Alas, Bill and Jeff both wield the spirit of the moose over me, so I must accept the challenge.
The other weekend, we headed out camping with my sister's family. The weather forecast was decidedly mediocre, with intermittent rainfall throughout the weekend. While it rained on the drive down there, by dusk the skies were clear, for likely the only time that weekend. As the last rays of light faded from the sky, my brother in law, my eldest son and I, left the comfort of the fireside, and headed down to the beach.
When I was a child, growing up in a small city further north than most people ever go, I can remember the night sky. I loved seeing the glows of cities and towns when we would travel by night, peeking out my car window. I remember the Milky Way, faintly stretching across the northern sky.
In my early 30s, I finally got to look through a real telescope for the first time. Living in suburbia, the sky was lighter than the skies of my youth, and I would have to wait well into the night to coax the Milky Way out from behind the glow.
Earlier this year, finally living outside the city, I laid out in the back yard with my kids, watching the Perseid meteor shower. I tried to point out the Milky Way, and remarked that it was the clearest I'd ever seen it. It gave me a bit of a thrill when they would describe a meteor as "it went right through the Milky Way!" Clearly, they were really seeing it.
On the beach, that night, was another level. Of course, it doesn't hit you all at once. As your eyes adjust from the glow of the campfire, and the flashlight you needed to get there, the view just gets better and better.
It wasn't a question of whether you could see the Milky Way, but rather just how much detail you could extract from it. The Great Rift could be seen running through Cygnus. The glow seemed to thin out a bit as it passed through Cassiopeia, only to return in Perseus. The double cluster could clearly be seen, and turning a bit, the Andromeda Galaxy was also visible to the naked eye.
The longer we stood there, the more we saw. Binoculars were brought out. We went hunting for the brighter deep sky objects, and it was a joy to find that quite a few were actually visible. Jupiter showed 3 moons, even in the shaky binocular lenses. Even just passing the binocs over the Milky Way itself was a joy - there were just so many stars.
Eventually, necks got sore, and people got tired, and we reluctantly turned away from the spectacle, back to our campfires, and tents.
]]>Back in early july I had one of those cold/flu things that were going around. The adage is that, if it's "below the neck", don't work out. Since this was definitely below the neck, I didn't.
Eventually, with the help of a puffer and a few weeks convalescence, my lungs cleared up.
My chest, however, didn't. Not entirely.
Every so often, something would make me cough. When I would cough, it was intense, even violent. Worse, when I was done coughing, my first attempt to breathe in would fail. Totally. Mouth open, ribs expanding, no air. This would be followed by some seconds of wheezing and gasping as my airway slowly relaxed.
Now, a full 6 or 7 weeks after I first got sick, I still have awful coughing fits that leave me bent over. My airways aren't closing, but sometimes I need a pretty good pull to get my lungs full again.
I love aerobic exercise, but I've pretty much been unable to work out all summer. Ok, so I was a bit on the lazy side before I got sick, but it's different when you CAN'T. I watched the tour de france and longed for my bike. I went on vacation and took some short bike rides, and suffered. I kept telling myself I'd be back in the pool "next week".
The doctor is calling it "temporary asthma". All I know is that it's got me down.
]]>The upside was the wind was at my back coming home. I thought I'd be too tired for it to matter, but the wind gave me just enough impetus to fly up the last hill - generally at 32-34km/h. Nice.
It was still too much time to makeup, but I was under 25 minutes, which wasn't bad.
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A few weeks ago, I set a time to beat of 24:18. It's on a chalkboard at home.
I had my first coughing fit a couple of minutes in, but I was able to keep my breath and keep going. I felt ok all the way around, though I battled up the last hill. Was very surprised to see the time be 24:26 - only 8 seconds off my PB.
Of course, if I keep at this for any length of time, I should be able to destroy that PB.
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According to the doctor, I caught some kind of a viral thing in my chest. Breathing has been difficult, and I've been coughing. Yum.
I got to watch the entire Tour de France, but could never go out riding afterwards. And believe me, the more I watched, the more I wanted to ride.
We drove up north for a wedding last weekend, and saw no less than 4 people trek riding the trans-Can. It made me sad, maybe even whiny.
Still, August is a new month. I have ambitions - hopefully, I won't be tied down too much longer.
]]>...sort of.
I walked the first half mile, power bar and gatorade in hand. I had intended to fuel up in transition, but it occurred to me that I might as well walk while doing so. If nothing else, it would stretch my legs out for the run (or shuffle) that was to come.
I suppose it looked funny, but c'est la vie.
