they surged and then faded (finally going off the back and staying there), I felt like I was having a solid, if slightly slow, race. They changed the course this year and to me, the mile markers seemed to be a little funky. But I never started my watch and since there's very little flat running in the middle miles, who knows.

I was trying to run about the same pace as one of my teammates, Ian Frankel, who'd handed me my hat (visor ?) at Branford. He pulled away a few times, but I would close back on the hills and I was keeping him in my sights. I was also ignoring the occasional twinge in my left calf that felt like a knot was about to blossom. Finally, at around 7 miles, during what has to be a sustained three mile downhill, Ian paused to get some water and I passed him. I then surged past another runner as we went up a short rise. As soon as I passed him, he accelerated. At first I pushed again. I'd been gaining on this guy for some time, felt I'd established a faster pace and was a little confused by his decision to start trying to race mile 8.

I decided that I was not ready to race yet. And thus began a frustrating three miles. Now, I've gone on record saying that in a triathlon, I think there are times you battle to keep a cyclist from passing you as well as times you don't. For me, this is mostly about people I've already passed. Make no mistake, this is just about having to interrupt my own cadence and drop back for a rider who is going outside their previous pace to battle it out as well as not wanting to get involved in those back-and-forth battles on the bike, which I believe encourages drafting by the other riders in the area where it occurs. If you're going to pass someone, pass them. If you're struggling in the 15th second to get a tire-width ahead of someone, you shouldn't be there.

There's not a drafting rule in running though, and I've accepted that to run my own race, I cannot, absolutely cannot, battle with runners until very late in the race, when the outcome is actually up for grabs. Tack on to someone and let them help pull me into a group I'm already trying to close on, yes. Engage in psychological warfare with other runners trying to determine who has the biggest stones with 5 miles left to go in a race, no. alan go boom.

So I let the guy go, without backing off. The downhill was still going on, and I was trying to moderate my effort so I'd be ready for the last few hills. Ian caught up and then passed me after 9 miles. However, at around 10 miles he had to stop for water again. I continued pushing on the hills and on the very last uphill, I started by this same runner again. He immediately and obviously surged again and although I'm sure it was uncalled for I made a comment about runners and their egos (and hey, I was a runner once- not fast enough anymore to be one). I kept my pace consistent and on several occasions this led me to start to pass him. Each time he surged, or so it seemed to me. To be fair, it could have been my imagination, but it didn't seem like it.

Finally, after mile 11, I just picked it up a notch. After all, I'd been at about 95% and as I pushed, my legs felt good, better than they had all day. I ended up being glad this guy was behind me, because I really pushed those last two miles and finally felt like I was running well. Who knows ? I might just have been imagining what was going on, but it gave me the push I needed.

I felt bad for Ian. If he had not had to stop for water, he'd certainly have beaten me and ran a better race.

I surprised to see that I'd actually beaten my last time by about 15 seconds. It's a great race. But the drivers sure seem testy today.

A big nod to teammates Chris Schulten, who buried the course in 1:17, Ian Frankel, Steve Surprise, who skipped a sprint triathlon to do the right thing for his Lake Placid training, and Bill Sheetz, who looked like he had a great race.

Welcome to the post-season

I had a very front-loaded season this year- Ironman in April, half-ironman in June. That's one way to get your racing done early.

Coming into the half, I'd been struggling with injuries, and after doing Eagleman I'd started to wonder if I was going to have to take some time off.In a way, I already was- I was only able to run once a week each of the two weeks before the race and continued that for a week longer. That meant a lot of time on the bike, because June is when I have to take a lot of time off to use up the 4 weeks of vacation I get, so I take a lot of days off and half days and it's hard not to want to use that time to get into shape.

But for what ?

