Before The Race

It's almost 11:30 and I'm in no danger of falling asleep. The CapTex triathlon starts in around eight hours for me, nine hours for Joe, and eight and a half hours for every 200+ pound woman who can squeeze into a wetsuit and pair of spandex. I say this because my wave [20-24 year olds] goes off at 7:20. Joe's goes off at 8:15. Women 50-54 goes off at 8:00. This of course means that when he starts his race, a large number of older women [and men also] will be in the water, out on the road. He will have the pleasure of having to swim over and around them, ride past them and avoid them and their shaky bike-handling skills. At least Joe will get a nice draft behind them and their wide hips.

It's not nerves that are keeping me awake, or fear. I'm not intimidated by the distances, or the course. I'm awake for no real reason that I can pinpoint. Perhaps a combination of excitement and wondering. How will I feel in the water, especially since I haven't been consistent with my swim training? Will I be able to run a 40 minute 10k, especially if I ride at a steady clip? I want to do the bike section in an hour, but how much will it take out of my legs to hold 24.6 mph for 60 minutes? How many team-in-training people is Joe going to have swim/ride around? In the end, they are just questions, and they will be answered tomorrow regardless of whether I worry about them tonight or not. If I do a 2:10 or a 2:20 or 2:30, Uncle Billy's will still taste damn good, and I'll still have a nice nap. But I'm still up at night, asking myself questions, wondering what I'll have in my legs tomorrow

...

The day and night before is an exercise in energy conservation and good eating. Lots of water, lots of carbs. Pasta. Gatorade. Fruit. Cereal. All of this carries over into the morning of the race itself, where you walk a little slower, drink a little more water than normal. You also worry about little things, like your place in transition, or your socks, or something that isn't going to make any real difference in your race. You worry about your position in the swim start and where to park your car. You scope out and size up other people in your age. A guy with a disc wheel is competition. A guy with a mountain bike is forgotten. All these little things to think about. But once the gun goes off and people start swimming and splashing around you, it's like you've put on bose headphones. All you hear is water splashing, your heart beating, your breathing -- and of course, the voice in your head. Your world shrinks from an orchestra of little thoughts to a few bigger ones. Your stroke, your muscles, your breathing. On the bike, it's the course, the other riders, your legs, the gears, the wind in your face, your hydration. The run it's all the legs, your breathing, the pounding, your heartrate. Dad describes it like a dashboard with a few gages that you're constantly monitoring, and it's true. Trying to not hit empty -- but fighting like hell if you do.

...

Last year I did a 2:16 at this race, and I want to go 2:10 this year. It's one of those staples in the sport, and has been a goal of mine since I've started that I've wanted to check off the list. A sub-10 hour Ironman. A 4:30 half. A 2:10 Olympic. [And another one, also hopefully achieved in this race, a 40 minute 10k]. This race could be the first. But don't worry, my race isn't going to be defined by a watch. My real goal is still be able to smile at mile 5 on the run, to pretend to pull a hamstring down the finishing line, and have an Organic Amber afterwards. After all, you pay to do these things because they're fun. That's what I'm thinking about as I lie here in bed.

It's 11:55. Eight hours until women 50-54 go off. Enjoy the swim and ride Joe. I'll enjoy hearing about it.

The Road to Recovery

Training has been a bit random lately. Work and travel and a foot injury forced me to do the things they always recommend in sports books when life gets in the way of training:

1. Sulk and be unpleasant to be around. I always find this helps enormously. It attracts sympathy and allows me to vent my frustration on the people I love. They understand, or pretend to.
2. Eat too much and drink lots of beer. Hell, if you can’t run, you might as well throw in the towel completely and get fat and intoxicated. Besides, enough beer makes you witty and handsome, so people don’t notice that you are stacking on weight, and they overlook your sulking and unpleasantness because your jokes are so clever.
3. Feel sorry for yourself. Whine. These are critical components of the recovery process. A good wallow can be all it takes for even your most loving friends and/or relatives to want to have nothing to do with you ever again. This rejection will fuel your self-pity, allowing you to sink even further into misery. Of course your foot is never going to get better! Of course work will always be disruptive! Time to grab a beer and a burger.
4. Lose fitness. Instead of hitting the gym or riding a lot, much wiser to sit down and watch television. What would happen if you got another injury? Besides, if you can’t run, there’s no point training.
5. Do some occasional stretching and icing, but not enough to make a real difference. Stretching and icing should be done just enough to remind yourself that you are injured and losing condition, but not to the extent necessary to promote healing.

Another way of looking at it is to identify the five stages of grief as they apply to running and training.

