Neoprene Wedgie

Treading on Fat Ice (sorry, best I could think of)

2011-12-18T20:36:00.000-08:00

I have not been good about training for the past...oh... 6 months. I am signed up for the Rock & Roll Pasadena Marathon in February, and I am pretty far behind. For one thing, I've gained over 20 pounds this year. To be fair, a year ago I was doing Kona so my body weight was a bit artificially low but in all honesty I didn't drop a ton of weight for Kona to begin with.

My friend Danielle is also signed up for Pasadena, so she suggested she come over and we could use the two treadmills in my condo gym and motivate eachother for a workout.

We got on our two machines and she started going and I - well, the machine just felt funny. It was like the belt was slipping or something. I stepped off, cranked up the speed and it looked and sounded like it was working perfectly. I lowered the speed again, stepped back on and the thing just ground to a halt.

So I'm not sure what to think, but the circumstantial evidence is that I'm too fat for the treadmill and I broke it. I went back upstairs and ate the frosted Christmas cookie Danielle brought over to thank me for letting her use the treadmill.

I'm overweight and eating cookies instead of running. This is why it's tough to get motivated.

Sign of the Times

2011-12-09T16:30:00.001-08:00

When we were in Canada, Ironman-spectator-virgin Brian wasn't sure how to cheer. He asked Steve, "there are probably going to be a bunch of guys named Steve racing - what should we yell out when you pass by so that you'll know we're screaming for you?" (yes, he really asked that.) Steve said "I want you to yell 'Fuck you, Steve!'" (yes, he really said that.)

Wiser heads prevailed, and we stuck with the generic "GO STEVE!" when we saw him.

But that was Ironman Canada. For the Ironman World Championships, I wanted to make sure Steve was as comfortable as possible, and tried to give him anything he wanted. So I made him the sign he didn't know he asked for:

I'm a little disappointed in the fabrics - they looked a lot more contrasting in the store, and I thought it would be much easier to read. But perhaps in this case, a little subtlety worked out for the best. The sign did have a huge flap that covered the top half with the the word "GO" for those times when I wanted to stay family-friendly (which was pretty much all day.)

A few years ago I made a sign for Heather that said "Aero, Bitch, Aero!" and I thought THAT was offensive. I guess Steve just brings out the worst in people. (It is one of my prouder signs!)

Trash Talking, Kona style

2011-12-07T16:14:00.000-08:00

It can be tough to talk smack when you're not a fast racer, but that's all part of the Bro Code. You HAVE to talk some smack, right? I knew Steve would have a much faster time than me in Kona, so my trash-talking strategy was to undermine the race itself.

The weather in Kona leading up to the race was unseasonably cool. Macca himself had been tweeting about how pleasant the conditions were. So I made a point to make sure Steve knew how easy he had it this year, unlike the tortuous conditions I had in 2010 (which, admittedly, were actually milder than normal.)

Steve and I saw Macca at the expo, and Steve told him "I saw your tweets about how good the weather is this year." Macca replied in his thick Aussie accent, "yeah, it was much hodder last year." I told Steve "See?! Macca says it was harder last year!" Steve said "no, he said it was hotter, not harder." I disagreed: "He said 'Harder!'" "No, 'Hotter!'" "Harder!" "Hotter!"

Regardless of what Macca truly said, I think hotter means harder anyway, so I declared victory.

In terms of actual race-day conditions, some things are tough to compare. I don't know what the swim currents were like this year. We both had winds on the bike, but I don't know the actual stats. There is something called the "radiated heat index" which I heard was 127 last year and 135 this year. It would imply the bike was hotter this year, but I have no idea when or where those readings were taken year-to-year.

What I am convinced of - without question - is that the run weather was much cooler this year. It was pretty overcast, and at times it looked like it was going to rain. It was very good running weather as far as I'm concerned.

In conclusion, if I had the nice cool weather they had this year, I would have easily shaved 10 minutes off my run. And then Steve would have beaten me by only 50 minutes and I would have beaten the spread. So there.

2011 Kona Spectator Report

2011-11-27T00:05:00.000-08:00

We had a good support group to watch Steve and Gary race Kona: me and Laura and Teresa and Sue and Steve's dad and brother Dave. (Dave is quite the swimmer himself, and won a pair of goggles from the "coffee boat" by diving down 30 feet and grabbing some coral from the bottom. He blew out his eardrum, but hey... Free Goggles.) On race day, we met up with Steve and Gary around 5:45am, and I think I was more nervous they were. Perhaps they are simply better at hiding it. Lots of hugs, lots of sunscreen, then they left for the race.

Most of our cheering squad went up to the hotel room to watch the race start since it had a good view of the water. I stayed down on the ground so I couldn't see anything but it was still fun to be a part of all the activity.

I saw Steve start out on the bike but somehow missed Gary. Fortunately, the bike course loops back after about 10 miles so we were able to catch them both as they climbed the small hill on their way out to the Queen K. They were both smiling and looked like they were having a great time.

I can't say the same thing a few hours later when we saw them coming back on the bike. Gary came in first, and the best word I can use to describe him is "wet". And it wasn't just water-dumped-over-the-head wet, he looked internally wet. You could tell he was really, REALLY sweating and it must have been a rough hot ride out there. A few minutes later he was smiling starting the run, but again he looked hot. And not in the good way.

Then we waited for Steve, and that was a problem. The bike finish is about 50 yards from the overall race finish, and we could hear the race announcer updating everything that was happening with the pros. They were tracking Craig Alexander who was on pace to set a new Ironman World Championship record and we could have gone over to watch history being made. But Steve wasn't back yet. We kept hearing the updates how Crowie was 2 miles away... 1 mile away... 1/2 mile away... and we were thinking "come on, Steve! We need to go see Craig!"

We never left our Steve-viewing post, and settled for hearing Craig Alexander break the world record. Steve came in a few minutes later. No regrets.

There's a shortcut spectators can take to catch athletes around mile 1 of the run. After we saw Steve head out on the run, Laura, Dave and I ran down Alii Drive to see Steve again. It was probably the toughest workout I had in months. It was maybe a half-mile run, but we did it dodging crowds while carrying cameras and signs and phones and not wearing proper running gear. We caught Steve again, completely sweaty and out of breath (us, not Steve).

The next viewing area was at mile 10, but for some reason I thought it was mile 5 or 6 so I made sure we got there very early. This meant we spent a lot of time waiting and worrying why our racers hadn't shown up yet. Once we realized they had 4 more miles to run than I thought, we felt better. We saw Steve first, which was odd. Not that we weren't thrilled to see him, but history would suggest that we should have seen Gary first. Turns out, Gary had stopped about 200 yards down the road from us. Basically, he overheated on the bike and was having trouble recovering. He decided to drop out of the race. Just wasn't his day. He raced Kona before, he'll race it again, but in spite of his great spirits it was certainly a disappointment.

We then had another 16 miles to wait for Steve's final finish. We had dinner at the hotel, constantly redoing the math trying to figure out what time Steve would come in. I think we decided that we could see him at mile 25 around 8:00 or 8:15, and then take the short cut to watch him finish at 8:15-8:30.

Playing it extra safe, we got to mile 25 around 7:40. We really wanted to plan this out well, so we sent Steve's brother on a mission to time how long it would take to get to the finish line using the shortcut. It's kind of a blur what happened next, but as I recall Inconsiderate Steve showed up about 20 minutes early. We freaked (or at least I did) because I had no clear plan on where to go yet. Steve's Brother returned as we scrambled to get our gear together and he led us on a mad dash to the finish line. (It's actually pretty amazing that you can get great seats at the last minute and we were in the bleachers leaning on the fence when Steve arrived.)

You may recall my friend Brian and I coined the phrase "milking the chute". It means that when you're in the finisher's chute, make the most of it. High five strangers, kiss babies, do whatever you want but you should really make the most of the experience. Well, Steve did something completely new. As he approached the finish mat, he kind of went into a slow-motion bullet time. He walked under the clock - and seemed to just sort of stand there. It was like he was posing for wedding photos. He just stayed there, and stayed there, and stayed there. It wasn't like they had to call security to move him out the way, but he was definitely there for an awkwardly long time. More power to him.

We saw Steve, did lots of sweaty man-hugging (sweaty-man hugging?) and then he went over to the medical tent and tried to con his way into getting a fluid drip. They weren't buying it and just released him. I think for his next Ironman I'm going to bring my own I.V. for him to use after the race.

So let me say this about Kona: it is probably the easiest race I've ever spectated. The key factors of a spectator-friendly race are 1) how often you can see your racer, 2) how far you have to walk to get to different viewing areas, and 3) how difficult it is to cut across the race course. I felt it was very easy to get around and we had some pretty good viewings.

I do have one complaint about the race crossings- I think it's great when young people come out and volunteer at Ironman. But you shouldn't put a 16-year-old girl in charge of crowd control at a pedestrian crossway. I was amazed at how many people were cutting across the bike course dangerously close in front of the bikes. Oh, and accidentally dropping bags and trash in the road as they did it. People are stupid.

Kona 2011 Vacation

2011-10-10T01:02:00.001-07:00

I'm back in Kona for the Ironman World Championships, but this time as a spectator; my friends Steve and Gary are doing the race. I've watched a lot of people race a lot of Ironmans, but this is probably the first time I'm actually a little sad that I'm not participating.

The first thing I noticed when I got to the Ironman village is that all of the merchandise is WAY better than last year. The t-shirt designs, the sport bags, all of the graphics are just a lot cooler. And don't get me started on the finishers medal. I actively dislike the medal I got last year - it's creepy looking. Unfortunately they don't let you trade them in for the latest design. But it makes me mad how much nicer everything looks this year.

Thursday was the Underpants Run. I packed some undies to run in, but was very much relieved when Steve told me he didn't want to do it. Phew. I was self-conscious enough doing it last year when I was in relatively decent condition, but I really didn't want to run it again 20 pounds heavier. Teresa told me that the local access TV station was running highlights from last year's run and I was shown several times in my Ironman Mickey ears, so I feel I've contributed enough.

Instead of prancing around town in my skivvies, I went snorkeling with the sea turtles. This is one of my favorite things to do in Hawaii, but I had a little bit of trouble this time. I found a turtle to hang out with quickly enough, but he was feeding on top of a shallow reef. When a wave came in, we were in 2-3 feet of water. When a wave went out, we were in 1-2 feet of water. Which mean I kept being dropped and dragged on the rocks and coral. It was uncomfortable, but I didn't think much about it since my honu (turtle) buddy was having a good time.

It wasn't until I got out of the water that I realized how rough the ocean was on me. I walked on to the beach and a random woman said to me "oh, you're bleeding!" I looked down and saw I had a 2-inch gash on my stomach and my belly was covered in blood. It looked worse than it actually was, but you know how just a little bit of blood can stain a large area. I also had a big cut on my foot which was getting sand in it. There wasn't much I could do about it, so I just rinsed off and went back to the hotel. I'm fine, but the scab does itch a bit. Overall, not my best turtle experience.

I spent most of Friday helping Steve with random pre-race errands and giving him all of my wisdom and insight about the race: "It's really hard." We had lunch at Splashers Grill, the place where I had a bit of a nervous breakdown last year, and Steve had a bit of stress this time. I'm starting to think that maybe there's nothing stressful about the Ironman World Championships in Kona, but there's just something bad in the food at Splashers. My advice to all future Kona racers: eat some place else for lunch. (Eating at Splashers is stressful. Drinking there is another story.)

Sunset Beach 5K

2011-08-23T22:09:00.001-07:00

I spent a week at the shore in Sunset Beach, North Carolina. There is a small general store on the island, and somebody had taped this scribbled sign on the door:

A 5K on the beach? I was intrigued. So I went to the website and saw this description of the race:

"NO water stops, NO bibs, NO fees, NO timing, NO race t-shirts, NO celebrities, NO massages, NO medical tent, NO restrictions on dogs or other animals, NO restrictions on baby strollers, NO restrictions on what you can wear, NO free food at the end and NO sign up process."

This was the complete anti-corporate race. Don't get me wrong, I love big sponsored races like the Rohto Cooling Eye Drops Ironman 70.3 Hawaii, but this just sounded great. Last year, they had 28 people show up. I liked everything about it, except for the part about "No water stops". North Carolina is very hot and EXTREMELY humid, and it's a miserable place to run. (It was the perfect spot for some Kona training for me last year!) So I emailed the race organizer, Bill Gallagher of the Needham Massachusetts Running Club, and told him I would go out on the course and hand out water to people. He was very grateful.

Race morning, I walked about a mile to the general store near the race start and picked up 8 quarts of water (they didn't have gallons) and 4 quarts of Gatorade. I wisely brought a very large beach bucket with me to carry all of my supplies. I got to the starting area, and with about 15 minutes til start time there were 4 people there. I was a little worried that I would be pretty lonely out there all by myself, but I just figured that even if only 4 people raced, I would make sure those 4 people had some water. It was an out-and-back course right on the sand, so I planned on being at mile 1 so I could also catch them coming back at mile 2. I checked the GPS on my phone and headed down the beach.

I have a pretty good idea how far a mile is, but it is VERY different when you're trying to lug 3 gallons of fluids in a giant bucket. It was awkward to carry and I was sweaty and exhausted by the time I got into position. My friend Melissa was coincidently out for a morning bike ride on a beach cruiser, so she stopped and offered to keep me company. I poured out a few cups or water and gatorade, and waited for the 4 racers to arrive.

A few minutes later, I saw my friend Alan running towards me in the lead. He had mentioned he wanted to do the race, but I hadn't seen him yet that morning. Hooray Alan! I handed off some water to him. Behind him was another runner. And another. And a pack behind them. Thank goodness Melissa had shown up. I could barely keep up with pouring new cups as she started handing them out to people. It wasn't much longer before we were giving out drinks on both sides - sprinters returning at mile two and joggers/walkers at mile 1.

My friends Ed and Chad also came running by, as did Melissa's teen son Tucker. Tucker is athletic but hadn't done any recent running, and he was cramping up when he got to us. He was thinking about staying with us or just turning back, but I didn't allow it. He walked it out and stretched a bit and was feeling better and continued the course. We were very proud of him for sticking with it.

I assumed that many of the runners may have never done an official 5k before, and even the experienced one probably never ran such a "casual" race. I was yelling to everyone "throw your cup on the ground! we'll pick it up for you!" Of course, I hardly had any time to clean up. Fortunately, there was hardly any wind so I was able to run around from time to time and didn't lose a single cup.

Last year they had 28 people, so I assumed at most maybe we would get 50 people this time, and the 3 gallons would be enough. It wasn't. The organizer estimated he had 70 people this year, and I handed out over 100 cups. Unfortunately, the last 20 people or so didn't get their water break at mile 2. Sorry!

I went back to the starting line and was pleased to see how many people were sticking around to see every last racer come in. I was speaking to the family of the final finishers: it was a boy with asthma doing the race with his grandfather. Very cool. My friend Alan wound up finishing in 3rd place and won a gift certificate from the local ice cream joint.

I spoke with Bill about NEXT year's event. We're already talking about getting more volunteers and having food and drink available to runners at the finish line. I'm pretty sure he wants to keep it completely "off the books" - as soon as he charges an entry fee, even if it's just $5, he's going to need to worry about permits and security and and who knows what else so I think it will just remain a very casual fun event, as it should be.

Here's the official race report from Bill. I get a shout out: "We also had two water stops...sponsored by a vacationer, Mike (an Ironman)." It still makes me giggle to be referred to that way.

Click here for more photos.

Wiped Out

2011-08-07T10:34:00.000-07:00

I have a strange job.

One of my responsibilities is to research emerging video platforms - all those devices that let you watch TV without a TV: Smart phones, tablets, game consoles. So our department has a few Xbox systems in storage. When the Communications Group wanted to host a series of employee demos to promote the launch of the Wipeout Game for Xbox Kinect, they came to me.

For those not familiar, Kinect is a motion-capture system for Xbox. You use your body to control the game. You run, jump, duck, stretch... do everything in real life that you want your on-screen character to do. And Wipeout is the crazy, wildly popular obstacle course game show on ABC, home of the Big Red Balls (check local listings).

Wipeout and Kinect are a great combination. And the game is a lot of fun. Over the past week, I hosted three 2-hour demos of the game. While the main purpose was to let other people try it out, I had to show them how the game worked. A lot. Which meant a lot of running in place, jumping, and stretching. Ths is pretty much the only exercise ive done over the past two weeks. And somehow in the process I managed to pull a hamstring. Yes, I have a videogame injury. Three days later, I am still sore. Every now and then I'll be walking along, minding my own business, when YEOW! My leg gives out and I'm in a lot of pain.

I would file a Worker's Comp claim but I'd be too embarrassed to explain the cause of my injury. I'm trying to find a Kinect: Rehab game to fix up my leg.

Cups Runneth Over

2011-08-05T12:43:00.000-07:00

A while ago, my Horrible Friend Steve called me up at work sounding very excited. He told me "meet me outside in 10 minutes...I have something for you." He drove over to my office and showed up with this:

This is a one pound package of peanut butter cups. It is not a bag of candy; it has 2 cups, each one weighing 1/2 pound. Steve thought it was the greatest thing ever, but I just looked at it in terror.

I was training for the Pasadena Marathon, and although I wasn't keeping a very strict diet this was completely off the scale. I knew that I would just have to hang on to it until after the race because it was going to make sick. People told me - in all seriousness - that I could simply cut off pieces of the peanut butter cups and basically nibble on them over the course of a week. Do these people even know me? I was pretty sure I could split the package into 2 servings, but there is no way I could ever eat only part of a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. Regardless of how big it was.

So the package taunted me for a while. But then, a few days after the race, I finally sat down to complete my mission. I would eat one peanut butter cup. Well, technically that's not true: in order to give a sense of scale for the photo, I bought a package of 2 standard peanut butter cups. I had to eat them first as sort of a warm-up, so I actually ate 3 cups.

Truthfully, the first half of the cup was a piece of cake (so to speak). I as wondering to myself why I was ever worrying about eating it. But about 3/4 of the way in, it started to hit me: that's a lot of chocolate and peanut butter. But I stayed the course and finished. And the next day, I downed the other one. Did I get sick from them? Not really, but I was very glad I wasn't doing any running for a few days.

Steve is a horrible friend.

Twist of fate

2011-07-25T20:01:00.000-07:00

So I went for a little bike ride with my new cleats over the weekend and thought everything was OK. Well, I was wrong.

My legs were feeling a little funny yesterday, and now - 2 days later - they are hurting again. The pain is in odd, very specific places: on the side of my shins and under my ankles. I know this plain from when my leg was twisting the last time I tried swapping out the cleats.

It drives me crazy. I think by now it's fair to say that by some measures I am a "serious cyclist." I've climbed many hills, done many century rides, and completed three Ironman races. So why the frak can't I even pedal a bike without injuring myself?! Part of me feels like I should go in for a bike fit, but I just can't seem to rationalize paying over $100 just to tweak some shoes. And frankly I'm too embarrassed to go in just for a "cleat fitting" because it seems like something that any normal person should be able to adjust completely on their own.

I'll do another ride and try to fine tune them some more. But it's just really upsetting to me that it's just not working. The hard part of cycling is supposed to be climbing and doing intervals and getting the miles in. I can't even get past clipping in properly.

Your Number is Up

2011-07-24T16:53:00.001-07:00

How long is "too long" to keep a race number on your bike after an event?

Some people believe you should take it off basically as soon as you get home, but I think that's a bit extreme. A race number is a bit of a badge of honor, and I feel it's OK to show it off a bit. Plus, it can be a good conversation-starter when you see someone with a race number later that week.

I joined the Tri Team in Malibu for a workout, just to do the bike ride. Laura was there, talking about the Vineman Half she did the week before. Someone saw the race number on my bike and asked "oh, did you do Vineman too?" Ever-supportive Laura just laughed and said "are you kidding? He's had that number on since October!" Yes, I still have my Kona race number on my bike but I think I have a good excuse.

As I explained, I think it's OK to leave a race number on for a week. And a good cyclist will ride at least 3 times a week. Well, this was only the third time I've been on the bike since Kona: I did a ride along the L.A. river in January, I did a Wednesday night ride in Griffith a few weeks ago, and now Malibu. So since this was only my third ride, in "training time" it only counts as one week, right? Fine. I'll take off the stupid number.

This was the first time I rode with my "new" cleats. (I tried swapping them out before Kona, but abandoned the idea.) I had to stop along the road to make a few adjustments, but I think they basically worked out OK. The ride felt fine.

Well, except for the part where we rode past a GIANT snake. I don't know kind of monsters they have growing out in Malibu, but this was no ordinary garter snake. It had one of those creepy diamond-shaped heads like a copperhead or, as Laura thought, a cobra. (As far as I know, she did not actually think it was a cobra.) Whatever it was, Did Not Like.

But in general, an uneventful morning. It felt kind of silly to drive 45 miles each way in order to bike 18 miles, but it was nice to be back with the group again. And I do have the Malibu Triathlon relay to do in less than 2 months, so I need to get some mileage in quickly.

Pasadena Marathon Race Report

2011-05-23T22:40:00.000-07:00

Not a great picture, huh? Not a great race.

It was raining pretty hard as drove all of 7 miles to the start of the Pasadena Marathon. I had a long-sleeved tech shirt in the car with me, but it looked like the rain was starting to ease up so I decided not to wear it for the race. Sure enough, the rain had stopped completely by the 6:30 am starting time.

By 6:31 however, it started raining again. And it was cold. With a little bit of wind. I was feeling pretty unhappy up until mile 4, at which point I became just plain miserable. The streets of Pasadena were completely soaked and between my poor eyesight and the rain I couldn't really judge the depth of the water on the road. I managed to step into a huge puddle with my left foot, pretty much completely submerging it. Great. I had a soaked foot and 22 miles to go. That will become important later.

As unpleasant as the race conditions were, things were made a bit brighter by the fact that I knew a lot of other people who were out there running, and misery loves company. Around mile 7 I thought I heard a voice behind me scream out "Wedgie!". I turned around, didn't see anything, and kept on running. Ten seconds later I heard it again, only closer this time: "WEDGIE!" It was Gabe and Joe, who decided to bandit the race. Now then, I understand why people enjoy running races without registering for them- it's a great training run with closed roads and support every mile. But if you're going to bandit a race, DON'T DO IT WHEN IT'S RAINING! If you're not registered, stay home, stay dry, stay in bed. These are crazy people.

I knew that Mr. Pusateri was volunteering for the event and was stationed at the Mile 8 water station. Before the race, he offered to have Mtn. Dew or Peanut Butter Cups or anything else waiting for me, and it was REALLY tempting. But I knew I would only wind up chugging the entire bottle and getting myself sick (I have no will power) so I told not to worry about it. I did however enjoy screaming out "PUSATERI!!!!" 50 yards before I even saw him to make sure I received personalized service with my water. And because he was on an out-and-back section of the course, he was able to serve me again at mile 12.

A little side note about the support stations: they were awful. I don't mean to take anything away from the wonderful volunteers (especially at Mile 8/12) but they just weren't well-supplied. My guess is that less than half of them had any of the Genericaid power drink they were serving, or if they DID have it the cups were hidden or you had to request it. I think the only official course food I saw was some oranges at mile 13. There were some WONDERFUL people who lived around mile 16 who stood in front of their house handing out pretzels. They did this of their own accord and Thank God for them. But race organizers should not rely on random strangers to pick up their slack.

So remember that puddle I stepped in at mile 4? Well I started feeling a blister coming on around mile 12. And I did a brilliant/idiotic thing: I changed my gait to take some pressure off of my left toes. Less pressure = less friction = less spreading of the blister. And my left foot was THRILLED about that. However, as it turns out my right foot wasn't too happy about it. Neither were all of the muscles in the side of my legs. I don't know what muscles you have on the sides of your legs, but apparently they all kicked in with my new running style.

I tried to work around the wet foot as long as I could but I basically crashed around mile 19 and stopped running. There is nothing unusual about me walking during a marathon, but this was different. I was hobbling- it was painful for me to walk. I knew things were bad when one of the traffic cops asked me if I was OK as I limped past him. And since this was an out and back section, I had several other people check on me as they ran past. I must have looked awful. One person who DIDN'T think I looked awful was my Iron-Brother Rich. He was a few miles ahead of me and gave me his usual pep-talk and support as he came back on the return loop. It gave me a brief reason to smile.

I limped for about a mile and a half, and it really did hurt. But during those 30 minutes or so, my legs were loosening up again. I stopped worrying about the potential blister on my foot (the least of a my worries) and tried to walk as normal as possible. At mile 21, I tried running again. And it worked. I was actually able to move at a relative decent pace again.

Just before mile 24, I saw spectator Gerald coming up the course in the opposite direction. (Gerald wasn't in the race, but he had already run the last half of the marathon with Brian to help pace him. I have crazy friends.) I had two simultaneous yet opposite thoughts when I saw Gerald: the first was "hooray! It's Gerald! It's always good to see a friend supporting you during a race." The second reaction was "oh fudge, it's Gerald, he's going to make me run faster." Sure enough, when he saw me he said "hi...I'm going to be your Guardian Angel for the next 2.4 miles."

Guardian Devil was more like it. Everything was a negotiation: he'd say "you can walk for one minute, then we're going to run again." I'd say "I think I need two minutes of rest." "We'll split the difference - 90 seconds." "Fine." It was like that the entire rest of the course.

I debated letting Gerald in on a little secret - this was a far from being my best marathon, and I was at risk at it being my worst non-Ironman marathon. I had to beat 4:58, and with 30 minutes to go it was going to be close. To be honest, I pretty much didn't care. I was sore and tired and I just wanted it to be over. Eventually I just pulled the trigger and told Gerald about my goal time.

It was the best mistake I made of the day. I say "mistake" because it meant more pain for me as Gerald started running faster and kept revising our target paces. As he put it, "no PW (personal worst) on my watch!" The funny thing is that he was throwing out all these numbers at me, then telling me "I'm no good at math." Well, I AM good at math, and his numbers seemed really fast to me. But I was not one to argue (well, maybe a little bit) and I at least tried to keep up.

