IMMOO: What to Expect

I'm trying to piece together in my mind how this next race is going to go.  I'm taking a hiatus (sabbatical?) from the Ironman distance after this one, probably returning in 2012.  That means this one is important - I'll have to live with this result for a long time.  If I go away disappointed with my performance as I did in St. George then it's going to bother me for a long time.  After St. G. I was very frustrated with my race, but I told myself that I would make up for it in Madison.  Well, Madison is here - it's time to put my body where my mouth is.

My Previous Results

Swim
I've done IM swims of 1:08 and 1:04 so far.  I expect to be a little bit slower than that this time around, just because I haven't been swimming very much.  I'll be happy with anything under 1:15 which still puts me in the front portion of the main pack.  The swim is unimportant anyway, just need to exit the water without being exhausted or having been kicked in the head too badly.

T1
I really need to work on my IM transitions.  So far both have been about 11 minutes, which might seem appalling.  However, there's a lot to do in T1:

• Your time starts when you exit the water, so running up the ramp is included
• You need to get to the wetsuit strippers and have them remove your suit
• Run through the rows of bags and find yours
• Run to the changing tent
• Dry off - it's hard to put on dry clothes on a wet body
• Change clothes (I always switch to bike shorts for an IM race)
• Put socks on - I use them, many don't
• Sunscreen
• Use the bathroom - I have needed to both times so far
• Run to the bike racks while wearing bike cleats, and get to T1 exit

So 11 minutes isn't fast, but it's not insane either.  I'm going to attempt to cut this down to 5 -7 minutes this time, though it probably is mostly dependent on whether I need to hit the bathroom or not.

Bike
My bike times so far have been 5:41 and 6:50 (19.7MPH and 16.4MPH).   That's a pretty good spread, however the courses were very different.  IMAZ is flat and fast, IMSTG is hilly and at elevation.  A better comparison is power and heart rate.  At IMAZ I was at 163 Watts and 137 bpm while at St. George it was 141 Watts and 123 bpm.  This is actually pretty much in line with expectations since I deliberately went easier at St.G to save my legs for the run.
So what will I do in Madison?  I'm targeting 170 Watts, though I don't know what time that will result in.  I'd like it to be around 6 hours, but my guess is that it's going to be about 6:30.

T2
T2 is pretty unimportant, but it took me 9 minutes and 6 minutes in my previous races.  That seems too long, even with another full wardrobe change and fresh sunscreen.  I'll try to get this down in the 5 minute range.

Run
I've worked on my run a lot this year.  I've PR'd twice at the half-marathon distance, and had my best ever 70.3 run as well.  My two IM times have been less than stellar: 5:19 and 6:16.  Ouch.  I'm running well right now and assuming there's no hydration/nutrition issues I think 4:30 is doable.  Coach thinks 4:00 is doable, but he's out of his mind.  4:20 would be great, since that is 10 minute/mile average.

So it adds up like this:
1:15 Swim
0:07 T1
6:30 Bike
0:05 T2
4:30 Run

That amounts to a 12:27 finish time, two minutes faster than my previous best.  I would love to get that under 12 hours, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen.  Maybe I can still shave a few minutes off of that swim time.  And the bike...

Ironman by the Numbers

I'm two weeks away from IM number two for the year, my third overall.  I feel great, except for a back issue that might slow me down on the bike.  I wanted to break down some of my numbers over the last few years, the result is the eye chart below.

Stats from my three Ironman races

What is all that?  It's graphs of my weekly swim (green), bike (blue), run (red) and TSS (orange) for the six months leading up to each of the my Ironman races.  There's all kinds of cool stuff to pull out of this data, but I'll just mention a few of my thoughts on it.

