Have you ever had someone mention or recommend some event, a running race, a concert, a triathlon, or a movie that sounds really good at the time of the mention, you commit to said event, but when reality wipes away the fog, you are usually faced with a monumental lapse of judgment and decision making? I would count my decision to enter the Boston to Big Sur Challenge as one of those said lapses. The B2B, as it is affectionately called, is the act of running the Boston Marathon and then less than two weeks later, running the Big Sur Marathon. Yes, you heard me correctly, two marathons in less than two weeks and the opportunity to be called “bicoastal”.
I’ve previously described the Head Slapper 2000, a device for which I am seeking a patent, which allows the operator to slap themselves upside the head when faced with poorly reasoned decisions or life choices. Buy the special “undercoating” for your new car – wham, upside the head. Purchase the extended warranty for your Iphone – whump to the back of the head. Go home with that person that looks like Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie after a night of heavy drinking –thunk to the forehead. Sign up for the Boston to Big Sur challenge – whack goes the Head Slapper 2000.
Recovery week after Boston was a painful exercise in movement management. I tried unsuccessfully to minimize the amount of time any neurons would fire in my legs causing muscles to contract and me to cry out in an agony only surpassed by having to watch reruns of Jersey Shore. I managed to propel myself around the office, butt firmly placed in my ergonomic chair, by simply doing arm pulls on the nearest doors, cubicle walls or coworkers. For meetings in other buildings, I would wait in my chair near the exit of my building until an unsuspecting colleague ventured across the parking lot and then I would lasso them with a monitor cable and hitch a ride. Second floor meetings were especially daunting, not so much for the up as for the down. I discovered you can walk down stairs supporting your entire body weight on one arm without letting your knees bend or quads engage. So what if HR has opened a file on me for suspicious behavior.
By the Wednesday after the Boston Marathon, I thought I should try a little running to see if I was still capable of upright forward propulsion using my own appendages. I started slow and tried to suppress the whimpers of pain emanating from deep within me so as to not alarm the other denizens of the group run I joined. Pain receptors fired from parts of my body whose existence was unbeknownst to me at the time. Simply put, the run was ugly. I’m talking Donald Trump giving Rush Limbaugh a naked back rub ugly. I lurched forward, face contorted like Jim Carrey in the Mask, and tried to find my happy place, that mystical realm runners reach when the endorphins flow, your legs stride effortlessly beneath you, unicorns trot alongside you, and rainbows mark your path. Instead of running nirvana, I entered a dark place populated by the anguished cries of angels, visions of my running form being criticized by Simon Colwell on national television, and the tears of newborns as they witnessed the horror of that first post Boston run.
Race day arrived like an out of control freight train. My legs had recovered and I was capable of running without frightening innocent children with my cries. My friend and partner in insanity, Andy, and I drove down Saturday to Monterey to pick up our packets and meet up with the other deranged residents of our race club asylum participating in the B2B. The Expo did not yield any new surprises other than a few products being offered of which I questioned the marketing strategy being employed. At every Expo I’ve attended of late, I always have to smile at some of the products and services companies feel are suited or targeted for runners and triathletes. I can certainly understand if you have a line of compression socks, putting efficacy or outcome data aside, where runners and especially triathletes (who will purchase anything with the promise of increased speed) are the perfect target demographic. The companies I question are the ones hawking legal services, magic balance bracelets, and George Foreman grills. Are runners plagued by excessive legal woes, inner ear problems, and insatiable pannini cravings? At least the attendees are showered with a virtual cornucopia of free schwag at these expos.
After exiting the Expo, Andy and I met up with our team mates in downtown Carmel for dinner at the requisite Italian eatery, trying hard to not be attacked by the roving bands of cougars. Well, to be perfectly honest, we didn’t try that hard. I have to doubt the wisdom of aging cougars and pumas prowling the streets of Carmel. I question whether the prey they seek would be frequenting any of the establishments in the cozy burg. Unless they were seeking one of the emaciated runners in town for the marathon, I think all other prey was already engaged in some form or fashion. I’m sorry to say most if not all of the pack went home alone with wine migraines, sore feet, and crushed dreams.
Race morning was beautiful with clear skies and the absence of the customary coastal fog. The temperature dipped down into the 30’s so we sought refuge in a teammates SUV. We were packed shoulder to shoulder like the sardines which were once the major economic driver in nearby Monterey. We huddled in the car preparing our post race performance excuses until the porta-potty clarion call sounded. Being a well organized race, there appeared to be at least one potty per 3 runners, making the normally nauseating and daunting pre-race evacuation of the bowels a less than onerous task. Some runners camped out in the Safeway store located next to the start/finish area staking out territory in favorite sections. Gaggles of gals occupied the wine aisle while their male brethren enjoyed the beer section.
I went to the start line with my friend and team mate Alexia where we formulated our race strategy. Having run the exact same time down to the second at Boston despite starting in different corrals, we determined we should pace each other. We then decided to simply have a good time and run within ourselves. We had no pressure on us to BQ or PR since the course really was not conducive to either objective. We ran comfortably at a conversational pace drifting between the 3:30 and 3:40 pace groups. The musical interludes along the course were fantastic and kept us entertained the entire way. The volunteers outdid themselves practically falling over each other to ensure we got our needed hydration and nutrition. The sun was shining and the temperature never reached an uncomfortable level. We saw many other B2B lunatics along the way and chatted with those around us, something I rarely do in competition. Without pushing the pace, we came in to the finish line only 6 minutes off our Boston time including one unscheduled bathroom break and multiple photo ops.
The B2B organizers treated us extremely well after the race, plying us with copius amounts of beer and food. We collected our prized B2B jackets and medals and made our way home, taking the time to ensure proper post-race recovery by executing an In & Out Burger drive through. What started with hope banished and dread looming, ended on a high I’m still riding almost three weeks later.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Boston Marathon 2011
The parallels between my qualifying marathon, the Camarillo Marathon in Southern California, and the international athletic mega-event, the Adidas Boston Marathon are simply uncanny.
* Boston had 27,000 participants; Camarillo has a population of 27,000 people.
* Boston had five hundred thousand spectators lining the course while Camarillo had five hundred thousand tomato, strawberry, and onion plants growing along the route.
* Boston participants ran in shoes. For the most part, Camarillo participants ran in shoes.
* Each race had its unique cast of characters; Boston had the Gorilla Guy, the Caveman, the Jester, Celtic cheerleaders, and the dude in the pink tutu. Camarillo had the Good Hair Guy, Booberella, California Triathlete, and Jesus (no, not that Jesus…the other one).
* Boston had incredible on-course runner support including aid stations with water and Gatorade every mile, medical assistance, throngs of cheering fans, Celtic cheerleaders, Wellsley Girls, helicopters overhead taking pictures and video, and food and blankets at the finish. Camarillo had on-course support including a confused migrant farm worker holding a gallon jug of water at mile 9 and a guy that looked like Jerry Garcia making pancakes on a BBQ grill at the finish.
As I said before, the parallels were spooky.
The road to Boston was rather long for me. I began the journey way back in 1999 when I ran my first marathon in Big Sur. I hobbled away from that event thinking it would be kinda cool to qualify for Boston. I did a little research and settled on CIM as my qualifier being that the course was net downhill, close to home, and the end of year timing was conducive to warm weather training. Being a young’un of thirty odd years, my BQ time was 3:15, a mark I missed by 6 minutes at that CIM. I half heartedly tried again at the Athens marathon in 2001, but after having to wade through knee deep water for the first 10 miles, my BQ dreams vanished like politician’s promise. Having qualified at CIM, my wife, Janine, entered Boston in 2003. Having been the bridesmaid, but not the Boston bride yet in three marathons, I decided to give it an all out push to qualify. The Las Vegas marathon was in February, two months before Boston. This was back when you could qualify almost up to the day of the race and still get into Boston. I put in the time and the miles and was prepared, but the running gods had other plans for me. The LV marathon was blessed with 50 MPH headwinds that day slowing even the leaders down to the pace of a line at the DMV, dashing my hopes of a BQ. Janine and I still went out to Boston where I ran the last 10 miles with her and was able to experience some of the charm of the race, but like taking your cousin to Prom, it wasn’t quite the same.
Life and Ironman intruded on my Boston goals as I waded into the deep end to try my hand at Ironman events in Canada and Coeur d’Alene taking my focus off Boston and running. I dabbled in triathlons then life came screaming around the corner and hit me head first with the arrival of my beautiful twin boys in 2007. I entered a new marathon training program of sorts that consisted of feedings, burpings, diaper changes, too few hours of sleep, and minimal time to train for anything other than a sprint to the bathroom after eating some bad fish.
I managed to wedge in a few races here and there including a sprinkle of road bike racing, a dash of 10K’s with the boys in the twin jog stroller, and a pinch of triathlons including the very enjoyable destination race in Santa Barbara. Early in 2010, my friend and teammate, Simon announced he was going to run the Camarillo marathon near Ventura California. Anytime you need to describe a place as being “near” somewhere, it is usually a sign that is not much happening there. The Camarillo marathon was a harrowing experience I’ve described previously, but it did produce my BQ putting me on track for the 2011 Boston Marathon.
I jumped into Simon’s marathon training plan, a recipe of sorts for realizing potential and fulfilling dreams at Boston. Along with Top Chef Simon, other celebrity chef teammates added and modified the training program until I was a well oiled stew simmering for success when I toed the line in Hopkinton.
Along with about 20 teammates, Janine and I flew out to Boston on Friday, spent the requisite time pushing through the crush of humanity that is the Expo, saw a few sights to see, ate our loads of carbs, and took advantage of the absence of the twin alarm clocks that we affectionately call the Twinadoes. Race morning came quickly, I kissed Janine goodbye since she was starting in later wave and did not need to wake quite as early as I did, and began the long journey out to the start line. One subway ride, a bus ride, and a short walk later, I was standing somewhat near the start. Being in corral 9 in Wave 1, I was literally sandwiched between 8,999 runners on one side and 18,000 runners on the other. I was the top slice of bacon in your typical BLT. The anthem was played, a gun went off (I think), and we…stood. A few minutes lapsed before the crowd slowly began to shuffle forward like a great multi-headed beast seeking its elusive prey far in the distance. The Beast coiled and roiled over itself as runners positioned and paced themselves according to their goals. I ran with my training partners and friends Michael, Tara, and Patrick, the Three Musketeers of our race club (oh, does that make me d’Artagnan?). I kept the Musketeers company until around mile 16 when my Garmin decided to pull a Palin and quit working. Without technology, I was adrift in a sea of multiple paces and unknown distances. To accompany my technological challenge, my quads started to tighten and cramp signaling the first throes of the battle to be waged over the next 10 miles.
My pace slowed and I assessed where I was. I knew I would finish since there is literally no way you cannot be carried forward by the energy produced by the runners and spectators in the last miles of the Boston Marathon, the only question would be “when?” I soaked up positive vibes from the people along the route offering high fives, orange slices, Red Vines, Lady Gaga CDs, spare socks, and loose change. I was inspired by the many challenged athletes I encountered along the way overcoming obstacles I cannot begin to fathom. I was humbled by our fighting men and women who hucked the entire course in full fatigues and with 45 pound backpacks. I was literally pushed and pulled forward by the moment, the fervor, and the tradition that is the Boston Marathon.
As I rounded the corner onto Boylston, the cacophony of sound emanating from all sides was overwhelming, so much so that I accidently cut off a runner to my right and almost sent him sprawling. Regaining our composure, we surged forward and crossed the finish line, arms held high, trying to finally get a decent finisher’s photo (no such luck). As I write this missive, I am still on a high from the race and the experience. I’m happy with my performance, but like with most events of this caliber, I think I would like to go back and exercise a few demons that plagued me during the race.
Many thanks to my lovely wife and #1 training partner, to Simon, the Three Musketeers, Carrie, Chris, Amy, Andy, Sarah, Bruce and Page and all my other teammates that made getting to and racing Boston a success.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Is this I-680 or the Donner Pass?
Journal Entry
September 28, 2010
I'm writing this in case I do not make it. My family and the world need to know how our last days were spent trapped on the freeway trying desperately to reach the new Toll Lane in Sunol. We were promised a faster commute, but have been stuck in a level of hell only surpassed by those waiting in line to audition for American Idol.
Like many others, I joined the long line of cars creeping along 680 south at the Bernal entrance. We crept along listening to reports on the radio of congestion extending north to the Oregon border. We measured our commute not in miles, but in inches. By day 2, I had made it as far as the Sunol Blvd exit. I toyed with the idea of getting off the freeway and returning home to my family. But my job beckoned and promises of commute nirvana up ahead in the new toll lane kept me queued in the long line of frustrated drivers.
By day three, all the food and water I could scrounge from my car and along the side of the freeway were gone. Other commuters and I started talking about sending a scouting party ahead on foot to see if there was an overland route we could take. 4 brave souls struck out in their wingtips and ties, but they returned 1 short later in the evening. The details of their harrowing trek will be the stuff of legend if this journal survives. The lost member of their party will be remembered as a hero due to his actions to save the others. We are still not clear as to what occurred, but the survivors seem to imply commuters further south had turned to cannibalism due to the lack of food and coffee. The three remaining members did manage to bring back his Bally wingtips and leather belt. We may try to eat those later.
By day 5, the smell along the freeway was fetid and rank. Most cars had run out of fuel, so the drivers were pushing their vehicles anytime the long string of cars inched forward. Only those driving hybrids seemed to still have power, but none of them were as well armed as the many SUV drivers, so they were easily overrun and their fuel supplies taken. Armed gangs began terrorizing the weakened commuters. Barter systems were setup, people trading bags of airplane peanuts for a few ounces of fuel. I tried a desperate attempt to hike back up the freeway to home, but was forced back into my car by a roving band of Caltrans workers threatening anyone who dared to leave their car and not experience the glory of the Express Lane.
Day 7 dawned over the Eastern hills. I was delirious from the lack of sleep, hunger, and Starbuck's withdrawal. I was awake most of the night fending off a horde of what my little community of commuters called "tollbies" - similar to zombies, but without the insatiable appetite for human flesh. Tollbies had lost their sense of humanity and reason, seeking only to experience the FasTrack enabled rush of Express Lane joy. These poor lost souls wandered down the freeway in small groups between the camps of stranded motorists, waving their FasTrack transponders in the air hoping beyond all hope for that reassuring "beep" signaling they had reached the Promised Lane. My encampment used our laptops and spare tires to create crude barriers to keep the Tollbies from overrunning us. Our latest plan for rescue involves tying a note to a dead cell phone and seeing if we can throw it at a passing ACE train, but we hold little hope any rescue is on it way.
A few of our group have scouted the Northbound lanes for any sign of rescue, but were met with resistance from those stuck in the miles long backup from the evening commute. Small wars are now occurring between the North and South bound commuters as the Northies try to claim the southbound HOV/Toll Lane. The Northies feel they are justified in their seizure since their commute has been horrendous for many more years than the Southies and they have never benefited from a HOV lane. All hope of reconciliation, rescue or free flowing traffic appear to be abandoned.
If anyone reads this, please tell my family I love them. My Blackberry is almost out of battery power, so this will be my last entry. I only hope they have FasTrack in heaven.
September 28, 2010
I'm writing this in case I do not make it. My family and the world need to know how our last days were spent trapped on the freeway trying desperately to reach the new Toll Lane in Sunol. We were promised a faster commute, but have been stuck in a level of hell only surpassed by those waiting in line to audition for American Idol.
Like many others, I joined the long line of cars creeping along 680 south at the Bernal entrance. We crept along listening to reports on the radio of congestion extending north to the Oregon border. We measured our commute not in miles, but in inches. By day 2, I had made it as far as the Sunol Blvd exit. I toyed with the idea of getting off the freeway and returning home to my family. But my job beckoned and promises of commute nirvana up ahead in the new toll lane kept me queued in the long line of frustrated drivers.
By day three, all the food and water I could scrounge from my car and along the side of the freeway were gone. Other commuters and I started talking about sending a scouting party ahead on foot to see if there was an overland route we could take. 4 brave souls struck out in their wingtips and ties, but they returned 1 short later in the evening. The details of their harrowing trek will be the stuff of legend if this journal survives. The lost member of their party will be remembered as a hero due to his actions to save the others. We are still not clear as to what occurred, but the survivors seem to imply commuters further south had turned to cannibalism due to the lack of food and coffee. The three remaining members did manage to bring back his Bally wingtips and leather belt. We may try to eat those later.
By day 5, the smell along the freeway was fetid and rank. Most cars had run out of fuel, so the drivers were pushing their vehicles anytime the long string of cars inched forward. Only those driving hybrids seemed to still have power, but none of them were as well armed as the many SUV drivers, so they were easily overrun and their fuel supplies taken. Armed gangs began terrorizing the weakened commuters. Barter systems were setup, people trading bags of airplane peanuts for a few ounces of fuel. I tried a desperate attempt to hike back up the freeway to home, but was forced back into my car by a roving band of Caltrans workers threatening anyone who dared to leave their car and not experience the glory of the Express Lane.
Day 7 dawned over the Eastern hills. I was delirious from the lack of sleep, hunger, and Starbuck's withdrawal. I was awake most of the night fending off a horde of what my little community of commuters called "tollbies" - similar to zombies, but without the insatiable appetite for human flesh. Tollbies had lost their sense of humanity and reason, seeking only to experience the FasTrack enabled rush of Express Lane joy. These poor lost souls wandered down the freeway in small groups between the camps of stranded motorists, waving their FasTrack transponders in the air hoping beyond all hope for that reassuring "beep" signaling they had reached the Promised Lane. My encampment used our laptops and spare tires to create crude barriers to keep the Tollbies from overrunning us. Our latest plan for rescue involves tying a note to a dead cell phone and seeing if we can throw it at a passing ACE train, but we hold little hope any rescue is on it way.
A few of our group have scouted the Northbound lanes for any sign of rescue, but were met with resistance from those stuck in the miles long backup from the evening commute. Small wars are now occurring between the North and South bound commuters as the Northies try to claim the southbound HOV/Toll Lane. The Northies feel they are justified in their seizure since their commute has been horrendous for many more years than the Southies and they have never benefited from a HOV lane. All hope of reconciliation, rescue or free flowing traffic appear to be abandoned.
