Alone

The just-cut grass on the churchyard lawn,

invited us to linger, to talk about nothing.

So we sat in the sun while the cars drove by,

watching the birds pick through the clippings.

Lost in the day, we forgot about time,

then you got scared and without a word you ran, I didn't know why,

I didn't know what waited on you.

Why was your skin marked black and blue?

Your brother taught us important things,

Like how to steal squirtguns, shoved down the front of our pants.

A man with a badge grabbed you, so I ran.

We were seven years old.

Our moms paid the school for the overhead projector

that we broke when we fought in the fourth grade.

We were too young to know what we meant,

when we didn't talk for a month.

You were already gone,

when I thought to try.

We smelled each others shoes and you laughed,

when you smelled mine.

For years after, I smelled my shoes, and smiled.  

But now, that memory fades,  I wish I could get it back.

They all loved you.

They wanted to be near you, to know you as I did,

and when they saw us together,

They thought I was like you.

Now I see your face in stale-gray silhouette,

all the colors faded away.

You are barely a whisper now,

you haven't told me a secret these forty years.

It wasn't supposed to work out this way,

I wasn't meant to be alone.

On the day we buried you,

no shit, your mom turned and looked at me and thought I was you, 

and called me your name.  

She wanted me to come visit and sit in her kitchen chair like I used to.  

Like you used to.

A coward, I never talked to her again

Years gone and now I'm alone,

and I wonder, are you alone too?

Are you still sitting in that churchyard, 

watching the birds picking over the clippings?

SCAD

I am a 57 year old male, I exercise regularly, I eat healthy, or at least I try to eat healthy and eight weeks ago, I became a Spontaneous Coronary Atery Dissection SCAD survivor.

I woke up two days after my SCAD event in CCU. For at least a couple days after I woke up, my mental acuity could be described as “swiss cheese”. I had no idea what happened. I thought I was having a serial bad dream. My family and the doctors and nurses told me I was in the hospital because I had a heart attack. It didn't make sense. They told me four or five times and I couldn't, or I wouldn't comprehend. I don't have time for a heart attack.

The cardiologist said I was the luckiest guy on earth since I had died twice. He called me “Mr. Lucky”. I don't know how to interpret that. It's great to be alive but who wants to to die twice to do it? If given a choice, I vote for alive and not dying twice.

Apparently, my wife kept me going while the paramedics were driving to my house to give me a ride to the hospital and I am forever grateful. My wife isn't big or strong but she was able to call 911, pull me out of bed onto the floor and conduct CPR. She had never performed CPR before but I am pretty sure she took a two hour class about twenty years ago. All I can say is “thank you, Darling”.

The doctor said I had six broken ribs from the CPR, all on the left side (thank you, Darling), one of which punctured a lung, and two chest tubes to drain the punctured lung goo out of the chest cavity. The funny part is that I had broken ribs on the right side too but the x-ray machine must have missed those. The doctor said I didn't have right side breaks but that side hurt worse than the left and I had a bruise the size of a dinner plate on that side for six weeks so, you tell me.

I am told that the paramedics hit me with the defibrillator twice to bring me back. A big shout out to the paramedics and the police and the firemen. You guys rock! You work in difficult work conditions with little thanks. I can't say enough good things about the good things you did for me. A million thanks, a million times over.

I used to think that if I ever did have health issues, it would be because of job stress. It just makes sense, right? I work in a stressful job and I was so convinced of that fact that I spent a great deal of time and effort telling friends how stressful my job is. Now, in retrospect, I think asserting that my job induced stress is causal to my SCAD seems wrong or at least a bit dishonest. Everybody works in a stressful job. My stress is self induced. I make a point of doing my job well and I do whatever it takes to make that happen. I work weekends and I work nights if it helps the company. I wake up at 2 a.m. thinking about work. On my commute to work, I think about what I need to do at work that day and on the commute home, I think about what I didn't get done that day. So what? Everybody with a job deals with stress so why can't I?

I just read a post on a SCAD survivors group that really surprised me. The post asked a simple question about the commonality of male SCAD survivors being athletes. My first thought upon reading that post was it was wrong but now, I think it's right. I am an athlete. I exercise a lot. I exercise often. While I never thought I was exercising too hard, I have to admit that I don't personally know many people my age that push physical limits harder than I do, other than some guys that I train with. I participated in four Ironman events between 2012 and 2015. Three were full Ironman events and one was a half. I was in the medical tent immediately after three of those events for medical attention and while that may sound like a super bad thing to you, for me it was normal. Ironman is hard and if I need three IV bags afterwards, then that is OK. Right?

A week or two before my SCAD event, I was on a spin bike doing a 150 heart rate workout with interval peaks up to 165. I felt great. Usually I can only get a 145 heart rate with peaks in the 155 range, so I thought that I was doing good. In fact, I remember thinking that I was having a great workout day right before I got dizzy and had some chest pain that I self-diagnosed as acid reflux. I dropped my effort level by about 30% for a couple minutes, thinking that the pain would pass. It didn't. I got off my spin bike and sat down for 10 minutes. That didn't help. I still felt dizzy and had light chest pain that I thought was acid reflux. After another 20 minutes of sitting, I felt better so I drove home. That workout happened on a Saturday. On Monday I called and made an appointment with my family doctor to talk about what I thought was acid reflux and my slight chest pain. They could fit me in on Friday at 9am. On Friday morning at about 5am, I became a SCAD survivor. That was eight weeks ago.

I don't know what happened to tell the truth.  I went to bed Thursday night and I woke up Sunday in the hospital.  Statistically, most people don't wake up.

When I was in for my last catheterization, I was laying on the table, three or four nurses and the doctor were doing who knows what getting ready to look at my heart.  They were chatting about who was doing what that weekend and then they gave me the fentanyl.  Oh my, that's good stuff, I thought about asking for another hit but I don't want to seem greedy.