Eventually, I couldn't eat any more, and I put them both down by the side of the road. The first mile was an awful slow shuffle, as my legs were in no hurry to wake up and come around. I drank 2 cups of gatorade, and the second mile was better.
When I came to the one steep climb on the out, I made the conscious decision to walk it both times (double loop run). The words in my head were "this is not the battle I really want to win". No regrets, there.
There was a lot of music along the course, and occasionally I stopped to do a little jig. Just after the turnaround, there was a barbershop quartet. I stopped and faked scoring them a perfect 10. It was just so great to have distractions along the course. :)
Bill looked like he was 30-40 minutes up the road from me. He looked strong, and we had kind words for each other whenever we passed.
On the first loop, I peed twice, then peed again back at the transition area before the second loop. Clearly, I wasn't dehydrated - just the opposite!
Near the end of the first loop, I had my second chocolate power gel. It tasted every bit as bad as the first. A careful reading caused me to exclaim, aloud "oh, no wonder it tastes bad - it's coffee!". Yup, that icky chocolate power gel I'd gotten at the aid station was, in fact, espresso. With caffeine.
On the second loop, I drank a bit less, at least until I had a spasm in my calf. I took that as fair warning, and started drinking more gatorade again. I also had a second power gel - I chose vanilla from the bowl. :)
When I hear the drums up near the turnaround, I knew for sure I was going to finish. I was buoyed, and had to rein in my emotions.
After the turnaround, I was able to continue running most of the time, which made me very happy. A few more calf twinges prevented me from picking up the pace, even when I saw by my watch that I had a shot at sub-7 hours. Finishing upright and smiling was far more important to me than some arbitrary number, so I walked when I needed to.
I managed to finish in a shade under 7 hours in the end, so it's just as well I didn't push myself.
That's right. I finished. Longest open water swim in my life. Second longest day ride in my life. Longest I've run in 2 years. All in one day.
]]>It didn't help that I'd spent the pre-race time chasing pedals, rather than setting up T1. Still, despite the fact that I spent more than 8 minutes in T1, I didn't start on the power bar I'd intended to eat there until I was out on the road.
Of course, to get out on the road, I had to clip into my pedals. Turns out it was much tougher than to do for these pedals - they really were a tight fit. I wasn't going to be casually clipping in and out in this race, that's for sure!
So I clipped in, with some ungentlemanly grunting and cursing, and immediately pulled the power bar out of my bike jersey and chowed down. Probably looked ridiculous with all these fit triathletes blowing by me in their aero bars. Suckers. They were missing out on the surprisingly decent taste (but still bleh texture) of oatmeal raisin power bar.
I was done the bar by the time we started hitting the rolling hills. I kept telling myself not to push, to take it easy. I was surprised that Bill hadn't blown by me yet, but focused on my own race - or lack thereof.
Around the first corner, and I started preparing myself for Devil's Hill. Unfortunately, when I got there, I realized I needed to go into the granny gear (smallest front ring). Quite often my bike chain falls off when I try to do this, and this was no exception. This, of course, happened halfway up the hill.
Unclipping was fun, too. So was reclipping into these new pedals on a steep uphill. Whee.
Bill blew by me here, as did about 40 other people. There was just no way about it, I couldn't wait for a gap in the traffic, I just had to cut in front of people and go.
Devil's hill put me far into the red zone. Actually, it put me there for far too long. I was huffing and puffing like an asthmatic when I crested. Not good. Ok, so on the downside I hit 61km/hr without pedalling AT ALL. Not adequate compensation. A few minutes later, I was in the red zone on another hill. On the detour onto the point, with all its false summits, I was in the red zone again.
In short, I was not well prepared for the rolling hills of Newfound Lake.
What didn't help was that I refused to go into the granny gear again, so I was grinding the heck out of my legs - making them put out more raw strength than they normally would have had to. When I finally came off the point, I was going backwards quickly, out of breath, and behind on my nutrition ('cause it's hard to drink when you're climbing).
Eventually, I got my legs back, as we left the lake and descended into Bristol. I reminded myself that my goal was to take it easy the whole first loop. I was now very leery of hills, knowing that I might have missed some on the Saturday drive-around. I wanted to make sure I had enough in my legs for whatever was around the next corner on my first loop. On the second loop, memory would help me plan.
Jeff and Bill had remarked that there was lots of climbing on the 104 out of Bristol. I'd missed it, but that's because rather than rollers we faces long slow inclines. This was more like what I was used to, and it didn't bother me at all. In fact, it was quite welcome.