• The swim mileage has tapered off considerably in each race.  This is a product of not being in a regular masters class.
• The swim mileage seems way too low!  Less than 3 miles a week doesn't even seem possible, since I swim masters twice (about 1.5 miles each) plus one open water swim (1 to 2 miles) each week.  Maybe I'm skipping too much?!
• My bike miles were down considerably from IMAZ to IMSTG, dropping from 92 to 75 miles per week.  This is partly because I was focusing on the run during that time, partly because this was winter, and partly because I just wasn't into biking for a while.  Luckily, it's recovered a bit to 88 miles/week for IMWI.
• My run miles are up considerably, an increase of 40% from 13.3 to 18.7 miles per week.
• During my IMAZ prep, I ran more than 20 miles six times.  For IMWI I've done it 11 times.
• During my IMAZ prep, I ran more than 30 miles zero times.  For IMWI I've done it 3 times.

The Training Stress Scores (TSS) are tough to judge.  My IMAZ TSS is low because I didn't have a watch that TrainingPeaks worked well with, so most of my run TSS were under-counted.  My IMSTG and IMWI could be compared directly (increase of 9.6%), but that's deceptive too.  My IMWI numbers include my four week recovery after St. George, so they're a little lower than they would ordinarily be.

So what does all this mean?  I'm  ready to race!  I have a huge aerobic base after 3 season of Ironman training.  I set a half marathon PR at Carlsbad in January, and broke it at AFC in August.  I had my best IM70.3 run in Oceanside this year.  My biking has been a little suspect this season, but my numbers look good during my power tests - so I'm confident that I'll do fine if I can drink enough water during the race.
Two more weeks to keep sharp, then it's off to see what I can do on the plains of Wisconsin.  I can't wait!

Not Dead Yet

Finish of the Carlsbad Sprint Triathlon

I know, I haven't been around lately.  I don't call, I don't write... mostly, I don't write.  Nothing nefarious afoot, I've just been busy.  I bought a house in May (two days after finishing IM St. George) and although it wasn't listed in the paperwork it came bundled with a lot of chores.  I've spent my free time just trying to keep up with the mowing, laundry, and dishes.  I haven't even made it to the big stuff like mounting the television, fixing the water line to the fridge and installing the air conditioner (I'm assuming San Diego will have a summer at some point in 2010).  It doesn't sound like a lot of work for home maintenance, but I'm trying to squeeze it between 40 hours of work, and 20 hours of triathlon training.  It's hectic, but it's workable - and things will be better this fall once the Ironman training subsides.
IM Wisconsin is less than six weeks away, meaning I have about 4 more weeks of tough training.  I just completed a badly needed rest week, today was the first day back after a ludicrously easy rest week schedule, which I still struggled with.  This morning it was 16 miles running, my longest run of the year (since I technically stopped "running" at mile 13 in St. George).  It went.... OK.  I struggled to hit my pace, but finished the run without being too beat up, and ready to tackle the remaining 16 hours of training for this week.
What has surprised me so far in my IMWI preparation is that I'm not burned out.  During the training for both of my previous IM races (and one I trained for and didn't compete in), at some point near the end I just got completely fed up.  I wanted it to be over.  I wanted to just do the race and go home (though I really didn't even want to do the race).  I wanted to go home after work and watch television.  I wanted to put more attention on my career, on my personal life, on myself.  I was doing one of the most selfish things I had ever done (train for endurance sports) and all I wanted was time to myself.  Burnout is not logical, it just sucks for no reason.
Somehow I have avoided that this time around.  All I want to do right now is train just a little bit better, and then toe the line in Wisconsin ready to kill it.  I think having a couple of disappointing performances earlier in the year helped to focus me on what I'm trying to do.
IMWI will be my last Ironman for a little while - I'm taking 2011 off from that distance.  But the plan is not retirement... it's reloading.

