Volunteer

A couple months ago, my group of training buddies and I had just finished IM Coeur d'Alene and had entered the 'recovery' phase of the training cycle. That means we were either drinking wine or eating ice cream while watching preseason football with our feet up on the couch. At least, that was my interpretation of 'recovery'. I mixed it up one time and poured red wine over vanilla ice cream. It's pretty good. I let the ice cream melt a little then stirred it up and drank it like a milkshake. Don't knock it until you try it.

So one day, we were trying to figure out how long we could extend the recovery thing before we clogged up some of the important arteries when somebody decided that we should sign up for Ironman Arizona 2013. At the time, it sounded like it might be sort of fun and it was so far in the future, it didn't really seem like a big deal, so I said sure, let's do it. In retrospect, it's like Archduke Ferdinand deciding to take a couple days off in Sarajevo. He probably asked himself, “What's the worst that could happen?”

So a few weeks ago, we are making plans to sign up for the event. All I want to do is pay 700 bucks for the T-shirt. It really is that simple. I could save myself a lot of pain and trouble if they just asked people if they wanted to pay the 700 and compete, or pay the 700 and get the shirt. I bet a lot of folks would go the easy route. I could save a lot of people a lot of pain and injury if they would just listen to my good ideas.

The problem with IM AZ is that it sells out within a few minutes. If you don't get in, you don't get in. There isn't a waiting list. So what you have to do is volunteer for the event the year before you want to compete. You fly down to Tempe, get a place to stay, show up the day of the event and hand out water or whatever it is they need help with. Volunteers get first shot at signing up. Duane and Jim and I did that. John followed a more circuitous route, but he is getting to the same end.

So we are getting on the airplane to go to Phoenix and there in the seat next to me is my buddy Tim and his wife Carin. Tim works for WSU. Tim and Carin and I went to school together. I think Tim is a president of this or that for WSU, I can't really figure out what he does. I think universities are like corporations, they hand out titles like Halloween candy. Whoever comes to the door gets a title.

Brrrinnnnggg! Brrrinnnngggg! “Trick or Treat!”

“Here you go, Mr vice-president in charge of watercooler consumption monitoring. Here you go Ms vice-president in charge of self validation and attitude optimization.” I think that is how it works, but I am not the vice-president of anything so what do I know?

I asked Tim and he told me what his title is but I immediately forgot because it was like seven words long. So I asked him what he actually does, but it doesn't make sense. He said he has to go to all the Cougar games and talk to people. That is his job. I call bullshit. Nobody has a job going to football games. Maybe if he held the yard marker sticks on the side of the field, I would buy it, but he said no, he goes to the games and talks to people. He doesn't announce the players as they run on the field, he doesn't hand out the football or flip the coin or hand out a face towel. He goes to the game and talks to people. And they pay him for this. Like I said, I call bullshit.

I don't know if it's me or what, but I think the Hindu's nailed it with the whole karma thing. It seems like for everything under the sun, there is balance. Remember that point, we will get back to it.

So while we are on the plane, I am talking to Tim and Carin and they ask if I am flying down Phoenix to go to the game. I had no idea it was an option. Apparently, the WSU athletic department heard I was going to volunteer for IM AZ, so they scheduled a football game in Phoenix so I could go to the game and volunteer too. Isn't that nice? Going to the game all the sudden seemed like a great idea. It was like I was walking through a parking lot and found a nickel and two pennies on the ground. All I had to do was pick up the money. It's free. That made my day. This trip was perfect and nothing bad could happen. I should have known better.

All is well. We were living off the fat of the land. With no effort or forethought, we fell into the perfect 78 degree, sunshine blessed perfect day. We left the rainy deluge that is Seattle and found ourselves in that dry, sun of the southland, you can be outside if you want to kind of day. We were all smiling and didn't know why. We laughed just because we were happy to be alive. So then, we pay 35 bucks to sit in the stands at ASU and watch the Cougs put the hurt on the Sun Devils. Some young ladies, beautiful in body and spirit, sit in front of us and giggle. All is well. Then, without warning, the sky opened up and doom descended and cast it's foul hand upon me. The game started and the smell of death passed my nostrils. I had to watch a bunch of thugs kick the living crap out of my Cougs. It was a disaster. On the first play, they sack our quarterback. On the second play, they sack our coach. On the third play, our coach's dog is pregnant. It wasn't good. So that was karma event #1.