We saw Heather with about a half-mile to go who was a big fat liar for telling me I looked strong and had great form. Gerald also kept lying by telling me "you're almost done!" I don't thing he knows what that means, because I was "almost done" for a really long time.

Eventually I did make it to the end and I had a great reception from my tri-buddies who stuck around to see me finish. And I had two minutes to spare- it wasn't a PW! (a very minor victory, but I'll take it.) I didn't care about my finish time at mile 25, but I did care about it at mile 26.3. Thanks Gerald.

It was - absolutely - a bad race. But I saw a bunch of friends competing in the various races, volunteering at the event, and cheering people from the sidelines. So that sounds like an overall pretty good day to me.

Pasadena Marathon Weather Report

2011-05-15T15:39:00.000-07:00

True story: Over a century ago, the Lord God made a deal with the good people of Pasadena. He said unto them: "OK, look... I know thou'st enjoy having the Rose Parade on New Year's Day. But Sunday belongs to ME. So tell you what: you don't hold the Rose Parade on Sunday, and I'll make sure you have good weather for it." And the good people of Pasadena said unto the Lord God: "Deal!" And so, if January 1st falls on a Sunday, they push the parade back to Monday. And the parade has had good weather pretty much every year.

So what happens when the good people of Pasadena try to hold a marathon on Sunday? The inaugural event 3 years ago was scheduled for a lovely autumn Sunday. But Los Angeles basically caught on fire and they cancelled the race just HOURS before start time because there was so much ash in the air. They rescheduled the event for a Sunday in February, and they had torrential downpours and wind. The second year was OK. This year, again, lots of rain and wind for the first 2 hours or so. In 4 attempts to hold a race on Sunday, Pasadena has experienced 3 Wraths Of God. When will these people learn? God wants Pasadena to be a Holy city.

Don't be surprised if next year's event is cancelled on account of locusts.

Agoura Hills Half Marathon

2011-05-13T22:07:00.001-07:00

I did the Pacific Half Marathon, part of the Great Race of Agoura Hills festival.

I'm in training (supposedly) for the Pasadena Marathon in May, and for a while I was doing pretty well with getting out there for my runs. But then I went on a ski trip for a week, then I went to Vegas, then we had huge rainfall in L.A. The Pacific Half was basically going to be a training run, but I was a little worried about how well I would handle a long run after a couple weeks of slacking.

When I got to the race site, it was thirty-five degrees. Thir. Ty. Five. The last time I did a race, it was 85 degrees with Hula girls. I was not pleased.

My friends Jana and Susan were doing the race, and I also saw Speedy Brian there. But I was actually doing the race with my co-worker Jason. Jason had never done any kind of race before - not even a 5k - and is registered to do the Pasadena Marathon in May.

The race start was pretty cool (and not just in terms of temperature); it took place at Paramount Ranch, which is a fake western town built for filming movies for Paramount. It was a little surreal kicking things off in the late 1800s, and I recommend it as a place to visit on warmer days (it's part of a park open to the public.)

Jason and I planned on doing the race together, and he told me he wanted to do a 9:45 pace. Fine. The gun went off, we started running, and finished the first mile in about 8 minutes. That's to be expected; you always go out fast at the beginning. After 2 miles, we were still doing an 8-minute pace. OK, there was a slight downhill in the second mile so it's not surprising if we were a little fast. Mile 3 had a big climb, followed by a big downhill, and by the end of it we were still averaging about 8:10s.

At this point I was a little worried. I know that you can't bank extra time in a long race. Any fast miles you do early on, you will pay for - with interest - at the end. I warned Jason about this but he said he was feeling fine. Who was I to question him? Maybe he could keep up this pace for the entire distance (but I knew there was no way I'd be able to do it.)

A note about the hills: a lot of people complained about how hilly the course was. The big joke was "it's the great race of Agoura HILLS, not Agoura Flats." And yes, it was pretty much rolling hills the entire way. But truthfully? I didn't think the climbs were all that bad. I've done a lot of hill stuff in Griffith over the past year so I felt fairly well-prepared for Agoura.

We kept a pretty good pace up until around mile 10. At that point, I told Jason I would "allow" him to walk to the top of the next hill. Wasn't that nice of me? (I intentionally didn't tell him that I really needed a break too.) We also took another brief walk-break at mile 12 as well.

But we finished strong crossing the finish line. We started the race side-by-side, we finished side-by-side, but the way the electronic race timing worked out Jason was clocked in at one second faster than me. He beat me. Curses!

We went to get our pictures taken together in front of the finisher's panel. Now something you need to know: although this was Jason's first race ever, he is no stranger to athletics or the gym. In fact, a recurring theme throughout the day was him complaining about how much muscle mass he's lost since he started running.

So when we went to take the photo, the picture-lady said "you guys should flex." Now I've probably had 100s of race photos taken of me and I've never been asked to flex. I simply said "we're not doing that." She persisted "come on, make a muscle." Jason was all gun-ho (sic.) about it but I was like "yeah, that ain't gonna happen." So she took the stupid picture.

I was a little underprepared for the race, but it was a good kick in the butt to get back into full marathon training at the time. Unfortunately, I didn't quite stick with it and now this weekend is the big race. We'll see what happens.

WINNER!

2011-04-16T17:43:00.000-07:00

Poor Charlie Sheen.

He's had a rough couple of weeks, and I suppose it was inevitable that he finally have a nervous breakdown. Can you imagine having to show up to work every day and have to deal with that evil, evil Jon Cryer?

For the uninitiated, Jon Cryer is my arch-nemesis. It began in 2005 when I crushed him at the Nautical Malibu Triathlon. He is such a sore loser, and it his been his life goal to torment me. He has a way of getting into your head, and as a result he has beaten me every year since.

Don't believe me? Scroll through these articles and videos and be appalled at how cruel and cocky he is towards me.

So to Charlie Sheen, I say this: I understand your pain. I know how horrible Jon Cryer can be. Be strong and don't give him the satisfaction of getting to you. It's too late for me, but you can still save yourself.

The Silent Treatment

2011-02-22T21:21:00.000-08:00

My first triathlon was the Nautica Malibu Tri and I was so excited to be there as part of a team. Every time I saw someone in a Disney uniform during the race I'd yell "Go Disney!" The problem is that the bike and run are out-and-back courses, and we had several hundred people on our team. And I learned the hard way just how tiring it can be using up your breath cheering/talking while racing.

I was especially worried about saving my breath in Kona. Of course I was wearing my Disney uniform, and the truth is crowds love cheering for Disney. And I milk it a bit, so I get some good support from people I don't know. I am very grateful to them and I like to acknowledge their support, but I can't holler back every time. During the bike, it was easy; when people cheered for me I would squeeze my Killer Whale Squeaky Horn and they loved it. During the run, I would flash them the "hang loose" sign which seemed appropriate for Hawaii. And that got me through most of the race.

Around mile 23 of the marathon, I was hurting a bit. It was dark, I was alone in the middle of nowhere, and running up hill. A lone woman was out there cheering telling me "good job! You're almost finished!" I didn't have the strength to give her a hang-loose but I lifted my hand a few inches as a sort of half-wave.

But then, God bless her little heart, she asked me "what's your name?" Crap. Now I had to respond and I told her "Michael". But it didn't come out too strong. Imagine asking a four-year-kid who is lost in a store what his name is, and hearing him shyly whisper "mic...hael". That's what I sounded like. She said something like "good job Michael!" but I didn't care. I was just so mad that she made me actually speak.

Things were worse about two miles later. I had a mile to go and I saw Steve. He seemed downright giddy to see me. He could not have been more enthusiastic and supportive: he ran alongside me for a bit screaming "you're almost there! You're finished!" And then, God bless his big heart, he asked me "How are you feeling?"

139 miles into the Ironman World Championships, how could I possibly answer that? I was excited and relieved and hurting and tired and feeling a dozen other things. Somehow just answering "fine" didn't seem appropriate. But more importantly, I didn't think I had the strength to reply. It sounds crazy, but I was actually afraid to say anything, that speaking a single word might make me collapse.

So I just kept quiet. And what did my good buddy Steve do? He called me on it. He yelled out "oh what, so you're just going to ignore me?" Boy, now I was in trouble. I probably coulda/shoulda just given him a quick "feel fine" message but I was still terrified to give up a single breath. So I just figured I would ask for forgiveness later. I think a part of me was laughing inside (DEEP inside) that I just ignored him, but another part of me was thinking "ouch, I'm gonna pay for this later!"

Fifteen minutes later I did see Steve again, this time on the better side of the finish line. I did try ask forgiveness but he said I didn't need it. Which is a good thing because I didn't have much breath to plead my case anyway.

The Nose Knows Not

2011-02-16T23:38:00.000-08:00

I'm losing my hair, and my eyesight, and my tolerance for young whippersnappers, but I have maintained at least one aspect from my youth: my skin still breaks out. If I am sick or stressed, I will sometimes get a small flare-up on my nose. So I keep some skin cleanser with benzoil peroxide handy. It's basically acid that burns your skin and that's somehow a good thing.

I had a flare-up this week, so it was time to try to clean it up. I grabbed a tube from the bathroom drawer and rubbed the white cream on my nose and forehead. You're supposed to leave it on for 5 minutes, but it wasn't really tingling the way it normally does so I left it on while watching TV - a good half hour.

I went to wash it off, and it still wasn't tingling. Very odd. That's when I realized I had put Butt'r Cream on my face- the skin lubricant that I rub on all my sensitive places before running or biking (yes, ALL places). It comes in the same kind of tube as the cleanser, it has the same look and consistency, so it was an honest mistake. No harm done.

But here's what frightens me: if I can accidentally put Butt'r Cream on my face, what's going to keep me from rubbing cleanser on my chafe-sensitive areas some day? I'm only guessing here, but I suspect filling your tri-shorts with extra-strength benzoil peroxide would NOT be a pleasant experience.

If/when it happens, I'll be sure to let you know.

Mr. Race Man

2011-02-13T22:15:00.000-08:00

I was running along one of the trails in Griffith Park today and came across a lovely family out for a stroll. The mother and father were each carrying a sleepy child in their arms, and there was third boy walking ahead of them. He was, oh, about this old. (Picture me holding out my hand at about the height where a four-year-old's head would reach.) As I ran passed him, he called out "hi there, Mister Race Man!"

Oh, the precious little angel!

I am Mister Race Man! I glanced back and gave him a quick smile and a wave, and a big "hi there!".

If you're going to interrupt me on a run, THAT's the way to do it.

Kona: The run, miles 13-26.2

2011-02-08T10:19:00.000-08:00

So where was I? I was halfway through the marathon, I had walked the past 2.5 miles and had 13 to go. It was time to reassess my race plan.

Here's how the math worked out: I had to do 13-minute miles to finish with a PR of 14:30. My original plan called for 12-minute miles, so I was actually in pretty good shape. But this is where things got interesting: if I did 11-minute miles, I would beat 14 hours.

Now you might think it would be obvious to try to run 11's and if it didn't work out just go back to 13's. But endurance running doesn't work that way. If I bonked, then for every 11-minute mile I did I might pay for it by walking a 16, 18, or 20-minute mile later on and I'd completely miss the PR.

In all honesty, I ran a pretty good technical race all day long. But the thing I am most proud of is that it took me all of about 2 seconds to decide to go for the 14-hour finish. There really wasn't any debate. I was in Hawaii for the Ironman World Freaking Championships and I would rather burn out going for it than playing it safe.

So I started running. And running and running. I trained by doing 5-minute walk breaks every hour but I had no time for that now. I would walk for 15 seconds to take a drink at the aid stations but that was it.

And speaking of aid stations... I was avoiding all solid food for the first 13 miles because I was worried about cramping and I finally allowed myself to eat some pretzels. I don't know how much the impact was physical and how much was mental but it really did feel good.

If I have one regret for the day, it's that I didn't experience the true Energy Lab. This is the turn-around point of the run where most people are baking in the hot afternoon sun. I experienced the winds on the bike, I certainly experienced heat it the first part of the run. But by the time I hit the Energy Lab the sun was far below the horizon. It was dark, and cool - and I hate to say it - pleasant running conditions. So I was "in" the Energy Lab, but I was not "of" the Energy Lab.

When I say it was dark along the run, I mean it wad DARK. For most of the run there were no streetlights. There was no ambient light rising up from town because THERE WAS NO TOWN. We were running through lava fields in the middle of nowhere. I could barely see the road right in front of me. The most frustrating thing is that in some places it was too dark for me to read the mile-markers. I would pass a piece of plastic on the course and wonder "was that a mile-marker? Or a kilometer marker? Or just an arrow?" Dark.

I don't know how I did it, but when I was able to see a marker and check my pace, every mile was 11 minutes. Not 10:55, not 11:05, but 11. I constantly tried to pick up the pace a bit, but it just wasn't happening.

For the last few miles, I don't remember being in pain so much as I just felt... drained. Like I didn't have even enough energy to feel any pain, so maybe that was a good thing. I do remember sighing and grunting a lot, especially every time I came to a "hill." If you were in a car you would barely notice the inclines, but after biking 112 miles and running 20, they seemed enormous.

It was right at mile 25 that I realized just how tight it was going to be to make 14 hours. I think I had about 12 minutes to go and 1.2 miles. I wouldn't make it at my current pace, but fortunately there was a big downhill section heading back into town (this was the same hill that wiped me out trying to run up it a few hours before). I just relaxed my legs as best I could and let myself fall down the hill.

The hill heads straight for the finish line. You can see the lights, you can hear the music, you can hear Mike Reilly calling out "You are an Ironman!" to each of the finishers. But then, in some perverse cruel prank, you have to turn 90 degrees and run AWAY from the finish line for several blocks. That really stung.

Originally I had big plans on how to finish. This was my one shot at Kona, and I wanted to soak in the finish line as much as possible. I was going to basically walk through the chute, high-fiving everybody I could. When I got to my support crew, there would be hugs all around and I'd stop for a few pictures. I coined a phrase for it: I was going to "milk the chute".

Well all that changed when I realized how close I was to 14 hours. I didn't think I was going to make it, but I also knew that they weren't using my $29 wristwatch as official race time. My watch could have easily been a minute fast so maybe I did have some extra time. I didn't want to take any chances so I threw out any plans of milking the chute.

I "ran" the last mile as fast as I could, although I know it felt much faster than it really was. I saw my support crew, but they were acting strangely. You'd think they would have been pointing at me and cheering me on, but instead they were all pointing at a strange woman in the crowd. That was my mother, who flew out to watch the race without telling me and this was the first time I saw her. (Full story here.)

Somehow I managed not to trip over my own feet while turning my head 180 degrees to see my mother and I raced for the finish line. I still wasn't sure what the time was, and it wasn't until I had maybe 50 yards to go that I saw the official race clock. It was past 14:00, but not 14:01, and I was thrilled.

Official time: 14:00:51. I got a P.R, in Kona, beating my previous Ironman best by almost a half hour. It was a helluva day.

Triathlon's Biggest Douchebag

2011-01-18T09:34:00.001-08:00

Some of you felt that the guy who gave me advice during my run this weekend was a douchebag. I think that's a bit harsh - it was a little weird but at least he was well-intentioned. To give some perspective on what a REAL douchebag is, I've been sitting on this post for a while but was reluctant to share it. Perhaps it's time.

Shortly after Kona, the internet was naturally filled with discussions about the race. One individual posted something to a public forum which rather upset me. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Triathlon's Biggest Douche:

Yes, that is an exact quote and that is a photo of him I found online. I responded "you are free to try to spit on my medal any time you like."

To make matters worse, he's not just some cocky triathlete. He's a USA Triathlon certified coach. That's right, this douchebag is teaching other people about triathlon. Apparently the USAT's sportsmanship clauses don't apply to him.

I do wish him the best of luck in his racing and coaching endeavors. Because if he's successful, then maybe he'll get invited to give seminars and workshops. And I will show up, stand up in a room full of fellow triathletes, and ask him if he would like to spit on my medal.

Douche. Bag.

Wedgie Shrugged

2011-01-17T00:04:00.000-08:00

Quick story about a little encounter I had this weekend...

First of all, you should know this: I haven’t been training much. I ran 8 miles of the IMAZ course in November when I still had some Kona conditioning, then I ran 3 miles about a week ago. Not good. Yesterday I went out for a 5-mile run.

A guy passed me along the trail. Nothing special about that, I get passed frequently, but I did notice this guy was wearing a black tri-bib outfit with a white long-sleeved shirt over it. This is Los Angeles in January, and it was about 80 degrees when I was out there. And I remember thinking “dude, seriously... you are WAY overdressed.”

About a mile down the trail, he had turned around so I saw him again. He stopped me and asked if he could give me some “advice.” He was probably a little younger than me, certainly in better shape but it’s not like he was Stuart Anderson or anything. (Laura, that’s for you.) So I just told him “sure.” Then I noticed that he was wearing an Ironman World Championships finishers cap (2007) so I felt this instant connection and thought he might give me some super-secret training tip.

Instead, he told me that I was shrugging my shoulders and looked like I was too tight as I ran. He also said that it looked like I was in pain. These are rookie mistakes and to be honest I felt a little embarrassed to be called out about it. I should have just said “thank you” and moved on, but I was also a little defensive. I've been feeling a little insecure lately so for some reason I felt the need to both build myself up AND provide excuses. So I pointed out his hat and said “you did Kona? I did it back in October and I really haven’t done any training since then and I’m just starting to get back into it so I'm a little rusty."

Well apparently he didn’t feel any bond or connection because he just repeated “yeah well bring your shoulders down, you’re too tight.” I told him “thanks, have a good run” and left.

Now you may ask yourself, “well Wedgie, WERE you in pain and shrugging your shoulders?” THAT’S NOT THE POINT! Did you ever think that maybe I wouldn’t be so tense if people didn’t tell me I was running incorrectly? So there.

Kona: The Run, miles 1-13

2011-01-04T11:01:00.001-08:00

When I watch other people race, I am very nervous for them. So when I'm racing, I worry about other people being nervous about me. I wanted to make sure my support crew knew everything was OK. I saw them right at the very start of the run, and they just started chanting "Wedg-ie! Wedg-ie!" Which was nice and everything, but I was trying to get them to shut up so that I could issue a statement. They just wouldn't stop cheering me- how rude. They finally quieted down, and I simply said to them "I'm having a lot of fun."

And that was absolutely true. I WAS having a lot of fun. I had a good swim, a good bike, and was still just in awe of the fact that I was racing in Kona.

This may sound contradictory, but although I had fun all day (and night) long, the run itself was most definitely not "fun". Those first ten miles or so were HOT. I did a lot of heat training in L.A. but Kona was just a whole other level of pain. I think they should have had aid stations every 1/2 mile because the cold sponges they were handing out (thank God for them) would only last a few minutes stuffed under my hat or in my tri-top.

I saw Stephanie about a mile into the run, and she ran with me for a couple hundred yards or so. Poor Sara was busy sipping Mai Tais or something when I came by, and Stephnaie guilted her into putting down her drink to come run with us. Her sacrifice is duly noted.

You may recall I had a fantastic T2. Well the truth is, I kind of cheated. I wanted to have fresh socks for the marathon, so I packed an extra pair in my T2 bag and was supposed to change them in transition. But I really was going for a fast T2, so I decided I would just take them with me and change at the first aid station. I don't know what i was thinking, but I just assumed there would be chairs waiting for me in the support areas. Of course there wasn't any place to sit down. Instead, I found a small tree with a somewhat-horizontal branch on it and kind of tried to balance on it while changing my socks. It was awkward to say the least. I certainly would have changed much faster in T2, but I have no regrets.

Here was my plan for the marathon: run 55 minutes, walk 5 minutes. Run 55, walk 5. Repeat. I would do an average of 12-minute miles, (5 miles each hour) which would let me finish in about 5:15, with a 15-minute buffer to meet my 5:30 marathon goal. This is how I trained, it worked very well in rehearsals in Griffith Park.

The first 5 miles took me about 1:04. A little slow, but that time included the changing of the socks and also a bathroom break (again, I didn't pee in T2 like I should have because I wanted the best T2 possible.) The next 5 miles took me about an hour, so I was right on pace. The problem is that during my second 5-minute walk, I saw Annie and the support crew. Now I know that the worst thing to see when watching a race is to see your athlete walking during the marathon. It usually means they've bonked. So I felt bad for them potentially feeling bad for me, so I kept reassuring them, "no, this is normal. I'm SUPPOSED to be walking now. I'm actually right on schedule, everything is fine!" (Was I telling them that, or trying to convince myself?) They walked with me for a few minutes until I hit the 2-hour mark and then I started running again. Left them in the dust.

Somewhere between mile 10 and 11 there is a hill leaving town. It's somewhat steep, but maybe only 5 blocks long. A first I thought I should just walk up it, but since it wasn't my scheduled walk-time I was worried about "cheating" this early in the race. I assumed there would be plenty of times later on I'd want to do some extra walking. So I ran up the hill.

Big mistake. It just completely wiped me out. By the time I got to the top I was exhausted and cramping and my stomach wa s feeling really bloated. At the mile 10.5 aid station, I pulled over to do the Steve Kern Maneuver (sticking your fingers down your throat to force a gag reflex.) I didn't puke, but I was able to spit up some gross colors and it really did make me feel much better. It was kind of funny, I was thinking to myself that I was making some really loud, disgusting noises but that it was OK: this is the Ironman World Championships and I was not going to let a little thing like personal dignity get in the way of my race.

By mile 11, I was walking and I knew I had to come up with a Plan B. I told myself I would walk to mile 13, the halfway point, and then reassess my situation. And I also told myself I wasn't going to worry about it. I wasn't in much danger of not finishing, and I was still looking at a possible PR. So I just walked.

Part of my problem was that I was under-nourished. I needed calories. The Ironman Perform drink wasn't cutting it, but I told myself I would not eat any solid food until after mile 13. You might think "if you're hungry, you should eat." But I know myself. I have very little willpower. I cant just eat one pretzel. I knew that if I got just one little taste of that Salty Slice of Heaven I would just start grabbing handfuls of them. And then 30 minutes later I would start feeling bloated and sick. I was really craving the chicken broth, but unfortunately the stations weren't serving it yet. So it was just water and sports drink for me.

I walked to mile 13 and then it was time to figure out how to handle the second half...

Kona Race Report: T2

2010-11-30T23:20:00.000-08:00

I had a great T2, although it didn't start that way.

The nice thing about Ironman is that they have valet service. At the end of my ride I hopped off my bike, handed it to one of the valets with a few bucks and then went to pick up my bag. The problem was that the transition area was covered with wet, slippery, artificial turf and I was wearing bike shoes. And to make matters worse, they make you run around the entire perimeter of the transition area to get your bag.

I took a few steps and had to grab the fence to keep my balance. One of the volunteers suggested that I take my shoes off, but I hesitated. I didn't want to get my socks wet right before running a marathon. So I tried taking a few more steps, but it was pointless. I took off my shoes and tried to run tippy-toe the entire way to bag pick-up. I was moderately successful at keeping dry.

Basically I only had to put on my running shoes and hat and then fly out on to the course, and that's pretty much what I did. I had a T2 time of 2:47. To put that in perspective, you may have heard of a little triathlete named Andy Potts? His T2 time was only 5 seconds faster than me. I seriously kicked ass in transition.

So what are my secrets to a fast T2?
1) Pack lightly. You don't want to deal with a lot of clutter in your transition bag.
2) Stay focused. Keep calm and pay attention to what you're doing.
3) The most important thing: show up to T2 so much later than everyone else that you have the entire place to yourself and don't have to worry about bumping into anyone else.

Ironman Arizona 2009 spectator report

2010-11-20T21:22:00.000-08:00

So like, I never did my spectator report from Ironman Arizona 2009. Since IMAZ 2010 is this weekend, I figured I should probably take care of that.

IronmAnnie and I decided to walk upstream a bit to watch the swim start. Because the swim takes place in a strange man-made lake/river/bathtub, you can get pretty close to the swimmers during the race. Of course, everyone is wearing a blue or pink swim cap and goggles, so you can never find a specific athlete. There was a naive little girl next to us screaming "hi daddy!" and we thought "awwww, isn't that cute... She thinks she can see her daddy." And then we heard a voice from the water call back "hi sweetheart!" I'm supposed to be a race-spectating expert and this 6-year-old girl totally owned me.

Once the swim started I repositioned myself to watch everyone come into T1. I've been to quite a few races, and I don't think I've ever seen a colder group of people exiting the water. I didn't think Arizona was known for being a cold swim but these were not happy people. Somehow I missed Scary Gary coming out of the water, but I did see Teresa and Stephanie. And then just to keep things exciting, Jersey Jill finished the swim with just a few minutes to spare. Pretty good for someone who didn't know how to swim the year before.

Arizona has a 3-loop bike course, so there are plenty of chances to see individual athletes. But Stephanie had a pretty big entourage watching her race, and it was pretty complicated trying to coordinate positioning for everyone. IronmAnnie and I walked maybe 1/4 - 1/2 mile up the road coming into town so we could be the early lookout for Stephanie. We saw her, she looked great, and then waited to catch her after the turn-around to see her back out for loop #2.

We positioned ourselves on the median so we could easily see her coming in and then watch her again when she headed back out for loop number 2. So we were on her left. Being ever-so-thoughtful, when she came by she rode to the far left side of the lane to get as close to us as possible for good pictures. We cheered and screamed as she whizzed by, and then 3 seconds later WHAM! She crashed.

It seems that in an effort to get closer to us, her wheel caught a groove along the side of the road and took her down. I wouldn't have thought it was possible, but somehow she managed to clip out of both pedals and was lying on her stomach on the pavement with her arms in front of her like Superman.

There was a brief pause, and then we ran over to Stephanie. She was bruised and dazed, but generally OK. The people around us were fantastic: they gave her water and towels to clean up with. One guy gave her bike a quick mechanical check to make sure that the wheels were still aligned and the handlebars were secure.

Annie was amazing. She kept on reassuring Stephanie "you are fine! You're doing great! All that happened is that you have a 2-minute delay in the ride. So what? It doesn't matter. You're awesome!" Stephanie must have bought it, because she was back on her bike and back in the race pretty quickly.

