Superfund Clean Up

My daughter and I have been training together for the half-iron at Lake Stevens over the past months and I have no complaints, so far, so good. We lake-swim together, we occasionally run together and we ride together every weekend. Its a pretty good training partnership, all things considered. We don't yell, we don't bicker and we try to stay positive. No screaming aloud. All of that makes for a happy ride and a happy me.

I admit, once in a while I do the wrong thing. A couple weeks ago, we were riding and some semi-human troll with a garden hose and a big mouth assaulted us from behind a garden fence with his hydro-verbal double barreled weaponry. I responded with some foul language of my own, which didn't produce any desirable result. I should have just ignored the troll. Someday I will grow up, but not just yet.

Last Saturday, we rode from Black Diamond to Orting and back, 54.6 miles with just one hill, sort of a chit-chat ride, everybody had a good time. One difference I did notice about riding with young ladies instead of my usual band of misfits is that you need to mind your P's and Q's in a mixed gender ride. I can't utter my usual disgusting oratory in a mixed company ride. It's like the great Charlie Allnut said; "It's a great thing to have a lady aboard with clean habits. It sets the man a good example. A man alone, he gets to living like a hog.” True words, Charlie, true words.

Anyway, once we got to Orting, we pulled over to check a possible mechanical issue, which turned out to be nothing, then we looked up and found ourselves queued up in the line to get into the doughnut shop. Understand this, I had no idea they had a doughnut shop in Orting and if I had, I would have complied with the restraining order and stayed a least one hundred yards away. The existence of that doughnut shop was news to me, but once we were there, standing in line, I didn't want to not order doughnuts. That would be rude. So we went in.

They had a marvelous selection of doughnuts and brownies and cakes and all manner of good treats for road weary travelers. They had the cake type doughnuts that were sugar dusted (192 calories), Bavarian Kreme (210 calories), standard chocolate frosted cake doughnuts (270 calories), maple bars (220 calories) and a bunch of other, lesser doughnuts. I was zeroing in on the puff pastry with big sugar crystals sprinkled on top but I couldn't choose between the strawberry filled one or the apple pie filled one. I went back and forth, back and forth, eeny meeny miney mo, I just couldn't noodle out a tie breaker. Then, perched just inches away from the chocolate glazed eclair, I spotted an apricot and cream cheese filled puff pastry with sugar crystals sprinkled on top. A winner. The angel of mercy behind the counter with the facial tic and the "My child is an honor student at Hogwarts" tattoo on her wrist handed my treasure over and pointed me to the cash register.

I don't know what my daughter chose because I was ever so gently holding my apricot  and cream cheese puff pastry up to my cheek, feeling it's still oven-warm sugary goodness. I could only concentrate on my apricot and cream cheese puff pastry. I yearned for that puffy pastry. I was drooling like the dog when I fire up the bar-b-que.

We got up to the register and they asked me what I wanted to drink. I said water. Somehow, my water order wasn't communicated correctly to the coffee girl and I ended up with a twelve ounce mocha with a really big thwack of whip cream and a double portion of chocolate sauce drizzle over the top. Then I started to eyeball a tower of elephant size self-serve cookies that were dipped in chocolate. I tried to wrap my lips around one, but I ran out of money and they made me put the cookie back. I didn't mind, I had enough cash for the mocha and the apricot and cream cheese filled puff pastry, so I handed over my seven dollars and I sat down at the counter to eat my treasures. I sort of lost track of the next thirty minutes. My apricot and cream cheese filled puff pastry and extra choco-mocha bounced me into a pre-diabetic sugar coma. I think now its a good thing that they took away my cookie. That cookie could have been terminal.

I came out of my sugar coma and found we were riding back up the trail, heading home, burning as much sugar off as quickly as we could. I was high on sugar and life, riding as fast as the wind, singing something from "Les Mis" when I saw in the middle of the trail three distinct piles of moose poop,  each larger and more formidable than the last.  I veered right, ducked left and cut hard to the right, slalom skiing through the poop ski-gates.  To be honest, I am not sure where it came from or what it came from, it might have been moose poop from a live moose, I just know it was the right size to be moose poop if the contributing moose was an overly large moose. Or a medium sized giraffe, maybe. Whatever, I had to go around it, riding through it was not an option.