1. Find someone to blame. Work for not allowing time to train, the shoe company for making the shoes with which you trusted the care of your feet, the people who paved your trail, your parents for giving you bad biomechanics, God, the person who introduced you to running in the first place, Wall Street… You get the picture.
2. Do nothing constructive. Become a victim.
3. Wallow and complain. Why keep your problem to yourself? A problem shared is now also someone else’s problem.
4. Attempt a comeback. If it hurts, start at #1 again.
5. Take tablets and engage medical support quickly, before the body can heal itself.

If any of you are injured, I strongly suggest this time-proven path to healing. See you at the starting line in Austin.

Born To Run

If there was a soundtrack to my childhood, Bruce Springsteen would have a spot or two on there. Whether it was hearing "DOWN - IN - JUNGLE - LAND!" from the basement in Esworthy when Dad and Joe were lifting, or "Glory Days" blaring from some radio when Dad was cleaning his bike outside in the summer, the Boss was in the background of some of the simplest, some of the best times I can recall. And now, no matter where I am, I hear the old Springsteen, the young one with a voice as hard to ignore as Clarence Clemons' saxophone, and I think of Dad. It's not one image or moment in particular, but just a feeling, a slideshow of sorts. Barbecues, acres of fresh-cut grass, driving with the windows down, afternoon...

On Saturday, he rang through my headphones as I was running around a 400-meter rubber circle, trying to complete sixteen laps in under twenty-four minutes. A rather pointless thing when you think about it. But, I was doing it nonetheless, and about seven or eight minutes into it, "Born to Run" started -- the drums first, then the simple guitar, his raspy voice, his plea to Wendy: "will you walk with me out on the wire?" -- it was one of those countless moments that happen during months of training -- where you crack a smile when you should be grimacing, and you keep going until the grimace eventually returns to your face, and you could never really explain to anyone why you were smiling in the first place, because it doesn't make sense.

But to me, it does make sense. Especially that song. Especially with Dad.

Do I have to say it?

He was born to run.

The Rookie

This past Sunday, Edward, Brogan, our new friend Meredith, and I all participated in our first triathlon of the year. A super-sprint--300 meter swim, 11 mile bike ride, 2 mile run--it is a race that starts and finishes quickly. It is the first race of five in the Texas Tri Series, which conclude with the Longhorn 70.3, a personal favorite of mine. It was rainy and somewhat chilly that morning, not the most ideal race conditions.

I first did the Rookie in 2005, about one month after my first race at Ironman Arizona. Doing them in that order seemed a little backwards, but it took longer to swim in Tempe than it did to cross the finish line in New Braunfels. Every year, it seems, Edward and I do this race and swear to never do so again. Too intense, too short, too little time to get into a rhythm. Every year, though, we return to the Texas Ski Ranch to hurt for about 50 minutes.

There had been a great deal of build-up to this race. Edward and I always talk about last year's race at Marble Falls. We swam together, Edward rode ahead of me, and I gave my best effort on the run to try and grab him. He held me off, and we had a blast. Starting in the same wave this year at the Rookie had us reflecting on that race and wondering if we could replicate it.

It started that way. Edward and I positioned ourselves at the front of the pack in the water. We were in the "29 and under" division, so there were a handful of pre-pubescent children in there as well. Usually, such a thing does not bother me, but it irked me somewhat when a young boy--all of 12 years old, perhaps--scooted up to the front and stood right in front of me as the 10-second countdown began. With Edward to my right, the 12-year old in front, and the gun going off to start us, I remember doing two things simultaneously. First, I thought, "it's on." Second, I took a big dolphin dive, submerging this youthful triathlete in front of me in the process, and found some open water. Edward breathes to his left, I breathe to my right, so with every stroke we could see each other. We hit the turn-around leading our swim wave and holding quite a steady clip. On the home-stretch, we were caught by a couple of people, but all came out roughly together. Edward had a few seconds on me, screamed a few things at me (and made some unsportsmanlike gestures) as we rolled into the first transition, and we geared up for the bike right next to each other. I beat him out of T1, got on my bike, and that was really where our races went in different directions.

You can see in this photo exactly where we were and how spread out things were over 300 meters. Edward and I are sitting at the front of the pack (this photo is courtesy of Carinne Deeds, a master with the still camera, not the video camera. Either way, a trooper to be down there on such a dreary morning).