We left at halftime crying like school girls. Speaking of school girls, there is a bar somewhere in Phoenix called “The Tilted Kilt” When I heard we were going there, I asked why it was called that. Somebody, I don't remember who, it might have been Duane, said he heard it was a pub with a tartan plaid interior decoration scheme. I think he said that there were bibles on all the tables and the servers were elderly snobirders looking to augment their fixed income. If we were lucky, we might get one of the servers to sing a Scottish folk song. Some of those octogenarians can really belt out a melody. Sounds perfect, I felt like I could drink a beer there and find solace in those peaceful surroundings. I was misled. They don't have a plaid color scheme at all. The walls are plain and if truth be told, not very clean. Well over half of the servers are not octogenarians at all. Anyway, we get there and whatever happened there is a mystery. I have no memory at all except it was about 4pm when we got there and we walked out five hours later and I couldn't see very well. It was dark and cold and I threw up a little bit in my mouth. I smelled like ladies perfume and chicken wings. So that is karma event #2.

We get up the next morning at o'dark thirty and drive to our assigned station to volunteer. We put in 5 hours of volunteer time. That gives us the right to sign up for IM AZ. So we thought. It actually isn't that clear cut. What it really does is it gives you the right to get in line to sign up. The logic goes like this; there are only so many spots available in any race. I don't think they publish that number, but I am guessing that it is around 2500 – 2800 racers in any race. The racers from the current race get first shot at the next race. That sort of makes sense. If a guy races 10 years in a row, and the race gets more popular, he should get first shot at the next race. It isn't his fault the race got more popular. So lets say there are 2600 slots and the race is full. Half of this years racers are going to sign up for next year. So there are 1300 slots open for next year. Now, there are 4000 volunteers and almost all of them I met were volunteering so that they could sign up for next year. Somehow, the math isn't working out. Anyway, we get in line and we estimate there are 1200 -1500 people ahead of us. It's hard to know for sure. It was a big line. We did eventually get to sign up and that's good, but I tell you all of that because while we are standing in line, we were talking to the people around us and mostly to three gals who were also volunteering so they could sign up. They were nice and seemed friendly. That is sort of the thing about Ironman. Nice people.

Anyway, as a wrap up, I am shooting for IM AZ 1 year from now.  I gotta start training.  Maybe tomorrow. After all, what't the worst that could happen?

Poor Penmanship

I assume I come from a short line of authors. There may be some greatly acclaimed literary works by some of my forefathers, but I doubt it. Most of my family reads nothing but the Sunday comics and writes only under duress. My Sister is the exception. She was published as a featured writer in a small community newsletter in Eastern Washington some years ago and while she didn't receive an award or compensation, so far as I am aware, her grammar was quite good. The newsletter is now out of print, if you were thinking of looking up some of her articles. I tried to google it, but I don't think her published short stories made it into the electronic age.

My father was a business letter guy. He didn't waste time or effort with verse. For him, writing was a tool. He wasn't skilled, but he was well practiced. My father's letters were without preamble or opening salutation. His letters are lost now, since they were mostly wadded up and thrown in the trash by the recipient, but if any had survived, they might have gone something like this:

To Mr. James Oldham,

Please be notified that on three separate occasions, your cow has entered my farm without invitation and eaten a large portion of my wife's flower and vegetable garden. On each of those three occasions, I have notified you and so far, you haven't fixed the fence to keep your cow on your side. If your cow comes through the fence again, I will shoot her dead and you can retrieve her at that time.

Looking forward to seeing you and Sally in church Sunday next.

Sincerely,

Mert

Now, I don't know if my Dad ever sent that letter, but it would be something he might have sent. Short and to the point.