Dance with the one that brought you

Ironman St. George 2010 is in the books, but my feelings on it are still up for debate.  As advertised it was a hard race and I (like most everyone) struggled.  In the end I finished uninjured, KT was there to console me afterward, and I had a lot of fun - and I am thankful for that.  This is more of a race recap, I'll dig into analysis in a later post where I'll dissect the data from the race.
I arrived in Utah on Wednesday, and it was windy.  Crazy windy, like 25MPH sustained with 50MPH gusts.  There would be no way to hold a bike race in that kind of weather, which had me worried.  Thursday Rachel and I headed to Sand Hollow for a practice swim.  I put on my brand new DeSoto T1 wetsuit (who says you can't swim in a brand new suit on race day) which replaced my old T1 that had started leaking water into the left arm.  We pansied around ankle deep, afraid to dive into the cold water (we were told it was 57 degrees).  Eventually I went in, and it was cold - real cold.  I quickly developed an ice-cream headache, which I had never experienced in the water - despite having done some cold water swimming previously.  I swam about half a mile (13 minutes) before hitting the shore again.  Trying to get out of the water was disorienting.  I was dizzy, and my eyes wouldn't focus.  I thought it was my contacts acting up, but turns out your brain does crazy stuff when you stick it in ice water.  I hobbled across the parking lot slowly, changed clothes, then turned on the car's heater.  Wow, that felt good.  I drove straight to the expo at Ironman Village and started shopping for a neoprene cap, which I unfortunately never found.
The night before the race was uneventful.  KT and I made spaghetti for dinner, and made it to bed early since the alarm was set for 3:45AM.  On race morning I got dressed, grabbed my bag and peanut butter bagel, and hopped on the bus. 
It was cold at Sand Hollow, but by a miracle of the racing gods the wind had died down and would not be a factor.  After pumping up my tires and putting my Accelerade bottles on the bike, I hid in the dressing tent for warmth.  I kept my jacket and leg warmers on, and just tried to conserve body heat - I knew the lake was going to suck it right back out of me.  There was nothing to do in the tent except stare at the other athletes.  Nobody was talking, and to be honest it was kind of depressing.  Half the guys looked like the wide-eyed soldiers about to land at Normandy in the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, and the other half seemed calm and collected - almost enjoying spectating the first timers.  Meanwhile, I was visualizing my race - though I didn't make it very far.  In my head I imagined getting out of the water and stripping off my goggles, at which point it occurred to me that I didn't bring my goggles!  A quick check of my bag confirmed it, and I had my first mini-panic attack of the week.  I asked around a bit, and eventually two different athletes offered to loan me a pair.  Thank you to racers #808 and #72, I tried to return the goggles to your bags at checkout but the officials there wouldn't allow it.  One of the pairs I was loaned was a set of black tinted Aquasphere Kaiman goggles.   This is exactly what I had planned on swimming in anyway!  What a miracle.  A quick adjustment, and they fit like they were molded for my face.  With my pre-race drama completed, I wetsuited up and got in the queue for the beach.
On the way to the water I ran into my friend Alan, who was also racing.  We wished each other well then disappeared into the crowd.  I also was flagged down by Pat who I hadn't seen in quite a while.  Thanks for the encouragement.  At 6:45 the pro field went off, marked by the firing of the start canon.  I wasn't ready for the bang, and apparently was standing near the thing - and it scared the bejeesus out of me.  A few minutes later they told us we were clear to enter the water, which I did.  However, the announcer told us that we didn't have to get in - and in fact said that you could stand on the shore if you wanted.  What?!  This beach is about 15 feet wide, and there are 2000 athletes.  There is no orderly way for 2000 people to get through a 15 foot gap to start a race.  At the other IM races I've done and witnessed, they force you into the water 10 minutes ahead of time, because it takes that long to get everyone in.  I'm guessing they let it go due to the cold, but who knows.  For me, I was relieved.  The water was not nearly as biting cold as I remember from my practice swim.  It was cold for sure, but I treaded water vigorously to warm myself up, and felt fine even when I got my head wet.  I was secretly pretending that the water had actually warmed up, and not that it felt better due to the hundreds of bladders that had recently emptied into it.  The crazy thing about everyone being on the shore still was that it wasn't crowded.  I was near the front, yet it still didn't even feel like a large wave start - much less a huge mass start.  I even spotted my friend Ryan and wished him well - how do you recognize someone when you only see them from the neck up, and they're wearing a swimming cap and goggles just like every other person in the water?  With about a minute before the canon, the other racers began streaming in, and then the race was on!
