Halfway to Iron….

Well, really, way more than halfway (but who’s counting). 104 days to go, and thanks to Anne and Michael Landes, we’ve now just passed the $6,000 mark! Thanks for all your support!

I’m online listening to Coach Wayne finish Ironman Arizona. Listening? Ah…for some reason IronmanLive.com is a big black box right now, so it’s functioning like a radio. My free/poached wireless has apparently moved out of the building, so I spent 45 min or so after getting home knocking on random doors looking for Internet access so I could (in theory) watch his finish. Listening isn’t quite the same but it will still be awesome to hear them call his name! (they are also playing some excellent 80s tunes….Bon Jovi, rock my world!)

We spent this weekend down at Lake San Antonio, where yesterday we did the Wildflower Long Course course (? whatever – swim 1.2, bike 56, and run 13.1, for a total of 70.3 miles). I love training weekend, because it’s much more mellow than race weekend (and I am not doing the race this year), and also it’s generally much better weather. Despite four years of training weekends, I still went prepared for the tropics, not California in mid-April. I ended up borrowing gear (thanks Steve Lee and Karen) to stay warm – without them, I would have frozen.

As usual, it was also raining when we got there on Friday – I might have dressed for Hawaii, but I somehow had the sense to bring a rain jacket, and a big blue tarp. Woo. The tarp kept the water out of my brand new tent – which I was excited about using, but awfully cold sleeping in.

I was not nervous at all, which was interesting – I was excited about getting on my bike again, and I usually don’t worry about running (more on the swim later). Set up the tent, put on warm clothes, finished eating my sandwich/dinner, had a team meeting, and went to bed. At 9:15 p.m.

Unfortunately, the other teams were not doing the half, so they were “up late” til 10 and 11 (some folks actually brought a tv…I think that is a bit over the top!). I think I slept 3 hrs total, which pissed me off, mostly because I was achy from sleeping on the ground. I had to pee for most of the night, but it was still raining, and I didn’t want to get up and rained on while walking to the bathroom. So bascially I was tired, dehydrated, and bitter. Awesome.

Got up at 5, and found we were in the land of the fog – it was so dense that you could barely see 10 feet in front of you. Thankfully I could see Teryk making the coffee, so I got that taken care of right away. Ate my oatmeal, put all the junk in the car, and drove down to transition (it’s still dark out…). You might remember that the last time I swam in the Bay, I got hypothermic (violent chatters and unable to get warm). I had no desire whatsoever to repeat this, and rumors were that LSA was low 50s – about as warm as the Bay. I’m pretty comfortable swimming in open water, and this just seemed stupid to start the day off cold, so after consultation with a coach (whose identity I will protect, ahem ahem), we decided it was a good idea for me to skip the swim. I felt pretty guilty about skipping it, but fortunately sanity won over guilt, and I didn’t get in.

After 30 minutes everyone got out (the fog was so bad you couldn’t actually see all of the buoys, so Coach Tom had everyone swim around in a small contained area for 30 minutes), began transition, and left on the bike. Heather and I took off together, and tried to ride somewhat near each other for most of the first 20 miles. I was psyched to be back on my new bike, but really, really (really, really, really) unpsyched about the saddle. Last week it was tolerable. This week I wanted to do the entire ride standing up. (I will spare you the details. But it was made immesurably worse by my decision to wear tri shorts – which have a thin little pad so you can also run in them – instead of bike shorts, which is what I wore last weekend. I was literally crying by mile 15.) I felt great and pretty comfortable – wishing I had aerobars so I could lay down and relax while I pedaled – and enjoyed the scenery.

Just after the turn onto Jolon Road, I ran over a deep pothole, which caused the front wheel of the bike to start making some funny noises. I kept on pedaling, and only pulled over to check things out when I started to smell something burning. Hmmm…burning….on a bike. Not good. I’m not so handy when it comes to fixing bike things, so I started fiddling, and could see that the brake pad was rubbing the rim of the wheel. 4, 5, 6 teammates rode by, all asking if I needed help. Despite me saying “YES!” no one stopped – I was starting to get pissed off when Rafael stopped to assist (Heather later confessed she realized it was her only chance to get ahead of me…I still caught her He fiddled with the brake thing some more, said “you should be ok” and went riding off to get Kamal. “Should be”??? I hustled to catch up with him to query him some more about this “should” business. He was convincing enough that I believed I wouldn’t die on a descent, so I kept riding. (I might take this opportunity to note that Raf also convinced a few people – myself included – that the Ironman distance was going to increase to 160.3 miles next year. April Fool’s. So really, anything he says is suspect!) But bless his heart, he stopped and helped me, so I was willing to take “should” as good word.

By this time I was woefully behind on my nutrition – usually take 250 or so calories an hour – but I’d made the mistake of mixing the Perpetuem too thick, so I couldn’t get it out of the flask. I don’t ride with any solid food, so my only option was to keep riding til the next aid station, where I’d be able to mix it up with some water (by the time I got there, I’d ridden two hours on 90 calories. My stomach was growling. And the hardest part of the ride was yet to come!) I caught Heather just before the aid station, and Maria and Larry refilled my water. I gulped down the (very gross and concentrated) Perpetuem, started to feel a little better, and took off again (again chasing down Heather). The sun finally started to appear, and though it got a little warmer, it was still cold enough for arm and knee warmers and a vest.