I have made some three or four attempts to create a novel, each attempt ending poorly. Once I did get forty or fifty pages into an adventure/spy novel set in post WWII China, but I ran out of characters. In order to create a sense of suspense, I killed off the protagonist and his entire family right at the beginning in a fire that was of a suspicious origin, in an “isolated monastery situated at the top of a cliff, on the coast of a ever-tempestuous sea”, but it put me in a bind with the plot. It didn't seem fair to kill off the handsome hero with the angular chin and washboard stomach and not kill the antagonist and his family and all the greedy monks, so I had everybody die in the fire except the villain. The fire was a good idea since the villain needed a diversion to get away with the loot, but I forgot that the only way out of the monastery was a steep, slippery path that proved to be too much for the villain, since he had the requisite limp and fell down a lot. Of course it was a rainy night with lots of lightning and a semi-magical dog that appeared and disappeared without a purpose other than to add suspense, so the villain promptly slips and falls off the edge, but has just enough time to reach up and grab the ghost-grey dog by the throat, so now the villain and the dog both fall off the path onto the sharp rocks that looked like dragons teeth with some weird lichen on them that made them look like they were dragon's teeth, but with with some pretty serious gingivitis.

Anyway, the villain and the dog fell. No way would they survive that, because it was like a thousand feet down to the lichen infested rocks, so now the only remaining character was a fat, mute bartender who lost his vocal chords in the war but hadn't yet learned sign-language.  He was one of those bartender characters that doesn't have a purpose other than to be interesting and serve cold beer to weary travelers.  Being mute and fat made him unique and interesting, but I didn't think ahead when I had the villain start the monastery fire and kill off everybody else, so now I am really stuck since you can't fill five hundred pages with one chubby mute character who can't speak. I tried, it can't be done.

I was thinking about bringing the dog back by claiming he could travel like in the transporter in Star Trek. Nobody liked the fat mute bartender, since he had a sour disposition, as all bartenders in novels must and he needed a friend.  I thought if the dog could be a good friend to the bartender, maybe the dog could now be the central character with the bartender being his sidekick and they could travel around and save babies and orphans from all manner of disaster, but that seemed just a shade past plausible, so the dog had to die permanently on the rocks while the monastery burned.

That ended my first novel.

Next Up?

Since I finished IM CDA, I have been sitting on the couch, eating cheesecake and watching the Tour de France, the Olympics and a "How It's Made" marathon on five separate channels via 1080p high def, wide-flat screen controlled by a newly acquired multi-function clicker that is ergonomically perfect for my right hand.  Life is good, and if my ever expanding waist line is any indication, my life plan is successful on all levels.

I am watching the movie Iron Man 2 while I type this.  It's inspirational in that there are regular guys that put on suits that make them superhuman.  That and Iron Man ends up with like twelve super hot girls with 4 inch heels and tight dresses filled out ever so nicely.  Like I said, it is pretty inspirational.  I might start exercising again.

I ran today.  It was pretty sad.  My knee hurt.  Tomorrow I might ride, which has to be better.  In 454 days I am doing Ironman Arizona.  See the progression?

IM AZ is a lot better suited for my racing style than CDA.  In Arizona, you swim in a canal.  How far off course can you swim in a canal?   They have cement bumpers on the course.  You get too far off course in IM AZ, you sort of get tossed back into the middle.  In the swim in Coeur 'd Alene, I got lost, I saw a fishing boat and asked for directions. They spoke Russian.  I was a little off course.

The Olympics

Apropos of nothing, I just noticed that I have birds on my blog.  If you look just to the right, there are some  birds flapping around.  If you stare long enough, they move.

I have been watching the Olympics.  I saw the archery, which was interesting enough that I tried to figure out what one of those cool bows cost.  It took longer than my 2 minute concentration limit so I gave up and don't know what they cost, but it looks easy and I think I could do it with maybe a couple hours of practice.

I like the soccer recap.  I don't want to watch a two hour match where nothing happens, but the recap is pretty good.  I don't think I could do that.  They run a lot and it looks hard.

I must say, I am glad they put the synchronized diving in and took out baseball.  Baseball is popular in Asia (Japan, Taiwan, S Korea) North America (Canada, US, Mexico) The Caribbean (Dominican, Puerto Rico,) South America (all thirteen of them) and who knows where else.  Australia maybe. Synchronized diving is popular in maybe two villages in China that don't get TV.  That's it.  Nobody else likes synchronized diving.  So good thing the Olympics have that and no baseball.