A hundred yards later, I saw this guy being dragged down the trail by a huge black Hellhound with lasers on his forehead and iron caps on his teeth. I felt sorry for the guy. That dog was lunging at the end of an industrial strength chain, snapping at everything in eyesight: trees, babies in baby carriages, me. I got scared and tried to hide behind the baby carriage. I thought there was a good 50/50 chance the Hellhound might not eat the baby in the baby carriage before he ate me.

Today, as I recall that ride, it occurs to me that the poop in question might not have been moose poop at all, it could have been from the Hellhound. No matter who deposited it there, its a navigation hazard. The NTSB should get out there with the EPA and get that trail listed as a Superfund clean up site. Its going to take years before you can ride to get doughnuts in Orting again.

Tour

A common human trait is that we qualify our lives wrongly. We all do it. When I look back at my life, at the good memories that make me smile and the bad memories that refuse to die, I count my life in days. That is, I recall the day this happened or the day that happened, then I count those memorable days up and that numerical tally of those days is the mathematical expression of my life. Depending on how old you are, your total might be ten thousand or twenty thousand or thirty thousand days. It depends on your age multiplied by the probability that you will do something worthwhile on a daily basis. It's not complex, but it is difficult to calculate with accuracy.

Then I look forward. I pull up the actuarial table that my life insurance agent uses to predict my demise and I count my remaining time I have left in years. I think about the days to come and I assume they will be too numerous to count. I'm an optimist.

That's backwards. It isn't about math. Euclid was wrong. The time already passed is meaningless. It doesn't matter how many good or bad memories you have had up to this point. The time left to each of us may be one day or ten thousand, in the end, it matters naught. If we try to derive some mathematical formula to categorize it, we miss the value, we miss the gift of life we were given at birth. It isn't the number of days left that matters, its the quality of those days that counts.

Last Saturday, I ran 6. It was a good run, my knee wasn't paying attention and it forgot to fire a pain salvo until about an hour after the run. That might sound bad, but its good, really. See, it's like this; Knee pain and taxes are really the same thing. You know your knee is going to revolt and you know you have to pay taxes. Delay them both. Don't let your knee revolt until after you finish your workout and don't pay your taxes until next year. Or the year after.  Delay delay delay.

Sunday, my daughter and I rode 56 miles, including a quick jaunt up Mud Mountain. My daughter isn't used to the longer rides yet, so it was sort of a surprise she finished so strong. I didn't expect that, I thought she was going to blow up but she did great. For me that ride wasn't that big of a deal. I can knock out 56 as easily as I can snap-hook a #2 Titleist into the fat lady on the next fairway. I am not bragging. Cycling is a function of money. If you have the funds to go to spin class all year long, if you swim or run or bike or lift or go to yoga six to eight times a week, you can ride 56 without popping a head gasket. I pay big money so that I can ride 56.

As I was thinking about my workouts over the past weekend, I was comparing them and trying to decide which one was the better, which offered the highest return on my investment of time and effort. The run was harder, and therefore was the better workout. The more I run, the better off I will be in Lake Stevens, but the ride was by far a better day. I spent the day with family, I rode to the top of Mud Mountain and spent a few minutes taking in the view and I got to ride without a jacket, which is a huge plus if you ride in the cold nine months of the year like I do. And I got to ride with the view highlighted by the majestic Rainier. It was a good day.

I am watching the Tour.  Those guys are amazing.  They can pull a big gear for hours on end and they weigh 150 tops.  Freaks.  See the link  for a few fun stats.

pro cyclist vs the rest of us

Casablanca

This post is about two real miracles that I have personally witnessed in the last two days.  Since these are the first real live miracles I have  ever seen, I thought it was worth a mention.

Miracle #1

Today I witnessed a miracle. It wasn't a major miracle, like raising the dead or turning wine into water, nor was it a minor miracle, like the '69 Mets. What I saw, what I participated in, what I caused to happen was a middle miracle. It was an unexplainable event. It was a once in a lifetime, never gonna happen again miracle. As I type this, I still can't believe it, but its true.