If anyone reads this, please tell my family I love them. My Blackberry is almost out of battery power, so this will be my last entry. I only hope they have FasTrack in heaven.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Camarillo Marathon 2010
Oh the Horror!
Nestled just north of the Santa Monica mountains and caressing the Pacific ocean, Ventura is a picturesque burg offering many delights for residents and tourists alike. Unfortunately, our journey to run a new Boston qualifier marathon did not take us to this idyllic setting, rather to its black sheep step cousin next door, the aptly named town of “Camarillo” which in Portuguese means “why does anyone live here let alone want to run a marathon here”. I realize the word count does not quite matchup, but Google Translator does not lie.
My wife and I along with 10 of our team mates from the Forward Motion Race Club jumped at the chance to run in a new Boston qualifier billed as a flat, fast course with stunning views, music/bands at every mile, and a post-event party to rival Burning Man. The bonus was that the location, Camarillo, was only 400 miles away, so 5 hours by plane with check-in, security and a 1 hour flight time or a 16 hour drive through some of the worst traffic known to man (other than that 60 mile traffic jam in China). We opted to fly knowing my patience with traffic (I have none) and my desire for my wife to stay married to me once we encountered said traffic.
We landed in Burbank, the nearest airport capable of accommodating aircraft larger than my sons’ Fisher Price toy planes, hopped in our Nissan Versa rental car (the butt ugliest pregnant rollerskate I’ve ever driven, but hey, it got like 42 miles per gallon, 50 mpg when my wife got out and pushed), and headed onto the freeway. Then we stopped, and stopped some more, and for variety, stopped some more. We had encountered Friday night Southern California rush hour traffic (insert image of Munch’s The Scream here). One of the seven levels of Hell, reserved for those who refuse to vote and fund public transportation, uninformed tourists like us, and Prius drivers. We battled our way through the traffic, me gripping the wheel in a stressed fueled road rage and my wife frantically trying to find a radio station playing anything other than Spanish language music or the latest Katy Perry song. Our little trek took us through the beautiful towns of Studio City (porn capital of the US), Thousand Oaks (I only counted 994), and Oxnard (Nard’s of the Ox). Fortunately, my wife agreed to remain married to me upon our arrival at the Ventura Beach Marriot. We met up with some friends who had decided traveling by car the entire way was just as stressful as our path. Copious amounts of liquid stress relief quieted the inner demons and capped off the day.
Saturday morning we headed out to a nice path along the beach to shake out the legs, test the GPS watch, and take in some fresh ocean air. We found the bike path/trail/boardwalk headed north for many miles passing the Ventura pier, local surfing spots, nicely landscaped parks, and plenty of public facilities like restrooms and water fountains. Please take note of this last sentence and file it away for later reference. My wife commented we would be really fortunate if the marathon the next day followed a coastal route since the cool air and scenic vistas would really help push us to personal bests. In the afternoon, we attended packet pickup at a local strip mall Sports Authority suffering through the crush of the tens of participants. Our first hint that something was horribly wrong should have been the lack of any Expo, actual participants, or the constant reminders to “memorize the course map”.
Our race club gathered in downtown Ventura for a pre-race ritual of pasta, a little red wine, and good conversation with good friends. Race strategies were discussed, predictions were made, and PRPE’s (post race performance excuses) were formulated. We adjourned to our hotels wary of the of the early morning start time of our “flat, fast, scenic views with bands every mile” marathon looming closer.
Race morning we carpooled over to the start of the race heeding the Race Director’s advice that parking would be difficult due to the thousands of participants signed up for the race (actual count for the marathon was 280). Because we arrived before even the bars were closed, parking was a breeze. We stood around in the dark until there was enough light to find the porta-johns and navigate the essential pre-race bowel cleansing. Having successfully cleansed the bowels, I wandered over to the start line, looking hopelessly for a balloon arch, one of those inflatable Wildflower style canopies, or any other sign of an actual start line. What I found was the word “START” scrawled in the middle of the street with chalk. Around 7AM, most participants began to congregate in the middle of the street. All the Forward Motion folks pushed, well not really pushed since there were so few people, we “gathered” at the front of the pack next to no one that looked like a world class marathoner. Three Kenyans, an Ethiopian, and two Russian marathoners I believe read about the Camarillo marathon, but had the good sense to stay away. An air horn sounded and we started running assuming that was the starting gun.
In the lead pack, we had a host of unique characters. There was Black Compression Socks Guy, Booberella (whose store bought body modifications defied the laws of physics), Good Hair guy, and one lonely looking South American dude who looked like he really did not want to be there (the eventual race winner). The FoMo Gang of Five, Chris, Simon, Andy, Jeff M., and Chuck set a blistering pace from the start, so I elected to hold back in order to preserve their egos and run with Jesus (no, not that Jesus, the other Jesus. I don’t think that Jesus was much of a runner, but if he was, I bet he was totally into that whole minimalist shoe thing). I ran comfortably for about 5 miles entering the most scenic part of the entire course, the business park loop, with its stunning views of loading docks, mediocre corporate landscaping, cracked pavement parking lots, and a lonely night watchman snoozing in his photo hut guard shack. It was breathtaking in its beauty and grandeur. I can honestly say I have never seen such “stunning views” since the Big Sur marathon in 1998. I remember thinking “why is this marathon in Camarillo and not in Ventura along the ocean path?” It would be something I would think about for the next 18 mind-numbing miles of soul crushing boredom.
By mile 9, the Gang of Five had dropped me, Jesus had deserted me to lead others down the righteous path, so I was left only with the voices in my head. They were screaming at me to give them some form of visual stimuli other than rows upon of rows of tomato and green pepper fields, broken down tractors, and a seemingly endless stretch of asphalt disappearing into the fog ahead. Although the temperature was only in the low 70’s the humidity was high probably due to the crop irrigation surrounding us. We were well inland on most of the course, far enough from the ocean where only the most navigationally challenged seagulls ventured. I was sweating more than normal so was looking forward to the electrolyte replenishment drink said to be on the course. We had received at least 60 emails prior to the race advertising the race drink of choice would be a brand called “Gleukos”. No one had heard of this mythical drink, but since it was to be provided on the course, many of chose to forego carrying our own.
I started to pass aid stations where the besieged volunteers were faced with delivering the daunting news to incoming runners that they did not have any water cups, only gallon jugs of water. I was handed a partially full jug and told to just put it down along the road when I was done. Does anyone know how hard it is to bend down and place a jug of water on the ground with tired and cramping legs while trying to maintain pace? Well, it was not something I planned to test, so I handed my jug to a confused looking farm laborer who happened to be standing alongside the road. Then I spent the next 3 miles thinking about all the people who had drunk from that jug before me…shivers. Not only were the aid stations without cups, but the mythical Gleukos sports drink was nowhere to be found. When I asked one volunteer at mile 15, I got a “huh?” in return. I started to cramp pretty bad at this point so went into survival mode. I veered off course to the nearest field and grabbed a couple tomatoes remembering from my high school Botany class that tomatoes contained sodium. The two green tomatoes did not solve the cramping so I ran through a farmer’s pasture and happened upon a cow salt lick. Not wanting to lose my pace, I picked up the block of salt and continued on down the road licking frantically with about a dozen heifers in hot pursuit. Having satiated my salt craving I left the salt block on the side of the road for any fellow travelers behind me.
Around mile 20, the aid stations not only lacked cups, Gleukos, and Gu, but even volunteers. Mile markers were non-existent at this point in the race, so I relied on my Garmin and asking the handful of spectators milling around along the course how far from the finish I was. The Race Director toyed with our sanity by making us run past the finish line at mile 23 to do an out-n-back through the Camarillo International Airport (departures to Oxnard and Bakersfield every third Tuesday). I was able to see the Gang of Five looking strong with Chris leading the charge. My goal of qualifying for the Boston Marathon loomed near as I watched my race time inch towards 3:20, the qualifying time for my age group. I summoned all my reserves and pushed through the finish line posting a 3:20:17 (Boston gives you the extra 0:59 seconds), so I met my goal along with most of my compatriots.
Our team took home three podium spots, a few blisters, and some great memories. The post-event party, the one billed as being bigger than Burning Man, well, that was actually some guy making pancakes on a rusty BBQ grill. Oh, and those bands at every mile, they must have all be practicing for the National Mime Tour since I failed to see or hear a single one. I am really proud of my teammates for persevering through what can only be described as a very organizationally challenged marathon. Everyone finished with a smile or grimace on their faces, most of us qualified for Boston, and those that did not will be running again soon to meet their goals.
Note: I have to contrast my post-race recovery ritual with one of my teammates “Carrie”, a world class athlete who is one half of an uber couple in our race club. She took an ice bath, ate a nutritious lunch low in calories, and used an electrical stimulation recovery system on her drive home. I meanwhile, soaked in the hot tub, dined on In-and-Out Burger, and washed down 4 Advils with a beer.
Nestled just north of the Santa Monica mountains and caressing the Pacific ocean, Ventura is a picturesque burg offering many delights for residents and tourists alike. Unfortunately, our journey to run a new Boston qualifier marathon did not take us to this idyllic setting, rather to its black sheep step cousin next door, the aptly named town of “Camarillo” which in Portuguese means “why does anyone live here let alone want to run a marathon here”. I realize the word count does not quite matchup, but Google Translator does not lie.
My wife and I along with 10 of our team mates from the Forward Motion Race Club jumped at the chance to run in a new Boston qualifier billed as a flat, fast course with stunning views, music/bands at every mile, and a post-event party to rival Burning Man. The bonus was that the location, Camarillo, was only 400 miles away, so 5 hours by plane with check-in, security and a 1 hour flight time or a 16 hour drive through some of the worst traffic known to man (other than that 60 mile traffic jam in China). We opted to fly knowing my patience with traffic (I have none) and my desire for my wife to stay married to me once we encountered said traffic.
We landed in Burbank, the nearest airport capable of accommodating aircraft larger than my sons’ Fisher Price toy planes, hopped in our Nissan Versa rental car (the butt ugliest pregnant rollerskate I’ve ever driven, but hey, it got like 42 miles per gallon, 50 mpg when my wife got out and pushed), and headed onto the freeway. Then we stopped, and stopped some more, and for variety, stopped some more. We had encountered Friday night Southern California rush hour traffic (insert image of Munch’s The Scream here). One of the seven levels of Hell, reserved for those who refuse to vote and fund public transportation, uninformed tourists like us, and Prius drivers. We battled our way through the traffic, me gripping the wheel in a stressed fueled road rage and my wife frantically trying to find a radio station playing anything other than Spanish language music or the latest Katy Perry song. Our little trek took us through the beautiful towns of Studio City (porn capital of the US), Thousand Oaks (I only counted 994), and Oxnard (Nard’s of the Ox). Fortunately, my wife agreed to remain married to me upon our arrival at the Ventura Beach Marriot. We met up with some friends who had decided traveling by car the entire way was just as stressful as our path. Copious amounts of liquid stress relief quieted the inner demons and capped off the day.
Saturday morning we headed out to a nice path along the beach to shake out the legs, test the GPS watch, and take in some fresh ocean air. We found the bike path/trail/boardwalk headed north for many miles passing the Ventura pier, local surfing spots, nicely landscaped parks, and plenty of public facilities like restrooms and water fountains. Please take note of this last sentence and file it away for later reference. My wife commented we would be really fortunate if the marathon the next day followed a coastal route since the cool air and scenic vistas would really help push us to personal bests. In the afternoon, we attended packet pickup at a local strip mall Sports Authority suffering through the crush of the tens of participants. Our first hint that something was horribly wrong should have been the lack of any Expo, actual participants, or the constant reminders to “memorize the course map”.
Our race club gathered in downtown Ventura for a pre-race ritual of pasta, a little red wine, and good conversation with good friends. Race strategies were discussed, predictions were made, and PRPE’s (post race performance excuses) were formulated. We adjourned to our hotels wary of the of the early morning start time of our “flat, fast, scenic views with bands every mile” marathon looming closer.
Race morning we carpooled over to the start of the race heeding the Race Director’s advice that parking would be difficult due to the thousands of participants signed up for the race (actual count for the marathon was 280). Because we arrived before even the bars were closed, parking was a breeze. We stood around in the dark until there was enough light to find the porta-johns and navigate the essential pre-race bowel cleansing. Having successfully cleansed the bowels, I wandered over to the start line, looking hopelessly for a balloon arch, one of those inflatable Wildflower style canopies, or any other sign of an actual start line. What I found was the word “START” scrawled in the middle of the street with chalk. Around 7AM, most participants began to congregate in the middle of the street. All the Forward Motion folks pushed, well not really pushed since there were so few people, we “gathered” at the front of the pack next to no one that looked like a world class marathoner. Three Kenyans, an Ethiopian, and two Russian marathoners I believe read about the Camarillo marathon, but had the good sense to stay away. An air horn sounded and we started running assuming that was the starting gun.
In the lead pack, we had a host of unique characters. There was Black Compression Socks Guy, Booberella (whose store bought body modifications defied the laws of physics), Good Hair guy, and one lonely looking South American dude who looked like he really did not want to be there (the eventual race winner). The FoMo Gang of Five, Chris, Simon, Andy, Jeff M., and Chuck set a blistering pace from the start, so I elected to hold back in order to preserve their egos and run with Jesus (no, not that Jesus, the other Jesus. I don’t think that Jesus was much of a runner, but if he was, I bet he was totally into that whole minimalist shoe thing). I ran comfortably for about 5 miles entering the most scenic part of the entire course, the business park loop, with its stunning views of loading docks, mediocre corporate landscaping, cracked pavement parking lots, and a lonely night watchman snoozing in his photo hut guard shack. It was breathtaking in its beauty and grandeur. I can honestly say I have never seen such “stunning views” since the Big Sur marathon in 1998. I remember thinking “why is this marathon in Camarillo and not in Ventura along the ocean path?” It would be something I would think about for the next 18 mind-numbing miles of soul crushing boredom.
By mile 9, the Gang of Five had dropped me, Jesus had deserted me to lead others down the righteous path, so I was left only with the voices in my head. They were screaming at me to give them some form of visual stimuli other than rows upon of rows of tomato and green pepper fields, broken down tractors, and a seemingly endless stretch of asphalt disappearing into the fog ahead. Although the temperature was only in the low 70’s the humidity was high probably due to the crop irrigation surrounding us. We were well inland on most of the course, far enough from the ocean where only the most navigationally challenged seagulls ventured. I was sweating more than normal so was looking forward to the electrolyte replenishment drink said to be on the course. We had received at least 60 emails prior to the race advertising the race drink of choice would be a brand called “Gleukos”. No one had heard of this mythical drink, but since it was to be provided on the course, many of chose to forego carrying our own.
I started to pass aid stations where the besieged volunteers were faced with delivering the daunting news to incoming runners that they did not have any water cups, only gallon jugs of water. I was handed a partially full jug and told to just put it down along the road when I was done. Does anyone know how hard it is to bend down and place a jug of water on the ground with tired and cramping legs while trying to maintain pace? Well, it was not something I planned to test, so I handed my jug to a confused looking farm laborer who happened to be standing alongside the road. Then I spent the next 3 miles thinking about all the people who had drunk from that jug before me…shivers. Not only were the aid stations without cups, but the mythical Gleukos sports drink was nowhere to be found. When I asked one volunteer at mile 15, I got a “huh?” in return. I started to cramp pretty bad at this point so went into survival mode. I veered off course to the nearest field and grabbed a couple tomatoes remembering from my high school Botany class that tomatoes contained sodium. The two green tomatoes did not solve the cramping so I ran through a farmer’s pasture and happened upon a cow salt lick. Not wanting to lose my pace, I picked up the block of salt and continued on down the road licking frantically with about a dozen heifers in hot pursuit. Having satiated my salt craving I left the salt block on the side of the road for any fellow travelers behind me.
Around mile 20, the aid stations not only lacked cups, Gleukos, and Gu, but even volunteers. Mile markers were non-existent at this point in the race, so I relied on my Garmin and asking the handful of spectators milling around along the course how far from the finish I was. The Race Director toyed with our sanity by making us run past the finish line at mile 23 to do an out-n-back through the Camarillo International Airport (departures to Oxnard and Bakersfield every third Tuesday). I was able to see the Gang of Five looking strong with Chris leading the charge. My goal of qualifying for the Boston Marathon loomed near as I watched my race time inch towards 3:20, the qualifying time for my age group. I summoned all my reserves and pushed through the finish line posting a 3:20:17 (Boston gives you the extra 0:59 seconds), so I met my goal along with most of my compatriots.
Our team took home three podium spots, a few blisters, and some great memories. The post-event party, the one billed as being bigger than Burning Man, well, that was actually some guy making pancakes on a rusty BBQ grill. Oh, and those bands at every mile, they must have all be practicing for the National Mime Tour since I failed to see or hear a single one. I am really proud of my teammates for persevering through what can only be described as a very organizationally challenged marathon. Everyone finished with a smile or grimace on their faces, most of us qualified for Boston, and those that did not will be running again soon to meet their goals.
Note: I have to contrast my post-race recovery ritual with one of my teammates “Carrie”, a world class athlete who is one half of an uber couple in our race club. She took an ice bath, ate a nutritious lunch low in calories, and used an electrical stimulation recovery system on her drive home. I meanwhile, soaked in the hot tub, dined on In-and-Out Burger, and washed down 4 Advils with a beer.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Xterra Del Valle Long Course 5/8/10
Someone needs to invent a machine that allows the user to slap themselves upside the head when they feel the desire to do something potentially stupid. Often, there is not a spouse, mother, family pet, or complete stranger willing to perform this service, so a machine with easy to read directions would be extremely beneficial to those of us prone to poor decision making.