I am tired of beach volleyball.  Sure, they are good looking and sweaty.  I get that, but do I need to watch some sweaty dudes for 2 hours a day hit a volleyball into a net?

I have the Lake Meridian tri coming up.  I am dreading that.  If I dropped a few pounds, it might not be so bad.  My wife told me to wipe the cookie crumbs off my stomach and go exercise the dog.  I sent him out with instructions to go run three miles and report back.

I just remembered, the dog and I have a new trick.  We run down the dock together and synchro dive in the lake.  Of the two of us, I am the steady diver, I can snap off a pretty solid head first dive.  The dog is the more talented, but he is erratic.  Sometimes he screws up and goes in early without a good toe point.  Yesterday, the dog got excited and barked once on entry, so the East German judge gave us a 4.5.

Omega Plus One

I lied. I said the last post would be my omega post, but that was not strictly accurate. As of today, this blog is undergoing a value stream reorganization. I guess that means that I need to identify some goals and get to work on them. I cite as reference the following facts.

1. I finished Ironman. I should be able to do anything.
2. Prior to Ironman, I was consuming 3000-4000 calories a day. I was exercising 2-3 hours per day. That combination gave me a net 0 calorie consumption.
3. Ever since Ironman, I have increased my daily caloric intake to a minimum of 4000 calories. I stopped exercising.
4. My scale reports a 7 pound weight gain in 30 days.
5. Conclusion - Saboteurs have caused my scale to report falsely.

 I ran in the Seafair olympic distance triathlon two days ago. Seafair olympic is a 1 mile swim, a 20 mile bike and a 10k run. The winner of Seafair was a genetically altered individual who completed the event in 1 hour 47 minutes. I completed the same event in 2 hours 49 minutes. The winner, if rumors be true, cheats at cards, hates dogs and abuses small forest animals with kitchen shears. It's just what I heard, you be the judge.

 Anywho, I think I could have finished a little faster if I wasn't hung over. I had a birthday party to go to the night before, I had one drink, then one thing led to another, the next thing I knew, I was swimming in the triathlon, got dizzy and sort of threw up in Lake Washington. It wasn't so much a full throw up as a little extra stomach bile and vodka ended up in my nose.

 So my diet started yesterday. I did OK, I probably consumed 3500 calories. I ran for 40 minutes so I only had a positive caloric intake of maybe 300-500 calories. Today was a really stressful day at work, I ate six cookies after lunch and had 3 grande margaritas before dinner. I can't do the calorie math on that one.

As a bonus section to this blog, here is the margarita recipe. It is truly the best margarita in the world. Just trust me and try it.
1 cup tequila
1/2 can limeaid
1/4 cup triple sec
1 fresh lemon squeezed
blend with enough ice to get a smoothie texture.
Salt the rim of some cheap glasses and pour.

Some notes - these are important so pay attention.
1. Use cheap tequila. The expensive tequila is aged or filtered or something. It doesn't have the bite you need to cut through the limeaid. Use the cheapest tequila you can find, it does taste better. I always spill in an extra dab of tequila to lubricate the blender.  I heard once that somebody burned out a blender when they tried to make bread with it.  I like my blender and am afraid of burning it out so I put in extra tequila to smooth it out.
2. Use limeaid that has pulp. The filtered no pulp stuff doesn't work. Again, cheaper is better.
3. If the lemon is a little dry, use 2. Use 1 if it is juicy.
4. This is a recent thing - Tonight, I didn't have enough triplesec, so I put in all I had, about 1 tablespoon, and I squeezed in a fresh orange. I think I like that better.

The Deal - A Race Report

Well, it's over. I hope you have enjoyed my blog. If you have enjoyed it, then I feel sorry for you since you had nothing better to do than read this blog.  If you didn't enjoy it, then I applaud your good taste.  As with all things, this blog must end.  This post will be the omega. Unless I decided to add more.