Here is what happened. Last night, I was working on my bike in the garage, cleaning this and fiddling with that, just passing time doing something that I like doing. I hadn't cleaned my bike since the half iron in Hawaii, so it was kind of a mess. There were race stickers on it, tri bike transport stickers on it, dried up spit and sweat and chocolate goo gel on it and some black chain grease. Typical bike mess after a race, so I cleaned and washed and adjusted and generally fiddled with it for two hours. I had the radio playing seventy's hair-band music and a half full glass of wine on the work bench.  I was in the zone.

I had thirty to forty tools at the ready, two of which saw action.  Some were in my pocket, a couple of screwdrivers were on the floor, I think the big hammer was on the workbench.   Speaking of the workbench, since it is usually cluttered with partially repaired projects from last year, I use the rear bumper of my truck as a tool bench. I set my tools on it when they are between use and sometimes I forget to gather them all up when I am done. That's what happened last night; I left my twenty five dollar super-neat hex wrench set sitting on the bumper when I finished with the bike. I forgot about it and went to bed.

Today, I got up, showered, shaved and shined, jumped in the truck and drove forty two highway miles, stop and go, over potholes and speed bumps, parked and went in the office. At lunch time, I drove to get a salad at a bad restaurant with a history of health code violations about three miles from my office, then I saw it; My super-neat hex wrench set was sitting on the bumper. That's it. That's the miracle.  That wrench set just stayed there, defying Newton's law of inertia.  How did that wrench set stay on the bumper and not fall off? I don't know but the phone is ringing and I think it is MGM calling about a movie deal. If I get to name the movie, I might call it “Miracle Hex Wrench Set”. Or “Casablanca” maybe.

Miracle #2

I have several friends that just finished Ironman Coeur d'Alene yesterday, which is a really big deal, but that isn't the miracle. My friends are all really good athletes, very fit, carrying at most ten percent body fat and a large portion of type A personality traits and they all have a good training program with oodles of time to get ready for the event. It isn't a surprise that they finished. I don't mean to demean their efforts. Ironman is hard. Its really hard. Finishing an Ironman requires incredible endurance, both mental and physical. It requires commitment. And money. When you are in an Ironman, if you have an hour of feeling good, I guarantee you will have an hour of feeling bad right after. All my friends were able to overcome their personal demons and emerge victorious. Congrats. It's a big deal, but a miracle? No.

The miracle I am talking about is that other group of participants. You know who I am talking about. They are a little heavy. A few are a lot heavy. They didn't prepare, or they didn't prepare enough. They didn't have a contingency plan, or if they did, it wasn't good enough to get them through unscathed. My bride and I were watching the live video feed direct from the swim finish in CDA.  The first 90% of the athletes that finished the swim came out of the water in good shape.  They had a good finish time, they looked fresh and ready to attack the rest of the day.  The other 10% didn't look good.  They came out of the water disoriented and physically beaten, and that was just the start of their day.  That's the miracle.  That last 10%.

Remember, its a process, not a destination. It's a process.  This whole Ironman thing is a process.

I have the Lake Stevens half iron in forty seven days. Last Saturday I was trying to home bake an Olympic as a training day.  The plan called for my daughter and I to swim a mile, ride thirty and run six.  Sounds good, right?  It seemed like a good workout, not too hard, but still challenging enough to count as a real bric.  The swim was fine, we had fun.  We got on our bikes in the sunshine and started heading west.  West towards the storm   Five minutes later, it was like we were in the Amazon in the rainy season.  I saw a pair of raccoons trying to get in a boat.   We cut the ride short and started our run.  

It's amazing how few miles you can go in a four hour workout when you set your mind to it.

Doctor Lisa at Kona - A Race Report

We are renting a house on a hill with a vast view of the ocean.  From our viewpoint, we can see the cruise ships and fishing boats come and go, we can see the parasailers take flight, and most importantly, we can see the slow, majestic sunsets of the Pacific.  It is almost as though the view was built just for my small group of traveling companions and is ours for the keeping. 

A palm tree sits center court, and the question of the tree's impact on the view, whether it blocks or enhances our view is a matter of opinion.  I tend to think the tree is a boon, offering some small piece of shade to those who are lucky enough to sit underneath it and framing and enhancing the view of those who look through it.  A busy bird flits from one palm flower to the next, gathering his nectar, working in the cool of the morning and the heat of the evening.  That bird works like a miner in a coal mine while my travelling companions and I eat and drink and talk of things both Ironman and non-Ironman.  The palm just waves at us, it's leaves riding the cool breeze that never stops.