Off the 104, there was a quick hill, then an aid station. I almost missed the port-a-potties, and had to brake quickly. Of course, in the middle of braking quickly, I remembered the new pedals, and nearly had a comical "fall over at a dead stop" moment. Fortunately, I got one foot down in time, and I stopped for my first pee break.
After this aid station was, by far, the best part of the bike. The rolling hills were more gentle, and they gave way to a bit of open farmland before we descended back to the lake. There was much happiness to be found here.
Suddenly, we were back at the lake, and done the first loop.
By now, I'd probably been passed by at least 350 of the 650 participants. (Which was fine.)
I made two big changes on my second loop. One was that I revisited the granny gear whenever I could. Yes, it was taking a chance, but my chain never dropped again, so it was a huge net plus. Also, I spent a lot more time on the tachometer of my computer, trying to keep myself at 90 rpm whenever I could. I especially tried to keep my cadence high AFTER hills, trying to let my legs recover actively, rather than passively. I never really pushed the pace, but tried to keep my legs active and loose.
Because of this, the second loop felt faster, and more cohesive than the first. When I got back to the 104 (seemingly much more quickly), I was on my third Gatorade bottle, and had eaten 2 power gels already. My gut, however, was starting to complain.
Remembering the aid station, I made plans to stop there again. Of course, it was about 5 curves further away than I remembered it being, but I did get there safely. When I did, I spent AT LEAST 5 quality (ugh) minutes there. This was kind of a no-brainer. I knew I had something like 3 hours left to my day, and I needed to get everything out that I possibly could NOW.
I took a bottle of Gatorade and 2 power gels from the volunteers on my way out, and started out again. One gel was eaten as soon as I hit a farm flat. It tasted awful, but went down in one swallow. Bleh.
By now I was largely on my own on the road. The entire field had gone off in front of me. I rode the last lonely miles, and rolled into T2 a very happy man.
All along, I'd told myself that I wouldn't know how the half marathon would be until I came off the bike. Coming off the bike, I felt surprisingly good.
On the bike, I ate: 1 power bar, 3 gels. I drank 4 full bottles of gatorade.
]]>I would occasionally see a swimmer on my left, but never for long. I'm not so sure that I was swimming terribly straight, but I was moving. Time slipped by almost without notice. One buoy before the first turn, I passed my first blue swim cap. I'd made up the 4 minute stagger on somoene.
Around the turn, and I noticed that the water was pushing me towards shore. Maybe we'd been swimming into the wind, and the home trip would be easier? Some wheel in the back of my mind told me to go steady on this phase, then pick up the pace after the second turn, on the run back to the beach. I had to mentally preempt this idea, reminding myself that I wasn't here to race, no matter how small the swim was in the grand scheme of the day.
I actually made the second turn surprisingly close to the buoy, as there was nobody there. I got behind a pair of feet or two, but at this point anyone that close to me had to be slower than me, given my start (I never saw any swim cap beyond dark blue and light green, so I don't think anyone from a later start caught me.) At one point, I came in too close to the buoys, and got behind three swimmers abreast. Yuck. I kicked it out wide and went on my way.
Suddenly, I could see the bottom. I watched the rocks go by, and tried to at least use them to stay straight. I saw lone fish, who scurried off, annoyed by my presence.
I pondered doing some butterfly close to shore, to try to get a laugh from the people on shore. Beyond it being a bad idea for injury reasons (I'm not THAT coordinated), the rhythm of freestyle was so ingrained in me by that point that I knew I'd have a tough time switching up.
Suddenly, it was too shallow to swim.
As everyone else ran across the mats and into T1, I strolled leisurely along. I may have been coming out of the water with the big boys, but I truly was a minnow. I needed to stick to my pre-race strategy, and take my time in the transition.
]]>We parked near the race site, and walked up. We stopped to help someone pump up his tires on the way there. I racked my bike in the transition area, and everything suddenly spun on its head.
I only had 1 pedal on my bike.
What followed was a few seconds of very vocal panic. What on earth had happened? What should, or even could, I do?
I dragged my bike to the local bike shop support tent. They weren't too optimistic about my chances. Remembering my bike dragging a bit after we left the guy who was pumping his tires, I told them that I MIGHT know where my pedal was, and offered to go look. I ran off.
Great - so much for conserving energy. I sprinted in sandals half a mile back to the site, and scoured the lawn on all fours. No pedal.
Almost in tears, I ran back, head down, scanning the ground for the pedal. No luck. Had it fallen off in the car? At home?
Back at the support tent, some good news. "I've found some pedals that should work. Want me to put them on?" Some unintelligable gratitude followed. I ran to get my shoes, and bike guy tried them out. He had to force them a bit, but they fit. Hurray!