Like my previous IM swim start, I began swimming "heads up" style.  This is slow, but it protects my face from being kicked until the crowd thins out.  After a few hundred meters of being pummeled, things cleared up a bit.  By the time I made it to the first turn, the crowd had thinned considerably - though I kept getting run into, punched, pushed, ankle-grabbed, and even had someone deliberately blocking me!  Blocking.  In an Ironman swim.  In a lake.  What a jerk.  I thought he was just a bad swimmer, swerving because the sun was in our eyes.  But after the fifth time he cut directly into my path forcing me to slow - it occurred to me he was actually trying to stop me from passing.  Why?  During our little encounter I'm sure 20 people passed us - it's a big lake.  Eventually I windmilled over his back and got free and was back on my way.  My take was that it was a very rude set of swimmers out there.  We all know we're going to run into each other - if you don't get kicked in the face and/or groin during an IM swim then you're not doing it right, but I had way too many incidents that were not accidental.  The other problem I had with the swim was the swim cap colors: orange for men, yellow for women.  Nice, bright colors which are easy to spot in the water.  But the buoys marking the course had also been picked to be bright and easy to spot in the water - they were yellow and orange.  I kept spotting and looking for an orange buoy - but I often couldn't pick it out from the sea of orange swim caps in front of me.  It didn't help that many people in the swim cheated, and swam to the left of the buoys!  About half way through another problem came up, my wetsuit started leaking.  I had water in my left arm - the same problem I had with my old wetsuit!  I don't know why this is happening to me, but somehow water is leaking into the neck of my suit - even in my brand new T1!   Other than making me cold, this slowed me down since water is pretty heavy and you don't want to drag it along with you.  Add to all of this that the reservoir is primarily used for water skiing, which made it taste and smell like diesel fuel, and the swim was not something I want to do again.
I exited the water, my watch said 1 hour, 4 minutes which is actually a good swim.  It was good to put all the BS behind me, and move on to the next stage without having lost any time.  The wetsuit strippers ripped away my rubber skin, and I was off to the changing tent.  I wasn't cold at all, so I decided not to wear my jacket.  I did take my time in T1, used a towel to dry off, changed into biking shorts, and I even wore socks.  I did make a mistake while dressing though - I put my race number on too early, before I pulled up my bib shorts.  The race number got stuck underneath, though I didn't know it at the time.  Later in the day on the bike I tried to get it out, but ended up ripping it - so my race number never really was displayed properly.  After over 10 minutes, I was dry, dressed and out on the bike course.
I settled in, the road out of Sand Hollow was newly paved and buttery smooth.  I loved it.  But, I kept my wattage low and watched as people flew past me.  Stick to the race plan.  At mile 10 I spotted my friend Beth standing on the side of the road with a wheel in her hand.  This was exactly what happened to Mary at IMAZ 2008, and I rode right past her without offering help - I feel horrible about it still.  So I asked Beth if I could help, but her tubular tire had ripped - and she needed a new one, which I didn't have.  So I continued on, hoping that this setback wouldn't end her day.  Beth is crazyfast(TM) and I wasn't sure if it was worth it for her to continue if she lost a lot of time.
By mile 20 I felt tired.  WTF?!  Mile 20?  I was going easy.  Or more specifically, I was riding at a wattage that should have been easy - but for some reason was not.  I trekked on.  At mile 40 my coach Brendan passed me.  We exchanged a quick update and some advice, but honestly I was just glad to see him.  But surprised.  Brendan is stupidfast(TM) and should have been WAY in front of me by now.  I expected to beat him out of the water by a few minutes, but after my 10+ minute transition I assumed he had leapfrogged me there.  All he said at the time was "I'm having a rough day also", but later I found out he was downplaying it quite a bit.  There were a number of cattle grates which had been covered with wood so we wouldn't fall in.  However, they used 3/4" plywood, and hitting it direct could easy pinch-flat a tire.  So I opted to bunny hop them.  This worked out fine until I dropped a gatorade bottle on one of them.  It was at mile 40, only 6 miles from an aid station - so it wasn't catastrophic, but it did throw off my hydration plan a little.
I made it up the two big climbs without issue, though I certainly wasn't looking forward to doing them again on the next loop.  At the bottom of "The Wall" that leads up to Veyo there were 4 men who looked like the "Git'r Done" guy cheering us on.  I think their cheering was genuine and not intended to be mocking, but it cracked me up.  We had just started up the climb (maybe a mile of 12% grade?), and so we were downshifting and going pretty slow.  I heard them yell things like:
"Is that all you got?"
"You didn't come all the way to Utah to ride like that, did you?"
"Go, go, go!!!"
"Get your ass up that hill!"