Inspiration, a smattering of training and five thousand dollars brought us to this place where we find what we will. Some travelers find a life here and refuse to leave, others stay for a short time and leave only under duress, but we all find something.  What I find here hasn't been decided yet, but I feel it is only fair to relate that I am perusing the real estate ads.

Our image of ourselves isn't the same as how the world views us. Others may not see me this way, but I always thought I should try to be a poor man's version of Craig Alexander. I swim, Craig swims, I bike, so does Craig, I cramp when I run, Craig cramped on TV when he won the world championship in 2011. I finished the 2014 half in Hawaii in 8:03, Craig won 2011 world championship in Hawaii in ….drum roll....8:03. Look it up. We are two peas in a pod. Oh, one more little facet to our relationship. I beat Craig in the half yesterday (sort of). Again, look it up.

Swimming in Hawaii and swimming in Lake Sawyer have a lot in common. Both are wet. And both are..., well, that's about it. After the last few days, I think I am spoiled for swimming for the rest of my life. I just cant see pulling on my cruddy torn up wetsuit, jumping in the cruddy cold lake and swimming in Lake Sawyer any more. The swim fun-o-meter is now skewed beyond repair and all non-Kona swims will pale in comparison.

I would have had a better swim in yesterday's half except I slowed down to take a look at some pretty coral. I was clipping along, hitting a guy in the back of the head who seemed to like the place I was swimming more than he liked his own when I saw the coral. It was mostly brown and gray but had a lot of rainbow pink and yellow in it so I had to spend a few seconds gazing. I didn't stop, but I slowed to a crawl to view the view. There were 1600 swimmers beating the surface of the sea so we scared most of the fish away, but the coral was pretty. It only cost me thirty seconds and if you do the Hawaii half, I strongly suggest it. It was the high point of my day.

I had one cramp on the swim which I muscled through, came out of the water feeling great but I cramped a bit while trying to stand up in the surf, I ran to the hoses that hang down and rinsed off by sticking the hose over my head then down my pants, I rushed to put on almost all my bike gear in T1, and hit the Queen K. The Queen K is to tri bike riding what Wrigley field is to baseball. Wrigley and the Queen K are the cat's meow. Wrigley and the Queen K are the Alpha and the Omega. Yankee Stadium be dammed. Tour of France can stick it.

I can hear the complaints now. Half of you are yelling “Blasphemer” and the other half “Infidel”, but just calm down and be zen for a second. You need to ride the Queen K to get it. The wind gusts front, back and sideways simultaneously. You can't ride it on a road bike, or maybe more accurately, you need to ride it on a tri bike to really get properly afraid. Your bike jumps left and right under you like an African gazelle right before the lion eats it. I spent the first twenty minutes of the ride looking at my tires to see if they were flat.

The Queen K has wide shoulders and is super smooth, lots of room to safely pass or be passed, very little road garbage and nobody ever wins there. If you want to go watch your favorite baseball team blow up just three games short of the playoffs, go to Wrigley. If you want to watch a bunch of triathletes wither in the sun, go watch a bike race on the Queen K. They all start strong. They all put in a good effort in the first half. But then, just as world domination seems to be within reach, they fade. The Cubs and the triathletes - they fade in the home stretch at Wrigley and the Queen K.

One minute, I found myself going 28 mph uphill without peddling. Divine intervention and a stout tailwind helped. I was thinking course record. Thirty seconds later, I saw 8 mph and a 95% heart rate. My divine intervention abandoned me and was intervening on behalf of a more worthy recipient.

There is a small hill called Hawi or the climb to Hawi that needed to be assaulted and mastered. As hills go, it's a just hump in the road. We train on bigger hills on our Tuesday rides. So what was wrong with me that I was so freakin' tired? Maybe the gusting 90 degree side wind had a little bit to do with it. Maybe the 102 degrees was sucking the life right out of me.