Case in point would have been the decision to sign up for this past Saturday’s Xterra Long Course Triathlon. I sure could have used that Head Slapper 2000 to smack some sense into me. What was I thinking? Yes, I have been on the bike quite a bit over the past few months, but not on the one with the knobby tires and big brakes to enable it to scream down rock strewn dirt cow paths at sphincter tightening speeds. Yes, I owned a Mt. Bike with said attributes, but had hardly even glanced at it for the past three years other than a cobweb shakeout ride last Wednesday. I’m sure my Mt. Bike felt like the old girlfriend who got dumped in favor of the hot new French exchange student, not hearing from me for years, only to be called up one night in a drunken stupor and asked what she was doing Saturday morning. And I will leave that analogy right there. You can fill in the rest.
Race morning was fairly uneventful with the rather civilized 9AM race start. I loaded up old Betsy, all shiny with a new coat of lube, onto the bike rack and headed out to Del Valle Reservoir. The event drew relatively small numbers, probably due to the high death consequences associated with the bike leg of the race. I ran into Lee Cannon while registering and later saw Monica Zucker, Chris McCrary, Dave Stark, and Scott Bergman setting up their gear. As I was laying out my stuff, I noticed a rather large, moderately battered gentleman racked near me. I tuned into the conversation around me and found out the guy was a UFC fighter from the Sacramento area. He competed in many of the Xterra events on the circuit. I made a mental note to be very careful whose feet I tapped in the swim or who I challenged on the bike for the good line. I also quietly moved my gear over to give him a tad more space. Hey, all in the name of good sportsmanship (and self preservation), right?
The swim was unremarkable other than the fact it was two loops bookending a painful pebble laced jog down the beach. The other notable aspect of the swim was the water temp. Compared to the shrinkage inducing temperature of Shadowcliffs and from what I heard, the glacial runoff temps of IM Saint George, the water temperature at Del Valle was positively tropical. The mass start of 120 racers was pretty tame compared to some races, I only took one elbow into the ribs, a foot into the kidneys, and an unidentifiable body part into back of my head (maybe that was a tardy head slap?). I kept a weary eye out for Mister UFC, but either he swam with the fishes up front or he had some poor age grouper in a reverse straight arm choke-out back on the beach.
Chris, Lee, and I came out of the swim together, but they had their act together in transition while I sat and tried to remember if the socks were suppose to go on my feet before my shoes. Once I had that puzzle solved, I tried putting gloves on wet hands without much success so I stuffed them in my jersey pockets and headed out. The bike course started out with a fairly flat section paralleling the shoreline, then took a hard right onto singletrack. Not having spent much time on 12 inch wide trails in many years, I freaked out a bit until I realized I was in front of about 6-8 riders and did not have many options other than to suck it up and ride the singletrack with some purpose. Exiting the single track we encountered the first of many, many, MANY hills requiring gearing so low that 5 pedal strokes got you only 1 wheel rotation. I quickly learned I needed to “ride the nose” of my saddle in order to keep enough weight on the rear tire, but also enough weight on the front tire so I did not go ass over teakettle back down the hill. The remainder of the course followed a similar pattern; a section of single track followed by an insanely steep climbing section, then a knuckle whitening descent, rinse, repeat. Just to keep it interesting, the race organizers tried to conserve resources by placing the minimum number of directional signs on the course leading to a comedy of sorts where no two race finishers probably rode the exact same race.
Towards the end of the bike leg, I found myself riding with Chris and Monica, Lee was off the front probably finished with the run and enjoying the post race BBQ. I followed my teammates down the final hills, but they gapped me due to their utter disregard for their own mortality and my healthy respect for my skin, unbroken bones, and continued ability to feed myself. On one rather steep section, somewhere between “steep” and “vertical”, I thought I had a good smooth line to the bottom of the hill so I let off the brakes and put a little trust in old Betsy to get me to the bottom intact. But, then I saw coming up in front of me, parallel ruts in the trail. At this point I had sort of an out of body experience. I was looking down on myself thinking, “wow, that dude down there is really going to eat sh*t, that’s going to really hurt”, but then I was down the hill and still breathing. Old Betsy had pulled me through it.
Fatigued from the bike, I spent longer in T2 than I should trying to remember which foot was my left one so I could put on my running shoes, in the end playing the odds and jamming a shoe on each foot. I exited transition somewhere between a crawl and a shuffle, but was able to crank it up to a jog when I saw a couple of cute spectators cheering me on. I ran by Sharon McCrary working the aid station at mile 3 and she was kind enough to lie to me and tell me Chris was “just up ahead” and “go get him”. If only my legs were still connected to some part of my conscious brain, I might have tried to close the gap, by every vital system including forward propulsion were on autopilot at that point. The race organizers believed hills were good for the soul, so they served up two rather meaty ones for us on the run. I truly believe they would have had us swim up a waterfall if they had had the choice.
By the end of the run, I had ramped up my pace to somewhere between Simon jogging barefoot over broken glass and Steve Chavez running backwards pulling Carrie in a bobsled. I crossed the finish line under the three hour mark, happy that I was still standing, had all of my skin intact and most of my pride, and a sense of satisfaction of finishing without taking a roundhouse to the head from Mr. UFC.
Case in point would have been the decision to sign up for this past Saturday’s Xterra Long Course Triathlon. I sure could have used that Head Slapper 2000 to smack some sense into me. What was I thinking? Yes, I have been on the bike quite a bit over the past few months, but not on the one with the knobby tires and big brakes to enable it to scream down rock strewn dirt cow paths at sphincter tightening speeds. Yes, I owned a Mt. Bike with said attributes, but had hardly even glanced at it for the past three years other than a cobweb shakeout ride last Wednesday. I’m sure my Mt. Bike felt like the old girlfriend who got dumped in favor of the hot new French exchange student, not hearing from me for years, only to be called up one night in a drunken stupor and asked what she was doing Saturday morning. And I will leave that analogy right there. You can fill in the rest.
Race morning was fairly uneventful with the rather civilized 9AM race start. I loaded up old Betsy, all shiny with a new coat of lube, onto the bike rack and headed out to Del Valle Reservoir. The event drew relatively small numbers, probably due to the high death consequences associated with the bike leg of the race. I ran into Lee Cannon while registering and later saw Monica Zucker, Chris McCrary, Dave Stark, and Scott Bergman setting up their gear. As I was laying out my stuff, I noticed a rather large, moderately battered gentleman racked near me. I tuned into the conversation around me and found out the guy was a UFC fighter from the Sacramento area. He competed in many of the Xterra events on the circuit. I made a mental note to be very careful whose feet I tapped in the swim or who I challenged on the bike for the good line. I also quietly moved my gear over to give him a tad more space. Hey, all in the name of good sportsmanship (and self preservation), right?
The swim was unremarkable other than the fact it was two loops bookending a painful pebble laced jog down the beach. The other notable aspect of the swim was the water temp. Compared to the shrinkage inducing temperature of Shadowcliffs and from what I heard, the glacial runoff temps of IM Saint George, the water temperature at Del Valle was positively tropical. The mass start of 120 racers was pretty tame compared to some races, I only took one elbow into the ribs, a foot into the kidneys, and an unidentifiable body part into back of my head (maybe that was a tardy head slap?). I kept a weary eye out for Mister UFC, but either he swam with the fishes up front or he had some poor age grouper in a reverse straight arm choke-out back on the beach.
Chris, Lee, and I came out of the swim together, but they had their act together in transition while I sat and tried to remember if the socks were suppose to go on my feet before my shoes. Once I had that puzzle solved, I tried putting gloves on wet hands without much success so I stuffed them in my jersey pockets and headed out. The bike course started out with a fairly flat section paralleling the shoreline, then took a hard right onto singletrack. Not having spent much time on 12 inch wide trails in many years, I freaked out a bit until I realized I was in front of about 6-8 riders and did not have many options other than to suck it up and ride the singletrack with some purpose. Exiting the single track we encountered the first of many, many, MANY hills requiring gearing so low that 5 pedal strokes got you only 1 wheel rotation. I quickly learned I needed to “ride the nose” of my saddle in order to keep enough weight on the rear tire, but also enough weight on the front tire so I did not go ass over teakettle back down the hill. The remainder of the course followed a similar pattern; a section of single track followed by an insanely steep climbing section, then a knuckle whitening descent, rinse, repeat. Just to keep it interesting, the race organizers tried to conserve resources by placing the minimum number of directional signs on the course leading to a comedy of sorts where no two race finishers probably rode the exact same race.
Towards the end of the bike leg, I found myself riding with Chris and Monica, Lee was off the front probably finished with the run and enjoying the post race BBQ. I followed my teammates down the final hills, but they gapped me due to their utter disregard for their own mortality and my healthy respect for my skin, unbroken bones, and continued ability to feed myself. On one rather steep section, somewhere between “steep” and “vertical”, I thought I had a good smooth line to the bottom of the hill so I let off the brakes and put a little trust in old Betsy to get me to the bottom intact. But, then I saw coming up in front of me, parallel ruts in the trail. At this point I had sort of an out of body experience. I was looking down on myself thinking, “wow, that dude down there is really going to eat sh*t, that’s going to really hurt”, but then I was down the hill and still breathing. Old Betsy had pulled me through it.
Fatigued from the bike, I spent longer in T2 than I should trying to remember which foot was my left one so I could put on my running shoes, in the end playing the odds and jamming a shoe on each foot. I exited transition somewhere between a crawl and a shuffle, but was able to crank it up to a jog when I saw a couple of cute spectators cheering me on. I ran by Sharon McCrary working the aid station at mile 3 and she was kind enough to lie to me and tell me Chris was “just up ahead” and “go get him”. If only my legs were still connected to some part of my conscious brain, I might have tried to close the gap, by every vital system including forward propulsion were on autopilot at that point. The race organizers believed hills were good for the soul, so they served up two rather meaty ones for us on the run. I truly believe they would have had us swim up a waterfall if they had had the choice.
By the end of the run, I had ramped up my pace to somewhere between Simon jogging barefoot over broken glass and Steve Chavez running backwards pulling Carrie in a bobsled. I crossed the finish line under the three hour mark, happy that I was still standing, had all of my skin intact and most of my pride, and a sense of satisfaction of finishing without taking a roundhouse to the head from Mr. UFC.
Monday, November 10, 2008
USAT Olympic Distance Triathlon Age-Group Nationals
Henry Hagg Lake, Portland, Oregon
I’ve been a bit delinquent on recapping an extraordinary weekend of racing against the best short course triathletes in the country. Immediately after returning from Portland, I had to hop on a plane for a short business trip to Chicago. I wish I could have just used the same suitcase as I had already packed for the race, but my clients would probably not be too impressed with me showing up in my tri top and shorts awash in various Gu and Gatorade stains and fermented in a musky ode de Durban. Hence, I was forced to repack the suitcase Sunday night with fresh undies and a few shirts that passed the sniff test.
I had every intention of sitting down over the weekend to recap Nationals, but I was first distracted by Mike and Clancy’s wedding (and frankly, I’m still a bit distracted thinking back to the bridesmaids’ dresses or lack thereof). Despite being a bit chilly outdoors at the Garre winery, when the wedding party entered, I believe the collective core temperatures went up a bit. Clancy and Mike have an eclectic group of friends who seemed to mesh well as the night progressed, helped I assume, by copious amounts of the local wine and little bottles of Patron tequila Mike was distributing. Although I did not see any triathlete Lycra or Spandex, I did spy plenty of leather and lace and more than one tattoo and piercing. By the end of the evening, many of the triathletes were giving the others advice on speedy transitions and the proper use of a Body Glide while they received recommendations for the best place to get M-dot tattoos and naval piercings.
Friday night was a failure, so I thought maybe I could squeeze in some time Saturday or Sunday to write my race report. The twins thought differently. Saturday was spent getting all the family hair trimmed, a task much more arduous and time consuming now that the Twins actually have hair. After surviving the Great Clip-off, we adjourned to Kelby’s 30th B-Day bash to help educate her on how to avoid the pitfalls of old age. It’s sad to think that just last week, Kelby was a vibrant, vivacious, 29 year old woman, with a positive outlook on life, then “wham” she hit 30. We had to delicately explain to her that it was all downhill from there, the best times were behind her, and she now was relegated to nights of falling asleep to Jay Leno, days spent buying Depends at Costco, and driving 40 MPH in the fast lane in a large beige Buick.
I thought I would get up early Sunday to work on my report, but the Twins beat me to the punch sounding the alarm at the butt crack of dawn. Even roosters have the sense to wait until there is some sunlight filtering over the horizon, but my Boys don’t roll that way. At some hour before 6AM, they greeted us with stereophonic screams delivered at the perfectly tuned pitch guaranteed to make the neighborhood dogs howl, loosen the bowels of the most constipated amongst us, and fracture the slim veneer of sanity I had managed to acquire after 4 meager hours of sleep.
Since my better half had to travel out of town leaving me to do my worst Dustin Hoffman impression on Monday, no progress on the race report was made or even attempted.
So, I sit now at my computer, with the memories of my first Nationals experience slowly fading into the chaotic jumble of my sleep deprived memory and attempt to peck out something coherent and witty. Here goes…
Last year, my good friend Jan suggested I go to National Age Group Championships with him. I had already qualified at the Rancho Seco Tri for Real, so I agreed. I planned my 2008 racing season to give me plenty of opportunities to polish my Oly racing skills. My coach, Patricia, returned to keep me focused and grounded. I hit the track with Steve and Carrie and had Simon drag me on weekly tempo runs. I even participated in an Endurance Performance “spin” class with Jan which was about as related to your local 24 Hour Fitness spin class as the Tour de France is related to a local bike race among 5 year olds on Big Wheels. For 90 minutes, I was clipped into my bike atop a Computrainer while my measly wattage output was displayed at the front of the room for all to ridicule and deride. Needless to say, it was a humbling experience, but constructive in that I realized I had some key work to do on my cadence and pedal stroke.
All the training culminated in the big race on September 20th at Hagg Lake near Portland. Jan and I decided to drive up there to avoid having our bikes disassembled by the airline gremlins and gorillas. Rather than taking a leisurely 1 hour flight, we opted for a 10 hour journey interrupted only by the occasional Denny’s Grand Slam breakfast or Arby’s beef and chedder. Our friend, Dave, joined our now two car caravan somewhere north of Sacramento. Somehow, his friends Jim and Lindy had convinced him to bring their bikes up to Portland for them, while they flew. Lucky, for Jim, he was not in Dave’s age group or I could have predicted Jim would have encountered some mysterious bike trouble mid-race.
The drive was fairly uneventful although anytime we smelled anything remotely like smoke, Jan started to tense up (reference my Pacific Crest race report for details). I assured him that I had brought along two fire extinguishers, a couple bottles of water, and in the case of another complete car-b-que, a bag of marshmallows. While Jan drove, I fired up my computer and we enjoyed the award winning “Harold and Kumar go to Guantanamo Bay”. We had to be careful since Jan almost rear-ended the car in front of us during some scenes when he was distracted by the scrotum wig and the untimely demise of Neil Patrick Harris. I would have hated to explain to the police officer why Jan crashed. Well, he was watching this movie see and this scene came on showing this guy with lots of hair…down there…you know what I mean? It looked like this short bald guy with a curly black afro. At that point, I think both of us would be getting a free ride to the local police station.
When we arrived in Portland, we found Moe to our Larry and Curly. Monica MZ joined us for the weekend to represent the Elite team and show us girly men how to race a triathlon and look fabulous doing it. We caught up with her for a fun night at the local Benihana for a little carbo loading of sushi and Sapporo. I made the major gaffe of the evening when a family seated at our table was celebrating a birthday. The waiter set the birthday cake in front of the young boy of the family and his Dad. After the singing, I asked in my best talking to a six year old voice “how old are you today Justin”. Well, it was not the boy’s birthday and the Dad answered in his baritone of a voice “32!”. From that point forward, 32 became the official number of the weekend.
Friday was filled with the usual pre-race preparations. We went out to Hagg lake which despite the advertisements is not anywhere near Portland. I think it was closer to Spokane than Portland. We registered and ran into about 523 people Monica knew, and then did a quick lap of the bike course. As we were toweling off from a short swim following our ride, I witnessed my first public male castration. Some poor schlep who had come to watch the kids and support his triathlete wife failed to move quickly enough for her. Apparently, he was supposed to be stripped down to his bathing suit and standing in the water in order to keep an eye on the kidlets who were playing at the water’s edge. Rather than quietly and discretely discussing her wishes with him, she broadcast it in front of 50 or so athletes. I think she would have been kinder if she had used a dull knife. Even Monica felt sorry for the guy.
Race morning was made extra anxiety ridden with a miles long back-up of cars waiting to park and then another long line of jittery Joes and Janes waiting to get on the bus to take us to the start line. I’m always fascinated by how serious and stressed triathletes are before a race. I’m sure I’m guilty of pre-race jitters, but I do try to remind myself that triathlon is not my job and the experience should be fun, not a chore and not something to chew out some hapless parking volunteer over. I think the poor guy’s intestines are still lying in that field after the evisceration he took at the hands of a not-so-nice age grouper.
Monica suffered a minor concussion when clueless Curt walked down the aisle of the bus with his helmet dangling from his backpack whacking every person on the right side of the bus in the back of the head. Jan and I were just happy that maybe a concussion would slow her down a bit and we would be able to keep our Man Card after the race.
The race was intense. I was able to stay in the middle of my age group throughout the race, picking up a few spots on the bike and the run; one hapless roadkill even met his fate 20 feet from the finish. This was Nationals afterall, so finisher’s chute roadkill was acceptable in my book. Dave and I traded off the lead on the bike what seemed like 20 times. Everytime I would pull a lead on him on one of the climbs, he would blow by me on the downhills. I finally was able to close the lid on him when we got to the run due to some motivation from Jan as he was finishing up and the fact Dave was suffering from a knee injury. He ran an admirable race coming in mere minutes behind me. Monica looked great in all her Diva-esque glory and Jan made all of us proud by qualifying for Worlds with an impressive 13th AG. Dean Harper, also of the Elite team won his age group and Hanns D. finished strong in his AG. I was proud of my race, but I will not be going to World’s next year unless I am motivated to try again in Tuscaloosa, AL. Although I’m not sure racing a triathlon in the backwaters of Alabama in a lycra tri suit with shaved legs is such a good idea. Is that banjo music I hear?