In the town of Veyo we made the right turn, and there were some people on bikes cheering us on.  I recognized one of them as being Coach KP whom I had met in November during the training camp, so I yelled hi at him.  I'm certain he had no idea who I was!  More importantly the right turn put us with a tailwind for the next 18 miles!  I (and everyone else) flew through this section of the course.  It took me 30 minutes to cover 14 miles, which is 27MPH!  It was fun, especially in the spots where we hit 45MPH!  I  had never gone that fast in a race before, and the adrenaline revitalized me.  I felt good for an hour or so.
But then I nearly got bike pee'd on, and my back started hurting causing me to sit up more.  I really struggled to hit my wattage, and eventually I couldn't.  I dropped another water bottle on the same cattle grate as the first loop.  Additionally, the crazy fast stretch turned out to be much less windy the second time around - so no free ride back into town.
T2 was uneventful, my garmin 310xt picked up satellites before I made it out of the tent and so I was off and running pretty quickly.  I walked the first aid station and got some gatorade down, then trucked off up Diagonal St.  I felt OK, but when I saw the short steep climb on the small out-and-back, I decided to walk it as well.  Then it was running again until the huge 8% climb on Red Hills Pkwy, which again I walked.  By this time I was 4 miles in, and only 39 minutes had elapsed.  Even with the long sustained uphill walks, I was managing 10min/mile - I was ecstatic!  I flew down the other side of the hill  ("flew" being a relative term, 8:20 pace), through the park and to the turnaround.  I continued to walk the steeper hills and aid stations, picking up a gatorade at each one.  By the time I made it to mile 12 I was tired, but chugging along.  I spotted KT in the crowd and came over to say Hi.  I told her "I think I'm going to die", but I was joking - probably shouldn't have tempted fate.  Went down to the turnaround with a first half marathon time of about 2:10, which I was stoked about.  I also spotted Beth's husband James, who confirmed for me that Beth hadn't dropped out - and that she was about to run me down!  She did so rather quickly, she had a fantastic race as far as I can tell.  Anyway, just after the turnaround my stomach started acting funny.  I stopped at the toilets and cleared things up a bit :)  It was nice to just sit for a few minutes.  However, when I got back on course I felt like vomiting.  So I walked a bit, then tried again.  Anything other than a walk resulted in extreme nausea.  I feared I had taken in too much gatorade on the run, I had downed 13 cups by now.  So I walked, and made it to the short steep hill on the out-and-back, which made me dizzy.  Uh-oh, dizzy wile walking?  That's bad.  I tried to run a couple of more times, but literally didn't make it more than a few steps before I had to go back to walking.  I eventually conceded that I was done racing, and that the only way I would complete the race was to walk the remainder.  It took me 4 hours to walk the second half of the marathon, giving me a time of over 6 hours for the run.
During those four hours, I was not a pleasant person.  I was mad at myself, mad at the world, bitching and moaning to anyone unlucky enough to be near me.  I trodded on, with the bottoms of my feet aching and some new (and quite extreme) knee pain kicking in.  I watched the sun go down and lamented my inability to finish in the daylight.  I watched my friends go by, and instead of cheering them on I whined about my shitty condition.  I apologize to all of you, I would go back and handle it differently if I could.  During the walk I met up with another racer who was in worse shape than me, and we walked and talked.  I noticed my voice was a little weak, but figured it was just a little dry.
Eventually we made it to mile 25.5, and my new friend and I shuffled the last half mile together.  I honestly don't even know my finish time, and I don't want to look it up.  I know it was around 14:30, but it's unimportant to me.  My "catcher" put a blanket around me, shuttled me to the pictures, then tried to get me into medical.  I assured him I was fine, but he was persistent.  I eventually got away from him, but didn't understand why he was so insistent on me getting to medical.  I found out when I got home - my face was absolutely coated with white salt.  Not good.
From the days that followed the race it became clear that I was really dehydrated, but I don't know how or why.  I drank a lot out there.  140oz of fluid during the bike, and 13 cups of gatorade before I hit the wall.  But it wasn't enough - apparently it wasn't even close.  Was it the altitude?  Dry air?  Do I just need more than 20oz per hour?  Did I not get enough salt?
After the race I quickly found KT, who was confused, then pissed, then relieved, then frustrated with me.  I was just glad to see her.  It had been a long day, and it meant the world to me that she was there to cheer me on.  Plus, she's an excellent sherpa :)
I don't have any idea how my hydration on these races is still so messed, but I'm determined to figure it out before my next Ironman.  I think I could have run a 4:40 marathon had hydration not put me into a fit of nauseous dizziness.  I was feeling a little burned out on Ironman in the weeks leading up to this race - but having an unsatisfying result has fixed that problem.  Which way to Wisconsin?