I get chatty under chemical influence and I listened to my medical team chat for about three seconds then I got tired of them chatting and me not chatting so I asked if any of them were triathletes.  They all stopped chatting for maybe ten seconds, then the doctor answered and said "No, we are not.  And neither are you."  I was sort of offended at the time since I think he was implying that I wasn't a fast runner or a good athlete and I was getting ready to give him my athletic resume when they stuck the multi-function tool into my person.  Now I know that he didn't mean I was slow but rather that my extreme sports days are over and he wasn't going to save me again.  Fair enough.

Before SCAD, I wasn't afraid of much but this fear thing is really hard to deal with. I feel every slight pain and it makes me afraid. I have a lot of slight pain. I have slight pain in my chest, which I think is mostly the chest wall/bone/cartilage doing some self repair.  Or maybe it's my heart complaining:  How would I know the difference?  I am not a trained medical expert, I just know that its a tiny pain somewhere between my sternum and my heart that goes away after a few seconds.  My ribs on the side still hurt a bit. Yesterday, I had a slight back pain, which I read somewhere is maybe a sign of a pending heart attack. Super. I have had back pain for years but how do I know if this is that same long running back pain or a new warning of a heart attack.

If I was pre-SCAD, I doubt I would have noticed any of those little pains. Now, I feel them all and they remind me that I am “Mr. Lucky”. I feel every PVC and it doubles my fear quotient. I think about the day I came home from the hospital wondering how I could make it through the night without a machine over my bed monitoring my heart.  They had a machine in the hospital doing that job but I don't have one at home so now, that's one more thing I need to do?  Call the nurse if my heart quits?  I think about this stuff non-stop.

I don't sleep well because I listen to my heart for hours when I go to bed, waiting for it to mutiny. One night, I laid in bed from 11 P.M. to about 2:30 A.M., convinced that I needed to stay awake in case I had another SCAD.  I have no idea what my plan was going to be if I did have another SCAD but I couldn't stop thinking about pending disaster.  I even thought about pre-dialing 911 and asking the lady to have the paramedics on standby and please don't use the flashing lights because it wakes the neighbors.  I didn't call but I had the phone on my night stand.

I spend 90% of my day thinking “what if”. What if I have another SCAD? What if my wife isn't there next time to save me? What if I am out for a walk and I fall? What if I cant ever fall asleep again?

I cant seem to find accurate data on my situation. I saw on one website that there is an 11% survival rate for having a heart attack at home. My cardiologist told me that there is very little data on men with SCAD since up to 80% of SCAD victims are women, depending on which study you reference. I am told that there is some data suggesting that SCAD in men is related to extreme sports and high impact car accidents, not that it matters to me now.

For weeks, I was on a mission to identify the cause of my SCAD.  Who is to blame?  What did I do wrong?  I don't always eat healthy, so I feel guilty for that.  I spent six months not working out after my last Ironman.  Maybe that was it.  I fixate on goals for years at a time and if I don't achieve those goals, I can feel the stomach acid build up until I burn it out with a run.  I don't go to my family doctor every year for a checkup.  I figured since my weight was marginally OK and I work out, he can't do anything to help me so why go? Now I wonder if skipping checkups got me.  I know I am not charitable enough with my time so maybe karma got me.  I crashed my mountain bike last October really hard, breaking a couple ribs and I couldn't breath right for weeks.  I didn't pass out but I wanted to, it hurt so bad.  I told my cardiologist about it and he said that wasn't it.  I'm not so sure.  It happened.

I have mostly given up on assigning blame.  In the end, it doesn't matter why.  No matter the cause, no matter the statistics, no matter the risk, it happened.  It is what it is.  I thought I was immune from health issues because I work out. I thought I was adding years to my life by working out.  Maybe I was wrong. 

I am hoping for the best. In my last echo-cardiogram, it looked like the dissection has healed and the area that they thought was a blockage turned out to be a sympathetic coronary artery spasm. Or something like that, I am not a doctor but I think that is close to what I was told.

If you would be so kind as to listen to me just this once, heed this:  If you are an athlete, listen to your body.  Listen to your doctor.  You only get one heart.  

Creatures of Habit

We are all creatures of habit. One of the guys I ride bikes with was getting on his bike last summer during a training ride, he walked up to his bike on the right side, then asked me to hold his bike while he walked all the way around it to the left side. It was pretty obvious that his mount repertoire didn't extend to the right.  He was a left side only mounter.  He just couldn't calculate the mechanics of getting on his bike from the right. I thought at the time that maybe he's a overly zealous democrat but now I am not so sure. Hey Slugger, why not just get on the thing from the right side? He has ridden bikes for at least thirty years but he hasn't yet worked out the ambi-directional mount. He is a creature of habit.

One of my habits is that before I buy, or before I rent, or before I borrow, I research. I research everything. I research cars before I flash the cash, I research neighborhoods before I move, I research the emergency medical facilities before I vacation. I do my homework in all purchasing decisions and while I contend I am not suffering from any formally documented nervous dysfunction, I do admit to a severely underdeveloped set of social skills that some idiot doctors referred to as a phobia in 1983. And again in 1991.

Some people refer to my little research idiosyncrasy as a mild form of psychopathy, while I prefer the term “quirky.” Being “quirky” and having “phsycopathic tendencies” are pretty close to the same thing, but my employer frowns on those of us who navigate this life with an as-yet undiagnosed case of tourrett syndrome, and I am pretty sure I can't be fired for being quirky. I need to keep my job until the mortgage is paid.

My mind was wandering during a recent two hour research session on a pending pocket comb purchase and I got bored and ended up looking up seven words in the dictionary. I try to look up a new word every day, but I was a week behind so I had to knock down seven all at once. I have a thing about words.  I like words, but it's like playing a flute or a violin; If you do it well, it is a thing of beauty, if you don't, it can be a torturous endeavor.  If my roommate left me for greener pastures and a highly defined set of abdominal muscles, and that resulted in me filling out one of those on-line dating checklists, I would list correct diction and a good thesaurus as turn-ons.