I usually drink one water bottle per hour.  On the Queen K I was going through two to three per hour and two salt tabs per bottle.  It wasn't enough.  I was sloshing water around in my stomach like a washing machine and it wasn't near enough.  

We turned around somewhere short of Hawi and started downhill. I turned up the go-fast knob and saw 42mph while the lesser beings fell before me like wheat to the scythe. I was invincible. Then I got tired and had to pull over because I got a cramp. All of those lesser beings that I flew by passed me back. I think one guy flipped me off.  I limped into T2 tired but happy.

I really have no comment about the run because I am not a runner. I can run, I just choose not to. I don't do anything that I am the worst at. When I was in gradeschool, some kids would play football at recess, some would play basketball. I played football because I was the worst basketball player in school.

I do have comments about the walk. The walk was hot and really hard. I cramped every time a runner passed me. Some of the runners were limping and I would feel guilty as they passed me so I tried to run and it made me cramp so I walked again. I was cramping everywhere and didn't know how long I could fake my way through the event. I wanted to cry but no liquid was available for tears. I had only sand and some cartilage that wore off of my kneecaps.

I was still drinking a lot of water, but I wanted to throw up so I didn't get as much as I needed.  I knew what was happening to me but I couldn't do anything to stop it.  It was like watching the proverbial car wreck that you can't look away from.  My countdown clock was ticking.  I had three miles to go, so I made a deal with my stomach.  I promised to limit my drinking to three cups of water per water stop if my stomach promised to keep moving the water in one direction only.  No backwards plumbing allowed.  Then I had two miles to go, two cups of water per water stop.  One mile to go, one cup of water per stop.  I gagged at the thought of drinking more water.  I could barely get that last cup down.  I started to get chilled and sweaty at the same time.  

My favorite author of all time is Mitchener. If you haven't had the pleasure, you should know that when you read Mitchener, you get it all. You get a little bit of history, a good mix of fact and fiction, an interesting discussion of political and economic influences into how and why things are the way they are. Mostly, with Mitchener, you get a guy who perfected his craft. He described the world around him from a higher viewpoint that most of us have and we are all the richer for it. One of his literary devices was to insert seemingly innocuous characters into his story, slowly building the parts they played until they become interesting and in fact central to the theme. So, with that in mind, I have decided that the only recurring character in my blog, other than myself, would be the medical tent. For most triathletes, the medical tent is the thing you have to detour around to get to your car after the event. For me, it is my best friend.  As soon as I figure out how to put the medical tent on my Christmas card list, I am going to do it. 

I found myself in the medical tent being attended to by a young lady who was new to her profession. I saw that her handwritten name tag said 'Lisa' with a smiley face to dot the 'I', so to be polite and strike up a conversation, I asked her how long she had been a nurse, she smiled and nodded vigorously and said 'Not yet'. Then she told me her school project was to help old people as they transitioned to their final resting place while she was poking me in the arm with the wrong end of a needle. The first couple jabs were bunts that didn't bring the runner home so she just kept stabbing until she hit bone. Somewhere in there Lisa must have hit paydirt and got an IV in my arm fairly close to the vein. Good enough. Both Lisa and I opened our eyes at the same time.  Oh, and one more thing I learned, Lisa is going to Junior prom with Derek and has a new dress and Derek promised he will be released on good behavior a week before prom.

It was the strangest thing ever to see all the leg muscles I own contract and release as fast as they could. I think the right leg won, but honestly it was close. Both left and right legs put on a show. The various doctors, nurses and veterinary personnel in the medical tent were all were looking at me and pointing. They shook their collective heads and whispered under their breath. “Stupid bastard, he's not smart enough to stay home where he can't hurt himself. And think how his poor wife must feel, being married to ...that. Tsk tsk. I'll bet she has to hide the sharp knives.  It's so sad.”

About five minutes after young Eva Braun attached a second bag of brake fluid to my arm, a real nurse came by and asked how I was, I said all was well except the muscles in my neck were cramping now. She asked if I was having a heart attack. I said 'No, but Lisa is my doctor, you should ask her.' They did and Lisa pronounced me well enough to leave the medical tent.  All the nurses offered condolences to my wife and wished her well.

All kidding aside, if you find yourself in need of a quick tune up after the race, the volunteers do great work in the medical tent. Ask for Lisa as long as it isn't prom night.