The Ironman Cometh

This is it, I'm off to Utah to race this weekend in St. George.  A lot has been going on with me lately, but it's been all good news and somehow I've kept my stress level low.  I've been busy.  So busy that things at home have kind of taken a dive - my sink is full of dishes, my refrigerator is bare, and my laundry is strewn about the place.  It's a dump.  Why?
Last weekend KT ran in the Los Angeles Ragnar Relay, and I volunteered to drive the van.  This race is nuts - a twelve person, 28 hour, 200 mile running relay from Ventura to Dana Point.  It basically consists of running a stage of 4 to 9 miles, then handing the baton to a teammate, jumping in a van, waiting 9 hours for your next turn, repeat.  It ended up being 18 miles of running for her with 90 minutes of sleep over 28 hours.  Then, she slept for 3 hours - got up at 4:45AM on Sunday and ran the La Jolla half marathon.  Plus, she still beat my half marathon PR by 5 minutes!  The girl is tough.
This weekend is Ironman St. George, one of the toughest IM races on the planet.  I've been packing, strategizing, buying a new equipment (why not wear a new wetsuit for the first time at an IM race?), and generally freaking out.  On top of everything else, I bought my first house - and escrow closes 3 days after the race.  Everything has gone smoothly, but I'm nervous about signing the check!
With regards to the race, coach and I have a plan.  I'm not sure I like the plan - but I agree with it and think it's a good idea.  It basically involves me going slow on the bike.  Real slow.  So slow that people will ask "what the hell happened to you on the bike?".  At IMAZ in 2008 I completed the 112 miles in 5 hours, 40 minutes.  My projections for this weekend put me at somewhere around 7 hours.  Yikes, my sit bones are gonna ache.  Why go so slow?  So I can run.  I've been running a lot lately, 30 mile weeks pretty regularly which is a ton for someone like me.  I feel pretty good about the marathon, though it still scares the bejeesus out of me.  The plan is to be able to run strong for 26.2 miles, and possibly beat my IMAZ marathon time by an hour - even on a much tougher course.  At IMAZ my marathon ended at mile 9, at which point it turned into a walk/run survival event.  If everything goes perfectly (when has that ever happened?) I will finish the race in about the same amount of time it took me to do IMAZ.  That would be amazing, considering the difficulty of the Utah course. 
I'm grateful to be able to compete this weekend.  I'm healthy, happy and ready to re-earn my M-dot!  Thanks everyone for getting me here, we'll celebrate after the final exam.

My Limits?