Obviously I was so proud of Stephanie, but I was also really impressed with Annie. I turned to her and said "You handled that perfectly. You knew exactly what to say and what to do and I think you were just amazing with Stephanie." Annie burst into tears and screamed "OH MY GOD I MADE STEPHANIE CRASH IN HER IRONMAN!"

Oh. So that's the way we were going to spin this.

I guess the logic was that if Annie didn't have her camera out, Stephanie wouldn't have come over and wouldn't have crashed. I felt the logic was a little flawed, but I thought it best to tread lightly. The best I could do was remind Annie how quickly Stephanie got back out there. She wasn't hurt (even though I had no idea), and she still had plenty of time to finish the bike ride.

We were the only ones who saw the crash, so Annie said we couldn't tell ANYONE. She didn't want Steph's parents to worry. Now THAT logic I agreed with. So we kept quiet. I was secretly worried that Steph WAS injured a bit, or at least a little nervous and might have a bad second loop, so when we hooked up with the rest of the group I tried not-so-subtly to prepare them for a slow split: "Steph is doing great! It wouldn't surprise me if she takes it easy for the second lap, to save her legs." "It's getting hotter out there, so I bet most people will be slowing down." "Yessirreeee, this will probably be a slow lap for Steph and there will be nothing suspicious or unusual about that."

Well Stephanie still had a decent second lap. But when we saw her again, she was covered in bruises. Her face. Her arms. It was really obvious. And people started asking questions. Questions which shouldn't be asked. "Did she crash? She looks pretty banged up." Of course, I was Mr. Calm. "Bruises? It looked more like dirt to me. And it looks like the ink of her race number is running, that's what all those black marks must be."

Nobody was buying it, and by the time we saw Steph for her 3rd lap we had to come clean. At this point, it had been a couple hours since the crash and her times were still good so it was pretty obvious the crash didn't hurt her race too much.

Arizona is a crazy twisty 3-lap run, so it's actually pretty easy for spectators to move around a bit and catch racers many times throughout the course. So I spent a lot of time crisscrossing bridges. The "funny" thing is that once we could see Steph closer and slower, the bruises were really REALLY noticeable. But I think her battlescars made her a crowd favorite running through the finisher's chute. It was pretty obvious she EARNED her Ironman medal! And with a finish time of 13:25 she did awesome.

Heather, Jen and I caught up with Jill on the course and ran with her for a bit but it just wasn't her day. She missed the cutoff for the 3rd loop and faced it with a smile and an "I'll be back" attitude. She's volunteering at AZ this year and will cross the finish line in 2011.

Arizona really is a great spectator race. It's in the middle of a college town, there are plenty of chances to see your racers, and it's a fairly easy and inexpensive trip from L.A. I highly recommend it. Watching it certainly beats actually DOING an Ironman in the middle of the freakin' desert.

Kona Race Report: The Bike

2010-11-02T21:37:00.000-07:00

I have been told that a smart bike is the key to a good Ironman. In Kona, I decided to test that theory.

Kona does not have a bad elevation profile, but it is notoriously windy. My guess was that I could do the course in 6:30. But if I did that, my legs would be hurting for the run; during my last two Ironmans, my marathons fell apart. So I decided in Kona I would go easier on the bike and would shoot for a 7-hour ride.

I was surprised just how cool the first mile of the bike was. I was already over 90-minutes into the race, but since most of that was spent in the water this was the first time I actually got to see all of the spectators up close lined up along the road. It was amazing; I might as well have been in the Tour de France. (Given a choice between Kona and Le Tour, I'd pick Kona any day.)

There's a small hill that takes you out of town where I saw Craig and Jana standing on the side of the road. I was in a really good mood and thought it would be fun to high-five them as I went by. That worked out fine, but afterwards I realized that taking my hand off the bike while climbing and trying to ride close to the curb makes me a bit unstable. I wont be doing that again.

Once you leave town you get to the famous black lava fields pretty quickly. And for a while, everything about the race changed. We were pretty spread out; there was never a time when I couldn't see another cyclist, but there were long stretches when the nearest racer wasn several hundred yards away. And then an odd feeling came over me... After all the chaos of the swim and then riding through town, things suddenly felt... Peaceful. I wasn't racing; I was essentially by myself, out for a bike ride in the middle of a lava field in Hawaii. Which just happened to be part of the Ironman World Championship. I am always wound pretty tight and stressed about something, but this was almost a Zen-experience. It was wonderful.

Well, the Zen didn't last too long because we had to go out to Hawi. There is a long, steady climb into town and - truthfully? - it was easy. I do a lot of hill training and I kept an easy, steady pace and the hill was nothing.

The infamous winds however were not nothing. I remembered something that Michellie Jone said on an Ironman DVD: "I make that turn up to Hawi, I look and see if there are any whitecaps. If there are whitecaps, I know it’s going to be a tough tough wind day." So I looked out to the ocean, and I swear it looked like it was snowing out there. White water everywhere. Yikes.

I couldn't believe how little control I had of my bicycle. I would try to stay right on the shoulder line and the next instant I'd be on the far side of the lane. At one point I was blown into the other incoming-traffic lane, although technically it wasn't my fault. I was passing a guy on the left, then he got blown across the lane and I had to steer across the yellow line to avoid him. Fortunately, everyone in the incoming lane was also being blown off to the side so there were no collisions. I don't know how far I was leaning sideways into the wind myself, but the people around me certainly looked like were doing a good 30 degrees. And God forbid you want to take a drink and actually take one hand off the handlebars. That was suicide.

This is the elevation for the bike:

You would think that it would be a difficult first half and then smooth sailing once you hit the turn-around at the top of the hill in Hawi. No. We had a headwind all the way back to Kona. Aside from the initial descent, I felt like I was riding uphill all the way home. The last 30 miles were as tiring as the first 80 miles.

After the race, I pieced together reviews of the winds from people who have done the race before. The general consensus was that the winds weren't as bad as previous years, but with two caveats:

1) The gusts were as strong, it's just that they weren't as frequent as in other years.
2) The later in the day you were on the course, the worse the winds were. I'm guessing Macca had it easier than I did.

I'm glad that we didn't have a bad wind day overall. But I'm grateful that I still had to deal with the winds. I wanted to have the full Kona Experience, the good and the bad. I felt like I did.

When I first heard that there would be aid stations every 5 miles on the bike, I thought that sounded like overkill. But during the race, they couldn't come fast enough. The one nice thing about the wind was that it kept our skin fairly cool but it was still a hot sun out there. At every aid station, I would grab a water bottle, chug one-half to two-thirds of it, then dump the rest on my legs or head. I've never drank so much on a ride ever, and that was probably a smart move.

I had one sharp cramp in my leg at mile 110. It wasn't exactly they way I wanted to finish the ride, but it went away pretty quickly. I popped an extra salt tablet for good measure (I had been taking tablets about once an hour.)

I wanted to do a fairly-easy 7-hour bike and I finished in 6:51 so I think I pretty much nailed it. The most important thing was that aside from the last-minute cramp my legs really did feel pretty good coming off the bike. That was the strategy for the entire race.

Kona Race Report: T1

2010-10-29T13:40:00.000-07:00

Typically I'm not very fast in transition, but I made a concerted effort to improve for Ironman. The biggest thing I did was simplify: I decided 2 months ago nit to wear gloves (thanks, Gary). I would wait until I was on my bike to drink. I wouldn't put on sunscreen. All of these little things add up so I got rid of them.

One thing I did not give up was my headsweats bandana thin gee. I have very little natural sun protection on my head (ie hair) so the headsweats is a must. But somehow it got turned inside-out in my transition bag and for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to out it on. First I put It on backwards, then upside down. I probably lost 20 additional seconds working out that puzzle.

My biggest time sink in transition is that I like to pee in T1. I refuse to pee in the water or while moving on the bike. And although I wanted a good T1 time, I knew it would be better to go now than have to stop during the bike. So I lost probably a minute there, but that's non-negotiable.

5:58 T1 time. Respectable enough.

Kona Race Report: The Swim

2010-10-25T15:53:00.000-07:00

Photo credit: Scary Gary

The tone of the swim was set Thursday night at the race meeting. The race director was telling us how important it was to position ourselves correctly for the start: "Some of you who are slower swimmers, around an hour or so, are going to want to seed yourselves toward the back."

One Hour is a "slow" swimmer.

At that rate, I figured I should position myself in the tub in my hotel room for the start.

I was surprised how much dilly-dallying there was getting into the water. It's a water start with a very narrow, slippery staircase bringing people into the water and at 6:55 I was still stuck in the mob very much on dry land. Once I did get in the ocean, I had planned on staying way in the back but there LOTS of cowards just standing in 6 inches of water. So I swam up to the back of the main pack and waited for the start.

I really think I was more excited than nervous. There were helicopters overhead, a hula dancer on the dock, and the race announcer kept yelling that this was the "2010 Ironman World Championship!" There was lots of excitement in the air. But then I remember when I got a chill: after all the hype of the announcer screaming about what an exciting day it was going to be, he suddenly very calmly said "have a great race everybody." His calmness made it personal. Wow. I was actually HERE! I was racing in the biggest, most famous triathlon in the world. Holy Crap! Then the cannon went off.

This was not the typical washing machine Ironman for me. Oh, I still got grabbed and kicked, and still did grabbing and kicking of my own, but I had a fair amount of room because of my position near the back at the start.

I don't know how deep the water got, I've heard around 50-75 feet, but I could always see the bottom. Crystal clear. For the first half mile or so I saw plenty of fish, surprised that they weren't frightened away by all the churning of the water. I was briefly freaked out when I looked down and saw this black six-foot-long creature swim underneath me. Turns out it was just scuba diver with a video camera, but it sure got my heartbeat going.

This was my first time doing a single-loop Ironman swim, so it was a long 1.2 miles out from shore. I tried to keep my eyes on the boat where we did the turn-around waaaaaayyyyyy out there, but there were just enough swells in the ocean to make it difficult. The boat slowly got closer, and I remember thinking that I've seen the boat a dozen times on the Ironman DVDs and it looked much smaller in person. Of course, once I got to the boat I saw the REAL turn-around boat several hundred yards behind it. Great.

I often speak about how much I love my swim goggles. The only problem is that I have to trim my eyelashes before the race so they don't brush up against the lenses. (I spared Stupid Dutch this time and had my barber do it.) Unfortunately, my goggles were showing their age and were pretty scratched up. So about a month ago, I bought a new pair. Same make, same model. And they felt great, except that for some reason they tend to slip. I tried loosening them, tightening them, everything but wearing them upside down. They slip.

I brought both my old and new goggles to Kona, and for some inexplicable reason I decided to stick with my new ones. The water was going to be clean and I wanted to experience it clearly. Besides, if I could get the goggles positioned properly at the start, what are the chances that they would slip in the middle of an Ironman in choppy seas?

Well I'm a moron. They were sliding all over the place. Really badly. I am not exaggerating here: for extended parts of the swim my EYELIDS were pressed against the lenses. I could hear Steve's voice in my head: "Point your toes! Watch your head position!" And I was thinking "I can't open my right eye because it's jammed against my goggles. My toes are the least of my worries." But mostly I just sucked it up. I think I stopped about 4 times to adjust them, which may sound like 4 times too many but truthfully I don't think it really affected my overall swim that much.

The currents were a little strong when we got back close to shore which was frustrating. I was so close to finishing yet it felt like I wasn't moving at all. But it felt SOOOO good getting out of the water. I forgot how dizzy I get after long swims and I kind of tripped up the stairs a bit and a volunteer kind of caught me, but I was fine.

Swim time 1:34:22. A couple minutes slower than Wisconsin, but in a non-wetsuit, riptide-spewing shark-infested ocean. I was very happy with my swim. And yes, Steve's classes helped.

Kona Race Report: Pre-race

2010-10-19T17:55:00.001-07:00

Independent observers confirm that I was surprisingly calm the morning of the race. Mostly.

I woke up around 3:45 after getting about 2 hours sleep (as expected.) The hotel was adjacent to the transition area, which was FANTASTIC. I was able to drop off my Special Foods bags, go to body marking, pump up my bike tires, and then go back to my hotel room after. The only issue I had was that I exited the hotel through the wrong door and wound up going through all the stages backwards, against the flow of people. At one point they wouldn't let me go down a path the wrong way so I had to climb through some bushes to get back on track. No biggie.

They made a HUGE deal about not putting sunblock on your arms because it would interfere with bodymarking. Fine. I got inked with unprotected skin. They use crisp stamps to mark the numbers, and then do some touch-up work with a Sharpie but it still looked a little flakey to me. I was well-prepared and brought my own Sharpie with me, so when Team Wedgie showed up around 6am I had them fill in some of the gaps. By this point it had been over an hour since my original numbers had been stamped on so I assumed it was safe to apply sunscreen to my arms.

I admit I don't use sunscreen often enough, but when I do use it I put it on THICK. So I sprayed on a heavy layer of Panama Jack Surf 'N Sport, Continous Clear Spray Sunscreen, SPF 50+ (I can't find it in stores in L.A. and I ordered it online for Hawaii because I like it to much.) About 5 seconds later I looked down in horror as I watched thick streams of black ink run all down my arms.

I'm not sure if the fresh Sharpie ink was running or if some chemical in the sunscreen started stripping off the letters but my arms were a MESS. Fortunately, some fast action (and handy kleenex) from Teresa Annie and Stephanie saved the day. They were able to a fantastic clean-up job with my race numbers.

Naturally I wanted to go to the bathroom again, so I was able to simply run back up to my room. Amazing. Later we ran into British Stuart who was waiting in a long line to use the hotel lobby restrooms, so we just sent him (and apparently his entire tri-team) up to my room as well. I never had to use the port-a-potties before the race. The only person it didn't work out for was poor Scott, who wanted to use my bathroom but wound up taking the wrong elevator bank and never found my room. As far as I know he's still holding it to this day.

Check out just part of the Team Wedgie support crew. And make special note of the AWESOME Mountain Dew pants that Craig and Jana gave me. Correction - the pants that CRAIG gave me - Jana has disavowed any association with the pants (as have most people who have seen them.) But they're still awesome.

14:27

2010-10-15T14:24:00.000-07:00

(** Note: I wrote this post several days before the race, but my hotel had terrible WiFi and I couldn't post it. **)

So many racers will say "well I just want to finish the race, the time doesn't really matter." Blah blah blah. I think it's ridiculous not to have a goal in mind, or at least an estimate as to when you're going to finish. If nothing else, it makes things easier on the spectators so they'll know when to look for you.

As for me, I'm shooting to finish Kona in 14:27. Why? Because I did Wisconsin in 14:28. (Coeur d'Alene was 14:45.) It would be sweet to PR in Hawaii. Now I know that people generally feel "ohhhhh Wedgie... Kona is hot and humid and windy. It's not really the kind of race conditions to worry about a PR." But my feeling is that it's the World Championships, and you might as well go big or go home.

Honestly? 14:27 will be tough, but this is how it would happen:

The swim is a huge wildcard. I've never swam more than 1.2 miles in the ocean. And all of my open water ocean/lake swimming has been done in a wetsuit. So I really have trouble estimating what my time will be here. My other Ironman times are 1:39 and 1:33, so I think I might be right around there. I believe my swimming has improved, but the currents and swells could be rough. So it's a wash, so to speak. Let's say 1:40. 1:30 is incredible, 1:50 is not so good. (** Actual swim time 1:34:22 **)

No wetsuit, no bike gloves, smaller transition area... I'd like to have a combined T1/T2 time under 10 minutes. That isn't fast by any means, but it's how I roll. Besides, I like peeing in transition. (** Total transition time 8:46 **)

The bike will be interesting. Let's forget about the winds for a moment: I think I could do a 6:30. But if I do 6:30, I will pay for it on the run. So I would like to do the bike in 7 hours. This would be my slowest Ironman bike time, but I think it's the smarter move.

Unfortunately, we can't forget about the winds. I know that everyone hates the wind but it really REALLY gets to me. Honestly, I am OK with long climbs and I don't have a problem with heat. But wind is Kryptonite to me. It makes me give up emotionally. I just have to hope for no wind or, more likely, hope that I can ride smartly into the wind. In other words, don't try to maintain the same pace into the headwinds and conserve energy instead. (** Bike time 6:51:01 **)

No matter what happens, I really want to have a good run. My run fell apart in Coeur d'Alene and I did 6 hours. My run fell apart in Wisconsin and I did 6 hours. I don't care if I cross the finish line at midnight, I want to do 5:30 in the run. (FYI: because of time cut-offs, the slowest run you can have with a 17-hour finish is 6:30. But you know what I mean.)

I definitely put a lot more effort into my run training than the swim or the bike. I did a lot more mileage. I worked on my pacing. And I always, always ran in the heat. If I have another 6-hour marathon, I'll be disappointed. (I'll still be very very happy at the finish line, no need to worry about that!) (** Run time 5:26:45 **)

So that puts me finishing around 14:20 and gives me a few extra minutes in the swim if I need them. And it's still very possible that the winds or other factors could give me a 7:30 bike. I'll adjust my race strategy during the course and see what happens. But I am going into the race with the idea of getting a PR.

Oh and 14 hours would be a wet dream for me.

(** I should have been more specific. What I meant was that BEATING 14 hours would be a wet dream, i.e. 13:59:59. My final time was 14:00:51, so I didn't have to wet myself. **)

Seeing Mom

2010-10-14T19:38:00.000-07:00

A series of photos of me in the finisher chute, when I saw my mother for the first time. (She didn't tell me she was flying in from New Jersey to watch the race.) With my head spun around, I'm amazed I didn't trip and fall down right there.

Kona, Day 4: The Meltdown

2010-10-14T19:34:00.000-07:00

The day before the Ironman. All the training is over. Nothing more to do. A day to relax and simply enjoy the moment. Yeah, that ain't happening.

I had a little bit of a meltdown during lunch. I had been up since 5, and by 10:30 I was very hungry and ready for lunch. The hotel restaurant didn't open until 11, so I sat by the pool adjacent to the restaurant and waited for them. They had a simple but nice breakfast buffet and was hoping for something similar for lunch.

11:00 came and I dashed inside. They gave me their menu, and I was horrified: no buffet. Just seafood platters and Prime rib sandwiches and all sorts of things that I just wouldn't eat. I just wanted a plain turkey sandwich. So I got up and left. Steve and Laura caught me as I walking out and i just started babbling about how I couldn't eat there. I realize that the obvious solution may seem to be "go somewhere else" but I pretty much knew I would not be getting the lunch I wanted. (which, by the way, is my own fault because I left my pre-planned sandwich fixings back at the condo.) And I was freaking out about it.

We went to a restaurant across the street from the hotel and the menu had a turkey melt sandwich. I figured I would try to turn that into a plain turkey sandwich, but I would have had a better chance of beating Craig Alexander tomorrow than to get the correct meal.

This is what I wanted: white bread. Turkey. Butter. Nothing else. I tried to explain this to the waitress, but I was completely frazzled to begin with and, God bless her little heart, she wasn't exactly Waitress of the Year. The turkey melt was listed as being served on wheat, and everything fell apart when I tried to question it.

"What kind of bread do you have?"
"It comes on sourdough."
"Do you have white?"
"I don't think so."
"Sourdough is OK, but white would be better. And I thought the sandwich came on wheat, which I'd rather not have."
"No, it comes on sourdough."
"Well the menu says wheat."
"It does? Well I think it's sourdough. Or maybe wheat."

I was trying to explain to her what I wanted, and she didn't seem to even know what my options were, which just got me more flustered. I literally had tears in my eyes trying to order a simple sandwich. She realized I was a basket case and asked me "do you need me to bring you a shot?" I told her "yes, but you better not."

She came with some kind of sandwich on some kind of bread which I couldn't identify. And yes, ultimately it didn't really matter but man did it seem huge at the time.

During lunch, we watched the athletes dropping off their bikes and I didn't think much about it. But then I went back down around 3 and it was an entirely different experience. The street was packed with people, and there were crowds lined up along the bike entrance chute just to watch people drop off their bikes. I had to walk through the crowd and then into the "athletes only" chute and I realized for the upteenth time "this is a really big deal."

I thought I would be OK if I could just make it through the chute, because then I would be alone with my bike. But no. Instead, you're given a personal escort who literally walks you through the entire transition process. We took the same paths I'll be taking tomorrow, and she was explaining everything. I was just trying not to burst into tears. I can't really explain it, but I was just overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything. For starters, it's a freaking Ironman. And it's the World Championship. And I had 10 friends who would be watching me in Kona. Plus a ton of people tracking me online back in L.A. Friends from high school who barely even knew what a triathlon was would be following me. It was just too much.

My mental breakdown was complete when I got back to the hotel. I was literally hyperventilating and sobbing in the room for no good reason. We had plans to eat dinner back in the condo, and I texted IronmAnnie "Normally I don't drink before a race but I need some wine to take the edge off. Make sure we have some!"

Well I don't know if it was the wine or the food or just being around friends, but I calmed down tremendously during dinner. I went back to the hotel, and basically got about 3 hours of sleep.

IronMom

2010-10-13T14:22:00.000-07:00

Full race reports coming soon, but I have to start with a story from the end of the race.

A couple years ago, when I was still new to triathlon, I did the New York City Olympic Triathlon. My mother lives in Jersey and she came out to watch the race. My mother is very emotional and easily excited, and after the race she told me she didn't think she could handle the excitement of watching another race.

She did not come to Coeur d'Alene, but was a nervous wreck all day long. When I told her I was doing Wisconsin, she told me "don't even tell me when it is. Just call me when it's over and tell me all about. I don't want to have to go through another day of worrying like last time." And I told here "that's fine, but if I ever make it to Hawaii you'll have to come out for that!"

When I won the lottery slot, we briefly talked about having her come out. But after I did the Hawaii half-Iron in June I uninvited her. Spectating an Ironman is hard work. There's a lot running around and a bunch of sitting in the sun, waiting. And after experiencing the heat and humidity of Hawaii, I knew there was no way she could handle it. All of that excitement in the hot sun? She'd be taken away in an ambulance from heat stroke for sure. I told her to stay home.

So, after doing about 140.5 miles of the race and entering the finishing chute, I saw the Wedgie Support Crew cheering me on. And there with them was my mom. As I ran by, I swear my head turned back 180 degrees trying to make sure it was really her.

The funny thing is that she was with the Support Crew watching the race all day and I never saw her. I would see my friends, and apparently my mother would be there essentially hiding in the bushes as I went by. Sneaky mom. After the race, I "yelled" at her for coming out since she couldn't handle the heat and stress. But then she was the one to put the finisher medal around my neck, which was very cool.

I love my Mom!

Kona: Done!

2010-10-10T11:13:00.000-07:00

Quick Summary:

I finished! Well actually I more than finished: 14:00:51. That beats my previous Ironman PR by about 27 minutes.

Swim was long, had some goggle issues.
Everything they say about the Kona winds is true.
Had some big trouble in the middle of the run, managed a great recovery.
Really bad sunburn.

It was a helluva day.

Kona, Day 3 (Thursday)

2010-10-08T22:14:00.000-07:00

Today was a busy busy day.

I wanted to get a swim out of the way, so I woke up at 5:15 to head down to the water. Of course, when I got up it was still pitch black outside. I'm not a morning person, so i forgot that there was a part of the day BEFORE the sun came up.

I had to kill time for a while, then finally went to the beach around 6:15. I expected there to be lots of people training, but there were only THREE PEOPLE in the water. There were a few people milling about on shore, but nobody was getting wet. I was swimmer number four. I guess most of these so-called "champions" would rather just sleep in all day.

After the swim I had to get over to the Underpants Run. I'll post a full race report, but be warned: THERE WILL BE A PHOTO.

I then did a one-hour bike ride along the Queen K highway. This section of the road doesn't have the famous winds, so it was a somewhat pleasant ride. The bike was making my ankle pop again, as it has been doing for the past two weeks. I am still concerned about doing a long ride on it.

Packet pick-up was quick and easy, and then I went down to the Ironman Village. This was a little weird, because the actual official village seemed smaller than other races. There wasn't a lot to see or do there. Of course, this being Kona, the entire town is branded with Ironman sponsors so you can pick up lots of free stuff just walking up and down the street.

We did do one thing at the village. Or rather, Steve did at the Endless Pool booth. Some former masters swim champion lady was giving pointers on people's technique and she invited Steve to give it a try. Steve came up with lots of excuses: "I'm not wearing a suit." "We've got one." "I don't have a towel." "We've got one." I think what finally broke him down was when he said "I've been swimming my whole life" and she said. "Well then you're perfect for this because so many people think they know how to swim but they're stuck with a lot of bad habits."

Steve got served! Oh, it was on, baby.

He hopped in the pool and would swim for a bit, then the masters lady would point out ways he could improve. I rather enjoyed that. Something about pointing his fingers and not sweeping under his body. But to be fair, while he was swimming she was mentioning to the other reps that Steve had a beautiful stroke and good bodyline. So maybe Steve really dies know what he's talking about. Or as Steve pointed out, maybe this lady was hoping to sell some coaching services and wanted to suck up to the swim coach of the Disney Tri Team.

Either way, it was a good excuse for Steve to cool off from the heat.

Kona Day 2 (Wednesday)

2010-10-08T10:12:00.001-07:00

Kona Day 2 (Wednesday)

I went for a practice swim along the course today. They had about 7 or 8 buoys set up marking the course, separated by a couple hundred yards leading out of the harbor area. They extend a decent distance from the beach, but it didn't look too bad. But then, if you squint your eyes and look way way way out on the horizon, you can see this teeny-tiny spec of orange floating in the water. That is the actual turn-around point. This is my first single-loop Ironman, and I've never seen a buoy so far away before.

There is a pretty strong cross-current when you are close to shore. We have to deal with currents all the time in L.A., but because you can hardly see anything you don't really get a good sense as to how much you're being pulled. Here, the water is perfectly clear and so I could watch the bottom scrolling sideways underneath me. It's a little dizzying.

The water was a little choppy, but overall I cant say it was a bad swim.

Our travel company (Endurance Sports Travel) took us on a driving tour of the bike route. This stressed me out. I already rode half the course back in June when we did the Hawaii half-iron so there were no surprises, but the tour ate up about 4 hours of the day and there were other things I needed to be doing.