Edward and I played cat-and-mouse for a short while, then he pulled away and rode solidly in front, keeping a low cadence in a tough gear across some rolling hills and chased down some of Austin's finer triathletes as he did it. I'll digress here to make a point. I have never been a short-distance athlete. I don't have the sprint. Dad and I would often remark after an Olympic distance race how it felt as though we'd be getting off the bike right when we felt warmed up and ready to ride. That's 40 kilometers. This was 11 miles.

Back to the race. Edward rode so solidly and really put a fantastic bike split together. Last year, I edged him by about 40 seconds and we both finished in roughly 52 minutes. Going into this year, I had thought that we would both be right around 50 minutes, which called for a 30 minute bike time. Edward did exactly that--faster, in fact--and I rode a full mile per hour slower. Let me put that in perspective. In Ironman Florida, I rode faster (on average) than I did at the Rookie and that bike is over 100 miles longer (for those of you who are thinking it, yes, it does include my drafting penalty). At Longhorn last year, I rode a full two miles per hour faster. Both hillier, both windier. I simply need time to loosen up, I think. Either way, had I ridden my best, I was not going to catch Edward last Sunday. He continued this on the run (a 6:15 per mile pace), and finished under 50 minutes, 12th overall, and decimated his age-group. I trundled in somewhere in the 51 minute range, good enough for 32nd overall and third in my age-group. Brogan raced well, taking a full seven minutes off his time last year (fourth in his age-group), and our new friend Meredith, in her fourth triathlon, won her age-group (nothing new for her) and realized that she (like myself) is not a fan of the super-sprint either.


Now there are four races left in the series. The Couples Triathlon is in July, and it will be as intense as the Rookie. I have abut two-minutes to make-up on Edward and a fair amount on the rest of those who beat me last Sunday, but my goal is to keep it close, picking some people off, but dropping the hammer in October at the half-Ironman.

After the race, we all went to Uncle Billy's where we ate barbecue and drank some beer and talked about that morning. I talked with Brogan about how far he'd come and about how these signs were so positive on the road to completing his first Ironman this August. About how he was feeling, what else is to be done, and how he was planning to use these next months to get to Louisville in peak condition. I spoke with Meredith about her short evolution as a racer and how every race feels so different and so wonderful to her. We talked about how different distances bring different mindsets, and how she's looking forward to attacking the races she has planned. I spoke with Edward about arguably his best race to date. How he knows he can do this, how he can compete with anyone, and how this is hopefully a harbinger of how strong he can be this year. The gauntlet was thrown, and there are no excuses now.

Speaking of excuses, I attempted to lob some pathetic ones in Edward's direction to justify my performance. Here is a sample:

"It's tough to race in the middle of finals."
"What a lucky race."
"I'm glad you didn't have the bike issues I had."
"My saddle fell off for a large portion of the ride."
"That early morning rain really threw me off."

Edward responded, as he does, with a shrug of the shoulders and a, "Well if that's how you want to think about it, then fine."

After all of this--the race, some beer, and barbecue--we settled our differences as men. On the street. Engaging in that age-old game of Mashoonga--basically foam-covered swords. This took a great deal of energy, we enjoyed a few more beers, and we played until they broke. The Mashoonga swords lasted all of three or four hours and they were the envy of many passing children.


Up next: The Capital of Texas Triathlon, an Olympic distance race on Memorial Day.

The Starting Gun

This blog was Joseph’s idea but I will write the first entry. The opening lines of a blog, or of almost any piece of writing, have a special quality to them. As with the opening lengths of a swim or the first pedal strokes of a 100-miler, you take them in and process them as a guide to what may lie ahead. The words entice, or lull, or excite, or bore, and by the time you are three or four sentences deep, you have either settled back to enjoy what is to come or you find yourself peering to the end of the article to assess whether the effort is likely to be worth the gain.

Writing and training have gone together for me all my life; so much so that I am never sure which is a product of the other. I often compose while I am riding, and equally often find that writing helps paint the backdrop on which early swims or evening runs become something more than physical exertion, something closer to art.

My task in writing this, though, is simple. Joseph suggested the blog as a place where those who race could post their thoughts, about training, life, races – anything, I would suggest, except Washington politics and anything to do with “celebrities”; not because either of these subjects will cause affront (though that can’t be ruled out) but because they are pointless and unchanging, and they occupy a lower rung on the ladder of human achievement than is commonly found at the starting line of a race.

So with that uncharacteristically brief and humble bit of throat clearing, consider the white space all yours. Do not be shy. You are in good company. Those who have ever stood at the water’s edge, dressed in black neoprene and lycra, waiting for the sun to come up and the 140.6 mile journey to begin, have a unique bond. They are Ironmen, and always will be. Unless of course they decide to be rookies for a day.