Last week I had a rest week with regards to training, but the previous weeks involved a weekly hill climbing session on Torrey Pines grade.  These workouts consisted of progressively more difficult climbs, as measured in watts.  For example one week I was supposed to do the first climb at 230 Watts, then next one at 240, then 250, 260, and finally 270.  I worked hard to meet those numbers, 270 watts wasn't easy - my legs were burning.  But, I hit the numbers and so the next week the targets shifted up to 240, 250, 260, 270, and 280.  Once again I didn't think I could do 280 after having done the first part of the workout, but I did.  So the following week the goalposts shifted again to 250 up to 290 watts.  I was sure I couldn't do 280 watts and then do 290 immediately after, but once again I did it.  This time it didn't even feel like I was doing something impossible - it was just something that needed doing.  I'm sure next week coach will have 300 watts on this workout.  Holy hell I can't imagine finishing my workout with 10 minute climbs of 280, 290, 300 watts!  Crazy.
Anyway, it occurred to me that eventually I will hit my limit.  At some point (maybe at 300 watts!) I just won't be able to do what is being asked - it just won't be in me.  So what are my limits?  It's not something I'm comfortable even thinking about.
On a bike I feel like I can do anything I set my mind to.  I've yet to set a goal and not hit it, though admittedly there are some things I've pushed to the back of my mind, for now :)  In other athletic endeavors my limits are much more obvious to me.  I can't run a 6:00 minute mile, or a 100 mile ultra marathon.  I can't swim the English channel, nor can I do a 1 minute 100 meter.  But it doesn't matter to me that I cannot do those things - there's plenty of improvement to make and goals to reach without hitting those milestones.  Is that just me adjusting my expectations?
What about my non-athletic limits?  I've always had a quiet confidence in my own abilities, and an inner desire to expand my repertoire.  I've never run into something that I genuinely didn't feel like I could do.  Sure, sometimes it makes sense to just have an expert do it - but it's not because I couldn't, just that I choose not to.  I could learn to change the brakes in my car - but to do it right would require a lot of training and equipment, it's just easier to hire someone.  But I could do it, if it was important to me.
And that's the crux of my dilemma, what is important to me?  I can do anything I want, but I cannot do everything that I want.  So it's time to prioritize.
I love triathlon, and I love the Ironman distance.  I'm trying to get better each season - but to what end?  Am I trying to get to Kona?  Sure, that would be nice - but it's not very realistic given my current abilities and my rate of improvement.  So I'm doing these events for fun, it's entertainment - but with a huge cost.  I spend about 15 hours a week training, though some weeks it's upwards of 20.  Add on to that time all of the recovery I do, the extra naps and the nights I can't get my laundry done because all I want to do is pass out on the couch.  And the expense of racing.  A high end bicycle is quite an investment, and requires a lot of maintenance, and you have wetsuits, running shoes, cycling shoes, clothes, arm warmers, various hats/gloves/jackets, not to mention $550 race entry fees, travel cost (you're bike's ticket costs more than yours does), and artificially inflated hotel costs in the host cities.  Plus, KT and I have spent every hour of our vacation time from work traveling to races - which has cramped our ability to visit family or go on a real vacation.
What kind of person spends a third of their income and every waking minute obsessed with a hobby?  A crazy person.  Luckily I have some incredible people in my life to help me out.  I'm not going to give up Ironman (two to do in the next six months), but I promise to keep it in perspective.  I'm crazy, but I'm not stupid - at least I don't think so :)

Jiminy's Baptism, and Questions Answered

This weekend it rained in San Diego.  I'm talking torrential downpour, God opening up the skies and really dumping on us kind of monsoon.  Or, as people in other parts of the country call it, "rain".  We're in an El Nino year, and it's been raining a lot lately.  I've always been careful with my bikes not to get them wet.  I was concerned about what water does to carbon fiber, and I don't want all the expensive intricate metal bits to rust.  Then I saw how professionals clean their bikes with a hose, and got over it.  So Saturday I took Jiminy out for his first real taste of water.
The conventional wisdom with cycling is that you plan your big weekend ride for Saturday.  That way, if there's bad weather you can push your ride to Sunday and get a second chance at good weather.  Worst case you ride in bad weather on Sunday, which you would have done anyway.  I like this plan, though to be honest "bad weather" in SD is pretty damn rare.  I've had to cancel my weekend ride exactly once in 3 years - and I've ridden in cold or wet possibly three times.  All three of those incidents were crappy weather Saturdays, followed by crappy Sundays.  So the conventional wisdom has never paid off for me.  It would have this weekend, Saturday being in the 50's and rainy with Sunday being sunny and gorgeous - but I had given up on conventional wisdom (and lost confidence in the local meteorologists) and went for my long bike ride on a rainy Saturday.
In the process I answered a lot of questions, some of which I had been wondering about for a long time - others which I never anticipated every wanting to know.  Things like:

Q: Is my nice new Pearl Izumi jacket waterproof?
A: No, no it is not.  I was soaked to the bone before I even made it to the coast.  Thankfully I put my phone in a ziplock.  I wish I had done the same with my food.