Here goes- The Ironman Coeur d'Alene 2012 event was great. If you want to stop reading here, you can.  You wont miss much. The following is just some detail, but offers no change in the outcome. It was great. 

The event starts at 7am sharp, so using some 4th grade 'math magic', we decided to leave the house at 4:15, in this case, the 'we' being my three training partners, John, Jim, Duane, and our house guest for this adventure, Brian.  As usual, the day was full of drama.  I drove since I have the most room in my car.  I can't find my own house if I am sitting in the driveway, so why these guys let me drive is a question I will never know the answer to, but there you go.

Duane's girlfriend Joanie drove another car, and Duane rode with her, so it was John, Jim and myself in the car.  We are in the car at 4:14.  Brian is nowhere to be found.  I go knock on Brian's door, softly, because if you wake his bride up, she might start to spin like the tasmanian devil from the bugs bunny cartoon.  Brian decided to sit on the toilet for an extra 15 minutes and make the rest of us wait.  So we wait. And wait.

Anyway, we get started down the road, we are 10 minutes from the house and Brian yells from the back seat 'Heck, oh heckohheck'.   That's all the further he is willing to go down the profanity trail, which should have been sort of funny but I don't have a sense of humor before sunrise.  Brian is flipping out because he forgot his wetsuit.  I didn't turn the car around, I just sped up.  I am sick and tired of his behavior on this trip.  Yap yap yap.  Heck heck heck.  His wife too, while I am on the subject.  She yaps too.  For some reason unknown to me, Brians wife can't be bothered to get up and get in the car and bring him his wetsuit.  Somehow, John's wife Pam, who by the way is a sweet lady, brings him his wetsuit.  I don't know why it is ok for her to drive 45 minutes to bring his wetsuit but Brian's wife cant do it. Makes no sense to me. Pam saves the day and all is well in Brianland.

swim -

I cried twice before the swim so I have to admit, I was a little emotional.  People were staring.  I pretended like I had sand in my eyes.  I hugged my training buddies.  I hugged the lady next to me.  I tried to hug the volunteer who was working the swim event, but he must have seen the rabid look in my eyes because he backed away from me like I had yellow fever.  I grabbed for him again, but he made a cross with his right hand like they do on TV.  You know what I mean, its the spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch thing so I stopped short and hugged myself.  I needed the comfort.

This is what a race start looks like. Watch the first 30 seconds, then just know that if you are in the water in the middle of that mess, it's a way worse.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-KY3wNI81c

So, my race plan was to hang back and hit the water three minutes after the race start. I wanted to skip the mass hysteria and not get a broken limb. It happens. That plan didn't work out.  My buddies John and Jim and Duane decided, literally 30 seconds before the start that we four were going to hit the water right up front.  No waiting for the rush to be over.  I had already told John that I was going to follow him, so I was committed.  John pushes past everybody and jumps in the water with a war yell when the gun went off.  That is John, everything he does, he does 100%.  I followed him.  I don't do anything 100%, but I feel safer when John is around.  Sort of a security blanket thing.  I waded in slowly, stopped and started to turn back to the car when two fat middle aged housewives are pushing me from behind.  I trip on another dude who had a change of heart and was trying to go back to the car.  

The wind picked up during the swim.  It was a 20 knot blow out of the south, the wind sock was sticking straight out, so you swam right into the wind on the way out, and it chased you on the way back.  I saw a wave four feet tall wash over a buoy.  I was choking and swallowing water.  It was hard to get a breath every stroke.  I was lucky to breath every other stroke.  Water was washing over the top of me.  At least twice, the waves picked me up and everything above my belly button was out of the water.  I smacked down and kept swimming.  So far so good.

Then some hideous man-hater be-atch with bad teeth and a bunch of toe jam whacks me in the face with her iron tipped club foot.  She knocks my nose clip off and I start to breath in water through my nose.  So that sucks.