The bike turn-around is in the little town of Hawi. It really has the look and feel of an old western town, not a 7-Eleven in sight. We stopped for lunch at a... Deli? It was a shop that looked like an old wooden storage room with a counter in front. The owner was very excited for us to try the freshly made banana-mango jam, or something like that. I threw up a little in my mouth just hearing about it. I said "no thank you" but they they kept insisting. "oh, you HAVE to try it! It's delicious!" "no, I'm good, but thank you." We went back and forth and finally he said "are you doing the race?" "Yes." "Ah, OK, then no wonder you can't have any." I'm going to use race training as an excuse more often.

After dinner I moved all of my things out of the condo and into the race hotel, where I finally had air conditioning. (The condo only had fans, which don't do a great job cooling the place.) As it turns out, AC is a tricky thing to manage. There is not going to be any air conditioning along the race, so the best way to acclimate to race conditions is to stay out of air conditioning as much as possible. On the other hand, you're not going to sleep very well laying on top of the covers sweating all night. For the most part I've been keeping the AC off and just giving the room a quick shot of cold air before bed.

We went out to dinner and got caught in a light rain. It did wonders cooling off the place, and I wouldn't mind a little more of it on Saturday.

Kona, Day 1

2010-10-05T23:29:00.000-07:00

The Suit

I had to pick up my speed suit today. When I ordered it, Xterra promised to have it delivered by September 30th. Then they said "oops, we haven't actually made the suits yet so you'll just have to pick it up in Kona." I freaked out about it at the time, but then I had so many troubles with my bike pedals that the suit issue paled in comparison.

Xterra is a major player in the triathlon world with a big presence at Ironman. So you'd think I'd be able to go to their tent in the Ironman Village and pick up my suit. No. Instead, they gave me the address of a house about 6 miles out of town. I was told to turn off the main road and go down a long driveway where I was supposed to meet "some guy". Between 6:30 and 9:30 am. And if he wasn't there, not to worry, his dad would be there. It felt like I was trying to score some drugs.

Surprisingly, my throat was not slit in a dark alley behind the house. I got the suit, and it seems to fit better than I expected. I gave it a quick try today and will take it out for a longer swim tomorrow.

The Phone

My big stress for the day was that I broke the charging cable for my phone. There are plenty of stores around town, but I don't have a car or my bike yet. Our travel company has 110 guests to attend with so they're not real flexible with the kind of shuttle service they can give. There is a shopping plaza about a quarter mile from the condo where they had chargers for iPods (not compatible with iPhone), cell phone chargers (not for iPhone) and USB chargers (USB cable not included.)

I was able to catch a shuttle into the heart of town, knowing that there was a K-Mart nearby. Unfortunately, I didn't have a good sense of the distance. It was about a 1.5 mile walk to K-Mart. Uphill, in the afternoon heat, wearing Crocs, when I'm supposed to be relaxing. At least I did find a charger. And then another 1.5 mile walk (downhill).

The Bike

After that, I was able to pick up my bike from Tri Bike Transport. I was going to just ride the 7 miles back to the condo, but after a few miles I realized the chain was rattling a little bit against the derailleur whenever I was in the highest gear. I turned around and brought it back to Tri Bike Transport for an adjustment.

I explained the situation to the lady at the table, who then called over one of their tech guys. He put the bike up on the rack and then asked me - you're not going to believe this - how to shift into the highest gear. That made me nervous. Then he called over another guy. Good. He spun the wheels a bit and said "It's only rubbing a little bit... Are you sure you're going to be using this gear?"

Excuse me?

I don't plan on hammering it all day long, but yes, I thought it would be nice to have all my gears working properly. I let him tweak it a little bit, said "thank you very much" and then rode over to a real bike shop, Bike Works. I basically told them what happened and said "I don't trust whatever adjustments they may or may not have done to my bike." The Bike Works guys are awesome and had me in and out in 5 minutes with a fully-functional bike.

In the interest of full-disclosure: when I was leaving Tri Bike Transport, their tech guy told me that if I had any more problems, to take it to a mechanic at the expo and they would reimburse me. They wanted to make sure I was satisfied. So I think important to note that they knew their limitations and were still making an effort to make sure I was taken care of.

Scary Gary

2010-10-04T23:29:00.000-07:00

So there's this guy "Gary" I've mentioned before who rides with us a lot. He is the definitive "nicest, easiest-going guy you'd ever want to ride with." But he's an animal on the bike. He qualified for and raced Kona, and one night during dinner he asked me if I wanted to hear about his race experience.

Absolutely! I had never sat down and spoken with anyone who had done the race before, and this sounded like a great chance to get some insight into the course. I was looking forward to hearing about some tips and tricks for handling the race, as well as being inspired by hearing about his amazing experience.

Gary summed up his race thusly: "It brought me to tears."

I paused for a moment, wondering what he meant. Ah, the magic of the island! This was THE Ironman, the mystical race that must have so overwhelmed him with emotion that he couldn't help but cry, just to be a part of it. Was that what brought Gary to tears?

"No, it's just really really hard."

So wait a minute... This mountain goat who rides circles around me going up hills was reduced to a blubbering pile of spandex and carbon fiber when he did Kona.. What possible chance do I have?!!

Needless to say I didn't go back to Gary for more advice about Kona. I think I learned everything I need to know. Not true, he has given me pointers for the race and thankfully never showed me the photo of him crying on the course. I'll wait until after the race to see just how bad shape he was in.

Call Me Ishmael

2010-10-03T11:36:00.000-07:00

What has been my most stressful thing to deal with for the past few days? Not packing. Not those last few workouts. I've been freaking out about my bike horn.

When I first started doing triathlons, I bought a bicycle and a killer whale squeaky horn. That whale has been with me from the very beginning. He was later joined (thanks to IronmAnnie) by his giant inflatable cousin at Oceanside 70.3 and in Coeur d'Alene. The whale appears on my blog, on t-shirts, and even my Ironman tattoo. The whale and I have been through a lot together. He can't squeak as loudly as he used to, but he's still a trooper.

I take him off the bike whenever I have to get a tune-up, and after the last one I somehow misplaced him. I didn't really worry about it, because I figured he would just turn up eventually. Well now it was 2 days before I was leaving for Hawaii and he was still lost. I really wanted to have that specific whale with me for the race, but the more important thing is that I could NOT do Kona without a killer whale squeaky horn. I decided I should go out and get a new one, knowing that my old horn would understand.

Turns out, they are not easy to find. I spent the weekend driving everywhere looking for a killer whale squeaky horn: Bicycle John's. Sport Chalet. Montrose Cyclery. Helen's. Target. I was getting worried that I would have to find one online and have it FedExed to my hotel or something. Finally, I went to Incycle in Pasadena and saw the whale. At first I was very excited/relieved, but then when I looked closer at it I saw that it was all banged up and scraped. This whale would have to be a back-up, but I would still try a few more places to find one in good condition. If I have to replace my whale, I might as well get a really nice, shiny new one, right?

But then I started thinking about it a little more. When compared with most of the other competitors in Kona, I am not in "great shape." So why does my killer whale squeaky horn have to be in great shape? Is his squeak any less enthusiastic? Will he enjoy the race any less simply because his cardboard cage took off some of his black skin? Maybe we are kindred spirits going into this race.

So I have a new killer whale squeaky horn for my bike. At some point, I am sure I will find my old one and I think they will be friends.

Regrets, I've had a Few...

2010-10-03T00:20:00.000-07:00

When I found out I won a Kona Lottery slot, the first thing I did was panic. Then I freaked out a bit. Then I started to plan all the things I needed to do over the summer to prepare for the race. A lot of those things never happened. Mostly because of laziness and a bit of A.D.D. (I have trouble staying focused.) So these are some of the woulda-coulda-shoulda things from this past summer, along with my excuses.

I shoulda swam more. My condo building has a genuine lap-pool an elevator-ride away. I had visions of me being down there every morning at 7am doing laps. Well that sure didn't happen. It takes me a long time to wind down at night, especially if I'm out riding/running until 8 or 9:00, and I just can't get myself in bed by 10 or 11:00.

I shoulda got a bike fitting. I've had 4 fittings on 2 bikes and I have never felt comfortable in the aero position. I can't go a half-mile without feeling my shoulder tensing up. Part of the problem is that I'm just using clamp-on aerobars on non-tri bikes, but maybe I could have improved something. Would the 5th time be the charm? I don't know. The other thing is that I always felt like I was sitting kind of low on my new bike. I've been using my old bike this past week (after shipping race bike of to Kona) and I'm sitting higher and it feels better.

I shoulda gone shoe shopping. I'm not thrilled with my running shoes. There's nothing really wrong with them, but nothing great either. They have the odd quality of feeling OK to run in, but uncomfortable to walk in. After my previous shoe model was discontinued I went to lots of stores trying to find a new shoe. I bought and returned two other pairs before settling on these. Maybe I would have found a better shoe, maybe not.

I shoulda dieted better. I likes me my sweets. I am weak.

Having said all that, there are some positive things: I think my swim form has improved. I did many more mid-distance bike rides than I have in previous years. And I really upped my running mileage this time around. Hopefully all that will cancel out some of my shouldas.

2011 Lottery is Open!

2010-10-02T16:12:00.000-07:00

The lottery for the 2011 Ironman World Championships is now open. This is obviously a topic near and dear to my heart. Looking around blogs and twitter-verse, I was surprised to see how much opposition there was to the Lottery. People are saying that the lottery is lame and that the lottery people "don't deserve to be there." I understand what these people are saying, and I hope they will understand me when I say that they are morons.

First, a disclaimer: there are a lot of people out there who say "if I ever do Kona, it's going to be because not qualified, not through the lottery." And that's fine by me. It's a fantastic goal and a great accomplishment and more power to them.

Getting back to the lottery... it wasn't created by NBC as a desperate attempt to boost ratings. It's been around pretty much as long as the race itself. And who knows... maybe the race founders created the lottery as a sneaky way to make it easier to sell the TV rights with all of those human-interest stories about the "everyman" doing the race. Doesn't matter. The point is, the Ironman and the lottery have been connected since the start. Hate the lottery, hate the founding fathers.

I've heard the argument that no other sport lets "average people" into their championship matches. Well, not many other sports have 2000 people competing at once. And not to take anything away from all of those age-groupers who reach the podium, but if you're going to have 20 first-place finishers in a "World Championship Race", I think it's safe to say that the rules are a little different here.

I personally prefer to say that people "qualified" for Kona rather than "they earned their slot." Because I feel that I too earned my slot. Oh, maybe not with a fast finishing time, but maybe the Ironman gods smiled on me for the support I've given other racers over the years, and I have good race-karma, (To clarify, nothing pleases me more than to mock triathlon hippies with all of their voodoo magic training ideas. But I'm not about to mess with the Island gods. That's bad mojo.)

So to anyone who is racing in Kona next week who feels like I don't belong there, don't worry about me. I promise I won't be in your way during the swim or won't cut you off on the bike course. You just go ahead and do your little striving-to-the-podium thingee. But verily I say unto theee, (that's right, verily): I deserve to be there more than you do. And I guarantee you my supporters are better than yours. So there.

(And no, I'm not entering the lottery for next year.)

Cleat Repeat

2010-09-30T23:48:00.001-07:00

I spent 2 days trying out new cleats on my bike shoes. I was long overdue.

I couldn't get the cleats to fit right. First my knee would be popping, so I'd stop and adjust my shoe. Then my ankle would feel twisty. Stop, adjust again, and something else would be out of whack.

My bike was being shipped out in 2 days and it was essentially un-ridable. If my legs hurt after 3 miles, what would happen after 112? I made my standard panic calls to Jon and Gerald asking them about shoe fittings. They basically both said that I probably picked up bad habits with the old cleats, and that the new ones were probably fine but that I just had to let my legs "learn" the new fit.

That seemed like a big risk. "Maybe" I could adapt to the new cleats in 1 week- I took the pedals off my race bike so I could use them on my old bike, thinking I could practice with them for an extra week before I flew out. But then I had a crazy thought: if my new pedals were causing me problems, why not play it safe and just go back to my old pedals?

It's kind of scary/funny: when I took the new cleats back off and compared them to my old ones, I actually thought they were two different models. The old ones had been worn down so much that they were about half as thick as the new ones.

I wanted to install my old cleats in exactly the same position they were in before. First I had to figure out which cleat went with which shoe. That was easy: I use a lot of Carbo-pro mixed with Hawaiian Punch on my rides, and it always splatters on the same side of my bike. One of my shoes had red stains on it; one of my cleats had red stains on it. A match.

The washers were pretty much molded into the plastic, so they were locked in place. And there was so much wear on them that it was very easy to see exactly where the bolts used to be. It was a very simple repair.

It still felt a little funny to ride my bike, but I think that's because I truly "injured" my leg with the old cleats. (I don't want to exaggerate the pain, it was more discomfort than anything, but it was very noticeable for two straight days.) I think I'm good to go, although I did notice an actual crack in one of my old cleats. There is a non-zero chance that it will explode at some point during the race in Hawaii, so as a precaution I will be one of the very few riders with a spare set of cleats with me on the course.

What a Twit

2010-09-24T00:16:00.001-07:00

I'm on Twitter.

I thought this would be a good way to just throw around random thoughts about my Kona training without stressing about having to write up full stories about everything. The way Twitter works, people start to follow you and you get to follow them, and what do you know- some of the biggest names in Ironman are tweeting! I should follow them to see what they're up to!

Big mistake.

Right now, I don't need to hear about Macca's 7500 feet of climbing and his 4 mile swim. I don't want to know that Chris Lieto is already in Kona- OMG, am I late?! Should I be there by now?! Michael Lovato made the podium at the Branson 70.3; good for him but that doesn't help me.

I felt a connection with the other competitors in Coeur d'Alene and Wisconsin. Obviously I knew some of them personally, but I also followed blogs of other "normal people" talking about their training leading up the race. I could identify with them. But Kona? I read these tweets and press releases and I feel like I'm not even in the same race. Even the non-pros: these are not my people. The only online presence of anyone I can remotely relate to is "Dale Tweedy" who won a lottery slot in 2008 and blogged about his experience. That's it.

I've had one smug feel-good moment on twitter. Chris Lieto tweeted: "Heading out for a run in the heat. 91f is good enough for heat test, right?" Lemme talk to you about heat. I slept in most weekends this summer, scheduling my runs so that regardless of distance, they would usually end around noon. 2-hour run? 10-noon. 4-hour run? 8-noon. Many if not most of those runs were in the mid-to-upper 90s by the time I finished. Some broke 100. You want to say Hawaii is more humid than L.A.? Fine. I spent 9 days in North Carolina and ran 10 miles with a heat index of 105. Also had an 18-miler out there. You may think that I'm trying to make it sound like I trained in tougher conditions than Chris Lieto. And you know what? At times I did. Maybe I didn't swim and bike and run as much as everyone else but what I did do, I did in the heat. I need this ONE thing to make me feel like my training is somewhat comparable to what everyone else seems to be doing. Please don't take it away from me.

Cleat Defeat

2010-09-22T19:43:00.000-07:00

So I feel like everything is falling apart. Sometimes literally.

I've needed new cleats for my bike shoes for a really long time. These are the first cleats I bought 6 years ago, and they've spent a lot of time clipping in and clipping out and scuffling through parking lots. I knew 3 months ago I should replace my cleats. I knew 6 months ago. I knew a year ago. But I waited until 3 days before I ship my bike of to Hawaii to swap them out.

It's very important to fit the cleats to your shoes properly. So I was meticulous with marking the exact position of the screws on each shoe. I wrapped scotch tape around the shoes and carefully marked the center of each of screw from every angle. Then I removed the cleats.

That's when I realized that since the screws screw into the shoe, they never move. It's pointless to mark them; it's the cleat that slides and twists around the screws. So all of my measuring was for nothing and there was no way for me to match my previous settings. Tonight I went out for a short ride, stopping every now and then to tweak the cleats. And it was driving me crazy. Every little twitch I felt in my legs, I worried "is that just a regular twitch? Or is that something caused by my shoe being slightly twisted?" And it kind of feels like I'm pedaling on my toes, but again I don't know if that's just because the new cleats simply feel different or if they're in the wrong position. Even now, 2 hours after the ride I THINK I can feel...something... in my right leg. Did I actually subtly twist it? Or is it just psychosomatic? I'm second-guessing everything

And there's another strange thing: I brought my bike in for a complete strip-down/rebuild tune-up, and it felt great afterwards. Except for one little thing: I feel like I'm always leaning to the left. I can't explain it. If I look at the bike, everything looks normal and even and balanced but when I'm riding, I feel ever-so-slightly twisted. Maybe I'm physically asymmetrical and when I had my bike-fitting last year, the guy compensated for it and these new people didn't put the bike back in the exact same configuration.

I don't know, it's just weird. In 3 days I am shipping my bike to Hawaii and it doesn't feel like my bike. Great.

No Suit For You

2010-09-20T19:15:00.001-07:00

Freaking out a bit here...

One of my big stress points was figuring out what to wear for the swim. The water is too warm for a wetsuit, and Ironman recently changed their rules so there is only a very specific type of "speedsuit" you can wear during the swim. It was very confusing to me. Eventually I decided that I would just swim in my full tri-outfit. It seemed like an odd thing to do, but I tried out some swims with my tri top on and it didn't seem too unusual (I was worried that it might billow out and act like a parachute in the water.)

A couple weeks ago, a rep from one of the big wetsuit companies sent our tri-team an invitation to pre-order one of their brand-new Kona-legal speedsuit. Team Captain Robert passed it along to me and for some reason it got me all excited about getting a speedsuit. I wasn't entirely convinced that I needed a speedsuit in the first place, so I emailed British Stuart (IMoo brother). He has done Kona before and will be there again this year. Basically I wanted to know what everyone else will be wearing. I figure I'll be drawing enough attention to myself with the way my arms are flailing around in the water, and I didn't want to stand out on shore being the only person wearing a tri-top. Basically, Stuart said that pretty much everyone will be wearing the speedsuits so now I knew I needed to get one too.

Now there was no reason I had to get THIS specific speedsuit, and Steve suggested I get a cheaper one, but I think I got caught up in the "hurry now! limited time exclusive special!" hype. I placed my order. It's important to note that on the order form it said "Your speedsuit will be shipped to arrive on or before September 30th." That's important. That's a week-and-a-half before the race which is not a lot of time to try out a new suit, but I could get at LEAST 5-6 swims in before the race.

Well today I got a message from them saying "um, yeah, we're not sure we can get the suit to you before the 30th. Can you just pick it up Wednesday in Kona, 3 days before the race?" And I'm like, "um, no... I'm supposed to be relaxing 3 days before the race, not worrying about how a brand new suit is going to fit in the water." I'm also a little annoyed because it is a pretty expensive suit and had I known they weren't going to honor the delivery guarantee, I could have ordered a much cheaper one and probably have it already.

I KNOW I am going to hate wearing the speedsuit. If I had 2 weeks, I could at least get somewhat used to it. But as it stands now, I'll probably just get one or two test swims with it before race day. What could possibly go wrong?

The Truth Exposed

2010-09-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

A-HA! Here it is, irrefutable proof that they messed up my swim time. They say I did the race in 1:56. But check out this un-retouched photo at the finish line:

OK, OK. The race photos are in and they clearly show that I finished the race exactly when the chip said I did. So it was in fact my slowest Malibu race ever. I still had a good bike and had a decent run in spite of a pee break, but the swim was just terrible. I know it doesn't matter - this race wasn't even on my radar in terms of training - but it would have been a nice affirmation of my Ironman training to do well in a sprint race.

You'll notice I have my hands on my head. This is how I ran through the entire chute, trying to keep my floppy ears up straight. The things I do for my fans...

I got one good photo from the day: check out these wheels going to Kona- and I'm not talking about the bike! Booyah!

“Wedgie, please stop sending us pictures of your underwear”

2010-09-16T21:36:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's an email I got from IronSteph today.

As if I didn't have enough to worry about, Steve had to share this clip of the Ironman Underpants Run. Basically, the Thursday before Kona about 500 people gather in their underwear for a 1-mile run.

I think it would be boring to just wear regular white briefs, but I'm not sure what theme I would go with. The obvious choice would be Iron Man undies, something like these:

But I don't think I'd be comfortable in public in the jockey style. So then there is the more-conservative boxer style:

Then of course there are Disney options:

But let's keep in mind: the average person at an Ironman event looks in far better shape than the average person at, say, Oktoberfest. And at the Ironman World Championships, it's going to be even worse. I'm worried enough about how I'm going to look in a tight speedsuit during the swim on race day, so I'm not sure how I could possibly run around the streets in my underwear. But it does seem like a fun event, so I don't know what I'm going to do. A Pajama Run? I would be all over that. Underwear? Ehhhhh.....

Scandal!

2010-09-14T22:41:00.000-07:00

Oh. My. God. This could be huge. HUGE!.

According to Rachel, who was part of the Disney Hawaii 70.3 party-machine, there was an error with some of the swim times at Nautica. It seems that some people were timed starting with the previous waves, essentially adding 5 minutes to their posted swim times. Was I one of those people? I'm doing some detective work...

My posted time was 20:20. In my 4 previous races, I've done 14:50-18:07. So it is a little odd that I would be 2 minutes slower than my slowest swim. Odd, but not impossible. I was very cold and had not practiced at all in my wetsuit. On the other hand, the water was very calm compared with other years and it did not feel like a long swim to me. But I really have no sense as to what a 15 minute swim vs. a 20 minute swim feels like.

(Bear with me, there will be some math) I was wearing a watch, but I did not check my time coming out of the water. I do have some interesting data points though. My watch was about 1 minute slower than the official race start times: my wave was supposed to go off at 7:40 and the last time I checked my watch it said 7:41. I checked my watch again as I started to wheel my bike out of the transition area and I THINK it said 8:02. My posted T1 time was 5:17. That's not good, but that's very typical for me. Now then, if I had a 20-minute swim, in order for me to be leaving transition at 8:02 that would mean I had a 2-minute T1 time. Come on now, seriously? I'm a spaz in transition. I can barely put my helmet on in 2 minutes. Let's suppose my watch-start-time was actually 7:41:30. After a 15:20 swim I'd arrive in T1 at 7:56:50. After 5:17, It would be 8:02:07. The math works. But I can't absolutely rule out the possibility that maybe I actually checked my watch while I was still getting out of my wetsuit and was in transition for a few minutes after that. I am 99% sure that wasn't the case though.

So the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that my swim time is incorrect. I know that technically the time doesn't matter; this was not my A-race for the year. Nor a B-race. But those 5 minutes are the difference between my WORST performance ever at Malibu, and a Personal Record. And frankly, if I did PR that would be a really nice confidence boost leading up to Kona. (It's kind of a tough pill to swallow that at the end of my Ironman training I'm slower than than I was other years.)

I will call the race-timing officials tomorrow. If they can look up on the computer and tell me that Men 40-44 started at 7:40 and my chip started at 7:35, then I know there was an error and I will have them adjust the time. But if they can't verify the early start then I'm not comfortable with requesting a change in the official results. Hopefully it will not be an issue.

And here's something else to consider: Jon Coward didn't race this year. Is it possible he volunteered to do the timing chips? Very interesting...

Nautica Malibu Triathlon Pee Report

2010-09-12T22:58:00.001-07:00

I had a very floppy race today. More on that later.

For starters, let me say that this happens to me every year in Malibu: I do the race and I think to myself "hey, that went pretty well!" Then I find out my actual time and realize that I was slower than previous years. This was my slowest Malibu race ever, at least until next year when it seems I will be even slower.

The most important part of the race - getting to the port-a-potties in the morning- went very smoothly. I went through the line 3 times before the race start, so that was good. But the strange thing is that after I put on my wetsuit and went down to the beach I had to pee. Kind of badly. All I had to drink that morning was a half-bottle of water with breakfast (a single Powerbar) and a sip of Mountain Dew (thanks to Mr. Pusateri who picked up some Dew during a coffee run.) During the "warm-up" in the water (and I use the term loosely because the water was 58 degrees) I thought for a moment I'd try to go in my wetsuit but I just couldn't figure out how to do it. Too much pressure. So I just figured I would deal with it later.

I wasn't happy in the swim. I had not been swimming in a wetsuit since Ironman Wisconsin exactly one year ago, and I was feeling very confined by the suit. I'm sure it was 75% psychological, but between the suit and the cold water I felt like I was having trouble breathing. And I knew I was swimming poorly. I remember thinking "well, this isn't the correct form Steve told me to do" and I just didn't care. It just felt more comfortable to flail my arms around than to try to stretch against the suit and try to swim properly. My swim times over the past 5 races: 15 minutes, 16 minutes, 17, 18, and then 20 minutes today. Notice a trend?

I had a 5:17 transition time. That's pretty average for me. I should have done a little better, but both feet got tangled up in my wetsuit and I was a little dizzy. And I really had to pee. But there are no port-a-potties in the transition area so I figured I would just deal with it later.

I felt I was pretty aggressive on the bike. Malibu has some rolling hills to deal with and my chain has been falling off a lot lately so I was very careful about all of my gear shifting and everything held together. My final bike time was over a minute better than my fastest previous bike time. I averaged 20mph and and was in the top 12% overall so I feel pretty good about that. (I should HOPE that my bike has improved!) The two things I was most ware of during the bike was that 1) I could not feel my toes and 2) I really needed to pee.

1:49 Transition time, I'm completely fine with that.

Have I mentioned that I really had to pee? Here was my dilemma now. There are many bathrooms along the run course, but most of them are maybe 50-100 feet off the path. That may not sound far, but it's only a 4-mile run so an extra 15 seconds or so can make a difference. I figured that the closest bathroom to the run course was about 1.5 miles in, when we leave the parking lot. That would be my stop. I was doing a pretty good pace; I did the first mile in 8:15 but I wasn't going to run another 25 minutes without a potty break.