The distance between the medical tent and the shuttle bus is accurately measured at six hundred thirty seven steps, each one less painful than the one before it.  The pain fades away with each step.  

Now, the day after the event, all that was wrong is now right.  I am sitting upright without assistance. Lisa is still writing "Derek loves Lisa" on admittance forms but now she dots the 'I' with a heart instead of a smiley face.  The busy bird still tends his flock of flowers in the palm tree that hinders my view.  

The many-fingered leaves of the palm wave just for me, riding the easy evening breeze, telling me all is well.   

The sun repeats its inevitable fall to the sea, yielding the sky to stars and moon and flying creatures of the night. It is my hope and belief that, no matter where we find ourselves, we should all experience the Kona breeze that cools bodies, soothes frayed nerves and makes me forget my blistered feet.

Cupcakes

From the first battle ever waged on planet Earth, in which a man's wealth and family were stolen shortly after a shard of obsidian was lodged in his head by his brother, to modern smart bombs that simultaneously place a lot of small rocks in a lot of heads, the goal has been the same, the only thing that has changed is the date and the distance between combatants. Right and wrong are still the emotional baggage we incorrectly ascribe to battle contestants. We justify the deed. Battles have been fought and won, or fought and lost, then heros and villains created out of the residue. The rightness of the battle is opened up for debate as we claim the title of hero for ourselves.

The great legions of Rome fought for many reasons; They fought for the glory of the city/state, they fought to feed themselves and protect their families, they fought to preserve a way of life. The fact that entire societies lost their collective lives in the process isn't really the point. The Romans fought for their own reasons and as long as they maintained the preeminence of the empire, they didn’t need to justify their reasons. History tells us that they succeeded for thousands of years, only failing in the end as a result of internal strife. Failure came from an unexpected direction, but it did come.

The Aztecs, the Incas and other less well known societies of the Americas achieved similar status by virtue of committing battle upon their neighbors and they achieved a similar fate, failing in the end. In their time, they were masters of their domain, inflicting their will upon all. When failure came, it was as unexpected as it was complete.

Such is the plight of man; To rise up, to fight and in the end to fail. The narrative is the same, a lack of originality being the only valid criticism of the human drive to conduct battle and dominate our competitors and our surroundings. The glory of the struggle is no less grand because another's battle predated our own.

Is it fair to ascribe a similar view to the pursuit of Ironman? I must honestly admit to the possibility that it's a little overblown to do so, but now, as we wing towards Kona, I feel the same sense of anticipation that the perhaps the Greek Hoplite felt before he took up spear and shield to defend his home and behead his neighbor. I feel a sense of purpose that comes only to those who achieve, or try to. While there isn't a long history of Ironman events ending in doom for the participants, we find ourselves waging war of a kind. We fight our personal fight for our own reasons and we justify the reasons for it only to ourselves. Our weapons are now a fast bike and a good pair of running shoes, but make no mistake, they are the weapons we use in the war we chose.

History is full of stories of battles fought and won, while little was written of battles lost. As the saying goes, the vanquished do not write history. Never was this more true than today in the airport. A fellow Kona half participant told me her story of perseverance in the face of certain doom two years ago at Ironman Coeur d' Alene. She barely escaped with her life, or so went her story that she related to me. It was inspirational. And long. And I wanted her to stop. I know the swim was hard. I was there. You don't have to tell me how hard it was, I know how hard it was, I had a really nasty rash where my wetsuit rubbed against my neck for crying out loud.

For her, the battle was the swim. She said that since she is a 'skinny girl', she had no body fat to protect her core temperature, and she was therefore disadvantaged in the swim. Boo Hoo. Eat some cupcakes. I was prepared for the cold swim. I spent the better part of my life eating plenty of cupcakes so that I could maintain a decent core temperature. Of course, she rallied and was able to push her bulimic one hundred seven pound frame to a four hour run and kicked my Ironman Coeur d'Alene finish time to the curb. What a whiner.

This brings me to my free advice that I offer to all interested: Don’t believe all the IM stories you hear. If triathletes have one thing in common its that they are all liars. Big. Fat. Liars. Except me. I blog and if its in a blog, its true. It must be. They wouldn't allow me to put it on the internet if it wasn’t true. Every word I write is a true and honest recitation of events just as they happened. Trust me.