By the time I got back to the transition zone, they were calling for people to start moving to the beach, and all the free space around my bike spot was gone. I put my towel and bike shoes out, grabbed my wetsuit, and joined my friends in the walk to the start line.
I have to take a moment to offer two huge thank yous. The first, obviously, is to the MC Cycle and Sport. The loaner pedals saved my bacon. The second goes to Lisa Bentley. I remember attending a talk she was giving, when she spoke about bad things happening to her during triathlons. She made the point that "everything happen for a reason".
Well, here I was, on the brink of the terrifying cold water swim, and my mind was blank and calm. The pedal fiasco had completely preempted my rising terror at the swim.
The PA played "Don't Stop Believing" and I smiled. They played "Welcome to the Jungle" and the first wave left. Now it was our turn.
My feet touched the water. "Damn that's cold." I need to watch my language when I get nervous. I put my hands in, because that usually helps get me acclimatized. "Oh god oh god oh god oh god."
I was intending to go to the front, being a competent swimmer, but now I wanted to go backwards. I didn't want to be here, I didn't want to do this. This was terrible.
"30 seconds to start".
I crouched down, to get my body wet. There was a slight chill at the base of my spine, I guess at the bottom of the zipper. Everything else was fine - the wetsuit did its job unbelievably well. Of course, my hands and feet were still SO COLD.
I looked at jeff. He had already gotten his face wet. Smart guy. I couldn't bring myself to.
"Go go go go go!!!!!"
Terror and panic. Step, step, heads up breast. Ugh. I DO NOT WANT TO DO THIS. OH GOD. More heads up breast. Everyone is going away from me.
Ok, put my face in. Now gasp for breath. Another heads up breast. The support boats must think I'm insane, doing nothing but heads up breast at a tri. Roll over, fix my goggles. Man, nobody is behind me. I'm dead last. How the mighty have fallen.
Roll back over. Head in the water again. UGH. Heads up breast. How about dipping my head halfway under on breast. Ok. How about all the way? Ugh. Try a pull of freestyle again. Ugh. Again, this time I remember to breathe out. Does blowing help to warm the water, making it easier? Heads up free is too tiring, try heads up breast again. Try two pulls in a row. Breathing on the left is fine. Man, I really shot forwards there. Do it again.
Maybe I should sight?
Wow, I passed that guy like he was standing still.
I AM GOING TO BE FINE.
]]>1. Olympic Triathlon: The swim in an Olympic Tri is something like 75% the distance of the swim in a half iron. What I knews is that not only had I completed the Olympic distance swim, I had ADORED it. The rhythm and solitude of an open water swim is an amazing experience. I knew that not only could I probably do the distance, I could probably enjoy it.
2. North Bay Triathlon: From a swimmer's perspective, I'm a competent swimmer at best. From a triathlon perspective, though, I'm a strong swimmer. So why did this 500m swim destroy me so badly? COLD WATER. I learned that I did not handle cold water in my face well in swims at all. Knowing that Mooseman could be even colder motivated me to spend both money on a good body length wetsuit, and time mentally preparing myself for the start of the swim.
3. 3 marathons: My goals for the 3 marathons were: finish, improve my time, and try for 4 hours. My results were finish, improved my time, and went 4:06. Sounds good, right? Still, all 3 featured some kind of a nutrition failure - cramping on the first two, and dehydration and hyperventilation on the third. All three races, I hit a point where I obeyed my stomach and stopped taking on nutrition. In a half iron, which is much longer than a 4.5 hour marathon, this would simply not be permissible.
The most important part of my plan involved nutrition. I had detailed plans for what I would eat/drink at T1, T2, and how much I would eat/drink on the bike and run. I brought extra foods with me, including soda crackers, trying to anticipate potential dietary problems. I did extra reading on race nutrition. I reviewed the race literature carefully, noting that their promised aid stations were amazing, and adapting my plan to incorporate them.
I also gave careful mental preparation to the subject of pacing. Going out too fast in a half or full marathon can ruin any chance of a PB. Going out too fast in a half iron must therefore be even more dangerous. I told myself that I simply would now have an idea how my race was going to go until I was off the bike. That meant that I was going to have to conserve my energy, and limit my speed, for hours.
There was a lot of contemplative mental preparation that went into the pre-race buildup. I confronted my fears about the cold water, reminding myself that once I had gotten past my panic in North Bay, the temperature had gotten easier to tolerate. I charted nutrition aggressively, and thought through what might happen if my stomach revolted at some point. I visualized myself walking long parts of the half marathon, but still being happy.