I love to read books penned by those who have mastered the art of manuscription. On the other hand, I get an upset stomach when the English language is butchered by a certain coworker who is three crayons short of a full box and can't describe the difference between the great literary trifecta; too, to and two. My aforementioned coworker once misused two out of three of the trio in the same sentence. He is such a dickweed.  I hate him.  I hate him so very, very much.

Sadly, I found that I too have been using a few favorite words incorrectly and I am abashed for my grievous sin. I cannot continue to live a life built upon dishonestly, so I must confess here, seeking atonement for my poor word selection. Here it is; I have been claiming to have been experiencing a “Catharsis” when I participate in a triathlon. Its how I process when I am stressed. I search for the silver lining when I am under duress.  I tried to find the blessing on that day when the roommate answered the door and was confronted by a girl with a bun in the oven asking if I was home.  I tried to find the good when my stomach rejected the performance fuel I fed it in Whistler.

My specific crime is that in a previous post, I meant to say I experienced a “Catharsis” but my ego overcame my ability when I tried to jazz up my phrasing and I said my event was “Cathartic”. Ooops. I thought they were the same thing. Both words sound really similar but they diverge in the specifics, as such...

  Catharsis - From the Greek Katharsis, meaning “Cleansing”

  Cathartic – From the Greek Kathartikos, meaning “Fit for cleansing”, or, “The act of evacuating your bowels”.

Now I feel like my dickweed coworker.

Some of my Ironman compatriots were asking who was doing what event this year. Some said they are doing this event or that event. I get that. You plan and set a goal and work to that goal. I think that is the way to go. Others said they are doing three fulls and five halfs or whatever. I don't get that. What kind of drugs do they ingest? More than one event a year is crazy.  Irrational.  Nuts.

I swim with a group of forty to fifty determined folks in the pool three times a week. We have a coach, we use swim aids like paddles, fins, swim buoys, goggles, swim caps etc. We spend a small fortune working on our swim in the pool, then when the weather warms up and we get in the lake, we all complain about the temperature, the clarity of the water and how our new five hundred dollar wet suit is too tight through the shoulders.

My dog swims pretty well. He spots perfectly, so he swims a straight line, his cadence is steady and he does negative splits. He didn't spend one penny on swim aids, he has never had one lesson, he doesn't complain. He just gets in the water and starts swimming, he doesn't bitch and now I feel inadequate.

I cant fix my swim technique. It's broken and I am thinking of starting over. My right arm is like 50% effective, which is good. I reach pretty well, I don't cross over, I catch OK, but my elbow drops a bit. If I concentrate on it I can get it to stay up for a while, but when I get tired, it drops.

My left arm is another story. I reach pretty well, but after that, it all falls apart. My catch is a joke, I cross over, my elbow drops and I swing that arm like a pendulum. My dog tried to show me proper technique but what does he know? He thinks he knows everything, but he doesn't.  Golden retrievers are so arrogant.   He doesn't worry about technique, he just swims.  He is the ultimate creature of habit.

Blow the Conch Shell

I don't often review my bank statement so a couple weeks ago I was sort of surprised to find I am suffering from what can be described as a small financial discontinuity.   The pile under the mattress is shrinking like the polar icecap. The nice lady at the bank called, I think she said her name was Druzilla, she called and said something about a possible legal action. Her call was a pretty big surprise since I still have a small box full of blank checks wedged in the big box with mattress money.

Now, you have to understand that I do have a plan to resolve it, but it isn't a great plan.  Druzilla told me I needed to spend less or make more so I thought about it and the only thing I can cut out of my monthly spend is my wine delivery bill or my “ice cream of the month” club fee and that just seems unreasonable, so I am thinking of augmenting my income stream.

I sort of glanced through the help wanteds and have winnowed the search down to a short list. I am thinking professional golfer or maybe I can land a slot at NASA.  I heard you can do OK in rocket surgery.  Basically, I will take anything that pays seven spots to the left of the decimal.  

I told my roommate about the call from Druzilla and my income augmentation plan but she had other ideas. My roommate says I am only good for one thing and if I play my cards right, I can work my debt off if I perform a "personal service".  I didn't understand what she was talking about so I asked her to explain and apparently, I can carry groceries in from the car like no other. I literally can't be replaced when it comes to packing groceries around. I am the franchise player when it comes to toting groceries from the car to the kitchen. As these things go, it isn't a great thing to be great at. The pay isn't union scale and the last time I checked, I was out of sick leave. You can only play that sick leave card so many times before the management gets wise and you end up toting a fifty pound bag of Purina up two flights of stairs to keep the eviction police at arms length.

I just got back from Hawaii, where I was conducting business.  I was wearing my journalist hat, gathering content for my blog, interviewing the Ironman World Championship race winners, posing for photographs, shopping for some Ironman swag and other business tasks. I wasn't there for recreation, I was there for business purposes. I just looked up publication 463-B, the authoritative IRS document on the subject and as long as I was there for business, I can write off the airfare.  So, I repeat, my trip to Hawaii was for business purposes.

Being a fully accredited member of the American Sports Bloggers Association of America(ASBAA), I feel qualified to offer the following race report.

It was a great event. There was some swimming, some bike riding and some running. It was pretty exciting.  I am pretty sure somebody won the race and if you want to know who, ask around.  I didn't stay for the end.  I got tangled up with a small contingent of Bloody Mary racers, drowning themselves in tomato juice and vodka without regard for personal well being. Those people are amazing athletes. I tried to pace them and found my skills to be amateurish at best. The quantity of juice and vodka was daunting, the salty rim of the glass was an unexpected challenge and the two olives? Forget about it.

As for the weather, I can tell you it was hot. Cyclists were melting. It was way hot. Runners were wilting. It was crazy, psycho hot. It was hot enough to absolve me of any responsibility for that small misunderstanding between myself and the authorities in a certain South East Asian country in 1997 that I can't name on pain of extradition.  Those guys have no sense of humor.