I honestly thought it would take me 30 seconds to do my business. When I got to the rest room I ran in and literally started counting down from 30. This was going to be my way of convincing myself that I wasn't losing a lot of time. 30, 29, 28...3, 2, 1... 1... 1... I kept peeing. I have absolutely no idea where all of this liquid was coming from but I was standing there for a really long time. Based on the time lost, if I didn't stop I would have set a run PR for the course. But had I not stopped I might have had other issues. So I can't regret stopping. It's all part of the race and when you gotta go, you gotta go.

Here's the other big issue I struggled with: every year, I attach Mickey Mouse ears to my bike helmet and run cap. People love clapping for the Mouse so it is a good way for to get some cheap support from the crowd. But for reason, the ears weren't standing up on my cap very well. I kept trying to bend them forward but they just kept flopping on down again. When I reached the finishing chute, I literally ran through with my hands on my hat to hold the ears up in position. Not exactly the most dignified way to finish a race.

Our buddy Konrad was the race announcer, so when he saw me coming in he gave a huge shout out to neoprenewedgie.com. Konrad is awesome, and not just because he gives us special treatment at the finish line. He reaches out to the crowd and supporters a lot and keeps up the enthusiasm for hours.

As for Jon Coward? He was a no-show.

Pre-Nautica Malibu Tri

2010-09-11T20:10:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the Nautica Malibu Triathlon. My very first triathlon was in Malibu, and this will be my 5th time doing the race. You would think that if there EVER was a time to get a PR in Malibu, it would be right when you're coming up to the end of some Ironman training. I should be at my peak skill level at swimming biking and running by now, right? Well, it doesn't work that way. See, before a race, of any distance, you're supposed to rest. But this isn't really a good time for me to be resting. I had to do a 52-mile bike ride today with hills (it was supposed to be 60 miles, but it was windy and I was feeling tired.) And then tomorrow evening I'm supposed to do a 12-mile run, which I'll probably reduce to 10 or so. I have absolutely no idea what this will do to my race time tomorrow. This is the biggest event of the year for our Tri Team and it is always a lot of fun so it's very important to me that I do the race. But it is NOT important for me to do well. (Having said that, hopefully I'm just sandbagging and I'll have a good race.)

I don't know if my arch-nemesis Jon Cryer is doing the race again. I beat him my first year, but he defeated me the next four. Last year, Malibu was on the same day as Ironman Wisconsin so I had to skip it. And since he knew I wasn't there for him to humiliate, he dropped out of the race as well. Don't think I've forgotten, Cryer... this isn't over.

Oh and go team disney.

Suiting Up

2010-09-06T22:46:00.000-07:00

I have not worn my wetsuit since Ironman Wisconsin, almost exactly one year ago. This upcoming weekend is the Nautica Malibu Triathlon, and since the water is currently 59 degrees I thought it would be a good idea to make sure my wetsuit still fit. I also wanted to remember what it was like to swim in a wetsuit. I planned on hitting the beach for Labor Day.

Now as you may recall, I got a 4-inch tear in my wetsuit the morning of Wisconsin. And in the back of my mind for the past year, I've thought "I should fix that." Well of course I never did. So Monday morning I threw a bunch of safety pins into my wetsuit and was on my way. I wasn't trying to make the suit waterproof, I just wanted to prevent the tear from spreading any farther.

Well, it wasn't my brightest idea. I drove to the beach, put on the wetsuit and headed towards the water. While walking along the sand, one of the pins came undone and started poking me in the back with every step. Ouch. I pulled that pin out and just hoped the others would stay in place.

It was an odd day at the beach. There was a surfing section which was packed, and the swim area was pretty much empty. Surfers and triathletes don't usually mix well, so I kind of went alone in the swim section. Now then, it's not a good idea to swim by yourself, so I pretty much never went out over my head, which meant I was constantly in the surfline. Basically, I probably did a total of 10 strokes and the rest of the time just stood there shivering in the water.

I have some neoprene cement so I finally patched up the tear but I have no idea if it will hold or not. I won't know until race day. I'll probably slap some duct tape over it for extra strength. I assume the wetsuit swimming will just come back to me (it's not a long swim), but the one thing I know for sure is that I'm going to be cold.

Angeles Crest 100-miler: the finish

2010-09-06T15:06:00.000-07:00

The finish line was in a small park in Altadena. If you were to drive by, you might think someone was having a family reunion barbecue; it had a very laid-back (hippie) vibe and was actually pretty nice.

116 people started the race and only 65 finished, so the finish line was not a hotbed of activity. I arrived around 10am, and once every 15-20 minutes another poor sap... errrr, finisher.... would come staggering in. As soon as anyone saw a finisher enter the park everyone would stand and applaud to bring him/her home. It was probably only 200 yards from the entrance of the park to the finish line, but it was uphill and these people had just run 100 miles. In other words, it was a very long and slow finish chute for everyone.

Rich was the first of our guys to make it home around 12:45, and the first thing I realized was that the Disney & Friends Support Crew was by far the largest group at the finish line. We must have had at least 20 people in our group. That's right, WE rock.

Rich was all smiles coming into the park. On the other side of the finish line however, I think the emotion of the weekend got to him a bit. It was nice to see. For those who don't know Rich, this sums him up perfectly to me: one of his former students was there and congratulated him on his race, not two minutes after the finish. Without missing a beat, Rich congratulated the student for the work he was doing on the track team this year. If EVER there was a moment that belonged to Rich, this was it. But nope, he has to go and make it about someone else. That's Rich.

There was a computer station at the finish line and we were tracking Jesus and Gil. The computer predicted that they would finish around 2:15- AFTER the 2:00 cut-off time for the race. (For a hippie race, they had some impressive technology.) But what WE knew, and what the computer didn't, is that Gerald and Heather were pacing them for the last 26 miles. If anyone could bring them home in time, Gerald and Heather could.

Sure enough, around 1:50 we saw Jesus. It seems that he and Gil ran about 98 miles together, but then Jesus pulled ahead for the final few miles. He ran across the finish line and kept saying "Heather... she saved me... never would have made it without her..." We knew he was in good hands. But truth be told, I'm not sure he did the entire course: the way he was walking around afterwards you would have thought he just did a 10k. He made it look easy.

(I like this picture. It's a bad image, but it shows everyone rallying beside Gil.)

Then it was Gil's turn. Gil, Gil, Gil... always the showman. We first saw Gil coming down the street about 1:58. This was going to be close, and everyone knew it. The entire park was screaming at him to make it by 2:00. He tore up the grass (as much as someone who just ran 100 miles can tear up anything) and literally collapsed on the ground after crossing the finish line. He kept asking "did I make it? Did I make it?" Actually, EVERYBODY was asking it: "Did he make it?! Where's the race official?!" IN fact, several hours earlier the race gurus had already picked Gil as being the POSSIBLE final finisher and were tracking him closely to see if he would make it or not. Well the official timer checked him in at 1:59:43pm. What was the rush? After 33 hours of running, he had 17 seconds to spare.

And while Jesus had nothing but god things to say about Heather, Gil did nothing but curse Gerald's name: "He lied to me! He kept telling me it was only another quarter-mile... and he knew it wasn't!" Sneaky Gerald...lying to Gil to make him run faster and beat the cut-off time. Like I said, we knew they were in good hands.

We hung out in the park for another hour or so, giggling at the racers as we watched them try to sit or stand up again. Although considering what they had been through, they actually looked pretty good. Mostly.

So overall, just an amazing weekend and it still blows my mind what they've accomplished. I'm even amazed just to know people like this. After watching the race, have I been bitten by the ultra-marathon bug? Nope, not even in the slightest. These guys are my friends and I think they're awesome, but they're freaking insane.

100-Mile Endurance Spectating Report Part I

2010-08-29T22:19:00.000-07:00

I am almost embarrassed to be worried about my upcoming Ironman after watching some friends do the Angeles Crest 100-mile Endurance Run. These guys are just simply nuts.

I've spectated a fair number of races, from 5Ks to Ironmans, but I was clueless how to watch this race. They had a 70-page race booklet with confusing maps and complicated charts and I didn't understand how any of it would come together. But in hindsight, it was actually one of the easiest races to watch that I've ever been too.

Well, easy may be oversimplifying things. For starters, I had to get myself to Wrightwood, CA for a 5:00am start time. Wrightwood is a tiny little mountain town about 75 miles away, in a place where you can actually see the stars at night and breathe the air without burning your lungs with smog. I wanted to get there early because I was worried about parking and being able to find everybody: HA! I parked about 100 feet from the starting line. This was not your typical corporate race- it was Hippies Running Through the Woods.

I quickly found racers Rich, Gil, Jesus, and Mike V, and about 100 other crazy people who signed up to do the race. The entire start was kind of anti-climactic; there was no welcome speech, no national anthem... at 5:00 some guy said "Go!" and off they went.

As amazing an undertaking as the 100-mile run may be, I have my own upcoming race to worry about. So I packed up my bike, and my plan was that I would see everyone come through the checkpoint around 7:00, then do a 4-hour bike ride along the Crest and meet up with them again around 11:00 a few checkpoints down the road. Well, we did see them all come into the checkpoint looking strong... but it was FREEZING. I think it may have been in the 40s, with some nasty winds, and I was completely unprepared for a cold bike ride. So I delayed my start for a couple hours and wound up just doing about 80 minutes later in the morning. I did stop by the Mt. Waterman ski lift and sat on the chair just because.

Back to the race... Most of the run is along trails in the Angeles National Forest, and every 5-10 miles or so the trail would cross the Angeles Crest Highway. (Sidenote: people in SoCal really need to head up there and take this drive. It is absolutely beautiful and you'll be amazed just how close it is to the big city.) All of those crossings were "checkpoints" in small parking lots where they had basic aid stations, and friends and family could resupply their runners with food, clothing, or whatever. In triathlon terms, they were basically public Transition Areas. This was my first time ever seeing a "crewed" race and the whole thing fascinated me. At each checkpoint, there would be two dozen cars set up like tailgate parties, with each car loaded with supplies for their runners. Stephanie and Adriana were on official crew duties, and then myself and Annie were there for general moral support.

Funny thing about giving support: Stephanie had the idea that we should try to make it easy for Rich to spot us when he came into each checkpoint, so she suggested we all wear the "SuperSteph" T-Shirts that we wore when she did her Ironman. Throughout the day, people kept asking us who Steph was and how she was doing along the run, and we would just say "oh Steph isn't doing the race. We're just supporting her while she's supporting her husband." After all, it WAS a lot of work for her to be crewing all day long, right?

Our guys came through the first checkpoint looking and feeling great. Maybe a little TOO great, because Rich as way ahead of schedule and was going out too fast. Pretty much same thing at checkpoint two, everyone looking good. But then things got interesting for Rich at checkpoint three.

Oh, the nasty scrape? Nothing to do with the medical help. He fell in the woods. Instead, he had a big blister on his foot that he needed to have popped. He was the first victim - errr, client - at the checkpoint, and the medical team wasn't quite ready to handle people. It was very chaotic. Not only did we have trouble finding a medic for Rich, but when we did find them they didn't have their bags and boxes of supplies ready. I would hate to know what would have had happened if there was an actual emergency.

"Deb" tended to Rich's blister, and as she was looking at his foot she suddenly handed me something and said "here, take this." I thought maybe she needed me to hold some gauze or bandages while she worked on his foot, but no: she gave me her camera and wanted me to take pictures. I don't know what kind of scrapbook she's working on, but she wanted to make sure i got good shots of her slicing open a foot. Freaky hippies. Of course, all the best shots are on her camera.

Unfortunately, at Checkpoint four around Mile 30 MIke V. was dropped off in a pick-up truck; he missed the cutoff time at the last checkpoint by 4 minutes. Now then, I fully understand and support the need for cutoff times: Big-city marathons have to deal with complicated street closures and the midnight deadline for Ironman adds to the mystique. But those are big, corporate events with computer chips calling the shots. This weekend was Hippies Running in the Woods. Those 4 minutes shouldn't have mattered. But they decided to play the "rules are rules" card. Fine. But then they just made matters worse for Mike V. There was no mechanism in place to get him back to civilization. He asked if they had a cel phone he could use: no, there was no coverage in the mountains. (Which was true, but all of the checkpoints were in radio contact with each other so with the slightest amount of effort, they could have done something to help him out.) Mike asked "what am I supposed to do?" The race worker told him "well, you want to help us clean up?"

Really? REALLY?! This guy just ran more than a marathon, you're pulling him off the course against his will, and now you want to put him to work? Seriously? Mike was able to find some guy with a pick-up to drive him to the next checkpoint where we were waiting for him, so I was able to drive him home. He was understandably bummed, but is already talking about next year. In the meantime, he has a crazy swim to Catalina Island he's organizing so I think he'll be just fine.

The race is obviously very long, so a bunch of stuff happened while I was gone. For the last section of the race, the runners have pacers join them along the course. Gerald, Heather, Leah, Gary, Zubin... they all met up with our warriors in the middle of the night to run though the woods and help keep them alert and focused. I haven't been briefed on all of the adventures they had, but I DO know they did an AMAZING job bringing our boys home. They could not have asked for better support.

More to come.

How to Gain (and Lose) Bodyfat

2010-08-25T23:24:00.001-07:00

I have one of those horrible, horrible Tanita scales. For the un-initiated, with the Tanita scale you pre-program it with your age, height, zodiac sign and favorite pet's name. Then when you step on the scale, it sends a small electrical current through your body and generates a random number as your bodyfat percentage. You would think that with a random number sometimes it would be good, sometimes it would be bad. Yet with the Tanita, somehow - defying all laws of mathematics and logic - it is always bad news.

Now I don't delude myself to thinking that the Tanita gives an accurate absolute reading of your bodyfat. (An anonymous friend recently did the full submergence test and it was WAY off from her Tanita reading.) But I HAVE deluded myself into believing that it can show relative progress: ie losing fat or gaining fat overall.

I had not used the scale in maybe a week and thought I'd check up on myself. I haven't gotten down to my race-day goal but I've been hovering in that area for a while so I haven't been worried about it. I turned 42 in July and never re-programmed the Tanita so I finally updated it. I was excited to check my bodyfat, because I assumed that the older you got, the more forgiving it would be. Sort of like going up in age-group for races. I stepped on the scale and Tanita told me I was seven percentage points HIGHER than I was last week. SEVEN POINTS?! That's just crazy.

I waited a few minutes, went back to the scale and tried again. It HAD to be a false reading, right? Nope. Same result. Fortunately I don't trust voodoo magic (Tanita) and I went back and re-reprogrammed the scale. I stepped back on, and this time I was pretty much right where I was last week. I'm not sure what I did the first time, maybe I told it I was 4 feet tall and that's why it thought I was so much fatter.

So my advice to all you Tanita owners: the machine CAN be beat. You just have to figure out how to program it correctly. I think I'm going to try telling it that I'm 8 feet tall and see if I can get it to tell me I have a negative bodyfat percentage.

Sink or Swim

2010-08-22T22:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had a one-on-one swim lesson with our Swim Coach Steve (It's worth clicking the link, I'll wait.) Now then, Steve is a good swimmer, and may be a good teacher, but I'm not a very good student. The problem is that whatever triathlon has done for me, I am still the same spaz I was 30 years ago. The only difference is that now I spaz out 140.6 miles at a time. Of the 3 tri disciplines, swimming requires by far the most coordination and is my therefore my worst leg.

Steve offered to give me some swim pointers because, well, it can probably be best explained by this exchange last night in the pool:

Steve: "Where did you learn how to swim?"
Me: "Um, I didn't."
Steve: "I kind of thought so."

I was never really "taught" to swim. And for the past 5 years on the tri team I've basically just been doing the swim workouts while reinforcing all of my bad habits. So Steve hopes to fix that.

Steve's big thing, what he tells everybody every week in our group workouts, is that proper head position is critical. If you can get that right, then everything else becomes much easier. And he has a simple exercise to determine proper head position: while standing up, raise your arms straight overhead, place one hand on top of the other, and have your arms cover your ears. That should be the correct alignment when you're horizontal in the water. Here's the problem: the bigger your arms are, the easier it is to line them up with your ears. My arms don't really touch my ears when I reach overhead without kind of pushing them inward and so I was always kind of guessing where the right position was. But Steve set me straight and now at least in theory I know where my head should be.

The other problem I have (well, the next of many) is my kicking. Someone long ago told me that "you don't really need to kick in a triathlon." The logic is you don't get a lot of propulsion out of your legs compared with your arms, and you're better off saving your legs for the bike. Since you're wearing a wetsuit, your legs should be floating up by the surface anyway so they're not dragging. I've just clinged to this philosophy ever since. Well, in Hawaii it will be too warm for a wetsuit so I'll have to kick my legs properly to keep them from dragging. That was Steve's lesson #2.

All in all, there was very little yelling and very few tears so I think the lesson went well. Even if I don't swim faster, if I can be more efficient in the water and less tired when I get out, all the better.

Let the Boycott Begin

2010-08-21T13:06:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago I sent a letter to Mars, Inc. complaining about some damaged m&ms. They replied:

Now then... I wasn't expecting a HUGE response from them, but I was hoping somebody at Mars would have put a little thought into it. After all, even if you they didn't know a thing about triathlons, my letter had to be at least a welcome change of pace from the countless "I found rat droppings in my candy" complaints that I'm sure they get all the time.* The perfect response in my opinion would have been for them to send me some small bags of individually colored m&ms. I told them which colors I was using, and it would have been a creative reply. They did not do that. They sent me coupons for six bucks worth of candy. That doesn't even cover the cost of the original crappy bag that I bought in the first place. At the very least, they could have personalized the letter with a quick "good luck with your race" note. They did not do that.

Therefore, I NO LONGER ENDORSE M&M CANDIES AS PART OF AN IRONMAN TRAINING DIET. You should switch to Reeses Pieces instead.

*I do not have substantial proof that every bag of m&ms candy contains rat droppings.

LAVA makes my blood boil

2010-08-17T20:47:00.000-07:00

Dear LAVA Magazine:

Congratulations on your premiere issue, but you completely dropped the ball with your response to "Disappointed Joe" who missed the bike cut-off at Ironman St. George. He wanted a comp entry to a future race because he felt the Ironman organizers misrepresented the difficulty of the course . You put on the kid gloves and calmly explained the (many) logical and factual errors in his letter. I understand wanting to be supportive of fellow triathletes, but some people, like Disappointed Joe, just need a good swift kick in the ass.

As a back-of-the-pack Ironman finisher, Disappointed's letter offends me. He doesn't have an inspiring story of going from couch potato to triathlete; he's a self-proclaimed lifetime athlete who felt compelled to list his many athletic accomplishments, and who finally got humbled by a race. Welcome to land of the mere mortals, buddy.

I was with a friend at Ironman Arizona when she missed the cut-off for the third lap of the run. (Disappointed Joe would call her a "failure.") She signed up for the race knowing she would be fighting the clock the entire time, and attempted it anyway. As she left the course, she handled it with grace and dignity and didn't look for excuses. Disappointed Joe, in contrast (and by his own admission) wouldn't have even tried doing an Ironman if he knew how hard it would be. He can't seem to understand how an athlete of his caliber could possibly receive a DNF - the problem MUST be with the race itself. When my friend returns to Arizona some day and crosses the finish line, she will become twice the Ironman Disappointed Joe can ever hope to be, because she understands that becoming an Ironman is all about the journey.

Disappointed Joe says he never wants to do another triathlon again. You want to be supportive? Why not tell him "good idea" because it's pretty obvious he has absolutely no idea what the true heart and spirit of Ironman is all about.

Swimming the Channel

2010-08-11T15:39:00.000-07:00

Vacationing on the North Carolina shore is not good for bike training; I'll be off the bike for a week. But it IS great for high-humidity runs, perfect for Hawaii, and swimming. Sunset Beach is a barrier island and there is another island just north of us. They're separated by an inlet channel that is maybe a couple hundred yards. This is a fantastic place to do open-water laps. Sometimes.

The eastern seaboard has a very shallow shelf, which creates very dramatic changes based on the tides. I remember trying to swim the channel a couple years as the tide was going out and almost being washed out to so this time I thought I would be smart and do my laps right before high tide, so if I did get caught in any current it would simply bring me inland. Unfortunately, in addition to the high tide there were high winds blowing and the inlet was a maelstrom. I stepped 5 feet off shore and could barely stand up straight because the current was so strong.

I was with my friend Alan, who is known for having more courage than skill (although is certainly very athletic) and he thought we should try to swim across anyway. The logic was that if we could just get through the rough current along the shoreline, it would be smoother near the middle of the inlet. And again, if the current swept us away, it would dump us in a marsh.

We jumped in, and yes the current swept us down a bit but we got through the worst of it pretty quickly and the water was much calmer 25 yards out. Alan doesn't have as much experience as I do in open water and was struggling a bit to move against the current so we decided to just surrender to it instead.

We went back to the stronger current and At times I felt like Nemo's dad Marlin riding the East Australian Current. We were brought around to the back of the island very quickly and cruised by a bunch of party boats docked right off the beach. Swimming with a good current is a good way to get a quick tour of the island.

We cheated and walked our way back to where we started. Although we covered a fair amount of distance, I felt that I was cheating in terms of getting a workout so I'm only crediting myself for half the time.

Snakes on a Road

2010-08-09T13:41:00.001-07:00

I am on vacation in North Carolina, spending a week in a beach house in Sunset Beach. It's tough to get all your training hours done when you're out of town, so I'm planning an squeezing them in whenever I can.

I took the red-eye from Los Angeles Thursday night, and stayed with friends in Raleigh (who are part of the beach-house crew). My hosts had some errands to do around lunchtime Friday, so I decided to take advantage of the free time and do a one-hour run.

I had to run along a fairly busy highway (there's pretty much only one road there.) I ran facing traffic, on a five-foot shoulder, hugging the grass as closely as possible. Every few hundred yards there would be some form of road trash in front of me: a piece of a blown-out tire, some rubber piping, strips of unknown plastic. At one point I saw a large piled of coiled-up debris in the middle of the shoulder. When I got about two feet in front of it I realized it wasn't trash but a snake. A HUGE snake.

Now I know what you're thinking: I tend to exaggerate snake stories. But I really mean it this time; this snake was BIG. I later found out it was a Black Rat Snake, which can grow to be 6-8 feet long. That's a lot of snake.

Naturally the snake didn't do anything, but I was completely freaked out. From that point out, every shadow looked like a snake to me. So instead of running along the edge of the shoulder, I started running in the middle of the lane of oncoming traffic. I would go back on to the shoulder if, say, a truck was coming my way but pretty much I tried to stay as far away from the grass as possible.

Of course when I got back to the house, I told my friends "ohmygod you wouldn't believe the snake I saw!" They were very non-chalant about it. "Sounds like a Black Snake. We have one living under our porch." They have a six-foot-plus serpent living with them and they can get to sleep every night?! These people are freaking crazy.

Complaint Department

2010-08-03T15:57:00.000-07:00

"Going Long" AND a "Blast from the Past"

2010-08-02T23:05:00.001-07:00

This weekend was the beginning of high-mileage territory: I had a 90-mile bike ride on Saturday and a 15-mile run Sunday.

The bike ride was all about the mental game. I've been doing short mid-week rides and after 30 minutes or so I've been getting bored out of mind thinking "man, this is taking forever!" So I needed to recalibrate what it means to go for a long ride. I met up with Steve, Teresa, Gary and Chris in Duarte and we hit the river trail.

We started off with the 10-mile climb up to East Fork Road. Gary, bless his heart, was being very helpful and giving me good advice about the bike. (He qualified and raced in Kona in 2005.) But for some reason I thought it was very funny HOW he was giving me advice. I honestly don't remember the numbers, but at one point as I was charging up the hill he told me something like this: "OK, I'll do an Ironman bike in about 5 hours, and right now I'm putting out 250 watts. So if you're passing me, you may be overexerting yourself." My counter-argument was basically "maybe, but my way we get to top sooner." Point: Wedgie.

Of course, Gary was right. We went back down the hill and then continued along the slight-downhill all the way to Seal Beach. And all the time, I KNEW I was going too fast and that I was going to pay for it later. Sure enough, around mile 57 when it was time to turn around and do a 35-mile slight incline back to the cars, I wasn't too happy.

I remember the exact moment when my ride fell apart: I glanced down at my odometer and it said 64 miles. And it immediately clicked in my head that I was just past the halfway point of the 112-mile Ironman ride. (Yes, I didn't realize until the NEXT DAY that the halfway point of Ironman is at 56 miles, but I guess I was getting loopy and in my mind 62 was one-half of 112.) ANYWAY, that's when the demons hit. "Oh my god, I could never do what I just did twice. I hate this wind. My shoulder hurts." And once I stop caring, then I start to slow down, which makes me feel worse because I can't believe how slow I'm going, so I care even less... It was just a very long ride back.

Now here's the odd part: I thought the 90-mile ride would take me 6 hours. That's slower than what my race pace should be, but I thought at this point in my training 6 hours would be good. I finished in 6:02:00, and it was actually 92.5 miles. So that should have been a great result, but I was just so - not depressed, but something one step less severe - during the last 90 minutes of the ride it just left a bad feeling inside. But, the entire purpose of the ride was to start getting used to long rides so mission accomplished.

Sunday's 15-mile run was mostly uneventful. I felt no noticeable fatigue or soreness in my legs from the ride the day before. Last week I had a bad 15-mile run because of a pretzel hangover, and this time I was only about 8 minutes faster. I thought I should have been faster, but when the run was over I didn't feel sore or dead. Could I have gone another 11 miles? I don't know, but I certainly felt I had 5 more miles in me. With a bit over two months to go, I'm comfortable with that.

I said the run was MOSTLY uneventful; there was one very cool moment: I ran into Iron Monica! Without giving away all of her personal secrets, she has a cool new job in the fitness industry which will either further ignite her passion for endurance sports or burn her out completely. I suspect it's the former. She's still under the impression that we Disney Tri Team folks are cool so hopefully we'll be seeing her again soon.

AAA

2010-07-28T22:28:00.001-07:00

Well, this was certainly one of my more unusual rides.