I hadn’t ridden this whole course since May 2004, so I’d forgotten how looooong a hill Nasty Grade is (it’s not that Nasty…it’s just that it comes at mile 40 or so on the course). I felt pretty good on the climb, and tried to keep my heartrate down. I passed by the third (and last) aid station, because it’s just before the false summit of the climb, and I’m always afraid that if I stop mid-way, I’ll never make it all the way up. So I waved and kept on climbing – I asked Alex to check if my back wheel was also rubbing the rim (as I thought it might be), but didn’t bother to slow down so he could actually check.

I spent a lot of last week talking to Minnie about the descent of Nasty Grade – she was worried about it, and I was trying to psych her up for it. In doing so, I actually helped psych myself up, which was good. I didn’t fly down (top speed ever, 44 mph), but didn’t embarass myself (36.5 mph) either. (And no one passed me on the descent! Actually, no one passed me at all after the second aid station, so I felt great about that. Perhaps I will consider skipping the swim at all triathlons….hmm.) James caught up to me right after the descent, and we spent most of the rest of the ride chatting back and forth. It was nice to finally be warm, and to have some company. My second flask of Perpetuem had the same problem as the first, so I was STARVING by now – stomach growling terribly, and all I could think about was a hamburger and/or some bacon (or bacon on a hamburger). We rode back into the park, and I saw my friends June and Heather, who are on TNT’s olympic distance team, leaving on their ride. I’ll admit I was more than psyched to be FINISHING my ride when they were just getting started!

I rode back down Lynch Hill (big 1 mile descent) and into transition, laughing and marveling at how far I’ve come in three years – I remember getting off my bike when I first did the course in 2003 (I think it took me about 5 hrs on training weekend) and being so excited to still be alive. This year I did it in 3:42, and I felt awesome the entire time.

The sun was out, the sky was blue, and it was a gorgeous day – time to run a half marathon. This was the furthest I’d run since the Napa Marathon on March 5. I took my time changing my shoes and shirt – applied some new sunscreen, ate some pringles, re-adjusted my hat, and took off. Stu had left just ahead of me, and since we run about the same pace, I hoped I’d catch up to him. Sussi and I ran together for the first three miles, and it was great to have some company, again with someone I don’t know that well. (I later realized she’d just been humoring me with my slow pace….she was so fast I have no idea what her final time must have been, but she motored on past and didn’t slow down!). We caught Stu between 3-4. I ran with him for a bit, and then proceeded on. Caught up to Al, and then Cesar. George caught me right about mile 8, then ran on past (though he was still in my sight when I WATCHED HIM CHEAT and CUT OFF A CORNER!) We saw Minnie ride in to finish her bike ride, and I was thrilled to know she’d made it through the day with a smile on her face.

I ran alone for the rest of the time, which was sort of boring, but also a good training experience, to be stuck in my head for so long (actually, who am I kidding, that is torture). On my way into “the Pit” (mile 10, and the turnaround to head back to the finish), I saw John Fry flying by, heading for home. On my way out, I saw that Kamal was not far behind me, so I made it my goal to not let him catch me. I ran down Lynch Hill, totally relaxed, and feeling great. I cruised in at a 2:10 – not very fast on its own, but great (10 min/mi) for a difficult half after a big bike ride. I turned into the parking lot and though psyched about finishing, my heart sunk when I saw an ambulance parked right at the finish.

For a minute my mind raced back to last year (when I hung out as a volunteer all day), wondering if it was parked there “just in case.” Then I saw Jon, Minnie’s boyfriend, who had been out on the run course volunteering, and knew that wasn’t the case. I wobbled over to see her in the chair, ice packs all over her, and EMT talking with her. She hit a patch of gravel on her descent and crashed. I’m sort of thinking her bike is possessed and either needs an exorcism or death – it’s been trying to hurt her for three years, and this has got to stop.

The rest of the day is a blur (enhanced by two beers). I stood in the lake for 15 minutes to ice my legs down, and got so chilled, I knew I’d made the right decision not to swim (granted I was standing still and not swimming, but still…). Sleeping on the ground the night AFTER a half ironman is actually even less pleasant than the night before, but fatigue, a solid meal, and beer help the cause, and I slept pretty well.

Sunday we were up early to cook breakfast for the team – through a small bribe of banana bread I got to be a pancake flipper – and host a water stop for the other TNT team. The sun was out again, and it was a perfect weekend to spend with friends.

I’ve spent much of the past three or so weeks fighting (as Wayne calls it) the “Q” word. I wanted to quit. Really, really, truly. I thought about quitting on a daily basis, or at least every time I got into the pool. I panicked when I thought about how I’m going to balance the coming months, which hold the hardest training, with a demanding job that I love, a commute, a move to a new apartment, and general daily sanity. I told Wayne I wanted to quit (apparently this is the fastest way to get an email response, FYI). I still don’t know how I am going to manage it all – it was hard enough the first time around, when I had a 10 minute walk for a commute. Now I have 1:10, each way. But this weekend reaffirmed what I love about the sport, and what I love about Ironteam. I’m not going to quit. I might piss off everyone I know, and go insane in the process, but I’m not going to quit. It’s too much fun, and the people on our team are among the best I’ve ever known. Who can quit that?

The updates:
- Coach Wayne finished Ironman AZ in a blistering 11:44:00 – holy shit. He rode 112 miles in 5 hours and 34 minutes – that is unbelievable.
- Minnie broke her pelvis and is out of commission for some time. I’m looking in to the exorcism for the bike.