On Tuesday, we went down to Philadelphia to see the guys at Elite Bicycles about a bike for Margit. After running Branford (and running just a little bit slowly, to be honest) Sunday, I'd come to the conclusion that babying the legs wasn't helping. I did a run/bike/run Monday, and run hard, and decided to do about an hour running while Dave was working on Margit's bike fit. About 4:30, I headed out into the swampy 95 degree heat to run along the Schuylkill for an hour. While it didn't feel great, it did feel OK. Margit got a great fit, they adjusted her Lightspeed and she decided to get a T-Class with some really sweet wheels.

On the way out, we met up with a woman from Dave's group who we'd seen in Lake Placid before and knew us. She asked how the season was going and, with no more planned races this year, I said that my season was basically over. 'That must be really hard for you,' she replied and although I said what I think were the right things, the truth was, it is pretty hard. I ran into this once before, in 2004. I did Ironman Florida in November and was then basically without a plan until Lake Placid in 2006.

The funny thing was I had my first good half in 2005, placing third in my age group at Firmman. It was also the first time I was trained for that distance.

But the truth is that it is hard to not have a race goal. I've been pushing to try and map something out but so far, nothing has really stuck. After Fairfield today (Sunday), Chris Schulten asked me when (not if) my next Ironman was. I told him I didn't have one planned and he remembered I'd gone through this before, and I guess that there are two kinds of Ironman participants, those that do races now and again and those that kind of go from race to race, and I think I more fall into the later category.

The strange thing is that after getting to my 'off-season', I've run two road races in two weeks, after running one in the first five and a half-months of the year.

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.

Getting old ?

I was talking to a friend from high school last week. She's a little younger than I am, but her boyfriend is older, in his early fifties. He was a runner until a serious case of plantar fasciitis stopped his running over a year ago, and he's never recovered from it. She asked me if now that I was getting older (sheesh, is 41 really getting older ???) if I was starting to break down a little bit.

I said that no, on the contrary, I felt like I was getting stronger. I really have felt pretty good lately. This is not to say I haven't been knicked up. I have. I went into the Ironman in mid-april with a lot of pain in my foot- I didn't talk to anyone about it because I felt that it wouldn't affect my ironman- it didn't, and I've figured out that my aging bike shoes- 3 years old- are simply too tight and have been aggravating the arthritis in my big toe, which I've had since college- and a serious problem with my elbow from a combination of carrying Ian and playing computer games. Weight training has solved that problem.

However, when I ran the Washington Trails 10K and came away with an extremely tight calf Monday, I couldn't help but revisit my answer. When I say tight, I mean there was a ball in my left calf. I soaked it in an hot tub that afternoon, but I would find myself unable to run again until Friday (and I passed on the opportunity). I was still able to work out- that is swim or bike, including a 50 mile ride on Wednesday. However, on Thursday night, I was forced to spin for 45 minutes because a test run on the road outside my house indicated that I still could not run. Just touching the calf still was causing pain.

So am I getting old ? No ! Six weeks ago, I took two days off after the Ironman and started training for Eagleman. And the training has been going well. But there are days my hamstrings are tight, or my calves are tight. I've been pushing hard. Add to that having a young child at a race can complicate you day- I had only about 10 minutes to warm up and immediately after the race I had to start following Ian around instead of running a warm-down. Throw in a VERY hard and hilly race on a hot and muggy day and a little calf pain is totally understandable.

I've been a very fortunate athlete. Injuries have not kept me out of races or away from training. Neither has age. So no, age is not catching up, not yet anyway. If anything, the thing keeping me young is continuing to run, bike, and even, yes, swim...

Washington Trails

No one was more surprised when I told him that I had not run a road race since last December than Ken Platt, who'd timed both that race- Christopher Martin's, and this one, the Washington Trails 10k.

in the interim I'd done 3 duathlons and an Ironman, and I have a half-ironman coming in two weeks. On Saturday I'd done a very hard two hour ride, 40 minute run brick, and yesterday I'd done an extremely hilly two hour ride, leaving my calves sore.