Sunrise at Ironman is different, depending on the venue. The landscape defines the moment.  Be it in the mountains, the desert or the islands, sunrise is unique to each.   I have seen all three and they are as different as such things can be.

Sunrise at Ironman must be felt.  You have to stand there and feel it for yourself. You have to let it wash over you.   You have to feel the rising sun brush against your skin, you have to experience the moment in your chest.  Sunrise is cathartic.  In that brief instant of sunrise, the primary colors reflected off of the mountain are different from the pastel hues that bleed together in the desert, the fresh floral smells of the island are different from the astringent scents of desert rock, the air of the snow capped peak tastes different from the air of cactus and sage.

The blade-sharp edge that is the dividing line between night and day in the desert advances at a military slow-march pace, flaring bright across the sanded flats and hills.  Conversely, the line of light that is sunrise in the mountains advances in fits and spurts.  The sun ever-so-slowly exposes a mountain cliff, then as it clears the peaks, the furthest valley is lit in an instant, erasing the night as quickly as a newborn fills it's lungs with first breath. Sunrise fills the valleys of the mountains like an echo quick. One minute, the heather covered meadows are dark, the next they are lit like a Rockwell Christmas tree.

Sunrise in the desert of Phoenix is like an invading army, advancing and unwilling to yield.   Sunrise in the mountains of Whistler is an eager embrace of lovers, joining light and shadow in ecstatic consent.

Island sunrise is a chanted prayer, a war cry uttered by a warrior from legend, a primal definition of the meaning of his life, and yours.  If you are lucky, and you look straight into the first ray of the rising ocean sun, you might see a canoe cutting through wavetops, charging out of centuries past, filled with men powering bladed oar.

If sunrise finds you standing on the sands of Kona, look into the rising furnace on the horizon and see those men coming for you, committing their bodies and their souls to each oar stroke, flying over blue bright wave.  Sunrise in the islands can be that, if you only look for it.

The thing that I realize now is how personal sunrise at an Ironman event can be. My expression of sunrise belongs only to me so it may fall short for you, but it is the world I know.

Sunrise in Kona is an affirmation of truth, it is an echo of the grace and elegance as it must have been on that first day, a promise of future days, of memories not yet born, of experiences I believe wait for those who choose them.

Smoked Meat

In these modern times, the food we put in our bodies is inspected, certified, economized and evaluated, then pre-chewed by experts under the bright spotlight of governmental scrutiny, evaluated for residual levels of pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, insides and outsides. It seems odd to me how it doesn't seem to matter if the food is good for you or bad for you. The actual nutritional value is just a side show compared to the predominant societal belief that if the food wasn't grown in a hermetically sealed biosphere, safely isolated from the influence of the Monsanto company, it must be bad and will cause your immediate demise. The literature proves it. Eat more fermented, processed soy and kale. Lots of kale.

We all benefit from the collective knowledge of the vegetarian zealots and the various vegan evangelists of all denominations. In the end, the common message is that we eat too much meat and not enough veg. Got it. I agree, I need to eat more brussel sprouts. Sprouts will save me and my offspring from all manner of sin and debauchery. Google says so. But maybe, if the stars align just right, I will find that there is some some anti-salad food club I can join, maybe there is a non-cabbage-centric path I can follow. A culinary revolution must occur.

I offer for your consideration an alternate theory. I offer gastronomic salvation, via the butcher counter. My theory is thus; What we don't have enough of is smoked meats. I don't discriminate, I like all kinds of smoked meats; smoked pork ribs, smoked beef brisket, smoked rattlesnake, its all good. The benefits of smoked meats are indisputable. Read your history. Humans have been cooking meat on a fire for three million years, give or take, and we are doing pretty well so far.

About two and a half million years ago, and this is a true story, two and a half million years ago, there were two families living on the edge of a vast, sun-beaten prairie. Both families lived off of the land, eating mostly sagebrush and coconuts or whatever grew in the neighborhood. Sometimes they ate grubs and grasshoppers and maybe a rabbit or a squirrel when they could catch one. It was a hard life.

One family lived in a nice snug waterproof cave while the other family lived in a rundown leaky cave with a bad draft and no cable. The nice cave family had Bob for a leader. Bob was tall and good looking with a cleft chin. When Good Looking Bob spoke, everybody listened. Women stared at him and hung on his every word. He was the image of human perfection. Good Looking Bob was a vegetarian and he loved his family very much.

The leaky cave family had Larry for a leader. Larry was short and not good looking and had no chin. Nobody listened to Larry. Women ignored him. Larry was the antithesis of human perfection. Larry ate meat and he loved his family very much.

Both families consisted of about twenty members. Like most families in their time, there was a nucleus of hard working adults in each family who provided the food. These adult folks brought the food home and fought off the wild animals, keeping the rest of the family alive. They spent most of their time hunting and gathering, gathering and hunting. The adults were a hard working group.

Then there were a few folks that were too old to hunt, so they made the clothes, gathered wood for the fire and took the garbage out. These older adults were semi-retired and invented golf.

Last, there was the kids. The kids served no purpose at all and were a drain on society. To make matters worse, these families had lots and lots of kids. Maybe the adults didn't practice good birth control.

Truckloads of food was required to feed the family, but times were really hard. The summer had been too hot and the plants died and the animals abandoned the savanna. The hunter/gatherers were striking out in the food acquisition department lately and everybody was hungry. In fact, both Good Looking Bob's family and Larry's family were on the edge of starvation.  The sagebrush dried up, the squirrels disappeared and the grubs must have migrated north for the summer. This was before food banks were invented I guess.

As a last resort, Good Looking Bob and Larry set out to find food for their families. Nobody actually put into words the impact of this act because they didn't have to. Everybody knew the score.  Good Looking Bob and Larry weren't coming back without food. They would keep hunting until they caught something, or they died trying. Times were desperate.  Good Looking Bob and Larry just wandered into the savanna, sniffing around for something to eat, digging for potatoes or lizards or whatever they could find.