I was supposed to do an easy brick tonight: 1 hour bike ride, 1 hour run. Simple. The rest of the Wednesday Night group was doing loops around Travel Town but I decided to go off on my own and do a few flat intervals. After about 45 minutes on the bike, I was heading back to my car and was about 2 miles down the bike path by Griffith Park when my chain popped off. (For those in L.A., I was just north of the bridge where the bike path crosses Los Feliz Boulevard.) Unfortunately, I thought that the chain was just slipping so I kept pedaling and WHAM! My pedals locked up.

I pulled over to put my chain back on. It was just about dusk, so there weren't too many bikers on the path but there were several groups. Cyclists are a friendly bunch and I was asked a few times if I was OK. I just waved them off because, after all, I can put a chain back on a bicycle.

Or so I thought. Somehow the chain jumped to the outside of the big ring, wrapped around the crank arm and then folded back to the inside of the ring. Worst of all it scratched the heck out of the crank. I tried tugging on the chain, poking it with some bike tools, it wouldn't budge.

I was getting a little frustrated, so I decided to give Gerald a call (he organized the ride.) I got his voicemail but didn't leave a message. I told myself, "well, I was supposed to do a brick tonight, I might as well start running." I took off my bike shoes and stuffed them in the back pockets of my jersey which is, not surprisingly, rather uncomfortable. I started running along the pavement in my socks which is also, not surprisingly, rather uncomfortable. The funny thing is that I realized that this was actually pretty good training for Transition areas: it can be tricky navigating your bike while pushing the seat and I was getting a lot of practice with it.

After a few minutes, Gerald called me. He saw that he had a missed call from me and was checking to make sure I was OK. My initial thought was that I was just going to tell them that I had some bike trouble but I was fine now. The truth however was that I really wasn't fine. Oh sure, I would have made it back to the car before the zombies came out, but I just wasn't having a good time. (Gerald said I sounded a bit frazzled.) I'm already on edge all the time just trying to get my training hours in every week, my feet were hurting from the pavement, and I just wanted to go home. So I asked him if he could come down and help me out.

A short while later Gerald showed up along the path. He fiddled with the chain a bit but without a full set of tools there really wasn't anything he could do to extract it. Frankly I was glad he didn't just pop the chain loose because that would have been embarrassing. I was still a mile away from the car, but I was feeling so much better just to see a friendly face that I told him I could make back on my own without any problems. Instead, Gerald told me he would tow me.

You're going to do what now?

I had no idea how the logistics or the physics of this was going to work, but Gerald had a plan. He had his bike lock chain in a loop; he would hold one end, I would hold the other and I'd get pulled along. The tricky part was getting started. My pedals could not move because the chain was jammed in them, and when I sit down on the bike I can barely touch the ground with my toes so it was very hard to get any initial momentum going. I sort of tried pulling myself along the railing a bit, pushed with my toes a bit and probably got up to a staggering 3 or 4 mph. Gerald rode past holding out the chain, I grabbed on and WHOOSH! we were off.

I felt very unstable during that initial tug but once we got a little bit of speed going it was the Best. Ride. Evar. Do you have any idea how cool it is to go for a bike ride and have somebody else do all the work for you? It's awesome. I don't know what our speed was but it was a lot faster than I expected, and when I think about how much longer it would have taken me running in my bare socks... well, I was very grateful.

Everything was going so smoothly, so I assumed that this was Gerald's standard practice for dealing with broken-down bikes. I asked him when was the last time he had to give someone a tow; he told me, "um.... not since I was about 10." So he was just winging it the whole time and I suddenly had a whole lot less confidence in his plan. But we were almost back to the cars so I can't really argue with success.

I know I can fix the chain. It will take me about an hour, I will cover both myself and my condo with grease, and at some point I will wind up bleeding on my bike. Or I can take it to Bicycle John's where they'll have it fixed in about 5 minutes. Guess what I'll be doing tomorrow during lunch.

I rode for 45 minutes and ran for 10; I think that counts as a brick. And I had a lot of fun being towed along the bike path. So I guess that means I had a good workout? Thanks Gerald for saving my butt yet again.

Pretzel Hangover

2010-07-26T17:28:00.001-07:00

My weekend runs are getting longer, and on Sunday I had to do 15 miles. Doable. Unfortunately, I spent all day Saturday at Disneyland. Left my home at 6:30am, didn't get back until after 1am. The long day of hiking around the park wasn't so bad, but around 10:00 I was getting a little hungry. I was going to get a small bag of Mickey Mouse pretzels, but then I figured I'd get a large bag to share.

Well, I did share a couple of pretzels. But not many. The rest I ate. And ate. And ate. I ate them in the park. I ate them on the ride home. I ate them after I got home.

Needless to say, I wasn't feeling too well when I woke up. In fact I was pretty sick. But I forced myself outside and did a late run, starting at 11:00am. Got up to about 85 degrees. The first 9 miles or so went OK, but then all those pretzels started looking for attention. I was getting rumblies in my tummy and did not think I would be able to finish the run.

I decided I would go to the nearest bathroom in Griffith Park to do some... "purging". There was a bathroom building about a half-mile down the trail so I planned on stopping in there. Now if triathlon has taught me anything, it's that I'll go to the bathroom in any smoldering, stinky port-a-potty or bathroom I can find. But I draw the line with doors: if I need to sit down, I need a door. Well this bathroom had stalls but no doors. And it wasn't even like the stalls were tucked away in the back; they were opposite the sinks. Ain't gonna happen.

Ironman is very much a mental game, and I was thinking to myself that I could very well get sick in Kona and I'll have to just deal with it, so I continued on with the run. I did a little bit of walking to settle my stomach and that helped a lot. The biggest test however was when I made it back to the car. The way I set up my running loops, my car was at mile 12. Which meant I still had 3 miles to go. It's one thing to be stuck out on the trail and you have no choice but to finish a run, but it's another ball game when you are faced with the option of just stepping in your car and calling it a day.

I am proud to say I trudged forward. My stomach was feeling OK for the time being, so I figured I would risk an extra half hour on the trail (although at the pace I was doing, it was a lot slower than that.) It took me 3 hours to do the distance and at this point in my training I really should be much faster than that for this distance. But I got my miles in for the day.

Oh and I went home, got a little sick, then felt a lot better.

Next week I have another 15-mile run to do. I'm expecting/hoping to improve upon this week's time a great deal.

Highway to Hell

2010-07-23T14:24:00.001-07:00

A lot of people have been asking me how the following story could have possibly happened. Honestly, I'm not sure myself. All I can say is that I think all this training is getting to me.

A little background: I live in downtown Glendale. It is literally one mile as the crow files from my place to Griffith Park. But because there are 2 freeways and a river between me and the park, it's a little tricky to ride a bike home from Griffith. I have to take a bike trail along the L.A. River to some side streets and snake around Glendale to get home. When driving, I go through Griffith Park every day after work and pick up the freeway for one mile to get across the river. And on the weekends, I usually drive over there for a run. So I drive the same route an awful lot.

I am a little behind on my workout hours quota for the week, so this morning I used some vacation time to go out for a bike ride. Just a couple of hours. I took the side streets over to Griffith Park, did a few intervals on the river trail, did the Travel Town loop a couple times, then started to head home.

From the bridge crossing the 5 (opposite the L.A. Zoo) I can see my condo building. And I was thinking this morning how annoying it was that I was so close to home, yet I had to ride so far out of my way to get there. On the other side of the bridge, the entrance to the bike path was on my right, the freeway entrance was on my left and for some reason I turned left.

I rode for about a quarter-mile up the on-ramp (and beyond) then looked up and saw a sign that said "San Ferndando Road." I thought to myself, "that's funny, I ride in Griffith Park all the time and I don't remember ever seeing OH MY GOD I'M ON THE FREEWAY!" I was completely disoriented, and for a split second I had a panic attack where I worried "am I in the middle of traffic?!" Earlier in the day I was riding in the regular car lanes to get to the park, and I thought that maybe I was doing the same thing here. Fortunately, I was at least still on the shoulder.

In hindsight, I should have just kept on going and taken the next exit, which would have saved me a ton of time. But I was still pretty close to the on-ramp and I was worried that a cop would pull over. How could I explain that I accidentally rode on to the Freeway? I decided to walk my bike back down to the bike trail. This is the on-ramp for the 5-North interchange, so it was pretty busy and I didn't want to be riding my bike against traffic. Walking my bike, I was surprised just how far I rode without knowing I was getting on the freeway.

The big question for Hawaii is this: How far will I go before I realize I'm riding into a volcano?

Sorry, Glendale (TMI)

2010-07-21T17:26:00.000-07:00

I did something this weekend I vowed I would never do; I went running shirtless.

It was very hot this weekend, and after getting a nice sunburn during my Saturday bike ride, I was very smart and made sure I really lathered up my back and shoulders. Unfortunately I forgot to do anything about my neck.

I had to run 10 miles, and after just 2 miles my neck was already hurting. Griffith Park shade is sporadic at best, and I was struggling to find any shadows I could. If I saw a butterfly overhead, I tried to run underneath it just for the added shade. After 5 miles, it was beyond discomfort and was actually painful when I ran into sunlight.

I wasn't sure how to cover my neck. I tried flipping my cap around so the visor would provide shade but that didn't help- I had to use my shirt. At first I tried to figure out a way to wrap my shirt around my neck like a scarf but that just looked ridiculous. Instead, I went with the Lawrence of Arabia look.

Let me tell you, it felt great. For one thing, it was nice not having the sun scorching my neck anymore. But beyond that, my shirt was soaking wet with sweat (ewwww gross) and the moisture was incredibly soothing on my neck and back.

Fortunately, since it was so hot outside there were fewer than normal people along the trails. And I figured if people were stupid enough to be out in the heat they deserved to see my Mountain Dew belly coming at them. I did however take off my nip guards so nobody would have to see me wearing my pasties.

Overall, in spite of the heat, it turned out to be a decent and comfortable run. Next week: no shorts.

Triple Peaks

2010-07-18T20:36:00.000-07:00

I wanted to get some longer hours on the bike this weekend, so planned on doing a 5-hour ride. Five hours is very easy to do along our normal Duarte river trail route, but it's a 20-mile drive each way and so there's a lot of overhead doing that. Instead, I thought I'd just ride locally, and coming up with 5-hours of riding in Glendale is tricky. There are some great 1-2 hour rides in Griffith Park, or in Pasadena, but you have to deal with actually getting to the nice sections which means lots of intersections and traffic lights and 4-wheeled vehicles.

Since I was going for time not distance, I figured the best way to slow me down would be to do some climbing. I came up with a route which I'm calling the "Triple Peaks" - here's the elevation:

I started in Glendale and went up to Montrose which is a nice steady climb to Peak 1 and you get a great downhill returning via La Tuna Canyon road. (Normally I climb up La Tuna Canyon and back the other side, but I reversed it this time.) The only problem is once you get to the bottom you pretty much have to cross downtown Burbank. There's just no easy way around it, and I snaked my way over to Griffith Park.

Peak 2 was the climb up to the Griffith Park Observatory (via Travel Town). You get some great views of the Hollywood sign along the way, and although I have seen a few snakes along this path all the reptiles were thankfully hiding this weekend. There are good restrooms and water fountains at the Observatory, so it's a good destination.

I tried some place new for Peak #3. Now I know what you're thinking, that third "peak" around mile 35 is nothing more than a bump, right? There's no climbing involved whatsoever. Well the chart doesn't tell the entire story because it's averaging out all the elevation data. Peak 3 is Dodger Stadium, which is surprisingly close to Griffith Park. Here is a close-up of the data entering Elysian Park, home of Dodger Stadium:

The stadium is on a plateau which is not very high but is surrounded by steep climbs from every angle. 20% climb in that one short section, not too shabby. And I did not just climb up to the stadium just once. I followed signs to what looked like the main entrance, where I was stopped by a very nice but passive-aggressive toll booth lady. I asked her if I could just ride up to do a loop around the stadium. She told me "well, a lot of the roads are closed because they're setting up for a flea market." I told her I didn't need to do a full loop, I could just go up to the stadium and back. "Well, there's a lot of construction going on, it's not really open." We went back and forth a few times, but eventually I just said "sounds like you'd rather I just turn around and leave." She smiled. (I crumble before any type of authority figure.)

I don't know the Dodger Stadium area at all, but I knew there were multiple entrances so I rode down the hill, then back up another road to try to get in. Fenced off. Back down, up another street, same blockade. These hills are not big but they are steep, especially if you've already been out in the heat for 3 hours.

I gave up trying to get into the actual stadium parking area, but I'm hoping to be able to get up there another time. It's only 3 miles from Griffith Park and would make for a great evening ride after work.

Have I mentioned L.A. has been going through a heat wave? The heat training is actually good preparation for Hawaii, but after 4 hours or so I was just "done." It was an interesting dilemma: I wanted to get home as soon as possible, but I wanted to make sure I got my time in on the bike. That's the problem with training for time rather than distance; there's little incentive to ride faster. And even heading back home at an easy pace I knew it was too early to finish up so I forced myself to do an extra 5-mile Travel-Town loop. Still wasn't enough, so when I got within 4 blocks of my condo I took a 2-mile detour just to pad the ride a bit. Miserable.

Later that afternoon I noticed this:

Yes, I DID put on sunscreen before I left. Not only that, but I brought extra sunscreen with me and re-applied at the observatory. Obviously it was not enough. I think I was able to get aloe on it quickly enough so I was spared most of the pain, but I suspect I'll be peeling and itching like crazy in a few days.

Mammoth Run

2010-07-03T16:02:00.000-07:00

I learned some valuable lessons during my long run yesterday:

1. Just because it's July, that doesn't mean it's warm.
2. Just because air is clean, that doesn't mean it has oxygen.
3. Just because you're in the mountains, that doesn't mean there will be hills. (oh wait, I guess it does mean that.)

The Mammoth Mountain "ski resort" is having an exceptionally long season and is open through the July 4th weekend. (I put "ski resort" in quotes because I'm a Utah ski snob and I am contractually obligated to say Mammoth Sucks.) We know the conditions are terrible, but this is also my birthday weekend and I always thought it would be cool to ski on my birthday. So me, Stupid Dutch, Smart Dutch's girlfriend and Miles went on a road trip.

I still had to get an 11-mile run in this weekend, so I went out yesterday morning. Our condo is in the village, and it's about 5 miles to the Main Lodge at the "resort". I figured that would be a good run to do because there would be water fountains and bathrooms there at the turn-around.

I've driven that route dozens of times. And in my mind, there was about a one-mile climb leaving the village, and then it flattened out as you cut over to the lodge. At least that's how it feels when you're driving it. In actuality, it's pretty much a 4-mile climb. To make matters worse, the village is at about 7500 feet elevation and the lodge is 9000 feet; so the air was a whole lot thinner than the near-sea-level runs we often do. And it was a lot chillier than I was expecting. So I was huffing and puffing quite a bit.

Stupid Dutch actually likes Mammoth for some reason and wanted to snowboard every day, so he hit the slopes while I went running. I left the condo before he did, and was thinking it would be really cool if I made it to the lodge running before he got there driving. (I'm petty that way.) But about a half mile from the lodge, he drove past me. Fine. But then once I made it to the parking lot, he was still getting his gear ready so I past him and made it to the slopes first. The best thing about this is that I was able to grab a snowball, start my run back and throw it at him. Pegging your buddy with a snowball while on a run in the mountains? It doesn't get better than that.

Later that afternoon we did a 5-mile hike to Rainbow Falls and Devil's Postpile. It was not a difficult hike, but I was definitely feeling it. And then skiing today was a bit rough on the legs as well. More skiing tomorrow, then back to L.A.

Terrible Tuesdays

2010-06-30T14:50:00.000-07:00

It's really tough to meet your weekly quotas for training hours. You can't simply push a workout back a day, because tomorrow is already booked with plenty of Tri-silliness. So if you to add one little event to your schedule you really have to fight to get your hours in.

Yesterday I had to run 3 miles. Piece of cake. I also had my first new session with Joe The Trainer. Still doable. But I also wanted to help my Tri Team with our new-merchandise distribution after work. This was going to get tricky.

I had to come into work early to set up for a technology demo, and somehow managed to both cancel the event AND host it anyway. I didn't get to go to lunch until 2:00, at which point I drove to the gym and put in 3 miles on the treadmill. The gym is pretty close, so I was back in the office at 3. (OK, fine, 3:10 so shoot me.)

After work I headed out to our merchandise distribution. I pushed Joe The Trainer back to 8:00, which is way-past dinner time. I didn't want to eat right before our session so I wolfed down a turkey sandwich from 7-Eleven in the car after work on the way to the ABC Building.

I looked in the various conference rooms but couldn't find anybody so I texted Robert:

What room are we in?
For what?
Merchandise sorting
That's next Tuesday.

OMG. WTF.

Turns out I had plenty of time to get my workouts done right after work, but at this point it didn't matter. I had been stressing about my schedule all day for nothing.

And speaking of Joe The Trainer, he is noticeably larger than he used to be. And not in the Oreos-and-m&ms sort of way. So I asked him about it.

Me: "Looks like you got bigger."
JTT: "Dude, I completely changed my workouts. I started doing a ton of cardio and I gained muscle."
Me: "Frak you."

Next Tuesday: same tech demo, same run, same Joe the Trainer... Only this time I really will be throwing merchandise distribution into the mix.

What happened in Kona, stayed in Kona

2010-06-28T21:46:00.000-07:00

This is my Ironman Training log:

You'll notice there are no yellow m&ms, representing bike rides. That's because I still don't have a bike.

I thought I would be smart and save money for once by mailing my bike back from Hawaii, rather than using Tri Bike Transport. And I did save over $150. But my bike is still gone. It might still be Kona waiting shipment, it might be on a boat, it might be at the bottom of the ocean. I have no idea. No tracking information is available. The expected delivery was June 21, a week ago. The good news if that my bike just stays in Hawaii, I won't need to worry about sending it back in October; I'll just pick it up when I get there.

I also was supposed to have a Finisher's shirt mailed to me. Hasn't happened yet. So I have two things to be mailed to me from Hawaii and neither has shown up. I know there is bad Taboo about removing items from the island, but I thought it was OK to remove items you brought yourself. (I paid for the T-shirt with me registration, so that counts.)

After 3 weeks, I am officially allowed to file an insurance claim against my missing package from the post office (i.e. my bicycle) but I'm giving it one more week. I misplace things all the time: keys, wallets, phones... a missing bicycle isn't anything to worry about.

A blog post about a swim workout

2010-06-27T23:50:00.000-07:00

I don't like organized swim workouts. I am more than happy to just jump in a pool and do laps and be done with it. When I first started doing triathlons I joined one of the Southern California AQuatics masters programs (which shall remain nameless) and the coaches were, well, terrible. They would say "OK, now do 4 laps backstroke, 4 laps sidestroke, and 4 laps freestyle." I'd say "um, I don't know those strokes." "Well just do whatever stroke you know." "Is there a way I could LEARN these other strokes?" "Um, I dunno... I guess you could maybe find a class or something." Useless.

Our Tri Team has coached swim workouts led by Steve. Now there's no denying that Steve is a good swimmer. And he might very well be a good teacher. But I am a terrible swim student. I am uncoordinated, I am easily flustered, and I don't understand the language of swimming: We'll be told "OK, do four by fifties on the fifteens, GO!" And I'm like.... "what?" I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that a "lap" is one length of the pool and not a round trip.

But I went to a swim workout anyway, and I was lost from the very start. We were told "beginners will be in the first lanes over there, and we'll we working over here. People here for the workout will be in the middle lanes." This confused me: were there 2 groups of swimmers, or three? After all, weren't we ALL here for the workout? So I put myself in lane 5 of what I thought was Steve's 8 lanes of training, but it turns out I was in lane 1 of some other workout. I still don't understand what that 3rd group was. Steve quickly corrected me by saying "Wedgie, get over here."

We did a lot of kicking. Which wouldn't have been bad, but for parts of the workout we had to count our kicks. We were supposed to do 8 kicks, do a left hand stroke, 8 kicks, a right hand stroke, repeat. Apparently I'm not very good at counting. I guess 8 kicks means left-right-left-right-left-right-left-right-STROKE. For some reason I could only count my left kicks so I was doing 16 kicks per stroke. And then for the next set I would wind up starting off with a right kick which threw everything off. So I pretty much just wound up counting to 10 in my head with no correlation to what my feet were doing whatsoever.

It seems that there is one thing I am good at regarding swimming: I know how to dress. I wear "jammers", which are basically speedos with the leg openings stretched down to your knees. These are the preferred suits for swim workouts. Someone else in the pool was wearing big baggy board shorts, which is probably one step up from wearing cement flippers. Steve thought he'd create his own Goofus and Gallant lesson and had the two of us get out of the pool to show the dos and donts of swimwear. Being paraded around in front of everybody, shirtless, wearing lycra... you can't really come up with a worse nightmare for me.

Oh and yes I'll be going back next week.

The Return of Joe The Trainer

2010-06-24T14:40:00.000-07:00

Last year I joined a gym and had a trainer named Joe The Trainer. As Ironman Wisconsin got closer, I stopped going to the gym to focus on the bike and run (but not the swim, natch). Then Joe The Trainer quit working there and my membership expired. I rejoined the gym a couple months ago, but it's been tough to get back into the swing of things. It's just hard to be motivated without someone yelling at you.

Well last night I went to the gym and who was there but Joe The Trainer. He's baaaaaaack. First thing he asked me was if I was still doing Ironmans. I told him about the Kona lottery slot and I don't know if he fully understood the implications but he did say it was awesome. I kid you not - he told me I was his "hardest working client" (so suck on THAT, Mrs. Agnes O'Donnelly!) I've told Joe The Trainer many times before that I don't care if he tells his other clients that they're his favorite or whatever, as long as he says it to ME as well. Needless to say I'm bringing him back on the payroll, although I'm a little embarrassed for him to see how much progress I HAVEN'T made in his absence.

Later on in the gym a woman came up to me after seeing my tattoo and asked which Ironman I did. I told her Coeur d'Alene, and she said she thought it mouth have been for Florida because of the killer whale. OK, kudos to her for actually knowing it's a killer whale; I can't believe how many people think it's a dolphin. Has nobody seen Free Willy? When I told her I have a killer whale squeaky horn on my bike, she said "oh, I have the dinosaur horn." Awesome.

She did Coeur d'Alene the same year I did. We commiserated about the freezing cold swim and how we were bother obsessively going online the weeks before to check the current lake temperatures. She told me she was on the Pasadena Tri Team, so of course I asked if she knew Tri Team Tammy. (Anybody who's anybody knows Tri Team Tammy.) Turns out, she borrowed Tammy's squid lid for Coeur d'Alene. It's a small tri world after all.

Lessons Learned from Hawaii

2010-06-17T21:16:00.000-07:00

The Rohto Cooling Eye Drops Ironman 70.3 Hawaii was a good practice race for the World Championships in October. These are some of the things I learned during the week:

1. The course is doable.
We'll be at a different beach in October, but the water will be just as warm. We rode the same road as the full Ironman, and actually did the hardest part of the full course. And I'm told the run is flatter.

2. Using a bike-transport company is money well-spent.
Taking the bike apart, packing it up, shipping, unpacking, rebuilding, repeat... It was a real pain in the neck.

3. Be sure to eat in the days before the race.
You can only take in so many calories on race day; you need to have some fuel stored in the tank beforehand. I was so concerned about keeping my stomach stable that I may have under-eaten.

4. Be sure not to eat in the months before the race.
These are non-wetsuit races, and I looked like a whale getting out of the water.

5. Get a full-body tan before the race.
A beluga whale.

6. Bring your own snorkel.
There's lots to see underwater (on the days you're not racing) and renting a mask by the hour is the wrong way to go.

7. You do not need nor want race wheels.
I was debating whether or not to use my Flashpoint wheels for the race. I did not, and even with my thin wheels I felt very unstable during some of the stronger gusts of wind. I love my wheels, but the Flashpoints will have to stay home in October. Plenty of other people were using their race wheels, they're just not for me.

8. Skip the drinking.
If you want a good Hawaiian drink, you need to go to Vegas. I didn't see a tacky coconut-umbrella cup anywhere.

9. Go sleeveless.
I think I was the only person in the race wearing a bike jersey; everyone else was in tri-tops. Bike jerseys are hotter and the sleeves cover up the race numbers they stamp on your arms.

10. Reinforce the sign.
I like wearing custom-printed signs pinned to the back of my jersey during races. I switched to a more-waterproof-yet-more-flimsy material for Hawaii, and the sign tore twice. I need to secure it better.

Ironm&man

2010-06-14T21:41:00.000-07:00

This week marks the official beginning of my Ironman training. I know it's important to keep a training log, so I made this:

For every 15 minutes doing an activity, I'll put an m&m in the Kona Kandy jar.

Swim: Blue (for the water)
Bike: Yellow (for the lane lines)
Run: Green (for the grass in Griffith Park)
Strength: Brown (cause they look like tiny little chocolate weights.

Now I know what you're thinking... Most of my time will be spent on the bike, and most m&ms are brown, so shouldn't it make more sense to use brown for the asphalt on the roads? No. Since there are so few yellow m&ms in a bag, the more I bike, the more bags of m&ms I'll have to buy. Buying m&ms is a good thing.

And no, Reese's Pieces don't count and custom-ordering colored m&ms is cheating.

Ten Cool Things I Did In Hawaii

2010-06-14T14:43:00.000-07:00

1. Saw the Kona airport. That may not sound like much, but trust me; it is a silly place.

2. Went snorkeling with sea turtles.

3. Went snorkeling with manta rays. (After a not-TOO-scary boat ride)

4. Saw a raging river of lava from a helicopter.

5. Ziplined 200-feet in the air over waterfalls and tree canopies.

6. Completed a half-Ironman triathlon.

7. Saw about a million stars at night out in the middle of nowhere.

8. Earned a ton of frequent-flyer miles by using my Delta-American Express card. (OK, so that really isn't too cool.)

9. Made some coral graffiti on the beach.

10.Saw evolution in progress as I watched an eel try to crawl out on to dry land.

