Absenteeism

How the heck do you keep up with this whole blogging thing anyway? Between work and training I don't seem to have much time or energy. So much has happened between day 90 and now that it's hard to wrap my head around. I've trained, trained, trained. Ran a half ironman (more on that later) and made some rather unfortunate decisions around leg hair. So, brace yourself for a rather long post.

Speaking of leg hair... peer pressure is a rather remarkable thing. Since you know everyone is doing it I decided to leave my Bigfoot impersonation behind me and get rid of the fur coat that covered my lower body. Important note: Nad's is not Nair. I'm not sure what possessed me to once realizing that very critical piece of information to continue on in the plan to clear cut my old growth forest of leg hair. Deforestation, my friends, is truly and utterly abhorrent. I eventually had to ask my wife to for help. Humiliating? Yes. It should have been apparent that she was too eager to help. She pretended to be shocked and worried... but the giggles were a tip off.

I'm definitely faster now. Or at least that's what I tell myself.

I bought a set of wheels and a new component group. The SRAM Force group is a winner. It's silky smooth, light and strong. The wheels weigh slightly more that bricks. Bricks that then have to spin up. Big heavy bricks that really don't like hills. I took these stones of Atlas up and around the very hilly Lake Steven's course and then promptly swore to get another set of wheels. So, we did. I say we but all homage to my incredible wife who didn't bat an eye. The new wheels are obscene on the other end of the spectrum. They are incredibly light and exceptionally fast. Despite their nauseating cost, I'm happy I'll have them. Rocinante is ready. My nag of a bike is now as elegant and powerful as anything out there.

I did a half ironman. It was an... experience? First off, I am extremely proud that I even finished the race. The race, especially the run, was a lot more arduous than I imagined. The race was also a lot more fun than I thought it would be, the spectators and other participants were all very supportive. Kristi reminded me without words how exceptionally lucky I am to be married to her. My friends reminded me of the power of a support section and how lucky--how very lucky--I am to have them in my life.

I started the day at 3:30 AM. I woke up pretty easily because of my race day nerves. I had a cup of coffee, cereal (2 bowls). My wife offered to help me get everything together, so as I prepared my Gu, which we had to switch from Apple to Raspberry, and water bottle she put all the necessary items in my transition bag. We gathered everything up and headed to the start line a bit after 4:50ish.

Thanks to the wonderful advice I recieved from my coach, Teresa, I knew how I wanted to lay everything out. After pumping my tires and putting on some sunscreen, which smeared my race number, I had a GU packet and headed out to the lake to warm up. It took a bit longer to get situated so I didn't have time to do much more than swim for a few minutes. I took some time to sit down and visualize the race, especially how I wanted the transitions and start to go. Before I knew it they called the men 30-34 to the dock to get in.

I was one of the last to enter the water and ended up near the back of the pack. There was some tangling of arms and legs as we all tread water but there really wasn't too much time to be nervous because we were in and the start horn sounded right away. The swim felt like it was going pretty well but getting to the first buoy seemed to take a while. I definitely felt I was towards the back of the pack and was feeling discouraged till I caught up to a few people in green caps from the wave before. This made me feel pretty good until a few people from the wave behind, one not wearing a wetsuit, caught up with me.

I managed to keep a steady pace and felt I did a decent job at sighting. I tried to catch some toes but I couldn't find anyone one who was going in a straight line, so I decided to go alone. Contact was really incidental till we got to the turn buoys. Shortly after the second turn buoy someone's arm came down on me and took my goggles off. I was pretty stunned for a second but stayed pretty calm, reminding myself it was *probably* not intentional. I flipped on my back cleared my lenses and put them back on. From that point on I found the underwater buoy line and was with a pack of people that were going about the same speed as me. I really didn't sight too much from that point on. The thirst part way through was pretty shocking. To be so wanting water while being submerged in it was a dichotomy that took my mind off the swim for a good chunk of time.

Getting out of the water the clock read 53 minutes. I was shocked, I did not feel that I had gone that slowly on the swim. I was forgetting of course that was 53 minutes from the start of the elites and my time was closer to 42 minutes, which was around where I thought I'd be. I grabbed some water getting out of the swim thus definitively resolving the whole water paradox, tried briefly to run, decided better of it and walked/stumbled somewhat quickly to the bike. I was really wobbly and light headed after the swim but I managed to stay upright as I got my shoes on, grabbed my bike and headed out of transition. Somehow my sun glasses got all wet and rather than worrying about how to dry them, I took them them off and put them in my pocket.