I’ve been a bit delinquent on recapping an extraordinary weekend of racing against the best short course triathletes in the country. Immediately after returning from Portland, I had to hop on a plane for a short business trip to Chicago. I wish I could have just used the same suitcase as I had already packed for the race, but my clients would probably not be too impressed with me showing up in my tri top and shorts awash in various Gu and Gatorade stains and fermented in a musky ode de Durban. Hence, I was forced to repack the suitcase Sunday night with fresh undies and a few shirts that passed the sniff test.
I had every intention of sitting down over the weekend to recap Nationals, but I was first distracted by Mike and Clancy’s wedding (and frankly, I’m still a bit distracted thinking back to the bridesmaids’ dresses or lack thereof). Despite being a bit chilly outdoors at the Garre winery, when the wedding party entered, I believe the collective core temperatures went up a bit. Clancy and Mike have an eclectic group of friends who seemed to mesh well as the night progressed, helped I assume, by copious amounts of the local wine and little bottles of Patron tequila Mike was distributing. Although I did not see any triathlete Lycra or Spandex, I did spy plenty of leather and lace and more than one tattoo and piercing. By the end of the evening, many of the triathletes were giving the others advice on speedy transitions and the proper use of a Body Glide while they received recommendations for the best place to get M-dot tattoos and naval piercings.
Friday night was a failure, so I thought maybe I could squeeze in some time Saturday or Sunday to write my race report. The twins thought differently. Saturday was spent getting all the family hair trimmed, a task much more arduous and time consuming now that the Twins actually have hair. After surviving the Great Clip-off, we adjourned to Kelby’s 30th B-Day bash to help educate her on how to avoid the pitfalls of old age. It’s sad to think that just last week, Kelby was a vibrant, vivacious, 29 year old woman, with a positive outlook on life, then “wham” she hit 30. We had to delicately explain to her that it was all downhill from there, the best times were behind her, and she now was relegated to nights of falling asleep to Jay Leno, days spent buying Depends at Costco, and driving 40 MPH in the fast lane in a large beige Buick.
I thought I would get up early Sunday to work on my report, but the Twins beat me to the punch sounding the alarm at the butt crack of dawn. Even roosters have the sense to wait until there is some sunlight filtering over the horizon, but my Boys don’t roll that way. At some hour before 6AM, they greeted us with stereophonic screams delivered at the perfectly tuned pitch guaranteed to make the neighborhood dogs howl, loosen the bowels of the most constipated amongst us, and fracture the slim veneer of sanity I had managed to acquire after 4 meager hours of sleep.
Since my better half had to travel out of town leaving me to do my worst Dustin Hoffman impression on Monday, no progress on the race report was made or even attempted.
So, I sit now at my computer, with the memories of my first Nationals experience slowly fading into the chaotic jumble of my sleep deprived memory and attempt to peck out something coherent and witty. Here goes…
Last year, my good friend Jan suggested I go to National Age Group Championships with him. I had already qualified at the Rancho Seco Tri for Real, so I agreed. I planned my 2008 racing season to give me plenty of opportunities to polish my Oly racing skills. My coach, Patricia, returned to keep me focused and grounded. I hit the track with Steve and Carrie and had Simon drag me on weekly tempo runs. I even participated in an Endurance Performance “spin” class with Jan which was about as related to your local 24 Hour Fitness spin class as the Tour de France is related to a local bike race among 5 year olds on Big Wheels. For 90 minutes, I was clipped into my bike atop a Computrainer while my measly wattage output was displayed at the front of the room for all to ridicule and deride. Needless to say, it was a humbling experience, but constructive in that I realized I had some key work to do on my cadence and pedal stroke.
All the training culminated in the big race on September 20th at Hagg Lake near Portland. Jan and I decided to drive up there to avoid having our bikes disassembled by the airline gremlins and gorillas. Rather than taking a leisurely 1 hour flight, we opted for a 10 hour journey interrupted only by the occasional Denny’s Grand Slam breakfast or Arby’s beef and chedder. Our friend, Dave, joined our now two car caravan somewhere north of Sacramento. Somehow, his friends Jim and Lindy had convinced him to bring their bikes up to Portland for them, while they flew. Lucky, for Jim, he was not in Dave’s age group or I could have predicted Jim would have encountered some mysterious bike trouble mid-race.
The drive was fairly uneventful although anytime we smelled anything remotely like smoke, Jan started to tense up (reference my Pacific Crest race report for details). I assured him that I had brought along two fire extinguishers, a couple bottles of water, and in the case of another complete car-b-que, a bag of marshmallows. While Jan drove, I fired up my computer and we enjoyed the award winning “Harold and Kumar go to Guantanamo Bay”. We had to be careful since Jan almost rear-ended the car in front of us during some scenes when he was distracted by the scrotum wig and the untimely demise of Neil Patrick Harris. I would have hated to explain to the police officer why Jan crashed. Well, he was watching this movie see and this scene came on showing this guy with lots of hair…down there…you know what I mean? It looked like this short bald guy with a curly black afro. At that point, I think both of us would be getting a free ride to the local police station.
When we arrived in Portland, we found Moe to our Larry and Curly. Monica MZ joined us for the weekend to represent the Elite team and show us girly men how to race a triathlon and look fabulous doing it. We caught up with her for a fun night at the local Benihana for a little carbo loading of sushi and Sapporo. I made the major gaffe of the evening when a family seated at our table was celebrating a birthday. The waiter set the birthday cake in front of the young boy of the family and his Dad. After the singing, I asked in my best talking to a six year old voice “how old are you today Justin”. Well, it was not the boy’s birthday and the Dad answered in his baritone of a voice “32!”. From that point forward, 32 became the official number of the weekend.
Friday was filled with the usual pre-race preparations. We went out to Hagg lake which despite the advertisements is not anywhere near Portland. I think it was closer to Spokane than Portland. We registered and ran into about 523 people Monica knew, and then did a quick lap of the bike course. As we were toweling off from a short swim following our ride, I witnessed my first public male castration. Some poor schlep who had come to watch the kids and support his triathlete wife failed to move quickly enough for her. Apparently, he was supposed to be stripped down to his bathing suit and standing in the water in order to keep an eye on the kidlets who were playing at the water’s edge. Rather than quietly and discretely discussing her wishes with him, she broadcast it in front of 50 or so athletes. I think she would have been kinder if she had used a dull knife. Even Monica felt sorry for the guy.
Race morning was made extra anxiety ridden with a miles long back-up of cars waiting to park and then another long line of jittery Joes and Janes waiting to get on the bus to take us to the start line. I’m always fascinated by how serious and stressed triathletes are before a race. I’m sure I’m guilty of pre-race jitters, but I do try to remind myself that triathlon is not my job and the experience should be fun, not a chore and not something to chew out some hapless parking volunteer over. I think the poor guy’s intestines are still lying in that field after the evisceration he took at the hands of a not-so-nice age grouper.
Monica suffered a minor concussion when clueless Curt walked down the aisle of the bus with his helmet dangling from his backpack whacking every person on the right side of the bus in the back of the head. Jan and I were just happy that maybe a concussion would slow her down a bit and we would be able to keep our Man Card after the race.
The race was intense. I was able to stay in the middle of my age group throughout the race, picking up a few spots on the bike and the run; one hapless roadkill even met his fate 20 feet from the finish. This was Nationals afterall, so finisher’s chute roadkill was acceptable in my book. Dave and I traded off the lead on the bike what seemed like 20 times. Everytime I would pull a lead on him on one of the climbs, he would blow by me on the downhills. I finally was able to close the lid on him when we got to the run due to some motivation from Jan as he was finishing up and the fact Dave was suffering from a knee injury. He ran an admirable race coming in mere minutes behind me. Monica looked great in all her Diva-esque glory and Jan made all of us proud by qualifying for Worlds with an impressive 13th AG. Dean Harper, also of the Elite team won his age group and Hanns D. finished strong in his AG. I was proud of my race, but I will not be going to World’s next year unless I am motivated to try again in Tuscaloosa, AL. Although I’m not sure racing a triathlon in the backwaters of Alabama in a lycra tri suit with shaved legs is such a good idea. Is that banjo music I hear?
Monday, August 18, 2008
My Man Card
After being with my wife Janine for 15 years, I’ve come to the realization, actually came to the realization long ago, that I’m not worthy of my membership in the man club. Occasionally I may open a jar or lift a heavy object (not too heavy mind you) or get us to our destination without asking for directions, but not nearly enough to assuage my fragile male ego and maintain my man certification in good standing.
When faced with a spouse or partner who consistently excels at an athletic pursuit you yourself also dabble in without the stellar results achieved by said spouse, most men resort to buying large trucks, growing a goatee, or riding a Harley Davidson. Oh, well, yes, I did buy and ride that crotch rocket motorcycle for a few years, but that does not count since I sold it to buy a Janine a new triathlon bike so she could go even faster.
What does this have to do with the TBF Tri 4 Real #3 Olympic distance triathlon this past Sunday you may ask? Well, what was left of my brittle id was shattered into tiny little pieces when Janine completed her trifecta of first place age group finishes to win the overall series title. She smashed the competition by over 20 minutes to win. She joins our own Elite triathlete Clancy as a series champion.
I’ve come to grips with the fact that Janine will be on the podium (despite popping out twins less than a year ago, being in Dara Torres age group, and working a full time job) and I will be taking the pictures from the crowd. Really, I’m OK with it, really. I don’t need my man card anymore anyways. What good is it other than for a discount at Hooters or 10% off motor oil at Kragens? I’m still a man, right? Just because my wife schools me everytime we race together doesn’t mean I’m any less of a man, does it? I still have that subscription to Maxim and can fix a leaky faucet (ah, c’mon, I only called my friend Randy twice for help with that faucet). Those things count, don’t they?
A few others joined us for Rancho Seco last weekend. Christy and Patrick were there with Christy going the distance and Patrick doing volunteer duty. Christy raced to a solid 23rd in her AG. Scott B. came out for his first TBF Tri 4 Real and knocked out a 19th AG, 73rd overall. Clancy scored a 4th AG despite more wedding planning than training the last few months. I eeked out a 6th AG and 15th OA with an improvement in my run time I credit to Tuesday morning track workouts and Friday morning tempo runs with Simon.
Janine offered to let me hold her series champion trophy and to even wear her series champion shirt to work on Monday, but these kind gestures were just not enough to repair my ego and restore my membership in the man club. I think my best plan is to accept my fate, be proud of Janine’s accomplishments, and keep training.
Although…I did hear there is a big sale on trucks down at the Chevy dealer.
When faced with a spouse or partner who consistently excels at an athletic pursuit you yourself also dabble in without the stellar results achieved by said spouse, most men resort to buying large trucks, growing a goatee, or riding a Harley Davidson. Oh, well, yes, I did buy and ride that crotch rocket motorcycle for a few years, but that does not count since I sold it to buy a Janine a new triathlon bike so she could go even faster.
What does this have to do with the TBF Tri 4 Real #3 Olympic distance triathlon this past Sunday you may ask? Well, what was left of my brittle id was shattered into tiny little pieces when Janine completed her trifecta of first place age group finishes to win the overall series title. She smashed the competition by over 20 minutes to win. She joins our own Elite triathlete Clancy as a series champion.
I’ve come to grips with the fact that Janine will be on the podium (despite popping out twins less than a year ago, being in Dara Torres age group, and working a full time job) and I will be taking the pictures from the crowd. Really, I’m OK with it, really. I don’t need my man card anymore anyways. What good is it other than for a discount at Hooters or 10% off motor oil at Kragens? I’m still a man, right? Just because my wife schools me everytime we race together doesn’t mean I’m any less of a man, does it? I still have that subscription to Maxim and can fix a leaky faucet (ah, c’mon, I only called my friend Randy twice for help with that faucet). Those things count, don’t they?
A few others joined us for Rancho Seco last weekend. Christy and Patrick were there with Christy going the distance and Patrick doing volunteer duty. Christy raced to a solid 23rd in her AG. Scott B. came out for his first TBF Tri 4 Real and knocked out a 19th AG, 73rd overall. Clancy scored a 4th AG despite more wedding planning than training the last few months. I eeked out a 6th AG and 15th OA with an improvement in my run time I credit to Tuesday morning track workouts and Friday morning tempo runs with Simon.
Janine offered to let me hold her series champion trophy and to even wear her series champion shirt to work on Monday, but these kind gestures were just not enough to repair my ego and restore my membership in the man club. I think my best plan is to accept my fate, be proud of Janine’s accomplishments, and keep training.
Although…I did hear there is a big sale on trucks down at the Chevy dealer.
Friday, July 25, 2008
TBF Tri 4 Real #2
Three of us represented FMRC at this past Sunday's TBF Tri 4 Real.Janine, Steve Sherman, and I battled the perfect weather, relativelyflat course, and great race organization to have a great time andtake home some schwag.My very talented wife, Janine, rocked the women's 40-44 age group to once again take home 1st place gold. Needless to say, with two 1stplace wins in the Tri 4 Real summer series, she stands an excellent chance of taking home the series prize. The last and final race is August 3rd.Steve came out for the first time to try his hand at the Rancho race. He raced to an impressive 8th AG and 52nd OA in his very competitve age group. He commented after the race that he particularly enjoyed the heat and dust during the second half of the run. I'm sure if he decided to come back in August, the conditions will meet his expectations even more. I had a mediocre swim, but was surprised to find I beat a friend from Masters, Dave Simons, out of the water and on to the bike. I was a bit dismayed when he went by me at mile 5, so I sucked it up and tried to stay with him. I kept about a 5 bike length gap with him until the turn around at mile 12, and then he disappeared. I hoped he had been abducted by aliens, but no such luck as I saw his bike in T2. Trying to stay with him did allow me to set a new PR on the bike, so not all was lost. I chased on the run and pulled backsome of his time coming in about 45 seconds behind him good for 4thAG and 11 OA.I thought as I got older my competition would either 1)get slower 2)quit triathlon to play more golf or 3) die off, but it seems they are just getting faster. The overall winner for the men was John Murphy from San Francisco with a time of 2:01. If he shows up next month, I'm thinking I'm going to have to call up Tonya Harding and see if her ex-husband can help me out otherwise I'm going to have to consider some doping.
Pacific Crest Triathlons 2008
We thought taking a road trip to Sunriver Oregon with our 10 month old twins would be a great way to relieve work and home stress. To even further increase the calming effects of our vacation we decided to each sign up for a triathlon. Janine imagined back in December she would have plenty of time to train for a ½ Ironman in between work travel, caring for the boys, and keeping me in line while I planned on doing an Oly a month to prepare for Age Group Nationals in September. The Pacific Crest triathlons were the perfect setup for our craziness. Janine would race on Saturday and I would push the boys around to see her and I would race on Sunday and she would sit in the air conditioned comfort of the cabin sipping Margaritas.
We invited our friends Jan, Jen, and Jayden because we wanted to maximize the J-ness of our trip. Jan was prepping for a sub-4:30 go at the Vineman 70.3 so he signed up for the ½ Ironman at Pac Crest while his wife went for the Olympic distance race to keep me company. 3-year old Jayden had his own event to plan for, entertaining two little boys for 6 days while their parents were off racing in the heat drenched high desert.
Preparing and packing for a 6 day road trip with twin infants is not quite the same as the planning and logistics of the Normandy invasion, but at times seemed awfully close. I started a few months ago when I realized getting two bikes, two babies, two feeding chairs, a double jog stroller, a portable crib, triathlon gear, clothes, food, and toys into anything smaller than a semi trailer was going to take either an act of organization worthy of the Berlin airlift or I was going to need a roof top carrier and a hitch rack. Thanks to the magic of the Internets, I soon had a Thule coffin shaped cargo box for the top of the Pacifica and nifty new hitch bicycle rack. I was pretty proud of myself at this point until I woke one morning and happen to be bending down behind the Pacifica to retrieve the morning paper and discovered it did not have a hitch. You would think that would have been the first thing I checked, but alas, it was not. I quickly scurried to my trusty laptop and looked up hitches. Lucky for me, before anyone could ask where I planned to plug in my nifty new hitch rack, I was at the local U-Haul having the hitch installed.
The day arrived quickly for our departure and the plan was to get up in the wee hours , transfer the boys, hopefully still sleeping, from their cribs to car seats, and get at least 4 hours of the drive under our belt before we received our stereo wake-up feed us now scream. All went according to plan except neither TriTwinMom nor I was prepared to drive at 3:30AM. Somehow we managed to make it Redding and a conveniently located Dennys. We pulled in, unloaded the boys, descended on the poor unsuspecting Denny’s denizens, and occupied a corner booth. After overcoming my shock that a Grand Slam breakfast was no longer $1.99 (it’s been awhile since I visited Dennys) we ordered and proceeded to feed the boys while they charmed the waitresses and customers alike. As a proud papa, I have to say our boys garnered the majority of attention from the wait staff to the detriment of the other patrons.
The remainder of the trip north passed smoothly with the boys alternating between sleeping, playing with Mom, and screaming for their next bottle. We all arrived safely in Sunriver and invaded, I mean moved into our rental cabin. We scoped out the courses, did a short swim , drove the bike course, and took the boys for a run to recon the run course. The weather was wonderful, but we kept hearing from the local news that a heat wave was coming on Saturday and Sunday just in time for the races.
Race morning for Janine and Jan did not come too early due to the very civilized 9AM start time. I shuttled them to Wikiup reservoir with Josh riding shotgun. Jake was still sleeping when we left the cabin, a phenomenon we had not experienced since he came into our lives. I dropped our long course competitors at the swim start and headed back to Sunriver. The Pacific Crest triathlons are point to point races, so there are separate T1 and T2s about 28 miles apart. The long course racers circumnavigate Mt. Bachelor between T1 and T2 while the Olympic competitors take the direct route to T2. Not long after arriving back at the cabin, in walks Janine with her bike in tow. Unfortunately, after a stellar swim, her crank arm decided to mutiny and jump ship at mile 10. She was able to negotiate a ride back to T1 and from there another ride in the Gear Truck to the Finish Line. The Finish was about ½ mile from the cabin, so she walked from there. Once home, most sane people would have called it quits, but Janine kept muttering something about getting her money’s worth and headed out to T2 to run the remaining half marathon. At this point the temperature was 97°F, she had a 2 mile run to reach T2 in her trail shoes, a switch to her racing flats, then a half marathon in scorching heat and 4000 foot altitude. She ran a respectful sub 2 hour half and received her finisher’s medal and t-shirt. I offered to cut 1/3rd from the medal and shirt, but she was still annoyed with my bike maintenance skills or lack thereof that allowed her crank arm to fall off and threatened me with bodily harm.