On the first day, these desperate men didn't find anything. On the second day, same result. But on the third day, Good Looking Bob, tall and handsome and well educated, found a handful of dandylions and six brussel sprouts and some kale. He took those home and fed his wife and twelve emaciated children. They ate the entire harvest raw, because that is healthier and that is how you are suppose to eat vegetables. Good Looking Bob knew then, as we know now, that if you let your veg get too close to your camp fire all the health benefits are leached out. The science bears this out. Eat your veg raw if you want to maximize your B complex absorption rates.

Larry scored some food and took it home too. He had a wife and twelve skinny kids to feed, just like Good Looking Bob. Larry found a buffalo with a broken leg and killed it and took that home to his family and threw it on the fire, ignoring the commonly accepted idea that meat is bad for you. To make matters worse, he ignored the literature that clearly stated that smoked meat is especially bad for you.

That's the end of the story, but it begs the question: Which family survived and which died off? My first thought, when I heard that story, was that Larry's family and his smoked meat eating family would die off because we know too much meat in your diet is bad for you. High cholesterol levels and all that, right? Get some nice fresh anise and maybe a small portion of zucchini in your diet and live for an extra twenty years.

But, that isn't what happened. Good Looking Bob and his veg eating pack starved and died while Larry the smoked buffalo eater and his family prospered, going on to accomplish great things. I heard one of the grandkids invented the Webber grill, which sort of makes sense if you think about it.

If that doesn't convince you about the health benefits of smoked meats, I don't know what to say. As far as I know, that proves that we need to eat more smoked meats.

Since Whistler, I have swam three times, been to spin class once, ridden my bike three times and run two to three times a week. Whistler was exactly two months ago and I am working out three hours a week. As our good friend Samuel said, “How the mighty have fallen! The weapons of war have perished!” I don't know what to make of the second sentence, but the first one is spot on. I have fallen pretty far and I don't feel very good about it.

Maybe I will feel better if I eat some smoked buffalo.

Shrinkage - A Race Report

 ---Preamble---

I read part of a text book in college once for an anthropology class, or maybe I just read the Cliffs Notes, I don't remember which. The class was about dead people from other cultures, or at least I think that was what it was about.  I'm not sure what it was about because I hated that class, and if possible, that class hated me in return.  In the end, it was a big waste of my time and since I had to buy the book, it was an even bigger waste of my money.  So anyway, I signed up for the class on a dare and one thing led to another and it turns out that I was too busy to attend the lectures.  Or take the quizzes.  I am like fifty percent sure I took the final, but its been a while and now that I think about it, I might have skipped that too.  

Usually, when a class, or the topic of the class was interesting, I would spend some effort and zero in on some part and I would actually learn something.  For instance, I thought econ was worthwhile.  Lots of interesting stuff there in econ.  But that anthropology class?  No.  That anthro class just blew chunks.  That class was completely useless, except for this one thing: There was this one chapter that just seemed spot on.  I found myself nodding in agreement as I read that chapter because it seemed to be written about me. Basically, it said that humans will or maybe just men will, in times of stress, revert to their inner caveman and show the most uncouth side of themselves to the world, and by extension, when we men do exhibit this self-degradation, we describe and define the human race in its most basic, unattractive terms. According to the book, this behavior manifests itself in three ways; First, we mark our territory like a dog, peeing on grass and bushes and just a wee bit on ourselves. Second, much like a male peacock will fluff up his tail feathers to impress a female peacock, we men strut around and flex our biceps (in my case, I flex my somewhat atrophied and floppy biceps) hoping to attract a female peacock. Last, during these expressions of cavemanism, we cook meat. We stomp around the campfire, or the gas grill, burning sirloin and fingers in the flames, drinking beer and shouting obscenities at the moon and the neighbors. I have been accused of such behavior and while I deny all, I have to admit to being burdened with a semi-functional memory, so who knows for sure? Maybe I did do it.

I have a laundry-list of attributes, some good, some bad, and while I might think most of these traits are nothing more than a footnote in the official 'How to be a Self-Actualized Person' manual, they can be much more than that, more definitive, more foundational to my auto-biographical description of what I am, and thus, what we all are. Humans can be both giving and greedy, insightful and dull, good and bad. These attributes are truly human attributes; We were born this way so maybe we shouldn't judge ourselves too harshly.

All the math majors out there might decide, in their misguided quest for a unified theory of the universe, to allocate an integer to each trait, either positive or negative according to the perceived relative value of each trait, then add up the numbers and decree that the resulting value is the ultimate definition of human worth. Sadly, at least for the math majors, many of these traits can't be quantified, they can't be understood rationally, they can't be listed in a spreadsheet for analysis by you or I. But maybe, just maybe, they can be generalized and it is in that generalization that we find our single, human-defining trait. More to the point, once that single trait is identified, it is in the resulting acceptance of that fact that we finally are able to empirically verbalize our most human attribute, which is that we are 'self-aware.' It is the very fact that we are self-aware that makes us human, and it is the fact that we are human that makes us self-aware. And therein lies the problem.  We humans are the ultimate recursion.

Darwin's 'On the Origin of Species' teaches that mutations are random and those mutations sort themselves out over time. The mutations that lead to more successful hunting, or a better way to run from danger or the ability to procreate faster and more successfully are passed on to the next generation. Those mutations that offer no advantage in the pursuit of these activities will, given enough time, be deleted from the gene pool.

Self-awareness is the only human trait that has been passed on from parent to child but offers little to the continuity of the species. It's an aberration, like T-Rex; Rex was a big deal at one time, walking the earth at the top of the food chain, eating dogs and cats and mastodons and such, but he couldn't adapt: Rex was ultimately doomed, destined for extinction because his hands were too small to hold a semi-automatic weapon. Poor T-Rex, the NRA shunned him and he couldn't live with the shame.