Like the Romans, the Incas and the Aztecs, we find Ironman victory, or in my case, Ironman participation, to be glorious. Glorious and fleeting. In the end, we all fail. In the end, failure follows victory like night follows day. Knowing the difference between the two is where real heros find their true worth.

Sanctuarium

The books say you should taper a week or two before your event, but this is ridiculous.  I am taking the taper thing to heart and essentially stopped training a week ago.  Today I swam my last lake swim before Kona.  I went a little over a mile.  The closest I have come to a bike in the past two weeks has been a spin bike.  I don't run anymore.  I am going to try to run in Kona, but if that doesn't work out, my professional triathlon career might be over.  So that you don't think I am a complete fraud, I have to admit that I did go to yoga last week.  Twice.

If you haven't done it before, here is some free advice: Swimming alone in a big lake is more of a mental challenge than a physical one. You have lots of time to think about work, or mowing the lawn or getting your oil changed.  Sometimes when I am close enough to shore to see the bottom, I look for treasure or dead bodies. Staying focused is tough to do.  Today I was trying to fix my rather poor technique while I swam.  I usually think about one or two things to fix, like keeping my head down, pull all the way through, yadda yadda yadda, I have so many holes in my technique, its hard to choose just one thing to work on.  I considered working on my dog paddle technique, but I am a little too close to Kona to downshift that far.

When I swim, I usually keep an eye on who else is out there so that I don't get run over a speedboat, but today the lake traffic was pretty slow.  There were a couple guys in an old leaky rowboat down in the corner of the lake doing a poor imitation of fishermen and that was about it.  The lake was calm and flat and I was in my own little world swimming along minding my own business when out of nowhere a lady in a bright yellow kayak almost hit me with her paddle.  There is the rowboat and me and the lady in the bright yellow kayak on a lake seven square miles big and she attacks me with her paddle. How is this my fault?  I was there first.

I wanted to say something witty and several snarky remarks presented themselves for consideration, but she must have realized how wrong she was because she looked at me and smiled a big, perfect Pepsodent smile and said 'Nice stroke'.  Hmmm, this is now a completely different situation that it first seemed.  Hot girl, bright yellow kayak, recognizes a superior swimmer when she sees one, friendly with bright white incisors.  Now I get it.  The situation is completely obvious.  I said 'Sorry, I'm married' and swam home.

I am a list maker by avocation. Some people make bread, others knit, some people make chairs and tables. I make lists. If I could be so bold, I don't know anybody as good as I am at list making. My lists are both functional and aesthetically pleasing. My lists are near perfect.

The Kona Half Iron is just days away, which means it is time to start going through my checklists and making sure I have all my stuff ready to go. The first checklist I use is the equipment list, which in my case is a color-coded list with headings and indentation, an index and footnotes, broken into five parts. The titles of the five sections are Swim, Bike, Run, Nutrition and Hydration, and Other. I would be willing to share my equipment list with interested parties, for a nominal fee. The second appendix alone is worth the price, it's that good.

Here is the Cliffs Notes version.

Swim – goggles, tri suit and my lucky ankle strap. I don't need my wetsuit and I get a swim cap in Kona.

Bike – bike, shoes, helmet, gloves, glasses, socks.

Run – race belt and shoes and fresh socks.

Nutrition – salt tabs and I like a pbj in my special needs bag and I am going to pick up some Boost in Kona.

Other – bag balm. I use lots of bag balm. I put that stuff everywhere.

I have another list, my 'Get Your Head Right' list that I read just before race time. Strictly speaking it isn't a list at all, but a two page dissertation meant to inspire me as well as serve as a reminder to use lots of bag balm. You can't forget the bag balm.

I was trying to augment my Get Your Head Right list with a little more detail so I was searching around for some inspirational quotes when I sort of stumbled onto this sanctuary thing. To start with, I read that the word sanctuary is derived from the Latin 'sanctuarium'. So that's good.