After cracking 5 hours at Wildflower, Jan set a new goal of going sub 4:45 in a half Ironman, so needless to say he was a stress monkey up until race day. He played footsie with the lead swimmers and came out of the water with the race leaders, then set a blistering pace on the bike averaging an amazing 30 MPH on the last 18 miles of the bike (it is partially downhill, but still…). He suffered on the run due to killing himself on the bike, but managed a sub 1:35 for the half marathon. He met his goal of breaking 4:45 by coming in 4:44 good for 3rd in his Age Group and 15th overall. The overall winner of the race, Matt Lieto, also in Jan’s 30-34 AG, finished in an astounding 4:10.
My race the next day was pretty straightforward. I had a good swim, although I think it might have been a bit long evidenced by my and my competitor’s times. The bike was extremely fast with a good 12-15 miles being either flat or downhill. I fell into the trap of riding much harder and faster lured by my bike computer flashing 30…31…32 MPH for such a long period of time. When I arrived at T2, I was done. My legs felt like they had been drained of go juice, so I literally slogged the first few miles of the 10K. Seeing Janine and the boys at mile 2 and having Jan yell something about moving my arms helped spur me on. I finished with the temperatures already hitting the high 90’s and was pleasantly surprised I placed 3rd in my AG and 9th overall. My prize was a nice Widmer pint glass and a coupon for a free beer. I would not recommend a beer shortly after a race as proper recovery fuel or hydration, but it sure tasted good. Apparently another competitor in my AG was found in the middle of the night and his chip time placed him in front of me, so the official results say I came in 4th, but I’m keeping my medal and glass and good luck getting any of that beer back. Jan’s wife, Jennifer, racing for the 1st time in 5 years and only having ridden her bike outdoors twice before the race, cracked the top ten in her AG.
Normally a race report would end after the race ended, but not in this case. We stayed in Sunriver for an additional 3 days to do a little biking, swimming, and hiking with the boys. Our remaining time was uneventful except for 1 attack by carnivorous mosquitoes and a close encountered with a cell-phone using, cigarette smoking, loudmouth jackass while we tried to have a nice picnic next to the Deschutes river. We deployed to another location and had a pleasant time. The eventful part of our post-race experience came when we started the return home process.
Jan, Jen, and Jayden left Sunriver about 1 ½ hours before we were able to mobilize. When we finally hit the road, we received a call from Jan informing us that their car was on fire. I said “ha ha, funny joke”, but he replied, “no joke, our car will probably be ashes by the time you get here”. He was right, when we arrived; we witnessed the very sad sight of the three of them standing on the side of the road just north of Klamath Falls, next o a pile of their belongings and the smoldering remains of their 2001 Dodge Intrepid. We slowed down so we could properly rubberneck and held out some marshmallows to take advantage of the nice carbeque. I don’t think they saw the humor in it, but they were in surprising good spirits. Somehow we managed to get them and all of their belongings down to the Hertz counter at the Klamath Falls Airport so they could rent a car. After settling with the rental company, the tow truck company, and the fire department, we all went out for some lunch. When I asked them where they would like to eat, they said anything was fine…just not BBQ!
We invited our friends Jan, Jen, and Jayden because we wanted to maximize the J-ness of our trip. Jan was prepping for a sub-4:30 go at the Vineman 70.3 so he signed up for the ½ Ironman at Pac Crest while his wife went for the Olympic distance race to keep me company. 3-year old Jayden had his own event to plan for, entertaining two little boys for 6 days while their parents were off racing in the heat drenched high desert.
Preparing and packing for a 6 day road trip with twin infants is not quite the same as the planning and logistics of the Normandy invasion, but at times seemed awfully close. I started a few months ago when I realized getting two bikes, two babies, two feeding chairs, a double jog stroller, a portable crib, triathlon gear, clothes, food, and toys into anything smaller than a semi trailer was going to take either an act of organization worthy of the Berlin airlift or I was going to need a roof top carrier and a hitch rack. Thanks to the magic of the Internets, I soon had a Thule coffin shaped cargo box for the top of the Pacifica and nifty new hitch bicycle rack. I was pretty proud of myself at this point until I woke one morning and happen to be bending down behind the Pacifica to retrieve the morning paper and discovered it did not have a hitch. You would think that would have been the first thing I checked, but alas, it was not. I quickly scurried to my trusty laptop and looked up hitches. Lucky for me, before anyone could ask where I planned to plug in my nifty new hitch rack, I was at the local U-Haul having the hitch installed.
The day arrived quickly for our departure and the plan was to get up in the wee hours , transfer the boys, hopefully still sleeping, from their cribs to car seats, and get at least 4 hours of the drive under our belt before we received our stereo wake-up feed us now scream. All went according to plan except neither TriTwinMom nor I was prepared to drive at 3:30AM. Somehow we managed to make it Redding and a conveniently located Dennys. We pulled in, unloaded the boys, descended on the poor unsuspecting Denny’s denizens, and occupied a corner booth. After overcoming my shock that a Grand Slam breakfast was no longer $1.99 (it’s been awhile since I visited Dennys) we ordered and proceeded to feed the boys while they charmed the waitresses and customers alike. As a proud papa, I have to say our boys garnered the majority of attention from the wait staff to the detriment of the other patrons.
The remainder of the trip north passed smoothly with the boys alternating between sleeping, playing with Mom, and screaming for their next bottle. We all arrived safely in Sunriver and invaded, I mean moved into our rental cabin. We scoped out the courses, did a short swim , drove the bike course, and took the boys for a run to recon the run course. The weather was wonderful, but we kept hearing from the local news that a heat wave was coming on Saturday and Sunday just in time for the races.
Race morning for Janine and Jan did not come too early due to the very civilized 9AM start time. I shuttled them to Wikiup reservoir with Josh riding shotgun. Jake was still sleeping when we left the cabin, a phenomenon we had not experienced since he came into our lives. I dropped our long course competitors at the swim start and headed back to Sunriver. The Pacific Crest triathlons are point to point races, so there are separate T1 and T2s about 28 miles apart. The long course racers circumnavigate Mt. Bachelor between T1 and T2 while the Olympic competitors take the direct route to T2. Not long after arriving back at the cabin, in walks Janine with her bike in tow. Unfortunately, after a stellar swim, her crank arm decided to mutiny and jump ship at mile 10. She was able to negotiate a ride back to T1 and from there another ride in the Gear Truck to the Finish Line. The Finish was about ½ mile from the cabin, so she walked from there. Once home, most sane people would have called it quits, but Janine kept muttering something about getting her money’s worth and headed out to T2 to run the remaining half marathon. At this point the temperature was 97°F, she had a 2 mile run to reach T2 in her trail shoes, a switch to her racing flats, then a half marathon in scorching heat and 4000 foot altitude. She ran a respectful sub 2 hour half and received her finisher’s medal and t-shirt. I offered to cut 1/3rd from the medal and shirt, but she was still annoyed with my bike maintenance skills or lack thereof that allowed her crank arm to fall off and threatened me with bodily harm.
After cracking 5 hours at Wildflower, Jan set a new goal of going sub 4:45 in a half Ironman, so needless to say he was a stress monkey up until race day. He played footsie with the lead swimmers and came out of the water with the race leaders, then set a blistering pace on the bike averaging an amazing 30 MPH on the last 18 miles of the bike (it is partially downhill, but still…). He suffered on the run due to killing himself on the bike, but managed a sub 1:35 for the half marathon. He met his goal of breaking 4:45 by coming in 4:44 good for 3rd in his Age Group and 15th overall. The overall winner of the race, Matt Lieto, also in Jan’s 30-34 AG, finished in an astounding 4:10.
My race the next day was pretty straightforward. I had a good swim, although I think it might have been a bit long evidenced by my and my competitor’s times. The bike was extremely fast with a good 12-15 miles being either flat or downhill. I fell into the trap of riding much harder and faster lured by my bike computer flashing 30…31…32 MPH for such a long period of time. When I arrived at T2, I was done. My legs felt like they had been drained of go juice, so I literally slogged the first few miles of the 10K. Seeing Janine and the boys at mile 2 and having Jan yell something about moving my arms helped spur me on. I finished with the temperatures already hitting the high 90’s and was pleasantly surprised I placed 3rd in my AG and 9th overall. My prize was a nice Widmer pint glass and a coupon for a free beer. I would not recommend a beer shortly after a race as proper recovery fuel or hydration, but it sure tasted good. Apparently another competitor in my AG was found in the middle of the night and his chip time placed him in front of me, so the official results say I came in 4th, but I’m keeping my medal and glass and good luck getting any of that beer back. Jan’s wife, Jennifer, racing for the 1st time in 5 years and only having ridden her bike outdoors twice before the race, cracked the top ten in her AG.
Normally a race report would end after the race ended, but not in this case. We stayed in Sunriver for an additional 3 days to do a little biking, swimming, and hiking with the boys. Our remaining time was uneventful except for 1 attack by carnivorous mosquitoes and a close encountered with a cell-phone using, cigarette smoking, loudmouth jackass while we tried to have a nice picnic next to the Deschutes river. We deployed to another location and had a pleasant time. The eventful part of our post-race experience came when we started the return home process.
Jan, Jen, and Jayden left Sunriver about 1 ½ hours before we were able to mobilize. When we finally hit the road, we received a call from Jan informing us that their car was on fire. I said “ha ha, funny joke”, but he replied, “no joke, our car will probably be ashes by the time you get here”. He was right, when we arrived; we witnessed the very sad sight of the three of them standing on the side of the road just north of Klamath Falls, next o a pile of their belongings and the smoldering remains of their 2001 Dodge Intrepid. We slowed down so we could properly rubberneck and held out some marshmallows to take advantage of the nice carbeque. I don’t think they saw the humor in it, but they were in surprising good spirits. Somehow we managed to get them and all of their belongings down to the Hertz counter at the Klamath Falls Airport so they could rent a car. After settling with the rental company, the tow truck company, and the fire department, we all went out for some lunch. When I asked them where they would like to eat, they said anything was fine…just not BBQ!
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Remiss
I've been very remiss in my posting of late. As you all know, we doubled the size of our family. We now have a strong triathlon team with an alternate in case Dad isn't racing fast enough. The baby Tricyclists are doing great, they are already out-pacing Mom and Dad in the important training discipline of recovery sleep. The little ones are logging a good 18-20 hours of sleep a day while Mom and Dad are happy with their 4 to 6 hours. Ahh, life is good.
We've mastered the double jog stroller, even dragging our four legged family member along for the run. Last weekend the entire squad knocked out a good 12-miler, although I think the boys slept through most of it.
I commented to a friend before the boys arrived stating "how hard could it (parenthood) be, I've done an Ironman!" When I dragged myself to work the other day and was nodding off in a mid morning meeting, she reminded me of those fateful words. Wow, what a stupid thing to say!
We've mastered the double jog stroller, even dragging our four legged family member along for the run. Last weekend the entire squad knocked out a good 12-miler, although I think the boys slept through most of it.
I commented to a friend before the boys arrived stating "how hard could it (parenthood) be, I've done an Ironman!" When I dragged myself to work the other day and was nodding off in a mid morning meeting, she reminded me of those fateful words. Wow, what a stupid thing to say!
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Tricyclists X 2
The Tricyclist family has doubled! Two new tricycles arrived last week. They are already in training for the next big fun adventure. I can tell they will be much faster swimmers than Dad with an impressive 4 foot arm span and ankles that actually bend to the horizontal, again unlike Dad's, making them perfectly suited for future triathlon glory. Mrs. Tricyclist is recovering nicely, although I had to hide her running shoes, bike cleats, and goggles so she would actually get some much earned rest. She's itching to start training again so she can show the boys how Mommy can wup Daddy's butt. Dad is still in a bit of shock wondering how he could possibly have helped produce two such perfect little guys.
My Blog:
I've created this blog to have a place to share the various stories I've written over the years about the athletic (and not so athletic) adventures my wife and I have pursued. We are both competitive age-group triathletes: Mrs. Tricyclist is certainly the one with more talent and more 1st place trophies.
My race stories are more than just a play by play recap of the day's events. I try to interject some humor and observations about the people and places we encounter as we walk and race down lifes' roads. I will also occasionally toss in a story unrelated to triathlons or running, just to keep things interesting.
I will be adding new content over the next few days plus uploading some of my classic stories from the Hood to Coast Relay, Athens Marathon, and other adventures.
Hope you enjoy. Please leave a comment and let me know you stopped by.
My Blog:
I've created this blog to have a place to share the various stories I've written over the years about the athletic (and not so athletic) adventures my wife and I have pursued. We are both competitive age-group triathletes: Mrs. Tricyclist is certainly the one with more talent and more 1st place trophies.
My race stories are more than just a play by play recap of the day's events. I try to interject some humor and observations about the people and places we encounter as we walk and race down lifes' roads. I will also occasionally toss in a story unrelated to triathlons or running, just to keep things interesting.
I will be adding new content over the next few days plus uploading some of my classic stories from the Hood to Coast Relay, Athens Marathon, and other adventures.
Hope you enjoy. Please leave a comment and let me know you stopped by.
The Right Spin
The Right Spin
spin: to cause to have a particular bias; influence in a certain direction; to pedal in a smooth even circle.
I often supplement my triathlon training with an indoor cycling class called “spinning”. Thirty to fifty gym goers cram themselves into a converted aerobics studio adorned in their best Lycra and Spandex to pedal furiously in place to the pre-recorded sound track chosen by the perky purveyor of pedal prowess, the spin instructor. One of my friends, Tom, makes his living as a spin instructor while another, Steve, supplements his triathlon addiction with twice weekly forays into spin instructordom. He holds down a well paying day job in the tech sector, but due to the triathlon monkey riding on his back, he is forced to spin for money at a local health club.
Tom has perfected the art of spin. His classes are the only ones I know that require students to line up days in advance to get a bike. For his special themed spin events, some students have been known to pay line sitters to queue up days in advance camping overnight in front of the spin studio living off Powerbar crumbs and left over sports drinks. Tom has been known to hold Valentine spin classes, Christmas and Halloween classes, a Rocky Horror Picture Show class, and the famous Saturday Night Live spin class. All the classes require students to conform their dress to the theme causing many a strange site at the gym. For this past Valentine’s spin class, I wore my trusty red t-shirt with the slogan “I may not be pretty, but I can lift heavy things” emblazoned across the front. As I walked to the studio to relieve my line sitter, I was passed by a 225 lb Cupid dressed only in a diaper, golden wings, a little bow and arrow, and a matting of body hair that challenged a hirsute grizzly bear. If that was not nightmare worthy enough, the same fellow attended the Rocky Horror class wearing even less in the lead role of Rocky and sporting even more body hair glistening with a healthy application of baby oil.
As I have learned over the years, there is more than one kind of spin. I’ve worked in marketing for over 15 years now. I make my living creating the right spin for a variety of products ranging from blood tests for early detection of cancer to products that allow people with COPD to breathe easier. Some of my peers have spent their careers marketing such fascinating products as KC Masterpiece BBQ Sauce, Bleach, Combat Ant & Roach Traps, and Kingsford Charcoal. Believe it or not, all these products are manufactured by the same company, Clorox. I realize marketing is not as glamorous a career as say a neurosurgeon, a firefighter, an astronaut (even a depends wearing, cross country driving, sociopathic one), or a reality TV star, but I like to think that I market products to improve the quality of life for people. I suppose my peers at Clorox can say the same thing, but I still struggle with the societal benefits of Pine Scented Bleach or KC Masterpiece BBQ Sauce with Real Hickory Smoke Flavor. Maybe Clorox should start combining some of their products; like for example, charcoal and BBQ sauce. They could launch a new line of KC Masterpiece Flavored Kingsford Charcoal. I can just see the advertisements “Forget the hassle of marinating your meat for hours or endlessly brushing on sauce while you grill…Introducing KC Masterpiece Flavored Charcoal…the latest invention from the grill masters at Kingsford”. Or, who could resist Combat Roach Traps – Now with Pine Scented Bleach for easy clean-up and odor control. Or Clorox could even go for that breakthrough innovation – Combat Ant & Roach Traps infused with all the BBQ goodness of KC Masterpiece. Your ant and roach problems are solved and the little critters go to the big roach motel in the sky with BBQ smeared smiles. This kind of out of the box thinking would certainly move my Clorox peers up the ladder of societal benefit, if not a full rung, at least half a rung.
We all spin in one way or another. Lately, if you have been paying attention to the news, spin has almost become synonymous with “lying” or “malicious misdirection”. The elegant art of spin has become corrupted by those who wish to avoid the negative fallout of poor decisions or cover-up some nefarious scandal. Spin Doctors are brought in to apply a nice shiny coat to the scandal plagued and ethically challenged. These spinners dishonor the purity of spin and sour all of us on the noble art.
Whether you spin for exercise or you spin for a living; balance, integrity, character, and making perfect little circles with your feet are key to maintaining a positive spin on life.
spin: to cause to have a particular bias; influence in a certain direction; to pedal in a smooth even circle.
I often supplement my triathlon training with an indoor cycling class called “spinning”. Thirty to fifty gym goers cram themselves into a converted aerobics studio adorned in their best Lycra and Spandex to pedal furiously in place to the pre-recorded sound track chosen by the perky purveyor of pedal prowess, the spin instructor. One of my friends, Tom, makes his living as a spin instructor while another, Steve, supplements his triathlon addiction with twice weekly forays into spin instructordom. He holds down a well paying day job in the tech sector, but due to the triathlon monkey riding on his back, he is forced to spin for money at a local health club.