Washington Trails is a tough race. I regularly ride the course as part of my longer, hillier rides. It's also a race that I've had some decent results at- a pair of fifth and then back to back third places the last two years, but I never know who is going to show up at the race and kick my ass. There's almost always a local favourite/college division I all-american or other top runner, Chris Schulten or some other top-notch guy. This year was no exception.

While warming up I ran across Dave Pantin, Chris Dickerson, and Mike Gulay, who wasn't, it turned out, there to run. Even John Bysiewicz was there, talking large to Chris. We were joking about letting JB carry us up the first hill, but as I hadn't raced in 6 months, I should have known what would happen.

When the cannon went off, the kids took off, and full of adreneline, I chased them down. Halfway up the first hill, I took the lead, humped over the hill, and turned onto 17 (79?). I was running hard, really hard, but I was also hoping someone, anyone with more brains than me would catch me and allow me to back off. I mean, I knew I was running too fast, but for the second time in eight days I was following the pace car so I had to just keep plowing along, the old man leading out the college kids in hid custom kit, working too hard to even put on the tunes.

Finally, mercifully, two college kids ran me down just shy of the one mile mark and I went through at a totally sick 5:44 on a course I would never run under sixes. I turned the corner and started to wonder when Chris Dickerson would catch me. That didn't happen until well after two miles. Chris is the most awesome guy- he always has a word or words of encouragement as he drops me, never chiding me for going out too hard.

We schleped up more hills, and by the 5k mark, I'd dropped to 6th and I was hurting, but I was still running pretty strong. I got passed for the last time after the big downhill that takes you through four miles and I neither ran down the last guy in range nor did I get caught by Dave Pantin. It was a great day for a race- hot, sunny, and humid, just how I like it. I even took a power gel at about 5 miles and I think it really helped carry me to the finish, sore calves and all.

I've run faster there, finished higher up than 7th, but for my first road race of 2007, I'll take my medal and work on recovering, and I certainly feel like I ran well.

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.

Reflections

The Ironman, at its core, is a selfish pursuit. You can train with friends (I don't), take your family to the race (I did), but out there, it's about you. If it's not, on race day, about you, you may struggle.

However, the next day is something different. The day after Lake Placid last July, I stood in line and kept another athlete signing up company, shattered the windshield of my wife's car (from the inside), packed the car. Still, Lake Placid is a 6 hour drive from where I live and you don't have to be up at the crack of dawn the next day.

I was up at six am the day after the race, packing my bike. The whole morning would be mostly running around getting the packing done, picking things up at the race venue, and trying very hard to put us in a position where we'd have time to go to Gordon Biersch for lunch (and beer). And unlike the previous day, I got everything done on time and we made it to the pub. I wasn't driving, so I was drinking beer.

I was also partially absorbed in self-loathing about the race when I realised that something major was going on. The TVs in the pub were set to Fox News, who like CNN, gets a single story, loops up two minutes of footage and is off and running for the next however many hours (is our news really packaged in three minute intervals because our attention spans are that short) ? Of course, the footnote during the Virginia Tech coverage, which lasted our entire meal, was how 150 people in Iraq had been killed and another 150 injured by car bombs. Perspective (or its lack) is sure an interesting thing.

Wow. What a way to get out of your own reflection- I work in higher education, after all, in fact, I'm a criminal justice major. Here you've had this bad, I mean a stinker of a race, and you have to turn around and admit to yourself how meaningless it is in some ways. Tragedy has a way of making you feel small, or at least restoring some perspective.

But there was more to come. That Saturday, a friend who'd I'd only really gotten to know at an Ironman (Florida) died during a marathon swim- Dave Parcells. Dave is someone you should google. The real deal. Double Channel crosser. Million dollar fund-raiser. Sucessful business man, first-class dad. A real guy, the sort of person who makes a difference and leaves a mark and is missed. The type of person who can't be summed up or dismissed with words at all.

I spent six months with a goal in mind, an Ironman race. Six days in the rearview, I had to admit that whatever happened out there was way less important that what was going on back east. Sometimes, a race is just a race, and life- wow, life is complicated, isn't it ?