Complaint Department

2010-06-12T12:00:00.001-07:00

Far be it from me to complain (Ha!), but I am always happy to provide constructive feedback when things don't quite fit in with Wedgie's World. Here are a few "issues" I had with the Rohto Cooling Eye Drops Ironman 70.3 Hawaii:

1. Lack of sunscreen. They had sunscreen at the beach, but I'm not too worried about the sun at 7 or 8 o'clock in the morning. It becomes an issue during the run, after we've sweated off the first layer on the bike. I didn't see any sunscreen anywhere along the course. I am told that they it, you just had to ask for it. Here's the problem with that: when you come up to an aid station and you start seeing the ice sponges and water, you're not thinking about getting cancer. All you want is the instant relief of a cold drink. And frankly, I shouldn't have to ask the Cola lady if she can go find me some sunscreen. I'm not saying they needed Lotion Girls in the middle of the lane giving rubdowns, but a simple sign saying "Sunscreen" would at least tell us where we should go.

2. Young volunteers. OK, so this may get me in trouble but hear me out. We love volunteers. They're what make the race possible. It's great to see the community come out to support events like these. It seemed to me that there were a lot of families working the aid stations which is great, but there quite a few 5-6 year olds "helping". At one station, a young boy was handing out sponges - after wringing them out. At several stops there were kids running back and forth playing in the middle of the course not looking where they were going or even noticing there were runners trying to get through. I asked for ice and was handed water. God bless their little hearts, but a 7-8 hour race is not fun for young kids to be helping with and there are frankly some tasks which they're simply not good at.

3. They ran out of T-shirts. This is inexcusable. When you sign up for the race, you tell them what size T-shirt you want. The computer knows EXACTLY how many shirts to order. I finished the race, and went over to a tent to pick up my medal and finisher's shirt. They looked up my name, saw that I signed up for a medium, and told me "sorry, we only have extra large shirts left." It's very simple to prevent this problem: when someone comes over and says "I know I registered for a large, but can I get a medium instead?" You tell them "Sorry, but we have a limited number of shirts. Take the large now, and if you come back after the race closes I'd be happy to swap it if we have any mediums left over." That's all it takes. They will be mailing me a medium shirt, but that's not the point. I don't want to wear my shirt a week from now, I wanted to wear it after the race like the hundreds of other people were doing.

These are rookie mistakes that an Ironman-branded race should not be making.

Excuses, Excuses

2010-06-09T22:49:00.001-07:00

The Hawaii 70.3 was the worst performance of any race that I can remember. I'm not just talking about age-group rankings (although this was pretty much bottom-of-the-barrel), I mean my actual time vs. what I should have done. I'm usually pretty good at predicting my finishing times but I was way off with this race.

I can come up with three main reasons:

1. I was undertrained. I'm actually OK with this, because I knew I was undertrained and in fact I PLANNED on being undertrained. I spent 2008 training for Coeur d'Alene, 2009 training for Wisconsin, and 2010 was supposed to be a relaxing year. Even after I won the lottery slot, I didn't want to burn myself out by starting hard training too early. Hawaii 70.3 was supposed to be the kick-off for the October race, and so I only did base-training up until now.

2. I may have been undernourished. If I didn't do enough training, that still doesn't explain why my bike was bad from the start. The bike course was easier than many of the Saturday rides we've been doing, so if anything I should have started out strong and then conked out in the middle. I do know that in the days leading up to the race I was very concerned about making sure my stomach was settled and I think I may have under-ate. I can't say I felt tired during the race, but something was obviously wrong.

3. Mentally, I was racing the full Ironman. The weight of October's race was bearing down on me all week. Maybe I was just overly attuned to it, but I was hearing people discuss the World Championships everywhere. And although I absolutely believe I deserve my lottery slot, I was feeling a bit intimidated listening to everyone talk about where they "earned" their qualifying slots.

During the swim, I wasn't thinking "OK, you're almost finished." I was thinking "In October, you'll be halfway done." I wasn't thinking about how much energy I would need to climb the big hill on the bike, I was thinking about how much farther I will have already ridden by the time I started the hill. On the run, I wasn't counting the miles down from 13.1, I was counting down from 26.2.

There were many times when I was thinking to myself that I didn't want to race in October. I didn't want to give up my summer for training. I'm a pretty pragmatic person so even then I was aware that in another week I'd feel differently, but out there on the course I was actually upset that I won the lottery slot and would have to do the full race.

I can't say that this was a good practice race for October because it was more of a confidence-smasher than a booster (mostly due to the above factors unrelated to the race itself.). But I am glad that I now have a good sense of the lay-of-the-land and got a taste of some of the conditions we might face in October.

The adventure begins.

Rohto Cooling Eye Drops Death March race report

2010-06-08T19:42:00.000-07:00

aka Ironman 70.3 Hawaii

Well, it wasn't a great race but I finished.

I slept surprisingly well the night before. I was probably asleep by 10:30, I only woke up once at 1:30, then woke up at 4:15. I fIght the 5:15 shuttle to the starting area and was in Transition around 5:30 so all of that ran very smoothly.

The race director (who is also the local weatherman) promised us a calm smooth swim on race day but it was very windy. People kept saying "it's just windy because the sun is coming up. It'll calm down soon." Well I saw the sun come up and the wind kept blowing so these people definitely didn't know what they were talking about.

I went through the port-a-potty lines three times. They were very quick and easy.

The Swim

This race is pretty unique for its distance because the swim is a mass start; most non-full-Ironman races have wave starts based upon the age groups. The starting line for the swim was perpendicular to the shore, but you could choose to stay on land, wade out a bit in the water, or do a full deep-water start. I think the deep-water start is a great way to stretch out and relax before the race so that's where I was.

The start was a little awkward; the race announcer kept telling people to make sure they didn't drift forward of the starting line. He kept saying "swimmers, get back behind the line... Get back... Back behind the line..." and then the canon went off. No countdown, no "on your mark...", just all of the sudden "oh, I guess we're racing now."

There was the usual kicking and punching and grabbing associated with a mass start but I held my ground pretty well. In spite of the wind, the water seemed pretty calm to me. There were a few swells here and there, but the practice swim the day before was much worse. Normally, I am terrible at swimming a straight line but since I could alway see the ocean floor I could use that to sight. It was probably the straightest open-water swim I've ever done.

Normally, the beginning of the swim is pretty violent but things thin out near the end. I don't know what happened, but I got caught in the middle of a group for the last quarter-mile or so and was banging into everybody. I couldn't pull in front of them, I wasn't about to slow down to let them get ahead, so I just fought my way to the bitter end.

I felt pretty good about the swim. I kept a steady pace and was not tiring out yet (which I guess means I wasn't working hard enough.) I was expecting a 45-minute swim, and came out of the water thinking I might have done 40. I was surprised to see the race clock say 49:00. Not really disappointed, just surprised.

T1

The transition area is a little unique. Like the full Ironman, you are given a race bag to put all of your gear into. But like shorter races, you are given your own personal transition area. Here's the catch: you're not allowed to have anything on the ground next to your bike. So you either had to hang stuff off your bike or keep everything in the bag. It was a little awkward and as a result I forgot to put body glide on my feet. That would cost me later.

I made a "Thank you Ironman Lottery" sign which I had pinned to my bike jersey, but it tore off as I was pulling it out of the bag so I had to re-pin it. That was a dumb waste of time on my part. There was a long uphill run from the beach to the bikes, so I'm not too worried about my 8+ minute T1 time.

The Bike

I knew within the first 5 miles that something was off with my bike race. Here's the thing: in any triathlon, the swim is my worst leg and the bike is my best leg. So I'm towards the end of the people coming out of the water but then I make up a lot of ground passing people left and right on the bike (well, on the left anyway.) This time, I wasn't passing a lot of people. Was I simply really far behind after the swim? Was this just a much stronger field? I started comparing the terrain and conditions to some of our training rides: the winds had calmed down, we hadn't hit any hills yet, fairly cool temps... nope, the problem was me, I should have been going much faster.

I skipped the port-a-potties going through T1, and I thought I could feel my lottery sign flopping a little too much against my back so I pulled over at the rest stop around mile 20. I did my business, then asked one of the volunteers if she could fix my sign. She replied "what sign? There's nothing here." So somewhere along the Queen K highway there's a neoprenewedgie sign blowing in the wind. It made me sad that I wouldn't have it during the run, because I think it would have been a nice conversation-starter as people were passing me.

Speaking of wind, the Hawaii Ironman is famous for its difficult winds and I've seen plenty of footage of riders leaning at 45 degrees against the crosswinds. I don't think we were that far slanted, but I definitely found myself leaning pretty far over in order to stay balanced. The problem wasn't so much leaning into the wind, but when the wind suddenly stopped and you had to straighten up quickly - now THAT'S when I was most unstable.

There's a steady 5-mile climb up to mile 30 which was slow but I can't really say it was a bad climb. And the turn-around was right at the top of the hill so you immediately went from sub-10 mph to 30+ mph.

Overall the scenery on the bike was neither good nor bad, it was just kind of "there". Oh sure, if you drove out in your air-conditioned car and then pulled over for a picnic the views would be stunning. But on the bike it just didn't seem to matter much. You just sort of get numb to it after a bit. We ran into the race director for the full Ironman after the race, and he told us that the course we did today was the hardest part of the 140.6 course. But the rest of the full Ironman is on the really long and boring lava fields so that may be a problem in October.

T2

Nothing happened. Dropped off my bike, put on my sneakers and went. I forgot to put body glide on my feet in T1, and forgot again in T2.

The Run

Much of the run was through an immaculately groomed golf course. We didn't even stay on the paved paths; there were little flags marking trails across the grass. Many people didn't like running on the grass but I do 90% of my running on horse trails in Griffith Park so I loved running on the soft ground. There were a few very steep climbs through the golf course, but they were short and manageable.

When we weren't on the golf course, we were running along the roads around the resort. There were many out-and-back segments so were able to see new friends and old throughout the run. One of my new buddies was this crazy 79-year old German dude. He came up behind me around mile 5 and just threw his arms around my shoulders. At first I thought he mistook me for someone else, but no, he was just really friendly. Out of the blue he just asked me if I knew what "halbstarke" meant. I did not. Apparently it means "half strong" and apparently that's how he felt. I asked him what the German phrase for "quarter strong" meant because that's how I felt. We passed each other back and forth a few times for the rest of the race, doing a bit of chatting each time.

The absolute low point of the entire race probably came to me at mile marker 7. By this point I was already doing a walk-a-mile, run-a-mile, walk-a-mile pattern, with the walking miles a tad longer than the running miles. I walked from mile 6 to mile 7. Mile 7 is a significant point in a half-marathon, because the you can tell yourself "all I have left is a 10k". It's a very well-known, concrete distance to wrap your head around. But when I came to mile 7, it hit me: if this was October, I would have NINETEEN miles left to go. That concept was inconceivable to me. There was no way I could do another 19 miles. Even though I only had 6 miles to go, I was focusing on the 19.

We had been warned about a 3-mile section of the course called "the road to hell". It's a straight 1.5 miles out and then back along what felt like an old abandoned road. No shade, no scenery, just death everywhere around you. And yet, it turned out to be one of the strongest sections of my run. There is a downhill slope on the way out so that recharged the batteries a bit. But the odd thing is that I ran the entire UPHILL road on the way back. I think I got a bit of a psychological boost because I crossed the 10-mile mark at the bottom of the hill.

I stopped several times during the run to shake the rocks out of my shoe which were really bothering me. I couldn't figure out how they kept getting in. Turns out, they weren't rocks but blisters on my feet which felt like rocks. Remember how I forgot to put Body Glide on my feet? This was the result.

After almost 8 hours of racing I crossed the finish line, not very happy with the day. Basically, I never got into the "race zone" and felt like I was just going through the motions all day. But I DID beat the crazy 79-year-old German.

The storm before the storm

2010-06-04T22:17:00.000-07:00

Today I joined the crazy people for the 7am swim along the race course. Because I'm essentially still on L.A. time it didn't feel too early.

I've been to other races where the swim course looks very daunting the first time you see the buoys in the water. I didn't feel that way at all this time. The course looked very doable. The only thing i noticed is that the buoys looked pretty far put from shore; that's a little creepy because if you have a problem, it's a long way back to dry land.

The first part of the swim was pretty cool. I can not stress enough just how clear the water is. I'm not sure how deep it got - 30 feet? 50 feet? - but there was never a time when I couldn't see the bottom. In L.A. we're lucky if we can see more than 5 feet below us.

Unfortunately, the water became pretty choppy along the far side of the course. With every stroke I was being lifted up in the air and then dropped back down again. I drank a fair amount of salt water, and much of that was the really gross way where you drink it through your nose. I was not enjoying the swim, and although I wasn't nervous about the swim beforehand, now I was.

Well maybe things would look brighter on the bike. That afternoon, we had to ride our bikes 7 miles from the hotel to the race start (it's a point-to-point race, ending back at the hotel.) The wind was intense. There were a few gusts that nearly blew me off the shoulder. And it was a HOT wind, like the waft you get when you open up an open to check on your batch of freshly baled chocolate chip cookies. Only without the smell.

When we got to the transition area there was a small registration canopy to check in your bike. We watched half of the tent essentially flip upside down from the wind - that didn't really help calm us for the race. The other big issue was the sun. I rode my bike there and then had to drop off my helmet with my bike. I had no hat, there was no shade, and it was actually a bit painful feeling the sun just beating down on my forehead. We had arranged to have cars drive us back to the hotel but I couldn't stand being outside waiting for anyone so I just jumped on a hotel shuttle in the parking lot. I had to wait about 15 minutes for it to leave but it was shaded and air conditioned and I was perfectly happy sitting there.

So, today I experienced rough ocean water, strong winds, and intense heat. Sounds like it should be a great race.

Sea Turtles Know They're Cool

2010-06-04T14:03:00.000-07:00

I wanted to do some swimming so I went down to the beach, thinking i would do a few laps back and forth parallel to the shore. After 5 years of ocean swimming in Los Angeles, I was really looking forward to the bath tub conditions in Hawaii we've heard so much about. My first reaction? BRRRRRRRRR! It was cold! OK, the water was probably 10-15 degrees warmer than Zuma, but I was expecting a "zero-shock" entry. When the water splashed up against your tummy, it woke you up a bit. After a minute or two, it was fine.

It was like swimming in an aquarium. The water was crystal clear, and all those dish that you see in your local aquarium store were swimming right underneath me. Basically, the entire cast of Finding Nemo was there (minus the shark).

I went out a little farther and saw a couple of sea turtles. They must have been three feet long. One of them swam up to the surface, poked his head up right in front of me and kept on swimming. I hung out with him a bit and he couldn't care less. He was just chilling out in the water. There are strict laws about not touching the sea turtles, but dude... he was RIGHT THERE. So I reached out and gently patted his shell. I want to stress that I didn't have to try to catch up to him or anything; he was just right there. Frankly, if I didn't reach out to pet him I think he would have come over and touched me so don't get all PETA on me. It was just very very cool.

Unfortunately, I completely blew off my actual swim workout. Why would I want to "exercise" when I could just hang with sea turtles?

The Broken Bike

2010-06-04T14:00:00.000-07:00

I got a phone call at 6:30 this morning from someone who didn't know I was on Hawaii time. Swell. Around 7:00 I wandered out to the hotel lobby to get my bike out of storage and ran into the gang heading out for their early morning swim. Was not even tempted to join them.

I brought my bike back to my room and started reassembling it. But for some reason I just get the war wheel back on. I am not a good mechanic at all, but I can still usually put a wheel on a bike. After 45 minutes of struggling with my bike, my hands were covered in grease, my chain was in knots and my wheel was still sitting on the floor. I was getting nervous and frustrated- what if I get a flat during the race? Am I going to be stuck on the side of the road for an hour struggling with my bike?

I gave up and brought my bike into the shop they have set up right in the hotel. They took a quick look at it and told me I had a broken dérailleur. That made me feel a little bit better, because it meant that the problem was with my bike and not my mechanical skills. They told me they thought they could get a replacement later in the afternoon. I was a little worried about how much this was going to cost me, but there was nothing I could to.

I went back a few hours later and they had good news for me: turns out my dérailleur was not broken, just out of whack somehow and they fixed it for me. Twenty-one dollars. Fantastic. But the big question remained, what exactly was wrong with my bike in the first place? I am absolutely positive it was some sort of human error on my part. I may have twisted something while packing up my bike or, more likely, I banged the dérailleur while trying to put on the wheel. Either way, my bike seems to be OK now.

Aloha!

2010-06-03T00:42:00.000-07:00

I'm in Hawaii!

The Rohto Cooling Eye Drops Ironman 70.3 Hawaii is on Saturday and there are about 20 people from the tri team doing the race. I grew up in New Jersey, and going to Hawaii was unheard of. It was on the other side of the planet. It was much easier for people to go to Europe than Hawaii, so it was just something people didn't do. At least not my people. But living in Los Angeles, Hawaii is a lot more accessible and I cant believe I am actually here.

First impression: I can't feel the humidity at all. Last week I was in North Carolina where the humidity really hit me, but there are some nice breezes keeping things comfortable here. At least for now.

Kona airport is weird. We took stairs off the plane on to the tarmac and walked towards some hut-looking buildings, but we never actually went "inside." Everything is just in the open air. I kept wondering to myself "am I in an airport or not?" A far cry from LAX.

I took a 30-minute cab ride to the hotel and saw all the lava fields that I've seen so many times watching the Ironman DVDs. They are enormous and very cool to watch sitting in a car at 60mph; it seems like it will be a deathly boring bike ride though.

The hotel is right out of a movie: the lobby overlooks the pool with the ocean right behind it. There are koi ponds and tiki torches and huge exotic flowers everywhere. But in the interest of full-disclosure, I'm not thrilled with the room. For starters, it is FREEZING. The rooms have no heat; they have a "cool-only" system and the staff must have had it on full blast awaiting my arrival. The system has been off for several hours and it's still cool. The marble floors don't help. There are no curtains or drapes on the windows. Instead, I have slatted doors which mean the room will get pretty bright pretty early. I'm not looking forward to that. As far as individual rooms are concerned, I have to say that The Coeur d'Alene still stays top on my list. Man I loved that hotel. (And yes, the name of the hotel where I did my first Ironman is "The Coeur d'Alene".

There is a food market about a mile from the hotel, so we did a short trip to stock up our in-room refrigerators. We saw many other triathletes stocking up on bananas, and yogurt, and weird grain products. This is what I came back with:

They say you shouldn't change anything right before a race, so it's Mountain Dew and Little Debbie snacks for me.

I am starting to get the feeling that I'm in the wrong racing group. There was a big discussion about what time we should go for a swim tomorrow morning. I would definitely like to get into the water, so I was thinking maybe around 9 or 10 we'd walk the 100 yards to the beach. No. My group wanted to meet at 6:00 am (that's six o-clock in the morning) so they could drive over to the official course to be swimming by 7:00 and simulate race-day conditions. Are these people crazy? We're in Hawaii! Why on earth would we be setting our alarms for anything with a single digit? They finally pushed the meeting time back to 7:00. Needless to say, I still will not be joining them.

I also showed my hand a bit with a Freudian slip. We were talking about the potential of having good weather on race day, and said "I think I should be OK up until about mile 6 of the walk... I mean run. Mile 6 of the run." Yeah, I do not have high expectations for any half-marathon PRs this weekend.

Funny side story:
During dinner, Heather was sharing stories of her childhood growing up in the bayous of Louisiana and how dangerous the waterways were. She told us they were warned as kids, if you're skiing and you hit something, DO NOT LET GO. Chances are you hit an alligator who just poked his head up. Creepy. Lenny, God bless him, then asked "alligators in the snow?" You had to be there.

Smooth racing

2010-05-30T21:43:00.000-07:00

The Rohto Cooling Eye Drops Ironman 70.3 Hawaii is officially a SHAVE-WORTHY EVENT. I begin the process tonight.

Throwing in the towel

2010-05-30T13:35:00.000-07:00

I keep a triathlon calendar on my wall, but this year I forgot to buy one. I went online and found a 2010 calendar. Because it was so late in the year, it was only $3. Great. The problem was that it was an official Ironman calendar shipped from Hawaii, and they wanted to charge $15 to mail it. There is no way I was goin to pay $15 to get a $3 item, so I did the only logical thing: I browse around the store to find more stuff to buy to justify the ridiculous shipping fees.

The problem with the Ironman store is that a lot of their merchandise is date-specific. Most of the nicer stuff has the year stamped on it so you can't really buy it unless you were at that specific race. But then I found this cool Ironman World Championship beach towel:

It's big and soft and doesn't have a date on it and most-importantly, it was $30. So now I could pay $15 shipping for $33 worth of merchandise. It seemed reasonable at the time.

Funny cause it's true

2010-05-30T01:28:00.001-07:00

I knew the punchline from the very first panel. I had one of those "one-size-fits-all" armbands that didn't.

Transporter room, come in. TRANSPORTER ROOM?!

2010-05-22T21:32:00.000-07:00

Ironman 70.3 Hawaii is in two weeks and I may be doing the entire race on foot.

Traveling cross country with a bike is difficult. That's why "Tri Bike Transport" is awesome: you drop off your bike at a local bike shop, they bring it to the race site, after the race you give it back to them and they bring it home. They charged about $250. I used them for Coeur d'Alene and Wisconsin and it worked out really well. At the time, the airlines were charging about $80-$100 each way to ship a bike, so Tri Bike Transport was a little more expensive but the convenience was SOOOO worth it.

Obviously, bringing a bike to Hawaii would be difficult and Tri Bike Transport is supporting the Hawaii 70.3 race. Perfect. I remember going to their website right after I signed up for the race to make all the arrangements. I've been telling people to use them. Other people have been asking me "did you make a reservation?" and I've kept saying "of course, I took care of it long ago."

Tri Bike Transport is now completely booked, and I can't find any trace of my reservation. I've looked through my credit card history, my email messages, nothing. I decided to retrace my steps. I went to their website, clicked on over to Active.com, and saw the rate: $340. NOW I remember. Several months ago, I went to make a reservation and then said "whoa, that's a lot of money!" I don't mind spending fifty extra dollars for the convenience, but if it's $150 more than the airlines, then I don't mind lugging a bike through the airport. I didn't book it.

Well, it seems that a lot has changed in the past year. Delta is now charging $300 to ship a bike. Each way. I could fly a friend to Hawaii for less than that. (Any takers?)

It looks like I'm switching to Plan B. We are permitted to ship packages from work using our personal credit cards but at the greatly discounted corporate rate. I already have a bike box, so I think I can get my bike to Hawaii in less than a week for maybe $100. I checked the postal service rates, and it should cost about $110 for me to mail it back (up to 3 week delivery, but I'm not as concerned about the return trip. I can use my old bike to start my full Ironman training.)

If nothing else, this will be good practice for Kona in October. Tri Bike Transport is NOT supporting that race, so I have to get my bike there somehow on my own. I just have to lick a lot of stamps to do it.

iPaid

2010-05-20T23:24:00.000-07:00

I bought my first piece of new gear in preparation for Kona:

This is my sixth iPod. My first iPod was a "Mini", but by today's standards it's huge. I have a Nano which is ok, but it works best with an armband and after 2 hours of running or more it gets pretty uncomfortable. I've had a few Shuffles which got ruined by me sticking them in the pocket of my tri jersey and getting them all sweaty.

This is the first generation of the iPod which I like LESS than my previous one. The new Shuffle has no buttons on it; instead, all of the controls are on the headphone wire. Normally I like to run with my the cable hanging behind my head out of the way, but now I have to keep in up front to access the controls. You click the button once to play/pause, twice to skip a song, three times to go back. It just doesn't have a good feel to it.

The new iPod has a feature where if you click and hold the main button, a computerized voice will tell you what song is playing. But guess what, Mr. iPod: I'm the one who put all the songs on you. I loaded you up with songs that I like. Do you really think that I need to have you tell me that "Hungry Like the Wolf" is currently playing?

I did have the iPod engraved, so at least that part is pretty cool. But the thing is so tiny, it won't be very long before I lose it.

Slipping Up

2010-05-16T21:59:00.000-07:00

I have a standard routine in the morning: shower, put on deodorant, dress, brush my teeth. On days that I'm doing a ride or run first thing in the morning, it seems silly to shower so I skip that step. But I still put on deodorant - I think of it as a quick "shower-in-a-can". Some people use the smell of coffee to get them going, I guess I rely on aerosol Right Guard.

We had a ride yesterday, so I skipped the shower. I took some Chamois Butt'r cream to grease up my nether-regions (have to avoid chafing, you know) and then went to to deodorize. Here's the problem: in order to use an aerosol spray, you have to hold the can somewhat firmly while pressing down on the nozzle. But with my hands completely greased up with skin lubricant I couldn't hold the can. Every time I'd try to spray, my thumb would simply push the can down through my slippery fingers. My workaround was to place the can on the counter, squat down in front of it, raise my right armpit to it and press the nozzle with my left forefinger. Reverse and repeat. Very awkward to say the least. Next time, I will try to remember to put the deodorant on first.

We did a 56-mile ride, a course which we describe as "flat" although technically that's not true: we were on the river trail, which means it's a slow shallow descent all the way out and then a slow shallow climb all the way back. I went out fairly strong on the way out (taking advantage of the slight downhill) but the moderate heat and headwinds took their toll on me. On several occasions, when I stopped pedaling I could see my leg twitching as it was starting to cramp up. But in general I was having a good ride.

Gerald gave me a salt tablet at the turn-around which helped with the cramping, but the return trip wasn't great. I was just beat and it was a long 28 miles. I followed that with a 25-minute run, which I think hurt more mentally than it did physically. I started crunching all of the numbers: I rode 56 miles and ran 2.5 miles at 80 degrees. In October I'll have to ride twice as far, run 10 times as far, with an extra 10 degrees and another 10% humidity. It just wasn't feeling very fun.

The good news is that I only had 2 cans of Mountain Dew after the ride. Well, that and a bunch of vodka lemonade later on but that's another story.

Nylon Wedgie

2010-05-12T22:09:00.000-07:00

In spite of my early "issues" wearing wetsuits, (Issue 1, Issue 2) I am happy to say I am completely comfortable prancing along the beach in a wetsuit these days. However, I have a new dilemma to face for my two upcoming Hawaii races.