In the end, self-awareness serves no function, it lends no advantage in the Darwinian model, and therefore will eventually just cease to be. Maybe ten years from now, maybe ten centuries from now, or maybe ten thousand centuries from now, the human species will still walk the earth, perhaps still at the top of the food chain, perhaps at the bottom, but certainly it will be without self-awareness.

The self-awareness thing does help out in one area of Ironman. Ironman is a big day and most people miss the best part, which is of course the sunrise. Maybe the majority of tri-guys and gals aren't self aware, or maybe they are too wrapped up in their own little world to see it but the truth is you need to be self-aware to appreciate sunrise. Sunrise is the beginning of the event, the beginning of the day, the beginning of the rest of your life. It should be a big deal at Ironman but I think most people miss it. I know nobody talks about it. Ask anybody who did an Ironman, they will tell you some super-boring story about a flat tire or a blister the size of of a salad plate or whatever crap they have wandering through their cranium at that instant, but I say this: I saw sunrise in Ironman Phoenix two years ago and it was glorious. Glorious. The rising sun, bright and sharply reflected off of the clear, pristine waters of Tempe Town Lake was the best part of the day.  

Authors note:  I can't say that with a straight face.  "pristine waters of Tempe Town Lake" is a lie.  Tempe Town lake is filthy and should be a superfund site. 

I thought that the Whistler sunrise would sort of be the same as the Phoenix sunrise, but nay. Nay, I say. It rained. In Whistler, it rained during the swim, it poured during the bike and it sprinkled just enough on the run to keep me wet for the entire day. On that one Ironman Sunday, it rained for forty days and forty nights. The seas rose and swallowed entire villages. Humans lost their place at the apex of the food chain, replaced by brook trout.

---The Ghost of Running Christmas---

My dog likes to run.  He runs with joy in his heart, I can tell.  We run together when I train and he has never refused a call to run.  He just goes.  If I am doing a six mile run, he goes with me and does ten.  He goes far to the left of me then far to the right.  He does it because its in his nature.  

Some of  my friends like to run.  Not many, but some.  I just am not one of them and I wish I was.  I wish I enjoyed it but some part of me is repulsed but the act of running.  Part of it is that I don't like to do things that I am bad at.  Another part is that I can feel the damage that running does to me while I run.  When I run it just feels like everything is slightly less flexible that the day before.  

The ghost of Christmas past, present and future visited me one night and showed me that running was the same as not buying presents for others in need and if I didn't stop, I would die unloved and be forever interred in an unmarked grave.  So I now shun running.  Because of the ghost.

---Some Things Don't Follow the Plan---

I stopped my bike to pee on the side of the road at mile 65 or 70 . This usually takes just a minute or two since I long ago mastered the technique on the 'side of the road maneuver.' It goes like this. You hike up one leg of your trousers or spanx or whatever cycling garment you are wearing up as high as you can, face into the wind, lean forward a wee bit and just let loose. Very little gets on your shoe if you do it right and my bike shoes were already soaked with sweat and rain water, plus,I was too tired to care anyway. Then I noticed it stung something awful and I had to hop from one foot to the other while I said “owweeeowweethatstingsthatstingsthatstings”. That's a quote. I said it just like that. I don't know what was going on with my internal plumbing but I thought I could narrow it down to two possibilities; either I was dehydrated or I had a really nasty yeast infection. Not being a licensed gynecologist in the province of British Columbia, I couldn't make an official determination one way or the other on the yeast thing, but I was pretty sure the dehydration thing was spot on so I drank the last bit of whatever sport drink I had rattling around in my bike bottle and started to ride again. That green-yellow sport sauce tasted like old socks and lawn clippings that my dog peed on when he was expressing his inner caveman. I wanted to vomit but it was too cold and as I recently found out, you can't vomit a dry ball of dog pee lawn clippings. It sticks in your trachea and metastasizes there for an hour and hurts like holy hell.

---The Catharsis---

There isn't a rule or a policy published anywhere I can find regarding crying in Ironman. Some arrogant tri-snobs might consider crying in Ironman grossly uncouth, but I don't associate with those people and if given a choice, I wouldn't include them on my Christmas card list. For me, crying is standard issue battle gear in an Ironman event. My list goes like this: Wetsuit? Check. Bike? Check. Fully primed tear ducts and over reactive emotional state? Check. Yup, I got me a good checklist and that's how you knock back a good Ironman. With a good checklist.

This sobbing behavior usually starts at about T minus 30 minutes and runs through T plus 1 minute. Or put another way, I start to get overemotional about thirty minutes before the gun, hugging friends, training partners, volunteers, maybe a stray dog infested with ringworm. I hug 'em all. I cant help it, I was made this way. I hug the medical staff before the event, thanking them for the good work they had yet to perform.

Thankfully, I stop crying when I get fifty yards into the swim. Once you get to doing what you have practiced for a long time, you sort of fall into a pattern. Since I don't often cry during my 5:30AM swim workout, I don't cry in the real deal IM swim after the first fifty yards.  Practice how you race, that's my motto.

I know, I know, the emotional display is a big waste of effort, but like my good friend Ryan says, 'Whatever.'

That is how my morning Ironman ritual goes and I am fine for a while until my schoolgirl emotional outburst kicks in yet again at about hour ten or hour eleven. I get tired, I get depressed, I wonder how many of my toenails are going to pull a Benedict Arnold on the run. Its a low point and we all go through it. Good athletes ignore it, I hyper-focus on it. If it happens to you, try to ignore it, then, when it does go away, celebrate that moment. For me, its like somebody pulled the bag off of my head and all the problems and concerns and issues I carried around for the previous years melt away. Its a good feeling. I have lots of issues that I pack around with me and once I set them down, usually during the run, its a good thing.