I tried to address every real fear and concern I had, knowing that the race day might be even stranger and more stressful that I could foresee.
]]>Last fall was epic enough. We bought a house, spent months packing, days moving, and will probably spend years unpacking. There certainly wasn't time to vigourously crosstrain. Heck, I had trouble just keeping to my 3 day a week masters swim schedule.
Nonetheless, there was background talk among friends of getting together to do a triathlon in late spring. It was enough to get me to buy a bike trainer. So I rode in the basement(I want to say rode AROUND, but that of course is ridiculous), all by myself, not going anywhere.
At the start of February, it seemed like people were IN for the triathlon, and for the half iron besides. Despite having not run in months (a conscious decision, based both on the chaos of moving and the cold of Canadian winters), I decided I was in, too.
The important point of these decisions is to have a realistic outlook. My reasons for saying yes to the half iron had little do with wanting to crush Bill, despite trash talk to the contrary. I wasn't looking to show off my athletic talents, or to impress the athletes that I know with a strong first-race showing.
I wanted to get together with friends, and to participate in something epic.
Note the word participate.
I worked hard on the trainer, and on the bike once the weather improved, at ramping up distance. Speed did not matter, I just wanted miles in my legs.
As for running, my goal was to somehow pole vault the shin splints I'd had last time I restarted running. Ok, and the time before, and the time before. This called not for an aggressive training schedule of consistent distance and speedwork, but rather a slow rampup of distance work, focusing on consistency and, more importantly, lots of rest and recovery between runs.
So how did my preparation go? Well, in the weeks leading up to the race, I was able to comfortably swim 1000-1200 metres in the pool, nonstop, without really taxing myself. The 1900m open water swim seemed doable, in isolation.
My longest ride was 75km. The 90 km ride seemed doable, in isolation. Of course, there rated to be more hills than I was used to, here in Ontario.
As for the half marathon? Not sure. My longest run was 16km. Most of my 12-16km runs involved my legs getting sore and tired towards the end. If I could do 21.1, I would probably need to back off the pace.
As for putting it all together? Well, this was half iron number 1, so it was always going to be a question mark anyways. Given the leadup, I was going to have to design my race day to maximize my chances of enjoying my day.
]]>Like all public swims, the lane usage is horribly inefficient. A competent master's swim club could have fit close to 50 people in the pool, but at around 20 the pool felt very crowded. No point in complaining, it's just the nature of the beast.
I did a 5x100m warmup, trying to stay more or less out of other people's way, then did ~1000m continuous swim. This may have arguably been a mistake. As much as I really needed a longish continuous swim to stretch out and get used to swimming again, the lanes that I was in felt very crowded. I was one of the fastest swimmers there (which is a huge change for me), and I occasionally needed to shift gears for a 25 and blow by a few people so that I could get some clear water in front of me to return to a comfortable pace.
Technically, I was really feeling the loss of a few weeks worth of form. My body roll wasn't as good, my catch needed work, I needed to focus more than usual on my hand position, etc. Still, nothing in the swim told me that I won't be able to do ~1900m open water in a few weeks.
Still need to go wetsuit shopping, though.
]]>I've been battling tension headaches and general malaise for a while now, but it couldn't stop me from getting a sweet ride and a solid run in on the weekend.
Sunday I opted to run around the block. I started out into a stiff breeze, and was looking forward to having a tailwind coming home. Alas, when I finally turned to the east, I found out that the wind had been keeping the bugs out of my face. Suddenly, running about the same speed as the wind, the bugs had free reign around my head and face.
I tried picking up my pace, but I really only shook them when the wind gusted. On the other hand, the quickened pace felt good. Granted, I could tell that I wasn't quite in the right shape to maintain that pace just yet, but it was like running into an old friend.
It's taken a couple of days for me to recover from the run, and I'm sure that the added pace contributed to that. Still, whatever I lost on the physical side, I gained on the mental side. Running, at best, is pure joy.
]]>The 25 mile ride on Friday was wonderful. I was positively buoyant after the ride. I can't wait to get back out there and do it again.
]]>What really hurt though was the weather. I ran on Tuesday, to my credit, but I ran in the snow! Ugh. I didn't get to ride outside all week, and my sunday run (after a 70 minute trainer ride) was windy and yucky.
Trying to look at the positives, the two swims I did were great core workouts, the pushups are starting to yield some good dividends, and I seem to be avoiding ITB so far. The weather outlook this week is fantastic, and I may bike to work. Most importantly, there is still lots of time left for training, and my base is pretty good, all things considered.
As Tony Kornheiser would say, though, it's "go time"!
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