Tom has perfected the art of spin. His classes are the only ones I know that require students to line up days in advance to get a bike. For his special themed spin events, some students have been known to pay line sitters to queue up days in advance camping overnight in front of the spin studio living off Powerbar crumbs and left over sports drinks. Tom has been known to hold Valentine spin classes, Christmas and Halloween classes, a Rocky Horror Picture Show class, and the famous Saturday Night Live spin class. All the classes require students to conform their dress to the theme causing many a strange site at the gym. For this past Valentine’s spin class, I wore my trusty red t-shirt with the slogan “I may not be pretty, but I can lift heavy things” emblazoned across the front. As I walked to the studio to relieve my line sitter, I was passed by a 225 lb Cupid dressed only in a diaper, golden wings, a little bow and arrow, and a matting of body hair that challenged a hirsute grizzly bear. If that was not nightmare worthy enough, the same fellow attended the Rocky Horror class wearing even less in the lead role of Rocky and sporting even more body hair glistening with a healthy application of baby oil.
As I have learned over the years, there is more than one kind of spin. I’ve worked in marketing for over 15 years now. I make my living creating the right spin for a variety of products ranging from blood tests for early detection of cancer to products that allow people with COPD to breathe easier. Some of my peers have spent their careers marketing such fascinating products as KC Masterpiece BBQ Sauce, Bleach, Combat Ant & Roach Traps, and Kingsford Charcoal. Believe it or not, all these products are manufactured by the same company, Clorox. I realize marketing is not as glamorous a career as say a neurosurgeon, a firefighter, an astronaut (even a depends wearing, cross country driving, sociopathic one), or a reality TV star, but I like to think that I market products to improve the quality of life for people. I suppose my peers at Clorox can say the same thing, but I still struggle with the societal benefits of Pine Scented Bleach or KC Masterpiece BBQ Sauce with Real Hickory Smoke Flavor. Maybe Clorox should start combining some of their products; like for example, charcoal and BBQ sauce. They could launch a new line of KC Masterpiece Flavored Kingsford Charcoal. I can just see the advertisements “Forget the hassle of marinating your meat for hours or endlessly brushing on sauce while you grill…Introducing KC Masterpiece Flavored Charcoal…the latest invention from the grill masters at Kingsford”. Or, who could resist Combat Roach Traps – Now with Pine Scented Bleach for easy clean-up and odor control. Or Clorox could even go for that breakthrough innovation – Combat Ant & Roach Traps infused with all the BBQ goodness of KC Masterpiece. Your ant and roach problems are solved and the little critters go to the big roach motel in the sky with BBQ smeared smiles. This kind of out of the box thinking would certainly move my Clorox peers up the ladder of societal benefit, if not a full rung, at least half a rung.
We all spin in one way or another. Lately, if you have been paying attention to the news, spin has almost become synonymous with “lying” or “malicious misdirection”. The elegant art of spin has become corrupted by those who wish to avoid the negative fallout of poor decisions or cover-up some nefarious scandal. Spin Doctors are brought in to apply a nice shiny coat to the scandal plagued and ethically challenged. These spinners dishonor the purity of spin and sour all of us on the noble art.
Whether you spin for exercise or you spin for a living; balance, integrity, character, and making perfect little circles with your feet are key to maintaining a positive spin on life.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Redwoods Ho!
Sunday mornings are typically reserved for sleeping in, reading the paper, filling up the kids with sugar laden breakfast cereal, and/or annoying your neighbors with the cacophony of your lawn mower. Triathletes and runners are different. Sleeping in is sleeping until 6AM, our kids get their best quality sleep and do their dining in the back seat of the car on the way to a race or in the jog stroller, and our lawns are usually overgrown.
This past Sunday, my friend Liesbeth Brouwer and I hit the road at the butt crack of dawn to drive to Felton for the annual Race thru the Redwoods 10K. Yes, I know, we violated the strict race distance to distance to race ratio rule, but the Redwood run promised high schwag potential and a post race pancake breakfast. We felt if we walked away with a podium finish, a t-shirt, and at least 3 pancakes, the one hour drive was justified.
The city of Felton, home of the Roaring Camp Railroad and more redwood trees than people, hosted the annual 10K. Literally 10’s of people drive from locales as distant as Santa Cruz and Boulder Creek (5 miles away) to compete in this epic event. The course features a flat and fast paved first mile, then dumps the competitors onto dusty single track followed by a monster hill at mile 2.5. I was able to hang on by the skin of my teeth behind Liesbeth for the first 2 miles while she clocked a 6:25 and 6:30. She told me afterwards that she felt her start was a bit on the slow side, while I felt like the wheels were going to fly off at any moment.
We hit the monster hill and queued up for the slog skyward. I took the opportunity offered by the drop in pace to begin breathing normally again and bolting the wheels back on. I noticed Liesbeth was walking up ahead of me, but despite doing what I thought qualified as running, she continued to gap me. Since I had run this race once previously, I had tried to describe the course to Liesbeth, although I failed to “remember” the monster hill had at least two false summits. When we hit the second false summit, Liesbeth backed off a bit to recover and prepare for the long downhill to the finish. I charged by. When the last steep pitch of the hill appeared around the corner, Liesbeth was in downhill mode while I was still in uphill mode.
Once I cleared the hill, I tried to get my legs to turn-over, but they refused. I stumbled through the next few miles, and then finally found the rhythm at mile 5. I kept looking up ahead to see if any other 40 year old runners were within road kill range, but only saw infants and toddlers.
I finished just in front of the 3rd place female, slightly mitigating the damage to my fragile male ego. Liesbeth was hot on my heels and would have caught and passed me if I had not employed the “shuffle the feet and create lots of dust clouds” tactic in the last mile. She pulled out a 1st place AG and 4th place OA while I managed a 3rd AG.
As we waited for our podium schwag, we both won raffle prizes of $50 cash each. We picked up our medals then headed over for the post-race nosh. The Felton Volunteer Fire Department served us an excellent pancake, sausage, and omelet breakfast. While dining, I noticed there was plentiful fireman eye-candy for Liesbeth in addition to the pancakes, but I had to be satisfied with a second serving of sausage. Good times.
This past Sunday, my friend Liesbeth Brouwer and I hit the road at the butt crack of dawn to drive to Felton for the annual Race thru the Redwoods 10K. Yes, I know, we violated the strict race distance to distance to race ratio rule, but the Redwood run promised high schwag potential and a post race pancake breakfast. We felt if we walked away with a podium finish, a t-shirt, and at least 3 pancakes, the one hour drive was justified.
The city of Felton, home of the Roaring Camp Railroad and more redwood trees than people, hosted the annual 10K. Literally 10’s of people drive from locales as distant as Santa Cruz and Boulder Creek (5 miles away) to compete in this epic event. The course features a flat and fast paved first mile, then dumps the competitors onto dusty single track followed by a monster hill at mile 2.5. I was able to hang on by the skin of my teeth behind Liesbeth for the first 2 miles while she clocked a 6:25 and 6:30. She told me afterwards that she felt her start was a bit on the slow side, while I felt like the wheels were going to fly off at any moment.
We hit the monster hill and queued up for the slog skyward. I took the opportunity offered by the drop in pace to begin breathing normally again and bolting the wheels back on. I noticed Liesbeth was walking up ahead of me, but despite doing what I thought qualified as running, she continued to gap me. Since I had run this race once previously, I had tried to describe the course to Liesbeth, although I failed to “remember” the monster hill had at least two false summits. When we hit the second false summit, Liesbeth backed off a bit to recover and prepare for the long downhill to the finish. I charged by. When the last steep pitch of the hill appeared around the corner, Liesbeth was in downhill mode while I was still in uphill mode.
Once I cleared the hill, I tried to get my legs to turn-over, but they refused. I stumbled through the next few miles, and then finally found the rhythm at mile 5. I kept looking up ahead to see if any other 40 year old runners were within road kill range, but only saw infants and toddlers.
I finished just in front of the 3rd place female, slightly mitigating the damage to my fragile male ego. Liesbeth was hot on my heels and would have caught and passed me if I had not employed the “shuffle the feet and create lots of dust clouds” tactic in the last mile. She pulled out a 1st place AG and 4th place OA while I managed a 3rd AG.
As we waited for our podium schwag, we both won raffle prizes of $50 cash each. We picked up our medals then headed over for the post-race nosh. The Felton Volunteer Fire Department served us an excellent pancake, sausage, and omelet breakfast. While dining, I noticed there was plentiful fireman eye-candy for Liesbeth in addition to the pancakes, but I had to be satisfied with a second serving of sausage. Good times.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Nucleathlon – Rancho Seco Recap 2007
On a lonely stretch of wind swept highway, between the towns of Galt and Ione, a now defunct nuclear power plant looms over vineyards, small cattle ranches, and the venue for a series of sprint and Olympic distance triathlons. If you have no idea where Galt or Ione are located, you are not alone. These hamlets are located at about the point you lose your Bay Area radio stations on the drive to Tahoe at which you frantically search the dial in a futile attempt to find anything not country before you send your significant other over the front seats into the back of the car in search of your collection “Best of Disco” CDs.
In the lake once meant to be the back-up cooling source for the Rancho Seco Nuclear Power Station, race organizers Total Body Fitness stage a summer series of races.
Now, I personally would not immediately pick a nuclear power plant as the site for a triathlon unless you believe free genetic mutations would be a good draw, but then again, I’m not a Race Director, so what do I know. Maybe it isn’t such a bad idea to bill the venue as an alternative to performance enhancing drugs. I can see the ads now, “Race at Rancho Seco, your kids will be faster with four arms, and run so much faster with three legs!” European cycling teams might even send their development teams over for a good dose of radiation and genetic manipulation. Hey, radiation seemed to work for that Lance guy.
Regardless of the motivations for choosing the site for the race, the folks at TBF run a great series of events. Each month from June to August, they stage a sprint distance Tri for Fun on Saturday followed by an Olympic distance Tri for Real race on Sunday. To ensure future revenues, TBF also hosts a Tri for Kids Sunday morning for the little tykes. In all honesty, I am a bit intimidated by the youngsters. Most of them had bikes that cost not only more than my bike, but I suspect cost more than my car. I saw more aero helmets on the tots than I saw on the FOGs and I think one kid was taking in packed red cells prior to his wave start. Another kid was sponsored by Amgen, so I suspect he had a future in professional sports. I didn’t want to accuse anyone of doping, but I did spy one young lass of about 8 years old shaving and it was not her legs.
The swim is a fairly tame affair; nothing like the chaos and anarchy of a Wildflower or Ironman event. The lake is clear enough to spot three eyed fish, those allusive WMDs, and last year’s competitors. The buoys are easy enough to see although spotting the first turn buoy is not necessary since the 20 story nuclear power plant cooling tower looms directly over it. If anyone gets lost on the first leg of the swim, then they are more navigationally challenged than I am. Many of us wore our streamlined horizontal flotation devices or wetsuits for the swim despite the high 70’s low 80’s water temperature. There’s nothing like bringing yourself to a slow boil over the course of 1500 meters in a full wetsuit, but hey, I’m faster with it than without it. I even saw one guy wearing a squid lid, a neoprene swim cap designed for cold water swimming. Since the water was so warm, I can only surmise that he had a very large noggin and needed the added flotation afforded by the cap.
Transitions are fast at TBF races. For those racers who require extra amenities during transitions like showers, massages, and large screen TVs, the race organizers provide ample racks and plenty of room to spread out. Truthfully, transitions under a minute are the norm due to the prime location of the area within a hundred yards of the swim exit.
The bike is a quick out and back with a few rollers thrown in for variety. I would rate the road surface as ranging from moderately crappy to downright harrowing at the point where an ancient set of railroad tracks crosses the road. The pits on either side of the tracks still contain bottles, tubes, teeth, miscellaneous bike and body parts, and possibly a USAT official or two from years of hapless triathletes careening cross the craters. After successfully negotiating the train tracks of death not once, but twice, you are treated to a fast return trip to the park with the ever present cooling towers marking the way.
TBF has constructed an entertaining run course. It starts off on a wide undulating fire road that then dumps you onto the park entrance road for a short out and back segment. The ever present cooling towers loom over you as you make the turnaround at about mile 3. The return trip is on some fun single track that twists and turns its way along the edge of the lake, across little bridges, and through a few open meadows. One thing I’ve learned after two incidents (you would think I would have learned the first time), was that trying to do a sharp turn at full run speed on dried prairie grass will, 9 times out of 10, land you on your arse with tri-shorts full of dirt and weeds. The first time it happened I tried to blame the ground squirrels since they have been known to form small commando groups and prey upon unsuspecting runners. I just know they had laid in wait for me and executed a perfect double reverse runner block tossing me head over butt crack into the weeds. I could not blame the commando squirrels the second time around though, since I had received intelligence from CNN that the squirrel squads had been called up to active duty to hunt for WMDs. The fault was all mine when I slid out sideways, caught the edge of my racing flat, and went cartwheeling towards the lake. Only by grabbing a handy poison oak vine did I save myself from a refreshing mid-race spritz.
The last mile of the run is back on the original fire road with a nice straightaway sprint to the finish. The course is designed in a way as to always have an idea where your competition is located. You may not be able to catch them if they are in front of you, but at least you have the peace of mind that if you really wanted to, you just might. Volunteers greet you at the finish and provide cold water, a nice pasta meal, and the nectar of the Gods, Sugar Free Red Bull.
Joining me for the final August race this past Sunday was Clancy “Big Wheels” Emry, Mike “I shave my head for speed” Statz, the uber IM Austria couple Patrick and Christy, Jan “I’m too fast for you old farts” Maynard, and a Steve (there’s so many Steve’s in the club it is hard to keep track of all their last names. Clancy won the series in her AG for the third year straight, Mike placed 2nd in his AG, and I think 2nd in the series, Jan placed 2nd overall, 2nd in his AG, and 2nd in the series, Patrick, Christy, and Steve all set PRs, and I pulled out a 2nd in my AG and 3rd in the series. Forward Motion was on the podium so much throughout the series, TBF is debating whether to just let us have own podium next year.
In the lake once meant to be the back-up cooling source for the Rancho Seco Nuclear Power Station, race organizers Total Body Fitness stage a summer series of races.
Now, I personally would not immediately pick a nuclear power plant as the site for a triathlon unless you believe free genetic mutations would be a good draw, but then again, I’m not a Race Director, so what do I know. Maybe it isn’t such a bad idea to bill the venue as an alternative to performance enhancing drugs. I can see the ads now, “Race at Rancho Seco, your kids will be faster with four arms, and run so much faster with three legs!” European cycling teams might even send their development teams over for a good dose of radiation and genetic manipulation. Hey, radiation seemed to work for that Lance guy.
Regardless of the motivations for choosing the site for the race, the folks at TBF run a great series of events. Each month from June to August, they stage a sprint distance Tri for Fun on Saturday followed by an Olympic distance Tri for Real race on Sunday. To ensure future revenues, TBF also hosts a Tri for Kids Sunday morning for the little tykes. In all honesty, I am a bit intimidated by the youngsters. Most of them had bikes that cost not only more than my bike, but I suspect cost more than my car. I saw more aero helmets on the tots than I saw on the FOGs and I think one kid was taking in packed red cells prior to his wave start. Another kid was sponsored by Amgen, so I suspect he had a future in professional sports. I didn’t want to accuse anyone of doping, but I did spy one young lass of about 8 years old shaving and it was not her legs.
The swim is a fairly tame affair; nothing like the chaos and anarchy of a Wildflower or Ironman event. The lake is clear enough to spot three eyed fish, those allusive WMDs, and last year’s competitors. The buoys are easy enough to see although spotting the first turn buoy is not necessary since the 20 story nuclear power plant cooling tower looms directly over it. If anyone gets lost on the first leg of the swim, then they are more navigationally challenged than I am. Many of us wore our streamlined horizontal flotation devices or wetsuits for the swim despite the high 70’s low 80’s water temperature. There’s nothing like bringing yourself to a slow boil over the course of 1500 meters in a full wetsuit, but hey, I’m faster with it than without it. I even saw one guy wearing a squid lid, a neoprene swim cap designed for cold water swimming. Since the water was so warm, I can only surmise that he had a very large noggin and needed the added flotation afforded by the cap.
Transitions are fast at TBF races. For those racers who require extra amenities during transitions like showers, massages, and large screen TVs, the race organizers provide ample racks and plenty of room to spread out. Truthfully, transitions under a minute are the norm due to the prime location of the area within a hundred yards of the swim exit.
The bike is a quick out and back with a few rollers thrown in for variety. I would rate the road surface as ranging from moderately crappy to downright harrowing at the point where an ancient set of railroad tracks crosses the road. The pits on either side of the tracks still contain bottles, tubes, teeth, miscellaneous bike and body parts, and possibly a USAT official or two from years of hapless triathletes careening cross the craters. After successfully negotiating the train tracks of death not once, but twice, you are treated to a fast return trip to the park with the ever present cooling towers marking the way.
TBF has constructed an entertaining run course. It starts off on a wide undulating fire road that then dumps you onto the park entrance road for a short out and back segment. The ever present cooling towers loom over you as you make the turnaround at about mile 3. The return trip is on some fun single track that twists and turns its way along the edge of the lake, across little bridges, and through a few open meadows. One thing I’ve learned after two incidents (you would think I would have learned the first time), was that trying to do a sharp turn at full run speed on dried prairie grass will, 9 times out of 10, land you on your arse with tri-shorts full of dirt and weeds. The first time it happened I tried to blame the ground squirrels since they have been known to form small commando groups and prey upon unsuspecting runners. I just know they had laid in wait for me and executed a perfect double reverse runner block tossing me head over butt crack into the weeds. I could not blame the commando squirrels the second time around though, since I had received intelligence from CNN that the squirrel squads had been called up to active duty to hunt for WMDs. The fault was all mine when I slid out sideways, caught the edge of my racing flat, and went cartwheeling towards the lake. Only by grabbing a handy poison oak vine did I save myself from a refreshing mid-race spritz.
The last mile of the run is back on the original fire road with a nice straightaway sprint to the finish. The course is designed in a way as to always have an idea where your competition is located. You may not be able to catch them if they are in front of you, but at least you have the peace of mind that if you really wanted to, you just might. Volunteers greet you at the finish and provide cold water, a nice pasta meal, and the nectar of the Gods, Sugar Free Red Bull.