---The Healer---

Once again, the bulk of my race report is revealed from the confines of the medical tent. At the end of my race, I was cold and shivering and couldn't say my own name without help, so they sent me to the med tent. I was hoping for an IV bag, but they must have run out because I couldn't get one. They said I didn't need it. They actually said that. I don't need an IV bag. Right. I just did a freakin' Ironman. Who they hell are they to tell me if I need an IV bag? I want at least two IV bags and I want them now. I wasn't speaking coherently at that point, so I pointed at my elbow and then held up two fingers. Thats pretty clear, right? Nurse Cratchet understood me, but she said no. Then I tried to mime that I needed a pizza, but I don't think that short bit of communication was received because I didn't get that either.

If you haven't seen a medical tent from the inside, let me describe it as I am able. The tent material looks to be constructed of well worn plastic sheeting, colored in a faded tan patina. It looks like somebody took some mud and rubbed it all over the plastic.  The tent was probably once a pearly white, but time and the accumulated abuse of many miles had revised that plan irreparably. I think all med tents must be made to keep the mosquitoes in conveniently close proximity to their primary food source. This one did. I fed a dozen mosquito families while I was there. I didn't realize until after my patient status was demoted from 'seriously near dead' to 'well enough to limp home alone', but the Whistler med tent is reminiscent of the surgery tent in the T.V. show M.A.S.H.  I was humming the theme song while I watched the hubbalalou from my army cot.

My new good friends Hansel and his once-lovely sister Grettle were there with me in the med tent, writhing in pain, unable to speak in any language that I recognized. Hansel was so dehydrated that he just made animal noises. Grettle stared at her bloody shoes and kept repeating the same line. She kept saying “Ég féll niður” over and over. I think we could have brought Grettle around with some IV bags and a couple of Oreos, but the local Shaman deemed both Grettle and her brother too far gone and unworthy of saving so he chucked them in a big pot sitting in the corner by the baking supplies. He's the expert, who am I to say he is wrong? It was sad and I was going to say something but I was still pretty pissed about the lack of IV bags for me so I didn't object to the fate of  my new friends.  I got my own problems.

Other than the naturopathic witchdoctor with the feathered headdress, I was attended to by three angels of mercy, each more lovely than the last, and I have to say they spent more time with me than was absolutely necessary. I think they were lonely.  One of them said, and I quote, “we need to get you out of those wet clothes.” She really said that.  I was well enough to look around to see if my roommate was within earshot and once I determined that the coast was clear, I said “OK”, but just about the time I had my wet tri-suit down around my ankles, the roommate showed up and it sort of ruined the moment.

---The Twitchers---

I have done extensive research over the years, analyzing medical journals, traveling the world, interviewing experts and reviewing first hand accounts given by witnesses. I have come to a conclusion that a basic truth in this life is that there are three kinds of people. There are the 'fast twitch' people which work effectively at a high rate of muscular output. Fast twitchers run fast.  People like Usain Bolt are fast twitchers. I don't have any fast twitch muscles and generally you shouldn't trust fast twitchers. They are a shifty group. They tell you things like they just finished their seventh marathon in the last seven months, and then they go on to describe all seven in technicolor detail. Just shoot me.

Then there are the 'slow twitch' muscle people. People like Craig Alexander are slow twitchers. They generally win in Kona. Freaks. All of them, freaks. Trustworthy, but still freaks.

Then there are the 'no twitch' muscle people. Those are pretty rare. In fact, the 'no-twitch' thing is found only in a diminishing corner of the Swedish gene pool and there are only ten or twelve of us left. There used to be more of us, but we don't run well enough to get out of the intersection before the light turns, and as a survival trait, that is pretty low on the scale. It tends to thin the herd. Darwin could explain it better if he was still around.

---People I Met---

I am always surprised by the people I meet in Ironman.  They just aren't what you expect. I met a guy that was doing his first full distance triathlon and the thing that was so surprising was that he was so much better at it than you would expect, given his outward veneer. He looked like a guy you would see sitting in the local Hooters, making out with a thirty two ounce beer and a bucket of chicken wings. At Ironman, he looked out of place. I think he had some mustard on his singlet. We talked and ran for a while, then we talked some more. I liked him a lot, he was really personable and he was one of the few people there that I thought I stood a good chance of beating to the finish line, so I tried to get him to stop going so fast. He was wearing me down. I said “Hey, look at that fish” at the spot where you run by the river. He didn't stop. We ran a bit more, talking about nothing much, then he said I was too slow and he took off. Unless the roving paramedics yanked him off of the run course, he beat me to the finish line. Rude.

Then I met a girl wearing a tri-kit with a big, colorful UCLA on the leg. I asked if she went there, she said ya, she graduated in 2007 and was on the gymnastics team and did some modeling for lulu lemon, whatever that is. She told me her name and the name of all her friends and her parents names and her astrological sign and her favorite pet when she was seven, but I forgot most of it. I think her name was Bambi, or maybe it was Beebe, but honestly I am not sure. I was pretty tired and my feet hurt something awful. BambiBeebe and I talked for a while, running together, then walking together then running some more. I stopped talking but she kept at it. She was sort of overly verbose, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I think it would be rude to write down all the questions she asked me because I don't want to embarrass her and they seemed sort of personal, but I think it would be OK to write down my answers. I mean, they are mine, right? Here are two:

1. Yes, you are pretty. Very pretty.
2. No, your tri-kit doesn't make you look fat.

Enough about BambiBeebe, except for this last thing. Quit driving by my house at 2am, my roommate is going to call the police.

---The Epiphany---

Technically, this didn't happen to me since there was no actual manifestation of a supernatural being, or, if there was, I didn't see it. Others may have had a different experience. Like the fine print says, past experience is no guarantee of future results. But, I did enter a state of euphoria for a while, right after the BambiBeebe debacle, so I think that counts. It was hour eleven and I was elated to not have BambiBeebe clinging to my thigh.  I started to feel like a real athlete at hour eleven, right before I threw up.