My legs starting out on the bike felt rubbery and weak. Because of a technical issue I didn't have my speedometer with me so I was just operating off of perceived exertion. I think what was throwing me off was the change in the bike course took us from a rather leisurely downhill/flat section to a really rolling hills start. About 15 minutes into the bike ride, I had a sip of Perpetum and some Gu. Five minutes later I had a salt tablet. I sipped on the Perpetum as needed and continued with Gu every 15 minutes and the salt tablets every 20. Partway through the first lap I noticed that the Perpetum was sitting a bit heavy so I cut it with some water.

The ride was difficult to judge because the course is so twisting you lose sight of people in front of you quickly. I was also being passed by some very fast riders. It felt better when I ran into them again on the big uphills where you could see a ways out. Again, the wheels I had were heavy. I think these really affected my performance especially on the hills. It took a lot to get them going on the uphill part of the course. I felt a lot better when we hit Dubuque Rd. and started on the back half... until the largish hill. Coming up on the second lap I decided to take water instead of Gatorade. I used that water to cut the remaining Perpetum. Putting half of a bottle into my areodrink bottle and then putting in water to top it off. The second half was defiantly felt slower but I started to catch and pass a few people. Shortly into the second lap the pads on my areobars came off rather than fighting with them I decided to take them off and put them into my jersey as well. Coming to the transition area I jokingly asked the lady there if I could go around one more time just for fun. She said, "No no take it home." I hope she didn't think I was serious.

The jaunt back went pretty uneventfully though I was starting to feel queasy, my back was aching, and my toes were going numb. All I kept thinking was that this would only be the half way point for IMoo (Ironman Wisconsin--you know because of the cows) By the time I hit the transition area I had a flask and a half of Gu, 1 and a half bottles of perputum and 1 and a quarter bottles of water.

Transition went ok. I was tired but felt ok. My wife had put together a great cheering section so I couldn't help feeling good as I got my shoes on. Someone yelled, "Go catch up!" which was absolutely hilarious to me at the time given how tired I was.

I took off on the run but not super fast. I noticed I was not feeling right and walked partway up the hill as you leave town. Coming up to the aid station on mile one, I took some water and dumped it on myself, drank some Gatorade and took a salt tablet, Gu, and water. I made it 20 feet past the "Mile 1" sign and threw up. After throwing up, I paused, reflected and threw up again. I proceeded to empty my stomach. The officer at the intersection asked me if I was ok and if I needed help. I told him I only needed help in figuring out how many calories I just wasted. He laughed, people who were not throwing up said supportive things. I felt slightly better after that and ran slowly to the second aid station did some more Gu, water, and a little Gatorade. I almost made it to the third aid station when I threw up again. I didn't know what to do so I decided that if I wanted to finish I needed to try to get water and fuel. At every aid station I did the Gu, water, Gatorade, salt tablet routine. I gradually started to slow but made it to the turnaround. The run was really brutal and towards the end I resorted to 2 minutes jogging one minute walking... except on hills, which was all walking.

Coming into town the last time I really wanted to run in so I mustered up and started jogging. I was so proud when I crossed the line and was very surprised at my time of 7 hours and change. Looking back, I'm feel pretty good about the swim and bike as both were pretty close to goal. I'm not very happy with my run time but given the difficulty I was having in keeping things down, I'm really incredibly happy I finished the race!

Since then I've been working a lot on running. And I've discovered that running along with plumbing, automotive skills, cleaning, and not making sarcastic comments are skills and abilities that aren't in my wheelhouse. Still I've put in some long miles since the 1/2 IM and while I'm not fast, I'm stubborn.

So it's been swim, bike, run, work, repeat for the past little bit. Pretty uneventful except for the bit about a jerk, a car, and my fist getting busted up in pretty much that order, which is a story that will remain untold. I'm nervous for the full event. Very nervous. I'm also very determined. I really want to do this and I believe that I will do this. 60 days of absenteeism on this blog has been 60 hard days of training. I'm not going to be the fastest but I'm still convinced that if you want to see me the finish line is a good place to wait.

But you know, bring a good book. This thing could take a while.

DonQuix out!