Pretty much every open-water swim I've ever done has been in water below 70 degrees (some below 60) and I've worn my cozy wetsuit for them. The Hawaii swims should be in the upper 70s, which means wetsuits aren't allowed. Here's the problem: I don't like being shirtless. Other people don't like me being shirtless either, so it's fair. All of my Disney tops are bike jerseys, which are no good for swimming. There is one option: at the Hawaii half, they DO allow "speed suits". These are very thin suits like you'll see during the Olympics. I was thinking about getting one, but I was right on the border of the sizing charts between small & medium and wasn't sure which size to get.

You remember our team swim coach Steve?

Well Steve has a medium speed suit that he brought to one of our team meetings to let me try on. Oh. My. God. These things are TIGHT. The best way I can describe it is that it feels like being shrink-wrapped in a Hefty bag. And here's the thing: people think we look funny in wetsuits, but the reality of the wetsuit is that the thick material smooths out a lot of bodily imperfections. So yes, at the beach I think I look better in a wetsuit than out of one. The speed suit, in contrast, clings to every imperfection and exaggerates them. I do think the white socks really make the outfit though.

So needless to say I am skipping the speed suit and will just wear my tri shorts for the swim. If nothing else, it's one less thing to pack. I still find it hard to wrap my head around the idea of swimming in ocean water that warm, but it will be a welcome change.

Mountain Dude

2010-05-09T21:38:00.001-07:00

I went for the Saturday morning group bike ride yesterday. In order to prepare for the heat of the Hawaii 70.3 a bunch of us are doing next month, Gerald suggested we start the ride later in the morning. Sounded fine to me, I have no problem sleeping in later on the weekend. We didn't get rolling until about 9:30.

We took a fairly normal route, about 50 miles with a solid 6-mile climb near the end. (East Fork Road for you locals.) After that, I did a 30-minute run. I wanted to do about 15 minutes, but Jen passively guilted - errrrr - "inspired" me to do 30. It was probably around 1:30pm with temperatures in the low 80s by the time we were done.

We were all moaning a bit at the end, but truth be told I didn't feel all that bad. I'd certainly felt better, but this wasn't one of those truly killer workouts.

It wasn't until it was time to clean up my living room today that I realized what a toll the ride had taken on me. This is what I saw:

That's 8 cans of Mountain Dew. And that's not counting the 24-ounce bottle I had in the car on the way home from the ride. I drank nearly a gallon of Dew without even realizing it, because my body felt so depleted. That's a lot of caffeinated sugary goodness, even for me.

The moral of the story? Make sure I'm stocked up on Mountain Dew at home before I go on these weekend rides.

View from the top

2010-05-03T23:52:00.000-07:00

Technology is an amazing thing. It lets us preview race courses in ways which we could barely dream about just 10 years ago. Thanks to the miracle of Google Maps, we can see the race sites as they appear from space. From SPACE!

For example, look at this section of the Ironman Coeur d'Alene bike course. Notice the lush, thick forest. The serene lake. Absolutely beautiful.

Now take a peek at Ironman Wisconsin. Amazing farmland everywhere you look. Picture-perfect landscapes. This is America's Heartland, and we were a part of it.

Here's the Kona course. Desert. Dirt. Pretty much nothing but death for as far as the eye can see.

I've watched plenty of the Ironman World Championships on DVD, and I've seen lots of footage of the bike course. I knew it was barren, but the aerial view just REALLY makes it look bad. Hawaii has arguably some of the most beautiful scenery on the entire planet, yet the race has to go through the testing grounds for the Mars landers.

Such is the irony, or Ironmany, of the Kona World Championships.

Ironman Arizona: Who's the Boss?

2010-05-02T22:38:00.000-07:00

I enjoy making race signs to help cheer on fans, at least when I have a good idea for one. Arizona was Jersey Jill's first Ironman race, and although the day didn't work out the way we all wanted, we enjoyed cheering her on. I thought I had an easy concept for her race sign: she's a Bruce Springsteen fan, so I would just go to the local record store, pick up a Springsteen poster and add the words "Baby, you were born to swim bike and run". Yes, in my world I think of going to local record stores.

To my surprise, the music stores I went to didn't have posters of Bruce. Maybe Bruce didn't license (sell out) his likeness the way everyone else did? I tried a different strategy. I went to Hollywood, which has cheap souvenir shops all over the place and every one of them has a set of celebrity posters in the back. Surely I would have my choice of Bruce poses, right? Nope. Not a one. I saw posters of every musical act from the 70s and 80s but not a single Springsteen. If Jill was a fan of Kiss or the Doors or Boston or Elton John it would have been easy, but that wasn't to case.

Then I had a moment of enlightenment: In Hollywood, there are a bunch of cheesey shops (yes, one step below the tacky souvenir stores) that specialize in celebrity glossies. Basically, the walls are lined with WWII-era filing cabinets filled with photos of every celebrity you ever heard of. I went to one of those stores, asked about Bruce, and they pulled out his file. Sure enough, they had a folded Springsteen poster in there that probably came from Tiger Beat Magazine circa 1979. It was perfect!

Then I got greedy... I started thinking, "what if I could top the poster off with the actual album cover from Born to Run?" I went to Amoeba Music (which actually IS a record store) and there it was: Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run on vinyl, $3.99. It killed me a bit inside to think that such an important piece of music history was basically being given away but I wasn't complaining. And I did feel a LITTLE bit guilty that I destroyed the cover to tape it to my poster. But I think the end result worked and I think Jill enjoyed it as well:

But I'm telling any of you aspiring Ironman racers right now: if you're a Lady Gaga fan, forget it. I do have my principles to uphold.

How I Won the Lottery

2010-04-21T00:47:00.001-07:00

I've been asked several times how I won the Kona Lottery. If you're not familiar with the system this might sound like an odd question. And while no single person understands the mystical nature of how Kona participants are selected, I'll give my beliefs.

Each year, approximately 1800 people compete at the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. About 1400 of those earn a slot by going really fast at some other Ironman event earlier in the year. It varies from race to race, but it's basically the top 5 finishers in each division.

200 slots are available through the lottery. (There is some other silliness that goes on within that group, but it's a random drawing of 200 people.) As part of the entry form, you have to answer questions about your past race experience, hobbies, interests, life accomplishments, etc. Oh and you have to pay a non-refundable fee of $40. It's quite the scam, but since I'm in on the scam I'm not complaining.

Now here's where it gets fuzzy. We still need another 200 racers or so. Many of these slots go to the event sponsors. If you go golfing with Alan Mulally (CEO of Ford, and yes I had to look it up) then you can get a slot. NBC Sports hands out slots to people; Lance Armstrong says he wants to do the race in 2011 and if you think he has to worry about earning his entry then I have a bridge to sell you.

I believe that the race directors and NBC also go through the lottery entrants looking for interesting people to put into the race. Maybe they never had a racer from Zimbabwe, so he'll get in. There's the single mother of 4 with leukemia; give her a spot. Throw a few Marines in there. They have 200 slots to play with to make the race diverse, interesting, and TV-friendly.

So the big question is, did I just get lucky and have my name selected randomly? Or did somebody see something in my answers that made me stand out? I will never know. I mentioned this blog in my entry, so maybe a screener took a quick look at the site and liked what they saw. But I am proud of one of my answers, and maybe that's what caught someone's eye. They ask you to list "Significant Personal Achievements". I don't remember exactly what I wrote, but it went something like this:

"I think I'm still waiting to make my mark on the world. But if I win the Ironman Lottery, and cross that finish line in Kona, then that moment will become my Greatest Personal Achievement."

I think my answer captures what Ironman means to many people, and someone could have said "wow, this guy is laying it on thick. Aw, let's throw him a bone." Or it could have been luck of the draw.

I don't know why I was selected. But since people have been asking, that's what I put on my entry form.

Kona Elevation

2010-04-18T13:17:00.000-07:00

For some reason, I thought that the Kona bike was windy but was flat. I was very wrong. The relative bike elevations of my other two races, to scale:

(Total elevation gain at Kona is "only" 646 feet, but I know how I was feeling during those smaller climbs at CDA and Wisconsin.)

It's Go Time

2010-04-17T13:37:00.000-07:00

Thursday morning I found out I won a lottery slot for Kona in October. This means no more messing around; it's time to get serious about training. Our team has a Thursday evening run, a perfect way to kick things off. Except I had to go to a birthday party and eat lots of cake. OK, no problem. Friday night, it's the weekend, a great time to do a run. But I went to a pizza party instead. OK, Saturday morning: there's a 45-mile bike ride with a 10-mile climb. Meeting in Duarte at 8:00. Great. I set my alarm for 6:45 and got a good night's sleep.

Around 7:30 I woke up. It seems that my radio alarm DID go off, but it wasn't tuned to a station so my alarm tried to wake me up with silence. I jumped out of bed and quickly got ready and flew out the door. I still arrived to the ride 45 minutes late. Fortunately, the first section was an out-and-back course so I was able to catch up with the group on their way back.

They've repaved the bike path since the last time I've been on it and it is really really nice. They still haven't done anything about the wind though, but I guess I need need to get used to it. I got 40 miles done today, with a good climb, so that's a start. But it's been three days since I found out I'm doing Kona and I've skipped two workouts and was late for a third. Swell.

Ten Thoughts About Kona

2010-04-16T14:39:00.000-07:00

1. I am painfully aware of what a big deal this is. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

2. I was SOOOO good the past few months paying off my credit cards and being more financially responsible. So much for that.

3. I've already started browsing for merchandise. OH MY GOD I get to buy a 2010 Ironman World Championships Finisher's jacket!

4. I've never been to Hawaii. Now I'm going twice in four months. Isn't that a bit excessive?

5. I am embarrassed by the amount of support I've already been getting.

6. The bike is really REALLY going to suck.

7. In the worst-case scenario, if I didn't finish Coeur d'Alene or Wisconsin I could always try again the following year. I will get one shot at Kona.

8. There goes my relaxing summer.

9. With other Ironman races, you sign up a year in advance; you have one year to prepare mentally. I have 6 months. That seems way too soon.

10. After doing three Ironmans, including Kona, I have to be DONE, right?

I'm going to Kona! * GULP! *

2010-04-15T09:59:00.000-07:00

Umm... yeah.... so we're freaking out a bit here. I "won" a Kona Lottery slot; I can race in Hawaii in October! The results were posted around 9am this morning, and when I signed in to my computer at work it was doing a bunch of software updates so I couldn't go online. So I picked up our iPad and checked the Ironman.com site and saw my name listed. And the funny thing is I didn't trust the iPad. I thought maybe I was using it wrong or something like that. I started losing my breath, my heart started pounding and my eyes were watering... but it didn't really sink in until I saw it on my "real" computer.

So what does this mean? Well naturally I'm taking the slot. Duh. I am currently signed up to do the Hawaii Half Iron in June, and I still plan on doing that. I have to complete a half-iron or greater distance within one year of Kona to qualify (Wisconsin was 13 months before Kona, so I don't think it counts.) Plus, it will either be good preparation to sample the actual race course, or it may just scare the bajeebus out of me. And besides, the Hawaii half is Gerald & Heather's Honeymoon, and how can you have a honeymoon without Wedgie?

I vowed no more hard summer training, but it seems like that's being thrown out the window. It's gonna be a long 6 months.

2010-04-12T20:34:00.000-07:00

Gerald is getting married. His "friend" Evil Jon sent out a message "hey, we should take Gerald out to celebrate." Great idea. "We're going to take him to Santa Barbara and spend the night up there." Sounds awesome. "We're going to ride our bikes ninety miles to get there." Say what now? "And it's going to be a surprise to Gerald." OK, now you've completely lost me.

Santa Clarita is in the foothills. Santa Barbara is at sea level. So the start/finish ride profile looks like this:

Seems perfect, right? Well, the actual ride profile is more like this:

I am doing a half-Ironman in 2 months, but I was more nervous about this bike ride than I am about the triathlon. I can do the tri at my own pace; I'll finish when I finish. But Gerald's bachelor ride was with a lot of the Big Boys from the tri team, and it didn't help that Evil Jon was sending out conflicting email messages in the weeks leading up to the ride: "this will be a nice, pleasant ride." "YOU BETTER GET YOUR LONG RIDES IN NOW SO YOU'RE READY FOR SB!" "It will be a casual, enjoyable ride for everyone." "DO NOT BE THE PERSON WHO CANT MAKE IT ALL THE WAY. WE HAVE A TIGHT SCHEDULE AND WILL NOT WAIT FOR YOU." No pressure

It was a strange plan, but that's what happened. Gerald met up with Jon in Santa Clarita for what he thought would be a nice Saturday morning ride. Unbeknownst to him, a bunch of us hopped on a train to meet up with them. We gave our luggage to Rich (my IronBrother) who drove them up to SB for us. Gerald's fiance Heather, Little Miss Enabler, secretly packed an overnight bag for him as well. There were about a dozen of us on our bikes, Rich had our luggage, and Brian and Stuart provided awesome sag support.

We kept a pretty strong pace during the entire ride, which was tough at times but we had a strict schedule to keep. It was pretty scenic, but I didn't dare stop or slow down to take pictures.

Truth be told, the first big hill wasn't too bad. We had lunch on the far side of the hill at a fancy spa in Ojai. (Side note: I always wanted to go to Ojai, ever since i was a kid. That's where Jamie Sommers, The Bionic Woman, lived.) Lunch was on a big outdoor patio, so It wasn't TOO strange to have a bunch of sweaty guys in spandex eating a classy meal.

Keep in mind that Gerald still didn't know where we were going. He nervously asked me "please tell me at least that this isn't an out-and-back course." I reassured him it was not.

Unfortunately, after lunch we still had 40 milles to go. And these were a tough 40 miles. I was hanging with the group pretty well for most of the ride, but I was fading fast around mile 80. The hills were short but pretty steep. And the wind... Oh God the wind. The straight flats were worse than the hills because of the wind. Thank goodness for Evil Jon, who hung back with me and let me draft behind him to help me keep up with the group.

We arrived in Santa Barbara a little before 6. Gerald was probably under the impression that we would be taking an evening train back to the L.A. area, but when he saw people checking into the hotel I think he figured it out. I was hoping for a nap or some decompression time, but we went straight out. First to a bar. Then to dinner. Then another bar. And another bar. And other places. Let's just say, what happens in Santa Barbara stays in Santa Barbara.

Our original plan was to take a 2pm train back Sunday afternoon, but we managed to catch a 9:20 one instead. That is, those of us who weren't crazy enough to ride our bikes BACK to L.A. I think 4 or 5 from the group did that. I mean, seriously, what is wrong with these people? The train ride is just plain cool. Very mellow, a nice snack car, an all-around great way to travel. Of course, the way the schedules work we had to ride our bikes about 5 miles from where we got off the train to get to another station where our cars were parked. That was a long 5 miles.

As for "Evil" Jon, he is a logistical mastermind. Hotels. Restaurants. Train schedules. Maps. Support vehicles. We all had an amazing weekend and Jon made it all possible.

Arizona Spectator report part 1: Dinner Hats

2010-03-30T14:58:00.000-07:00

I need to catch up on some old posts, especially from Ironman Arizona. I had been doing a lot of bike training with Stephanie, but this was also Jill's first Ironman and veterans Teresa and Gary were there as well and there are many stories to tell.

Let's start with dinner. Dinner the night before Ironman is an important part of the race. You have a bad dinner, it can ruin the race for you. When we did Coeur d'Alene, Stephanie made sure that the pre-race-dinner was all about me. Well, me and Rich (my Ironbrother, her Ironhusband.) Now that it was her turn to do an Ironman, the dinner was all about... well, it was still about us.

Rich's father has a house about 20 minutes from the race site, and he hosted a dinner for Stephanie's huge entourage. Parents and sisters and nephews and paperboys and just about everyone else came out to Arizona supposedly to see Stephanie, but it may have been just for the food. For starters, on our way over to dinner Stephanie "made" us stop by the store to pick up all the fixings for an ice cream sundae bar. We were forced to buy ice cream and m&ms and gummi bears and Magic Chocolate Shell and sprinkles and... you get the idea.

When we got to the house, there was a cooler filled with Mountain Dew waiting for me- Rich and Stephanie certainly made sure I was taken care of. I don't even know what Stephanie ate, but she watched us scarf down pasta and bread with tons of butter, washed down with Mountain Dew followed by cups of ice cream with tons of toppings. Best. Carb Load. Ever.

At the dinner, we handed out our Steph swag. I don't know whose idea it was originally, but pretty much from the day Stephanie signed up for Ironman we knew we were going to make up some kind of chef hats for her. She's a great chef, and we played around with lots of punny taglines for her: The Ironman Chef. The Iron Steph. I said I would take care of the hats, and ultimately went with "Swim. Bake. Run." I thought it was clever.

I made up a logo which could be used for a banner and also scale down for the hats. I found some inexpensive fabric/paper chef hats online which were sturdy enough to handle iron-on transfers; I ordered a batch and printed out a bunch of logos on special iron-on paper.

Here's the problem: the hats shipped flat. So I just took my logos and ironed them on to the flat part of the hats, with the creases on either side. But when I tried them on, they just looked silly. (that is, more than a swim-bake-run chef hat should look.) I tried poofing and pinching them every which way, but basically they just looked like Pope hats.

So the hats didn't really work, but I wore mine all day during the race. If nothing else, it made Pope Wedgie easy to find in the crowds.

Fast forward a couple weeks after the race, and I got an email from IronmAnnie. She was in the studio commissary and saw one of the cooks wearing our same hats (sans logo) and apparently it looked great. Turns out, I put the logo on the SIDE of the hat; the crease was supposed to go in the front. Sure enough, I went back and tried on the hat, spun it 90 degrees and suddenly it looked great.

Sorry Stephanie, when you do your next Ironman I'll get it right!

Rut-Roh

2010-03-29T14:32:00.000-07:00

As it turns out, I have an issue with the Hawaii 70.3 race I'm doing in June. It's hard to explain, but I will try.

This is the race I did last year:

We call it "Ironman Wisconsin", although technically the event name is "The Ford Ironman Wisconsin." And I'm fine with that. I understand corporate sponsorship; I work for a large company myself and I recognize all the joy and wonders that big corporations bring to the world. It's OK if Ford adds their name to the event, and I'm fine with them incorporating their logo into the event logo.

This is the event I'm doing in June:

The first thing I thought when I saw this logo was "what the hell is 'rhoto'?" The next thing I thought was "wow, that's a dumb company logo... they can't even align all the letters in their name." But the big issue I have is that they had to include the tag "cooling eye drops" in the event logo.

There isn't a logo that says "Ford: Quality is job one Ironman Wisconsin." They don't say "GE: We bring good things to life Ironman Schenectady". So why do we have to brand ourselves with "Rhoto cooling eye drops Ironman 70.3 Hawaii?" It ruins the look of the logo and it's just stupid.

I want to be clear (as clear as your eyes will be, once you use Rohto cooling eye drops!) - I know that the announcers will never say "cooling eye drops Ironman". I know they added those words to the logo because nobody ever heard of Rohto and they want to build product recognition. I just feel that if I buy an event jersey, there's a difference between being a walking billboard for a company, and actually promoting a PRODUCT. It sounds subtle, but it's true.

Rohto also sponsored the Oceanside California 70.3 this past weekend, and they do the Miami 70.3 as well. I don't know how many other events they do but I don't like them. (And yes, I'm sure I'll still buy lots of Rhoto cooling eye drops Ironman 70.3 Hawaii merchandise.)

Weekend Bike Ride, plan B... plan C... Plan D...

2010-03-28T17:29:00.000-07:00

I've been a little behind with my bike training, so this weekend I wanted to do a long ride. There was a group doing GMR, aka Glendora Mountain Road, aka the Matterhorn; it would have been tough, but a great way to jump-start my training. Then I heard about another group ride, 3-4 hours flat with intervals. I like intervals; if you get tired during an interval, you can slow down. If you get tired during a hill, you can't stop climbing. So I decided I would skip GMR and do the flats. But then Friday night I went to see Hot Tub Time Machine and had a couple beers and a vodka shot and basically wasn't all too keen on getting up Saturday morning.

I figured I would do a solo ride Sunday morning. Get up at 7, hit the streets by 8, finish around 11. I woke up reluctantly at 7, and remember something Gerald told me: "it's going to be hot when we do Hawaii 70.3, so we have to do some rides later in the day when it's warmer." I convinced myself that it would be BETTER for my training to go back to bed for an hour and start at 9:00 instead. I always knew I liked Gerald.

So around 10:00 I finally got out the door. I did the Glendale-Burbank-La Tuna Canyon-La Canada-Rose Bowl-La Canada-Glendale route. It's about 40 miles, not as far as I should have gone but there are some decent climbs in there so I don't feel too guilty. I felt pretty good on the hills, but it was a little bit frustrating dealing with all the traffic lights getting in and out of Glendale.

I did learn a valuable nutrition lesson during the ride. I bought a new tub of CarboPro, the magic elixir I used for Ironman Wisconsin. I made it the usual strength, the level I used for a 6-7 hour bike ride. Of course, since I was only out there for three hours I probably shouldn't have paced myself to finish the entire bottle. I didn't drink it all; I stopped drinking because it was just too thick and heavy. I'll scale it back a bit next time. (But keep the Kool Aid flavoring in for good measure.)

A Brief Lapse of Judgement

2010-03-06T15:43:00.000-08:00

*** WARNING *** WARNING *** WARNING ***
- This post contains TOO MUCH INFORMATION. -

It's been a while since I overcame my fear of spandex. Sorry, it's true. Spandex is a natural part of bike riding, but it is my preferred material for running as well. I find it very comfortable. However, I realize there are times when it isn't appropriate to wear spandex; I'm not going to wear my tri shorts to the gym, nor (as I found out the hard way) should I wear them to Leah's run workouts. So I have a few pairs of running shorts for those special occasions.

You can't simply wear cotton tighty-whiteys under your running shorts. Fortunately, there are plenty of styles of sports briefs to keep you comfortable and supported during your workouts. Take a look at one of my newer pairs of undies. Oh, don't be a baby about it, just look:

They're Nike, high-tech, should be a great pair of clothing. But for some reason they always seemed a bit tighter on me than my other sports briefs. I didn't give it too much thought, because some tri shorts fit tighter than others and I just assumed the same was true for briefs. Besides, for better or worse, by now I'm used to wearing clingy clothing.

After several wearings, I happened to notice the back of the briefs and saw the Nike swoosh.

I thought that was an odd location for the company logo, and then it hit me: I had been wearing the briefs backwards. Now before you judge me too quickly, you need to know that there are certain "rules" for underwear: If the tag is sewn on the inside of the waistband, it goes in the back. If it's sewn on the outside of the waistband, it goes in the front. I don't know why, that's just the way it is and all of my other shorts/briefs follow that rule. I spun the Nikes around and sure enough, they are more comfortable that way.

To the best of my knowledge, I have been wearing my bike shorts/wetsuits/speedos correctly, but I may have to try flipping them all around once just to be sure.

Firecracker 10k Race Report

2010-02-28T20:51:00.000-08:00

Great race. But it was almost a disaster.

Jump back to yesterday, when I did the 40-mile Firecracker bike ride in the rain. Afterwards, I was tired and hungry and so I stopped by the supermarket on the way home. Now I know better not to go shopping when you're hungry, because you do stupid things: like buying the 24oz jar of peanut butter pretzels. My (lying) inner-vouce was actually telling me "you have a race tomorrow, but you can show restraint and only eat a few pretzels." Well this was the jar by the time I went to bed:

Note that I ate about 3/4% of the jar. That works out to 2415 calories, 120 grams of fat and 5692mg of sodium (2.2x USRDA). However, it's also 86g of protein so I'm gonna get buff!

As you might imagine, I wasn't feeling so good when I woke up at 6am. My original plan was to be at the race site at 7am to pick up my bib and be there for the kick-off ceremony at 7:30. But I was having some... gastro issues. My friend Jana was doing the 5k and called me on my cel just before 7:00. When I told her I hadn't left home yet there was a slight pause as she was doing the math and realizing how behind I was... then she just politely said "great! see you soon!"

But Los Angeles can be a funny place. Yes, it takes forever to drive anywhere during the day. But in the early morning our freeways are wide open. I drove to the race downtown, parked, and picked up my bib all by 7:20. I was still in frantic-mode however, because I still had to return my goodie bag to my car, come back for the opening ceremony, and find Jana in the crowd. And do a porta-potty stop as well. As I was literally running back to my car, I was freaked out by a random voice yelling "Save it for the race, Wedgie!" Turns out it was Gerald who was there doing the race as well.

Everything seemed to come together and I had plenty of time. The weather was perfect for a race (no rain!) and most importantly my stomach settled.

The race kick-off was very cool. First, they had a traditional Lion Dance right in the middle of the starting chute. Then they lit off 100,000 firecrackers. One. Hundred. Thousand. It was several minutes of bangs and pops and lights and smoke and was just amazing.

I knew the Firecracker race was hilly, but I hadn't looked at the elevation map until about 30 minutes before the race started.

The race has a purple zone. What's a purple zone?! I've never seen a race with purple. Uh oh.

I started the race somewhat slowly, and had quite a few people pass me. I was thinking to myself "foolish humans! Go ahead, waste your energy. You'll be crawling up that hill, begging for mercy!" But when I got to the hill at mile 1, people were still running. And halfway up the hill, people were still running. In fact, it was only until the last quarter-mile of the hill when I started seeing a significant number of people walking. I was impressed and humbled by the field.

Most of the course was in Elysian Park, and the race organizers had some nice touches: throughout the course, there were signs labeled "LOOK", pointing out specific sights of Los Angeles: The Hollywood Sign. Mt. Wilson. The Police Academy. It was a nice reminder to take in the scenery during the race. Best of all, there was a sign labeled "Top Of Hill" when we reached the summit. We all loved seeing that sign.

The downhill was nice of course, although the elevation map doesn't show a few hidden uphill sections that we had to contend with near the end. At least they were short. But overall the race itself was rather uneventful. Just an all-around pleasant experience. I was hoping to finish around 1 hour, and came in at 54:35. Not to shabby.

Oh, and what did I do after I got home? Finished off the peanut butter pretzels.