To tell this part of the story, I need to take you down a side road, back to a more innocent time, a more rational time, a time when Nixon was freshly pardoned and Welcome Back, Kotter was the rage.  Those were the days, huh?  Anyway, I need to tell you about Jim and Lisa.  Jim and Lisa and I attended the same high school and while I spent those years without companion or soulmate, they did the opposite.  Those two followed the time tested mating ritual of staring at each other for six months followed by a proposal of marriage.  And, as Jim would tell it, through trial and error they found themselves with four chairs at the dinner table.  One of the new occupants of said chair they named Bo, and this part of the story is about Bo.

Bo was about twenty two or so when I did Ironman and he signed up to be a lifeguard for the Ironman swim. I didn't really know what Bo looked like since I hadn't seen him since he was four or five years old, but I was swimming along minding my own business when I crashed into a surfboard.  I looked up at the guy on the surfboard from maybe five feet away and I just knew it was Bo.  He looked 10% like Jim and 90% like Lisa.  There are 200 lifeguards on the event and I crashed into the kid of my high school friends. Coincidence?  Well, ya it was.

The swim course is two laps.  You start on shore, swim out, turn, come back almost to the shore to finish lap one, swim back out, turn, then come back to shore.  We hit the first turn and the water was rough but I was doing OK.  I sort of got lost on the way back in and went a little off course.  I can't swim straight to save my life but I kept at it and so lap one down, one to go.

I started to feel good on the way out for the second lap.  Then we hit the turn.  The wind picked up between the first and second laps.  I don't know how high the waves were because I was always underwater.  I try to breath, that doesn't work.  I think if I can stop breathing for the ten minutes it takes to swim around the furthest buoy I would be OK.  I couldn't see where I was swimming so I went way off course.  If I swam ten yards further to the right, they would have  handed me a bike for the bike course.  As it was, I was instructed by the kayak riding course marshal to get back with the rest of the slow swimmers.  Three times he told me that.

I am 3/4 of the way through the swim, just starting to tell myself I can do this, when my stomach flips around like Linda Blair's head.  I don't know if I can get to shore before I mess myself.  Mentally, this is the point where I start to lose it.  I consider stopping and tearing a hole in my swim gear.  I can always claim the rough surf tore my clothes.  I keep going. Do you remember the show Gilligan's Island?  The Skipper, Gilligan, MaryAnne and the Moviestar?  If you think of the intro where the Minnow was tossed, you get some idea of the swim in lake Coeur d'Alene last Sunday.

I came out of the water at 1 hour 38 minutes.  That is really slow, but I feel really good about it.  The water was so rough it was really a tough swim.

I took 17 minutes to transition from the swim to the bike.  If you don't know, transition is where you change clothes from one event to the next.  A good time is 4 minutes, average is 8.  17 is world record slow.  I  should feel bad about that but I don't.  I was too happy about being done with the swim.  While I was changing into my bike gear, I spent a few minutes talking to the guy next to me.  It turned out I had met him in the parking lot the day before.  He is 74 and he ran a 14 hour Ironman.  What a stud.  He got done changing and left.  I looked around for somebody else to talk to.  I was making friends instead of getting on my bike.  I ran out of guys to talk to, so I had to go get my bike.  I walked to get my bike.  Everybody runs, I walk.  I am clenching, if you know what I mean.  I need a sani-can.

bike -

First loop.  I had ridden this course before so I knew it was tough.  It was.  I stop at the first water station and stand in line for 10 minutes to use the sani-can.  Saying that I have stomach issues is polite but not accurate.  My bowels are rejecting the rest of my body.  I think they want to defect like a Russian scientist during the cold war.

In case you are wondering, the sani-cans at the first rest stop are blue plastic and smell like fresh roses.  No, wait, that is a lie.  They are green plastic.  The door to my personal sani-can doesn't lock.  When I am exiting, I tell the attendant to keep the seat warm, I will be back shortly.  He thinks I am hilarious.

So I am biking up this long hill, a five foot tall, 30ish beautiful woman cycles up next to me and she says 'nice bike'.  I immediately think she wants me.  I ride a trek, I look at her bike and she has a trek just like mine, but hers has a name painted on the seat stem.  I say 'cool trek'.  I stare at her seat stem for quite a while, trying to read the name painted on it.  I keep staring.  I forget to look where I am going and almost run her off the road.  We chat for a few minutes about our twin bikes.  I consider throwing the 'I'm married' thing out there while my will power is still strong.  Another few minutes and I might not be able to stop her physical advances towards my person.  It's a long event.  I push a little and drop her in my wake.  I need to find another sani-can but I don't want to tell 'cool trek bike girl'.  I don't think we are that far along in our relationship yet to discuss bodily function.