There is an undeniable freedom that follows the realization that things wont get any worse. My legs just wont go any faster. My breathing actually slows down a bit because I cant muster enough effort to stress my cardio. At that point, if I could run faster, I would. Its right then, at that moment when I start that long slow climb up the candyland ladder that I know I am having a low blood sugar hallucination. I know, it means I am on the edge of falling into a deep metaphysical pit that will take days to climb out of. I know, I need to see a medic in the next hour to fix my Ironman physical issues and a psychologist in the next week to fix my Ironman mental instability, but really, its a good place to be. How messed up can I be? I don't know the answer to the question either, but on that day, I have two thousand friends with the same issues. Once I accept that, its all good.

---The Race Report---

I swam. It was a good swim. As swims go, it was pretty wet.  I got kicked in the frank and beans once and elbowed in the back of the head once. That's not too bad.

I biked. It was not a good bike. My official Timex timer doesn't reflect the level of effort I put in. I went slower than I expected. Not happy.  Maybe I had a brake dragging or a flat tire.  That must be it.

I ran. It was a good run, given the skill level of the athlete in question. My legs burned, and it wasn't that good leg burn. You know when you are on a bike ride and you are laying down a good 250-300 watts on a long hill like the one on FishHatchery hill and you feel that good quad burn? I think my run should be like that. It wasn't. The harder I try, the more pain I feel. I don't go any faster, but it just burns more. I can walk faster than I run. My 2 year old niece can walk faster than I run. She's an arrogant little rugrat.  And sprinter fast.

---PostScript---

And then it was over. Other than hearing those brief words over the loudspeaker 'You' 'Are' 'An' 'Ironman', the end is inglorious. The race was run, and no prizes were awarded to the majority of us. The race was run, and no plunder was taken. The race was run, and we all suffered in some way. So why? Why do we do it? Everybody asks me that. My friends, my family, they all ask why and as yet, I have no answers. I would like to think there is deeper meaning to this process, to this day, perhaps that we go there to learn things that can't be learned anywhere else, things revealed only in that ultimate testing ground of pain and self abuse.  I would like to think that, but that idea is folly.  There is no reason why that I can glean from my day, there is no universal truth revealed that I can perceive.  I once was wiser and I knew the answers to all questions, but now, not so much. I am wise no more, just older.

Why do people always put the words 'wiser' and 'older' together? I can tell you from personal experience that these two words are completely unrelated. They are like Hatfields and McCoys, enemies of the most deadly kind.

'Wiser' is an elusive bed-mate, calling to me but never, fleeing from me always. Wisdom, she vexes me, just out of reach, just beyond my feeble grasp. Wisdom, she taunts me from across the universe, teasing me with her charms, laughing at my eternal, fruitless pursuit.  She mocks me most cruelly.  Wisdom, she claims me only in farce and still, after I courted her these many years, I know her not.

'Older' is my stable companion, whispering sooth in my ear, seducing me with her ruby lips, singing her sweet song, holding me closer, clutching me ever closer.  Older was once a  distant glamour, but now, she is a temptress I can not refuse.  Older, she loves me ever.

Albert

When he was a young man, Einstein spent some time courting a couple theories about math and physics and the nature of the universe and such. He locked himself in his room, chasing a theory around the desk for a couple weeks or a couple months, thrashed out an answer, then he chased another one out and and so on. He was like thirty or thirty five when he thought those big thoughts. Then the world knew his name.

I don't pretend to understand what he was talking about. I read some of it and it seems like a bunch of hoo-haw to me, but what do I know? Now, I am two or three years older than Albert was when he did his best work and I don't have a bunch of math ribbons or physics trophies on my wall. If I had to guess, I bet Albert's floor was littered with ribbons. When I spend too much time thinking about my lack of accomplishment, I get depressed, so I don't do it.  To be fair, I do have a couple of tattered ribbons gathered over the years, safely tucked into a fire-safe box that could potentially survive a non-nuclear missile strike, so that's good, but I can't quite remember where it is currently hiding.  I am pretty sure its around here somewhere.  Anyway, none of my precious ribbons are stamped "First Place" or "Winner" or "Best in Show" or anything good like that.  My best ribbon says "Participant".

If the ebooks and estories are true, in centuries past, Monks and Clerics, Friars and members of all the old fashioned religious clubs lived their lives by a fairly rigorous set of rules. They wore itchy, unattractive smocks, they spoke rarely and had to sing in glee clubs, they ate the same boring food day in and day out made out of tree roots and weeds; Essentially they complied with a set of rules that they didn't have a hand in creating, and in doing so, they gave over control of parts of their lives.

In many ways, I think we triathletes sometimes live a faded echo of those monastic times, even when we don't mean to. We wear unattractive spandex and lycra, we are often too out of breath to speak or sing and we eat nasty tasting gels and bars and we drink sports drinks that taste like old socks.  We cede control of parts of our lives, we give away parts of ourselves, our destiny and our ability to choose for ourselves.

In my time, a young man such as myself, with no talent but possessing a substantial interest in starting a high paying career in the rock star profession had to follow a very restrictive value system. I had to dress a certain way - jeans and a led zeppelin t-shirt. I had to talk a certain way -“That's cool” was an appropriate response to just about any situation. I had to listen to certain music - the commonly acceptable music collection consisted of Boston and Ted Nugent.  Optionally, the extreme version of that chosen life style also held that, if you were a real outlaw, you could throw in some KISS and Alice Cooper but I just couldn't listen to that stuff since the makeup scared me and it gave me nightmares.

Last week, I was on a bike ride with some folks and I wanted to go one way, they wanted to go another. Up a mountain. Of course, I gave in to the group and rode up the friggin mountain.  I lost all control of my destiny.

The past couple weeks have been hard like that.  Today, I hit the wall and I just had to stop.  No swim, no bike, no run.  At some point, your body or your mind or something says you have to take a break.  For me, that was today.