Joining me for the final August race this past Sunday was Clancy “Big Wheels” Emry, Mike “I shave my head for speed” Statz, the uber IM Austria couple Patrick and Christy, Jan “I’m too fast for you old farts” Maynard, and a Steve (there’s so many Steve’s in the club it is hard to keep track of all their last names. Clancy won the series in her AG for the third year straight, Mike placed 2nd in his AG, and I think 2nd in the series, Jan placed 2nd overall, 2nd in his AG, and 2nd in the series, Patrick, Christy, and Steve all set PRs, and I pulled out a 2nd in my AG and 3rd in the series. Forward Motion was on the podium so much throughout the series, TBF is debating whether to just let us have own podium next year.
Friday, August 3, 2007
Naïveté of the Nerd
The week was passing very slowly. Sitting in 7th grade French class, trying to listen to Mrs. Beauvois drone on about the plus perfect tense was unbearable. Didn’t she realize that in less than two days, I was going to my first “real” party, one with alcohol, and girls, even girls with reportedly loose morals. Not much else passes through the mind of a 13 year old boy other than fantasies about girls and maybe the odd re-enactment of a favorite Battllestar Galactica episode.
Sue Miller was going to be at the party, a girl that I had known since the 4th grade. We did not travel in the same social circles; I tended to drift with the Brains while she was making a name for herself with the Stoners. Her father was a sheriff in town which probably contributed to her more overt acts of rebellion. One such act was the openly gratuitous public display of affection on an outdoor lunch table with a young lad by the name of Bart Conner. Bart was the big catch for the ladies in Junior High. He had the looks of Travolta and money from a job at the local tux rental shop. He looked much older than his 14 years allowing him to actually drive to school. He was the only Junior Higher that I knew able to brag about losing his virginity in the back seat of his own car. Bart and Sue were a hot item the first few months of 7th grade. For some reason unbeknownst to me, Sue talked to me when she was not busy getting busy with Bart. Needless to say, I had a bit of a crush on Sue.
I snapped back to the present when Mrs. Beauvois called on me to conjugate the verb “to have” in French. I could not think how to conjugate a verb at that moment, but I was able to think about what I might “have” at the party Friday night. First I would have a beer. I had tasted my father’s beer once or twice, not overly impressed, but I l had learned that my father drank light American beer. His beer preference was understandable with his chosen occupation being a truck driver. I think when you drive a big rig truck, you have to sign a contract stating you will only drive American cars, watch only American football not any of that European soccer stuff, and drink American beer. Canadian beer was ok if the local 7-11 was out of stock of Miller, Bud, and Michelob. At the party, I had been told they would have European and Mexican beer, maybe even some high end American beer called Henry Weinharts. According to my brainiac friends, Henry’s, Lowenbrau, and Corona were the best beers to drink. The reason these beers were the best was not due to the taste or the natural spring water or the mashing of the malt and barley by virgin Dutch girls, it was due to the high alcohol content compared to American light beers. Even though many of us had never had an entire beer before, we wanted to drink beer with the maximum alcohol content per 12 ounces.
As Mrs. Beauvois admonished me for failing to conjugate, a crime just short of a felony in her class, I began to think about the second thing I would do at the party. I had heard that we were going to play spin the bottle, a game our parents used to play, but we were not going to let that stop us. We planned to add some modern twists to the game. When the bottle landed on a member of the opposite sex, the spinner could choose to simply kiss the spinnee or spend three minutes in the closet with them. I knew both which choice I would make and who I wanted to get into the closet. All I had to do was survive 10 more minutes of French class, then I was only two days away from randy Sue Miller.
The next two days passed uneventful for me. I faced the usual trials and tribulations of pre-teen life. I ate cafeteria food worse than airline food, participated in PE by being a human backstop for the 8th graders playing baseball, and watched one of my class mates remove his pinky finger on the band saw in shop class. The food did not kill me although I still have difficulty around tater tots, I learned how to duck after repeatedly being hit by a speeding baseball, and to this day get a little queasy when I see a birdhouse.
The party was scheduled to begin at 8PM. I wondered what the best time to arrive should be. Should I arrive early, in order to see and be seen all the guests that arrive or should I arrive late to make a grand entrance uncluttered by others’ arrivals. I think my habit of arriving exactly at the event start time was forged that day so long ago in 7th grade. I arrived smack dab in the middle of a milling, jostling, boisterous crowd. In effect, I was not noticed nor was it possible to gauge who was already at the party.
I soon discovered a delicious treat called a Slimy Slammer, green lime Jell-O made with Vodka. Who needs to drink beer to create the perfect party buzz, just a few of those innocent little green squares and I was ready to do the Limbo stripped down to my Scooby Doo undies. Thankfully I kept my clothes on and what little dignity I had acquired by the age of 13 intact. I found myself in the back yard joining the anticipated Spin the Bottle sporting event. I was seated opposite Miss Sue Miller who had come stag to the party, sans Bart. She gave me a big warm smile and blew me what I interpreted was a good luck kiss. My turn arrived after a few minutes and I spun the bottle using all the wrist English I could muster to persuade that bottle to stop pointing in Sue’s direction. The bottle had other ideas, though, it stopped on Deanna Tally, a cute cheerleader type that I would eventually date in high school. I resigned myself that I would not have my 3 minutes in the closet with Sue and puckered up for Deanna. The kiss wasn’t that bad, a fact I stored away for future reference.
Sue’s turn soon arrived and she spun the bottle. It whirled and whirled, grinding to a halt in front yours truly. I could not imagine Sue would want to spend 3 minutes anywhere with me, so I prepared myself for what I thought would be the only kiss I would ever get from her. Then she shocked me and everyone there by grabbing my hand and leading me off to the closet. Once there she gave me this “OK, this is the part where you put the moves on me”, but I just stood there. I had no idea what to do. All the fantasies, all the simulations, all the preparation for this moment were suddenly lost. Sue looked at my stumped expression, and then started laughing. Oh, did my fragile male ego take a direct hit when that happened. I stammered a hurt “What?” to which she replied “Oh, Jeff, you are so naïve!”. She then planted a big wet kiss on me, tongue and all. I was not prepared for the tongue, but I think I adapted admirably after the crushing my ego had just taken. Thinking back, something restrained me from trying for second base with Sue, maybe it was forethought that we would become lifelong friends or maybe it was something more primal like fear. Her father was a sheriff and had this fascination with terrorizing all of Sue’s male friends. Either way, I held back, enjoyed the kiss, and walked out of the closet with my head held high trying not to reveal any clues to my peers of the events in the closet
I think Sue’s utterance of that word, naïve, has helped shape my persona. I know I have strove to avoid ever again being labeled naïve. I have always tried to be in the know, to be educated about the world around me, and to rarely be caught off guard. Not to say being naïve is bad, it lends itself to innocence and genuineness, admiral traits for everyone. The key is to which areas of life we are perceived as being naïve. I think I have overcome the naïveté associated with French kissing, but I still have a problem with the aftereffects of Slimy Slammers.
Sue Miller was going to be at the party, a girl that I had known since the 4th grade. We did not travel in the same social circles; I tended to drift with the Brains while she was making a name for herself with the Stoners. Her father was a sheriff in town which probably contributed to her more overt acts of rebellion. One such act was the openly gratuitous public display of affection on an outdoor lunch table with a young lad by the name of Bart Conner. Bart was the big catch for the ladies in Junior High. He had the looks of Travolta and money from a job at the local tux rental shop. He looked much older than his 14 years allowing him to actually drive to school. He was the only Junior Higher that I knew able to brag about losing his virginity in the back seat of his own car. Bart and Sue were a hot item the first few months of 7th grade. For some reason unbeknownst to me, Sue talked to me when she was not busy getting busy with Bart. Needless to say, I had a bit of a crush on Sue.
I snapped back to the present when Mrs. Beauvois called on me to conjugate the verb “to have” in French. I could not think how to conjugate a verb at that moment, but I was able to think about what I might “have” at the party Friday night. First I would have a beer. I had tasted my father’s beer once or twice, not overly impressed, but I l had learned that my father drank light American beer. His beer preference was understandable with his chosen occupation being a truck driver. I think when you drive a big rig truck, you have to sign a contract stating you will only drive American cars, watch only American football not any of that European soccer stuff, and drink American beer. Canadian beer was ok if the local 7-11 was out of stock of Miller, Bud, and Michelob. At the party, I had been told they would have European and Mexican beer, maybe even some high end American beer called Henry Weinharts. According to my brainiac friends, Henry’s, Lowenbrau, and Corona were the best beers to drink. The reason these beers were the best was not due to the taste or the natural spring water or the mashing of the malt and barley by virgin Dutch girls, it was due to the high alcohol content compared to American light beers. Even though many of us had never had an entire beer before, we wanted to drink beer with the maximum alcohol content per 12 ounces.
As Mrs. Beauvois admonished me for failing to conjugate, a crime just short of a felony in her class, I began to think about the second thing I would do at the party. I had heard that we were going to play spin the bottle, a game our parents used to play, but we were not going to let that stop us. We planned to add some modern twists to the game. When the bottle landed on a member of the opposite sex, the spinner could choose to simply kiss the spinnee or spend three minutes in the closet with them. I knew both which choice I would make and who I wanted to get into the closet. All I had to do was survive 10 more minutes of French class, then I was only two days away from randy Sue Miller.
The next two days passed uneventful for me. I faced the usual trials and tribulations of pre-teen life. I ate cafeteria food worse than airline food, participated in PE by being a human backstop for the 8th graders playing baseball, and watched one of my class mates remove his pinky finger on the band saw in shop class. The food did not kill me although I still have difficulty around tater tots, I learned how to duck after repeatedly being hit by a speeding baseball, and to this day get a little queasy when I see a birdhouse.
The party was scheduled to begin at 8PM. I wondered what the best time to arrive should be. Should I arrive early, in order to see and be seen all the guests that arrive or should I arrive late to make a grand entrance uncluttered by others’ arrivals. I think my habit of arriving exactly at the event start time was forged that day so long ago in 7th grade. I arrived smack dab in the middle of a milling, jostling, boisterous crowd. In effect, I was not noticed nor was it possible to gauge who was already at the party.
I soon discovered a delicious treat called a Slimy Slammer, green lime Jell-O made with Vodka. Who needs to drink beer to create the perfect party buzz, just a few of those innocent little green squares and I was ready to do the Limbo stripped down to my Scooby Doo undies. Thankfully I kept my clothes on and what little dignity I had acquired by the age of 13 intact. I found myself in the back yard joining the anticipated Spin the Bottle sporting event. I was seated opposite Miss Sue Miller who had come stag to the party, sans Bart. She gave me a big warm smile and blew me what I interpreted was a good luck kiss. My turn arrived after a few minutes and I spun the bottle using all the wrist English I could muster to persuade that bottle to stop pointing in Sue’s direction. The bottle had other ideas, though, it stopped on Deanna Tally, a cute cheerleader type that I would eventually date in high school. I resigned myself that I would not have my 3 minutes in the closet with Sue and puckered up for Deanna. The kiss wasn’t that bad, a fact I stored away for future reference.
Sue’s turn soon arrived and she spun the bottle. It whirled and whirled, grinding to a halt in front yours truly. I could not imagine Sue would want to spend 3 minutes anywhere with me, so I prepared myself for what I thought would be the only kiss I would ever get from her. Then she shocked me and everyone there by grabbing my hand and leading me off to the closet. Once there she gave me this “OK, this is the part where you put the moves on me”, but I just stood there. I had no idea what to do. All the fantasies, all the simulations, all the preparation for this moment were suddenly lost. Sue looked at my stumped expression, and then started laughing. Oh, did my fragile male ego take a direct hit when that happened. I stammered a hurt “What?” to which she replied “Oh, Jeff, you are so naïve!”. She then planted a big wet kiss on me, tongue and all. I was not prepared for the tongue, but I think I adapted admirably after the crushing my ego had just taken. Thinking back, something restrained me from trying for second base with Sue, maybe it was forethought that we would become lifelong friends or maybe it was something more primal like fear. Her father was a sheriff and had this fascination with terrorizing all of Sue’s male friends. Either way, I held back, enjoyed the kiss, and walked out of the closet with my head held high trying not to reveal any clues to my peers of the events in the closet
I think Sue’s utterance of that word, naïve, has helped shape my persona. I know I have strove to avoid ever again being labeled naïve. I have always tried to be in the know, to be educated about the world around me, and to rarely be caught off guard. Not to say being naïve is bad, it lends itself to innocence and genuineness, admiral traits for everyone. The key is to which areas of life we are perceived as being naïve. I think I have overcome the naïveté associated with French kissing, but I still have a problem with the aftereffects of Slimy Slammers.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Priviledge
I’ve never felt privileged. I know that is a fairly bold statement from white male living and working in Silicon Valley, recently ranked the most expensive place to live. Tokyo was ranked the third most expensive to give some perspective. A two bedroom one bath tear down was sold this past month for $850,000. The new owner paid this exorbitant sum for the property. The house was destined for the landfill. I live among this nuttiness, I have for my whole life except for a brief stint residing back in the hinterlands of Kansas and Bushland (Texas).
Maybe I do not understand the meaning of the word privilege. I’ve always associated it with wealth and status. If I judge my life on these two criteria, I would probably fall in the lower middle class. Remember though, this is by California standards. I remember rough times when I was just a wee tot. My father was a truck driver, first doing household moves, then going into the air freight business. During the 70’s, times were rough in the trucking industry. Dad would be out of work for long stretches, when our sole income was from my Mom’s nursing income. My father was a proud old country sort. The man was supposed to bring home the bacon, except in California the expression was “bring home the tofu”. When he was not working, life around our house was a bit rough. My Mom was lucky; she spent the day at work. I was not so fortunate. When I arrived home from school, my Dad often took his frustrations out on me. Siblings would have been a welcome distraction, but that was not in the cards for my family. I was destined to be an only child. One who became fearful of coming home. I never knew if all my bed clothes would be on the front lawn because I failed to properly make my bed that morning or if my toys had been given away to Goodwill due to being left out.
I identified a pattern way back then. When my Dad did not work, he tended to smoke and drink more. Many of his out of work friends smoked and drank quite a bit. I remember visiting a wealthy family of a friend of mine. His Dad was always working. He smoked and drank quite a bit too. Then there were the Dads of friends of mine who I would now label middle class. They neither smoked nor drank, at least not in excess. My young mind could not establish a corollary between these three pieces of information. I thought my Dad drank because he was not working. But the wealthy always working Father drank even more than my Dad. I’m not sure of the exact time when I arrived at the answer, but I think it was somewhere around Junior High. Most of my more earth shattering revelations occurred in Junior High. There have been a few since then, but not nearly with the frequency. I had so many revelations in Junior High, I am surprised I did not discover the meaning of life. Oh well, Douglas Adams solved that mystery for me in high school. It was 42.
My father and the wealthy father drank because they were frustrated and unhappy. Events in their life were not in their control. Middle class afforded the families a comfortable lifestyle, their basic needs were met and they had enough left over to enjoy a trip or two to Mickeyland or Brooklyn. My Dad struggled with providing for the basic needs of our family, while the wealthy father struggled to stay on top, working longer and longer hours to obtain more and more stuff. Neither was happy. I realized back then that middle class was not a bad lot to aspire to in life. I’m not sure if I would have come to this insight without having lived in a less than privileged household.
If privilege is thought of as a ladder defined by wealth and status, then my family started out towards the bottom. The top of the ladder was no where in sight. We could only see a few rungs up. My Mom and Dad managed to keep us off the ground, provided for our basic needs including new bell bottoms and fake Polo shirts, and were able to save a little for my college needs. There was little fear of falling off the ladder, we never had far to fall. I think we realized we always had some sort of safety net through friends and family. I can imagine that there are some who fall off the ladder without any safety net. I wonder if these are the unfortunate souls I see living on the streets in San Francisco. Were they once like me and my family? Did they fall off the ladder without a net? This thought is frequently in the back of my mind when I make choices in life. I asked myself, what are the repercussions of this decision, how far could I fall, is there a net?
Starting out at the top of the ladder through family inheritance must be very difficult. One has a long way to fall and I believe the wealthy are ill equipped to catch a lower rung on the way down.
Maybe I do not understand the meaning of the word privilege. I’ve always associated it with wealth and status. If I judge my life on these two criteria, I would probably fall in the lower middle class. Remember though, this is by California standards. I remember rough times when I was just a wee tot. My father was a truck driver, first doing household moves, then going into the air freight business. During the 70’s, times were rough in the trucking industry. Dad would be out of work for long stretches, when our sole income was from my Mom’s nursing income. My father was a proud old country sort. The man was supposed to bring home the bacon, except in California the expression was “bring home the tofu”. When he was not working, life around our house was a bit rough. My Mom was lucky; she spent the day at work. I was not so fortunate. When I arrived home from school, my Dad often took his frustrations out on me. Siblings would have been a welcome distraction, but that was not in the cards for my family. I was destined to be an only child. One who became fearful of coming home. I never knew if all my bed clothes would be on the front lawn because I failed to properly make my bed that morning or if my toys had been given away to Goodwill due to being left out.
I identified a pattern way back then. When my Dad did not work, he tended to smoke and drink more. Many of his out of work friends smoked and drank quite a bit. I remember visiting a wealthy family of a friend of mine. His Dad was always working. He smoked and drank quite a bit too. Then there were the Dads of friends of mine who I would now label middle class. They neither smoked nor drank, at least not in excess. My young mind could not establish a corollary between these three pieces of information. I thought my Dad drank because he was not working. But the wealthy always working Father drank even more than my Dad. I’m not sure of the exact time when I arrived at the answer, but I think it was somewhere around Junior High. Most of my more earth shattering revelations occurred in Junior High. There have been a few since then, but not nearly with the frequency. I had so many revelations in Junior High, I am surprised I did not discover the meaning of life. Oh well, Douglas Adams solved that mystery for me in high school. It was 42.