Second loop -  I am moving fine, I see my new best friend ahead of me, so I pull up next to her and say 'hey, it's cool trek bike girl'.  She forgot to give me her name and number when she was checking me out earlier.  I guess she likes my pet name for her because she laughs seductively.  She must have passed me while I was camped out in the san-can.  I was in there a long time.  Bell bottoms could have gone out of fashion while I was in there.  The Doobie Brothers broke up while I was in there.  The dinosaurs became extinct while I was in the sani-can.

The next rest stop is maybe an hour ahead.  I wonder if the interior designer used the same color palette in those sani-cans as the first set.  I think I will check it out.

A couple hours go by, I bike and visit sani-cans and bike some more.  After pit stop number 3, I see cool trek bike girl again.  She doesn't seem glad to see me.  I try to strike up a casual conversation, giving her opportunity to hit on me.  She says 'gotta go' and takes off.  Maybe somebody told her I am married.

So, in retrospect, I actually had a really good bike section of the race.  I was moving fast and felt comfortable, but the 50 minutes in the sani-can still gets added into my total time.  That's life.

run -

mile 1 -  I can't make my legs follow my feet.  My upper body is running, my legs are walking.  Where is the first water stop?  I am starving.  I had a great nutrition plan on the bike. and it worked perfectly for the first 100 miles.  The last 12 miles left me starving and thirsty.

mile 2  -  I found the water stop, I ate an orange slice, a handful of potato chips, two cups of water, a cup of coke and put some ice under my hat.  I jogged a little and started looking for the next water stop.

mile 3 - I just passed mile 3 marker and I thought, this isn't so bad.  If I can do another 3, I will have walked a 10k.

mile 4 - I want to go home.

mile 5 - I see cool trek bike girl, she looks at me and sprints away.  Playing hard to get.  I let her run in front of me.  Minx.

mile 7 - Several beautiful women are running in front of me.  I think I will follow them for a while.

mile 8 - They run too fast, so now I am running with a guy who is 70ish and leaning over sideways.  I think I can hang with him.

mile 9 - The leaner dropped me.  Just another arrogant AARP supporter.  When will they learn their place?

mile 10 -  I want to go home.

mile 11 - I start to wonder how my dog is.  Is he safe?  Does he miss me?  If he somehow managed to catch a cat, what would he do with it?

mile 12 - I am running and walking.  I run as long as I can, then I walk until I feel better.  Back and forth.

mile 13 - I talked to God for the next 5 miles.  If you can't find God here, you aren't trying.

mile 18 - I am dragging up this hill, hurting a lot, a beautiful, tall athletic girl is coming the other way, she is staring at me and smiling.  She looks great.  A huge smile, a great body, beautiful face.  I smile back.  She says 'there is the smile I want to see.'  I smile bigger and say 'hi, how's it going' or something equally mundane.  Going through my mind is the whole scenario of trying to explain to my wife how this 23 year old tramp is hot for me and wants me to marry her and give her children.  That is not a conversation I am looking forward to.  My wife will be pissed.

mile 19  - It's dark.  The girl with the big smile is long gone.  I start thinking of the finish, the crowd will be cheering, cameras going off, utter chaos.  She is going to look great when she finishes.

mile 20-23 - I don't remember.

mile 24 - It's almost over.  I start to cry.  I can't breath and cry at the same time, so I cry and get light headed from lack of air.  That passes and I start to run.  That run lasts about 50 yards.

last mile - Some super hot volunteer tells me I have 10 blocks to go.  I think about stopping and chatting for a while, but decided to keep going.  I have 10 blocks to go.  I have 3 blocks worth of running in me, so I walk 7 and start to run.  I see Patty and Rachel and some friends on the sideline.  I give them hugs and cry some more.  I run through the finish line.