Q: can you hydroplane on a bike?
A: Yes you can, though I don't recommend it.  Turns out bikes are very light and at relatively low speeds (30 MPH) will hydroplane nicely in about 1/4 inch of water.  The front wheel will go first, which is quite concerning since that's your only way to steer.  Forget about braking, your rims and brake pads are so wet it would take a mile before they would grip at all.

Q: Will a late model Toyota Prius hydroplane across a bike lane?
A: Yes it will.  In fact they don't seem to have any compunction about doing so.  It did not make me feel any better knowing that they probably don't have the greatest brakes.

Q: Will the residents of Oceanside (or O-Side if you're a huge d-bag) sit in a boat parked in their driveway in a rainstorm wearing life jackets and drinking boxed wine?
A: I think we all know the answer to this one.

Q: Is there an angle at which you can hold your pedals such that the spray off of your front wheel will funnel directly into your shoe?
A: Turns out yes!  If you place your foot just past the vertical on the downstroke (about 7 o'clock) you'll get a nice solid stream right down ankle and into your shoe.  Cold wet feet for 5 hours makes you strong.  and cold.  and wet.

Q: Can the s#@t hole streets of Leucadia possibly get any worse than they are normally?
A: I previously would not have believed it, but yes they can - just add water!  Not only are the pot hole ridden roads sans-bike lanes, they also have zero drainage.  The entire right lane was under about 3 inches of water (it only rained 1/2 an inch in the area) forcing cars to go around, and forcing me into the second lane of traffic.  The only thing worse than riding directly in traffic is riding directly in traffic along with SoCal drivers on wet roads.  Russian Roulette has better odds.

Q: Can it rain saltwater?
A: Turns out yes, kind of.  I noticed in Torrey Pines that the rainwater tasted like salt.  At first I thought it was picking up salt off my skin as it ran into my mouth, but it turns out that is not the case.  The very strong winds actually blow the ocean water into the air and create a salty mist.  Good times.

Q: Is it possible to tell what town your in by the taste of the streets?
A: Maybe.  The water kicked up all sorts of nasty crap off the roads and onto the mouthpieces of my water bottles.  Not surprisingly Del Mar and Solana Beach have very similar tasting roads,  sandy with a tinge of salt.  The route through Camp Pendleton was much more mud and gravel flavored.  Who needs GPS navigation?

Q: How long does it take to dry out on a bike?  Does the air rushing over you speed up the process?
A: As any triathlete will tell you, being on a bike will dry out your clothes pretty quickly.  However, this drying effect is completely negated by the cars crashing through puddles in the road and spraying you.

Q: Can you get dehydrated while simultaneously being soaking wet for 5 hours?
A: Yes.  It turns out osmosis is a horrible hydration strategy during a workout, and you probably should drink more than 32 oz. of fluid on a 80 mile bike ride.  Failure to do so will result in a headache that rivals the worst champagne bender you've ever been on.

Q: How long can you ride alone before going crazy and begin singing John Mayer songs to yourself?
A: About 3 hours before you get a song stuck in your head.  Four and half hours before you start singing aloud because there's not a single soul outdoors in the entire county.  Who Says I Can't Get Stoned?

Q: What am I willing to do to be successful at my events this year?
A: Apparently there's no end to my stupidity.  I left KT at home alone for a whole day to go out and nearly kill myself on a marginally useful workout, which was completely miserable.

 

To those of you who wisely rode indoors on Saturday, or delayed your ride until the weather cleared on Sunday - you were right.  I was wrong.  It was dangerous and stupid, and lots of fun :)

"The spirit of Ironman is about not quitting - at any speed, that is a lesson worth learning."

Gordo Byrn, from his blog 8/28/2009