My father and the wealthy father drank because they were frustrated and unhappy. Events in their life were not in their control. Middle class afforded the families a comfortable lifestyle, their basic needs were met and they had enough left over to enjoy a trip or two to Mickeyland or Brooklyn. My Dad struggled with providing for the basic needs of our family, while the wealthy father struggled to stay on top, working longer and longer hours to obtain more and more stuff. Neither was happy. I realized back then that middle class was not a bad lot to aspire to in life. I’m not sure if I would have come to this insight without having lived in a less than privileged household.
If privilege is thought of as a ladder defined by wealth and status, then my family started out towards the bottom. The top of the ladder was no where in sight. We could only see a few rungs up. My Mom and Dad managed to keep us off the ground, provided for our basic needs including new bell bottoms and fake Polo shirts, and were able to save a little for my college needs. There was little fear of falling off the ladder, we never had far to fall. I think we realized we always had some sort of safety net through friends and family. I can imagine that there are some who fall off the ladder without any safety net. I wonder if these are the unfortunate souls I see living on the streets in San Francisco. Were they once like me and my family? Did they fall off the ladder without a net? This thought is frequently in the back of my mind when I make choices in life. I asked myself, what are the repercussions of this decision, how far could I fall, is there a net?
Starting out at the top of the ladder through family inheritance must be very difficult. One has a long way to fall and I believe the wealthy are ill equipped to catch a lower rung on the way down.
Monday, July 30, 2007
2007 Vineman Ironman 70.3
The last time I participated in the Vineman Half Ironman was 2004 before it became an officially sanctioned and branded Ironman 70.3 event. I observed many changes with the newly branded event as the marketing gurus at Ironman placed their indelible mark on the venerable wine country triathlon. Gone were the quirky Merlot and Zinfandel aid stations, the Topless Dancing Grapes Revue at mile 6 of the run, and the Champagne-o-rama at the swim start. In place of those memorable icons of Vineman past, Ironman USA offered free M-dot permanent tattoos and the ever popular hot iron M-dot brand on the buttocks. I queued up for the buttock brand thinking it would nicely compliment my fading Bud Light USTS tramp stamp, but unfortunately, I did not allow enough time and I had to rush off to my wave start.
Part of the adventure of Vineman is actually making it the venue with your sanity intact. I left home in Pleasanton around 1PM on Saturday afternoon expecting a 2 hour drive to Windsor. All forward progress came to a screeching halt (literally, the driver behind me locked up his brakes and screeched to a halt mere inches from my bumper) when traffic from 580 tried to merge onto northbound 101. From San Rafael to Santa Rosa, there was bumper to bumper traffic. I’m still wondering where all this traffic was going, it’s not like there is much to do in Santa Rosa and points north. I suppose the Charles M. Schultz Peanuts Cartoon Museum is a good draw and maybe the Boonville Brewery would pull in a car load or two, but there were literally thousands of cars littering the highway for 40 to 50 miles. Interspersed with the urban dwellers seeking solace among the redwoods up north were many high strung and well tanned triathletes trying to get to registration before all the Chris Leito Souvenir Nipple Guards were handed out.
Registration went surprisingly smoothly. I was checked, banded, bagged, t-shirted, and chipped in under 10 minutes. For those of you Vineman virgins, the course requires two transition areas. One is at Johnson’s Beach on the Russian River for the swim to bike transition and one is at Windsor High School for the bike to run transition. Due to this splitting of the transitions, the race requires participants to prepare their T2 gear the night before the event. This poses a bit of a dilemma for those of us who over think what to have available for each segment of the race. I spent a good 20 minutes going through a mental inventory of things I would need for the run. Should I carry 1 or 2 Gu packets, hat or visor, extra sunscreen and what SPF, white or black socks, hair gel or hair spray, race flats or lightweight trainers, and the most crucial decision of all…should I change my blue sunglasses I use for the bike leg to a pair with a more neutral colored frame for the run because the blue frames may clash with the red FMRC logo on my hat?
After completing my complicated T2 tasks, I checked into the official Forward Motion Motel, the Windsor Holiday Inn Express. I’m not sure why it is labeled as Express, I did not think they were exceedingly speedy at anything, it was not located near any “expressways”, nor did they serve “expresso”. I suppose the quick way they separated $152 from my wallet would qualify them as “expressive” or would that be “excessive”. It is good to see that capitalism is alive and well in the wine country where a room that normally goes for $49.95 including clean sheets sets you back race weekend over $150 and I’m not so sure the sheets were clean if the dark curlies I found were any evidence.
After unloading my triathlete’s detritus into my room, I drove to Santa Rosa for the team dinner. Larry Feigenbaum graciously organized a wonderful pre-race pasta dinner at a local Italian eatery. He had corralled over 25 folks from the team including the lonely singles contingent of me, Russ, Jacque, Sue, and Dana, plus a gaggle of Glynns, a coterie of Chavez’s, and a whole collection of Cramers. I think most of the folks in the restaurant at the time were somehow related to Steve and Amy. Many other FoMos dined with us that evening, but I failed to get all their names. The pasta was plentiful and the case of Chianti we polished off was quite tasty.
Because of the narrowness of the Russian River, the 1300 participants have to be divided into about 50 swim wave starts. Each age group has their own start time plus age groups with large representation were divided even further. For example, the 37 year olds had their own wave start and my age group 40-44 was divided into three groups, the young’uns 40-41, the mid-lifers 42-43, and the 44 year old geezers. Some age groups had even further definition with a separate start time for men born East of the Mason Dixon line between the hours of 4:31PM and 5:02PM on March 28th, 1952. Believe it or not, this wave had over 100 participants in it.
Swimming in the Russian River is always an interesting experience. The race director always points out one of the unique aspects of the Vineman swim course. The swim is probably one of the safest swims in triathlon. The director always says at the pre-race briefing “if you get into trouble during the swim…stand up!”. Actually, the swim start is about 6 feet deep, but then gets shallower as you crawl upriver. Ed Meyer commented to me this morning that when he finished the race he looked down at his fingernails and realized they were caked with black gunk. Either he was doing oil changes on the bike or he was scooping out river mud with each swim stroke. Larry felt he could run faster than he could swim, so he did a slow jog downstream after the turn around. Typically a triathlon swim course is a triangular or rectangular affair. The Vineman swim course is more of a spastic snake shape twisting and turning every which way for 1.2 miles. Not that I swim a perfect straight line, but trying to keep to the right of the buoys was quite the challenge
I exited the water onto the “beach” although I’ve always thought for a place to qualify as a beach there were certain requirements like sand, waves, seaweed, bikini babes, and those little flies that always seem to be buzzing around your head. And no, Chris McCrary in his cropped race top does not qualify as a bikini babe. I found my bike amid the other 1299 bikes and performed my T1 ritual of wetsuit stripping, bike shoes on, refastening my timing chip which was dangling from my ankle, putting my sunglasses and race number belt on, and then strapping on the brain bucket. I remembered to stuff my wetsuit, goggles, and swim cap into the official Vineman Ironman 70.3 approved T1 swim gear transition plastic bag otherwise my wetsuit would have been relegated to the heap-o-crap at the end of the race.
The bike leg was fairly uneventful except for the flash of red and the vortex of wind as Pete Zucker blew by me at mile 10. Being in the 12th of 50 swim wave starts, there was much evidence of previous racers littering the course. Not only did I see the usual flotsam and jetsam associated with the bike leg like water bottles, spare tubes, spare tires, Gu packs, and a bike shoe or two, I also spied one helmet (where was the owner?), a floor pump, a disk wheel, and one of those mini kegs Heineken is making now. I’m not sure if the keg fell off a bike or out of a race officials car, but it was empty, so someone was having a better time on the bike course than I was.
T2 arrived very quickly, so fast that I thought maybe I had missed 15 or so miles of the course. I caught a glimpse of Speedy Zuckerman entering transition so I set my sights on pulling back some of the time he had taken out of me on the bike leg. I racked my bike and ran out of transition thinking I was in hot pursuit of Pete. The FoMo Pep Squad was in full cheer mode with Steve Chavez sporting a nice red mini skirt, white pom poms, and what looked like one of his wife Carrie’s sports bras. Steve Cramer was attired similarly but opted for the red leather hot pants instead of the skirt. If the site of the two of them doing a cheer to “Eye of the Tiger” wasn’t enough to get you to run fast…in the opposite direction, then I don’t know what is. My awesome coach Patricia LaSalle was on hand to remind me to slow down a bit since I still had 13 miles to go and a sub 7 min pace was not in my race plan. Ignoring her sage advice, I proceeded to hunt down Mr. Pete. After about 3 miles of red-lining it, I began to realize that I must have passed Pete in transition. Even after consulting with Pete’s wife Monica, we still do not know what he was doing all that time in T2. Her guess was a shower, while I thought more along the lines of a six pack and a Lazy Boy. I encountered a long procession of Forward Motion racers making their way to the finish line, a place I would not see for over an hour. Carrie skipped by looking fresh as a daisy albeit one dipped in salt crusties and showered in Gatorade Endurance. Many fit bodies proudly wearing red and orange FMRC jerseys waved as they passed by offering much needed words of encouragement. I hit a low point around mile 8 when the sun was bearing down and I began to feel like one of those ants I used to torture with a magnifying glass back when I was growing up in Phoenix. I thought maybe all those little ant souls were up there in heaven seeking revenge for my childish antics.
Sensing I was close to breaking 5 hours and a new PR, I dug deep and pushed hard the last few miles to the finish. I kept doing the math in my heat addled brain and thought I had a minute or two cushion to break 5 hours. Math was never my strong suit hence my career in marketing, so I was alarmed to see I only had 60 seconds to cover the last few hundred yards. I sprinted down the finish chute elbowing a few young ladies out of the way and crossed the line in 4:59:25…35 seconds to spare.
I looked around for the traditional white wine dunk tank, but alas, Ironman had eliminated that post race activity due to safety and health concerns. Allegedly, a few years back two athletes after soaking in the tank for an unspecified amount of time, became overly amorous and the tank had to be drained.
Thanks to all the support squads, to Larry for pulling together the pre-race dinner, to Amy Cramer for coordinating the hotel, and to everyone else who made Vineman a memorable experience. Congrats to all the FoMo racers and especially to all the first timers completing the distance.
Part of the adventure of Vineman is actually making it the venue with your sanity intact. I left home in Pleasanton around 1PM on Saturday afternoon expecting a 2 hour drive to Windsor. All forward progress came to a screeching halt (literally, the driver behind me locked up his brakes and screeched to a halt mere inches from my bumper) when traffic from 580 tried to merge onto northbound 101. From San Rafael to Santa Rosa, there was bumper to bumper traffic. I’m still wondering where all this traffic was going, it’s not like there is much to do in Santa Rosa and points north. I suppose the Charles M. Schultz Peanuts Cartoon Museum is a good draw and maybe the Boonville Brewery would pull in a car load or two, but there were literally thousands of cars littering the highway for 40 to 50 miles. Interspersed with the urban dwellers seeking solace among the redwoods up north were many high strung and well tanned triathletes trying to get to registration before all the Chris Leito Souvenir Nipple Guards were handed out.
Registration went surprisingly smoothly. I was checked, banded, bagged, t-shirted, and chipped in under 10 minutes. For those of you Vineman virgins, the course requires two transition areas. One is at Johnson’s Beach on the Russian River for the swim to bike transition and one is at Windsor High School for the bike to run transition. Due to this splitting of the transitions, the race requires participants to prepare their T2 gear the night before the event. This poses a bit of a dilemma for those of us who over think what to have available for each segment of the race. I spent a good 20 minutes going through a mental inventory of things I would need for the run. Should I carry 1 or 2 Gu packets, hat or visor, extra sunscreen and what SPF, white or black socks, hair gel or hair spray, race flats or lightweight trainers, and the most crucial decision of all…should I change my blue sunglasses I use for the bike leg to a pair with a more neutral colored frame for the run because the blue frames may clash with the red FMRC logo on my hat?
After completing my complicated T2 tasks, I checked into the official Forward Motion Motel, the Windsor Holiday Inn Express. I’m not sure why it is labeled as Express, I did not think they were exceedingly speedy at anything, it was not located near any “expressways”, nor did they serve “expresso”. I suppose the quick way they separated $152 from my wallet would qualify them as “expressive” or would that be “excessive”. It is good to see that capitalism is alive and well in the wine country where a room that normally goes for $49.95 including clean sheets sets you back race weekend over $150 and I’m not so sure the sheets were clean if the dark curlies I found were any evidence.
After unloading my triathlete’s detritus into my room, I drove to Santa Rosa for the team dinner. Larry Feigenbaum graciously organized a wonderful pre-race pasta dinner at a local Italian eatery. He had corralled over 25 folks from the team including the lonely singles contingent of me, Russ, Jacque, Sue, and Dana, plus a gaggle of Glynns, a coterie of Chavez’s, and a whole collection of Cramers. I think most of the folks in the restaurant at the time were somehow related to Steve and Amy. Many other FoMos dined with us that evening, but I failed to get all their names. The pasta was plentiful and the case of Chianti we polished off was quite tasty.
Because of the narrowness of the Russian River, the 1300 participants have to be divided into about 50 swim wave starts. Each age group has their own start time plus age groups with large representation were divided even further. For example, the 37 year olds had their own wave start and my age group 40-44 was divided into three groups, the young’uns 40-41, the mid-lifers 42-43, and the 44 year old geezers. Some age groups had even further definition with a separate start time for men born East of the Mason Dixon line between the hours of 4:31PM and 5:02PM on March 28th, 1952. Believe it or not, this wave had over 100 participants in it.
Swimming in the Russian River is always an interesting experience. The race director always points out one of the unique aspects of the Vineman swim course. The swim is probably one of the safest swims in triathlon. The director always says at the pre-race briefing “if you get into trouble during the swim…stand up!”. Actually, the swim start is about 6 feet deep, but then gets shallower as you crawl upriver. Ed Meyer commented to me this morning that when he finished the race he looked down at his fingernails and realized they were caked with black gunk. Either he was doing oil changes on the bike or he was scooping out river mud with each swim stroke. Larry felt he could run faster than he could swim, so he did a slow jog downstream after the turn around. Typically a triathlon swim course is a triangular or rectangular affair. The Vineman swim course is more of a spastic snake shape twisting and turning every which way for 1.2 miles. Not that I swim a perfect straight line, but trying to keep to the right of the buoys was quite the challenge
I exited the water onto the “beach” although I’ve always thought for a place to qualify as a beach there were certain requirements like sand, waves, seaweed, bikini babes, and those little flies that always seem to be buzzing around your head. And no, Chris McCrary in his cropped race top does not qualify as a bikini babe. I found my bike amid the other 1299 bikes and performed my T1 ritual of wetsuit stripping, bike shoes on, refastening my timing chip which was dangling from my ankle, putting my sunglasses and race number belt on, and then strapping on the brain bucket. I remembered to stuff my wetsuit, goggles, and swim cap into the official Vineman Ironman 70.3 approved T1 swim gear transition plastic bag otherwise my wetsuit would have been relegated to the heap-o-crap at the end of the race.
The bike leg was fairly uneventful except for the flash of red and the vortex of wind as Pete Zucker blew by me at mile 10. Being in the 12th of 50 swim wave starts, there was much evidence of previous racers littering the course. Not only did I see the usual flotsam and jetsam associated with the bike leg like water bottles, spare tubes, spare tires, Gu packs, and a bike shoe or two, I also spied one helmet (where was the owner?), a floor pump, a disk wheel, and one of those mini kegs Heineken is making now. I’m not sure if the keg fell off a bike or out of a race officials car, but it was empty, so someone was having a better time on the bike course than I was.
T2 arrived very quickly, so fast that I thought maybe I had missed 15 or so miles of the course. I caught a glimpse of Speedy Zuckerman entering transition so I set my sights on pulling back some of the time he had taken out of me on the bike leg. I racked my bike and ran out of transition thinking I was in hot pursuit of Pete. The FoMo Pep Squad was in full cheer mode with Steve Chavez sporting a nice red mini skirt, white pom poms, and what looked like one of his wife Carrie’s sports bras. Steve Cramer was attired similarly but opted for the red leather hot pants instead of the skirt. If the site of the two of them doing a cheer to “Eye of the Tiger” wasn’t enough to get you to run fast…in the opposite direction, then I don’t know what is. My awesome coach Patricia LaSalle was on hand to remind me to slow down a bit since I still had 13 miles to go and a sub 7 min pace was not in my race plan. Ignoring her sage advice, I proceeded to hunt down Mr. Pete. After about 3 miles of red-lining it, I began to realize that I must have passed Pete in transition. Even after consulting with Pete’s wife Monica, we still do not know what he was doing all that time in T2. Her guess was a shower, while I thought more along the lines of a six pack and a Lazy Boy. I encountered a long procession of Forward Motion racers making their way to the finish line, a place I would not see for over an hour. Carrie skipped by looking fresh as a daisy albeit one dipped in salt crusties and showered in Gatorade Endurance. Many fit bodies proudly wearing red and orange FMRC jerseys waved as they passed by offering much needed words of encouragement. I hit a low point around mile 8 when the sun was bearing down and I began to feel like one of those ants I used to torture with a magnifying glass back when I was growing up in Phoenix. I thought maybe all those little ant souls were up there in heaven seeking revenge for my childish antics.
Sensing I was close to breaking 5 hours and a new PR, I dug deep and pushed hard the last few miles to the finish. I kept doing the math in my heat addled brain and thought I had a minute or two cushion to break 5 hours. Math was never my strong suit hence my career in marketing, so I was alarmed to see I only had 60 seconds to cover the last few hundred yards. I sprinted down the finish chute elbowing a few young ladies out of the way and crossed the line in 4:59:25…35 seconds to spare.
I looked around for the traditional white wine dunk tank, but alas, Ironman had eliminated that post race activity due to safety and health concerns. Allegedly, a few years back two athletes after soaking in the tank for an unspecified amount of time, became overly amorous and the tank had to be drained.
Thanks to all the support squads, to Larry for pulling together the pre-race dinner, to Amy Cramer for coordinating the hotel, and to everyone else who made Vineman a memorable experience. Congrats to all the FoMo racers and especially to all the first timers completing the distance.
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