At the close, I was granted more than I deserved, received more support than I gave, found strength of character in others that was shared unselfishly, while I shared nothing in return.  Some people are blessed with money or beauty or great mental acuity.  I have none of these, but I was given something far greater.  I was given a brotherhood with a common goal.  I thought the goal was to run Ironman, but I find now, it was something far more valuable.  It's like I took a trip without a map, and I ended up where I needed to be.  It's like going home.

Aristotle said  The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life".

Ironman CDA 2012 is in the books.

Pre-Race Stress

I am just 4 days from Ironman and it is crunch time.  I can't concentrate, my stomach is squeezing into a big ball.  I am off my game and not in a good place.  My hands shake, but not all the time, just when I need to pick something up.  The guys I train with are all relaxed, happy, feeling good.  Assholes.  I am ready to strangle cats.

Yesterday we drove from Seattle to Hayden Lake.  I started the day with a stress level of 65 on a scale from 1-100.  That is pretty normal when I am cranked up about something.  My stress level usually idles at about 45 but since we are close to ironman, the stress monster has an iron grip on my frank and beans.  I woke up with a 65.

Yesterday morning, my wayward band of brothers experienced an 'opportunity for improvement' in the interpersonal relationship department.  Everybody was having stress issues.  I pick up on that like a bloodhound tracking down an escaped convict.  Stress level 74.

We are renting a lake house with five of us splitting the bill.  Since we are on the lake, I towed the boat behind my truck, which is fine, because I have driven trucks with trailers since I was fourteen.  No big deal.  I drove 18 wheel trucks as a summer job while I was in college.  No bid deal.  I once got a ticket pulling a belly-dump wheat truck, the state patrol guy just kept shaking his head and writing more stuff on the ticket.  That ticket was 2 pages long, seriously.  I can deal with stress driving a truck. The problem is, Patty likes this boat and if I wreck it, she will ruin me.  I think she and my Dad got together once and decided to scare me because they both told me that if I ever did that again they would 'end me'.  What does that mean?  "...and if you ever do that again, I will END you".  I don't know what that means, but I am thinking about it more and more as I screw up stuff at home.  I have slept with one eye open for the last fifteen years.  Stress level 81.

So Jim and I are caravaning along, I am driving my truck, he has his ford explorer right behind me, I look in the mirror, he is there one second, the next second he hits the brakes and swings hard to the right.  That's weird.  I keep going.  I am towing the boat trailer, I am not going to stop.  He has my cell phone number, he can call if he has a problem.  Ten minutes go by, he still isn't back on the road.  If he crashed or hit something, I might have to turn my truck and trailer around and go back and get him.  The thought of it cranks my stress up to 83.  I call his cell, he doesn't answer.  I call again, no answer.  85.  Finally, he calls.  The news is bad.  Jim has my bike on top of his car in a bike rack, the front wheel fell off the rack, bounced down the road and rolled down I-90 at 70mph.  That is flying.  Apparently, it rolled down the highway, passed a couple cars in the slow lane, veered onto the meridian, down one side and back up the other and started to roll into oncoming traffic.  Stress 94. So now, I don't know what happens when I hit 100.   I think it's bad.   I might stroke out like my uncle Ed.  He was in a wheel chair for the last six years of his life, drooling.  Everybody says I look just like him, which is nice.  I started looking for a drive through liquor store on I-90.

 I went to athlete check in today, I am surrounded by a bunch of lean guys and gals that are packing 5-8% body fat.  I am pushing something just shy of 20%.  It doesn't look fair.  Most of these guys are in their mid 30's to mid 40's.  Somebody tie an anchor on those guys.  Out of 3000 athletes, there was one fat guy, he had to be 300 pounds.  I think I might try to keep up with that dude.  I am going to stalk him like Ted Bundy looking for a date.  (if you don't know who Ted is, he is a famous UW grad.  A real leader in his field.)   I had to sign away any rights to bring suit if I have a heart attack or stroke.  I signed anyway.  At the pace I am going, I don't know I will get to the starting line anyway.  The stress monster might just decide to kick me to the curb.