According to legend, sanctuary was a place of safety that was available centuries ago, sometimes in churches, to travelers and those in need. I don't know if that's myth or fact, but I was noodling that around and I think I have a new race plan for Ironman events. I am going to do the best I can and then if I hit the wall, or more accurately, when I hit the wall, I am going to head to a nearby church for some R and R. Instead of finishing the run, I am going to have my feet up somewhere watching SportsCenter. I might catch a few Z's. Anyway, that's my race plan from here on out.

Five days seventeen hours before the gun.  Kona here I come.

John Wayne

About twenty years ago a friend and I were having a beer and talking about sports or politics or whatever and somehow the conversation drifted into the different foods that we grew up with. My family was middle America white bread and mayo, which means I can still get the same crappy food I grew up with if I just dash down to the Safeway, but my buddy grew up on the south side of Chicago and I guess they do things a little differently there. One of the foods that he had tried when he was a kid was haggis, which he said was a real treat if you hate good food. To make haggis, he told me you take a sheep liver, sheep heart and a sheep tongue and chop them up, mix in some suet and some oats, then put it in a sheep stomach and boil the whole thing for six hours. Yummy.

I don't want to make too big a deal out of it, but that conversation and the idea of eating some freshly made haggis has stayed with me all these years and it comes down to this; I need to eat some haggis. I cant stop thinking about it. My buddy said its hard to find good haggis unless you have a friend who's Grandma makes it fresh, and since I don't know anybody who has haggis for Sunday dinner, I am in sort of a bind. So I looked around and called a couple of the local restaurants and was surprised to find that haggis is something that you can't get in my zip code, so I am working on a plan to travel to Scotland to get some fresh yummy haggis. While I am there, I might wander around and see if a triathon pops up.

That whole thought process is sort of how I ended up committing to do the Kona half. They don't have haggis there, but still, a buddy and I were having a glass of wine and talking about sports or politics or whatever and somehow the conversation wandered into the best vacation places in the world. After talking it over, we agreed that the best thing we could do would be to go lay on the beach in Hawaii and drink a bunch of icy cold fruity drinks with the little umbrellas in them that were delivered by a saucy cocktail waitress on the beach in Hawaii. While we are there, if a triathlon wandered across our path, we might join in.

That is how I make the major decisions in my life. I find some small, inconsequential thing I want, like haggis, or laying on the beach and drinking icy drinks brought by a saucy cocktail waitress, then I spend five thousand dollars to make it happen. It's my haggis method.

For the past ten days, I have been having an emotional strikeout. It went like this –

Strike One - This one is job related.  Every six weeks, my employer requires I be 'oncall', which means I cant go anywhere without my phone, and that means I can't swim for a week.  I don't have a waterproof phone.

Strike Two -  I had to ship my bike to Kona, so I can't ride. No bike, no ride.

Strike Three - This was when I tried to run, I didn't make it ten feet. I had knee issues. My knee hates me and I hate it. I hate it so very,very much. My knee hurt so bad I was considering my triathlon future, or lack thereof. I know other people have a tougher road to travel than I do, but still, I was depressed. I honestly stared at the wall for an entire day. I wasn't suicidal, but you could have tempted me to go there with a twinkie.

All of that is behind me. Today I ran and I made it two miles before I had to sit and rub my knee and sniffle. Yaaaaa for me! It might seem like a junior varsity effort to you, but to me it's the world.  The swelling should go down tonight. Tomorrow at the latest.

My wife took my dog to the vet and got some pills because he is limping.  I don't know what is wrong with him, other than he is a little overweight and he runs too much and his knee hurts.  Wait,do dogs have knees?  I don't know but he is limping for the past few weeks.  His knee hurts so bad he can barely rustle up the energy to tip the garbage can over on the kitchen floor to sort the coffee grounds out from the meat scraps.  My wife took pity on the poor creature and took him to the vet and now he gets some doggy knee pills.  I get to sweep up the coffee grounds. 

I used to think John Wayne and I traveled the same path and were metaphysically bound together for eternity.  He made movies, I like movies.  I wanted to be a cowboy, he was a cowboy.  He was rich, I like money too.  We were exactly the same person.  But now he is dead so I don't want to be metaphysically bound to him any more.  As I write this, it occurs to me that my dog and I are more closely suited to each other than John Wayne and I.  And that is Strike Four.