Ironman Wisconsin Race Report

Well . . . IMoo is in the books, and it was an all around terrific event. Although I didn’t really even come close to hitting my time goal, I had a wonderful time at the race and just loved every minute of it. For those who just want the numbers, here they are:

Swim 1:15:42
T1 9:12
Bike 6:04:17
T2 3:22
Run 5:42:18

Some observations from the course:

1. The swim was just about what I expected. Having a calm day was key.

2. That run up the helix in T1 is not that bad; it’s navigating the sea of people getting their bikes out that caused me the most trouble.

3. The bike course was definitely fun and doable, but damn hard! It took a lot out of your legs.

4. I need to run more. I must point out, however, that I was on pace to finish about 30 minutes earlier, but decided not to worry about it because I’d rather finish with Steve (he was having severe stomach issues when I caught him on the run) and have some good memories than have some arbitrary time that still wasn’t as close to my goal time as I’d wanted to be. So . . . I walked a lot in the last half.

5. Finally, I guess I was never really willing to admit how injured I was before this race. The IT band issues from Buffalo Springs Lake in June took their toll, and my legs never really felt 100% ready for the race. Also, the calf strain 13 days before the race did affect my running a little. It never actually caused me pain, but I was acutely aware of it all during the run.

All-in-all, I thought it was a great event. I was disappointed with my time, but not so much that I let it get me down. I was really happy to finish in a respectable time, despite the injuries and the couple of bad breaks (see more below). Given the perfect racing conditions, it was just an all around enjoyable experience.

Here’s the long report:

Sunday, September 2 through Wednesday, September 5:

I drove up to St. Louis from Austin on the Sunday before the race. I had decided to hang out with Mason (Duchatschek) for a few days to get the benefit of his sage advice and Ironman veteran knowledge before race day. We had a really good time doing some very mild workouts (no running). Went on a few bike rides and swam one day just to keep things moving. Melissa (his wife), and Clayton (his son) were very wonderful hosts. I’m sure it couldn’t have been convenient to have me there for so many days, but they were very gracious and helped keep me at ease with the impending race. I’m so appreciative for everything they did for me. Thanks so much!!

Thursday, September 6:

Mason and I drove up to Madison on Thursday the 6th. We got a bit of a late start, but not too bad. We got in around 4:30 PM and, after wandering around downtown Madison a bit to get our bearings, we got to the hotel and got checked in. Steve got us reservations at the University Inn, which, despite its outdated accommodations, ended up being a great place to stay, primarily because it was right there on State Street, along the IM run course. Plus, it was in the heart of everything, so it was great for people-watching and for getting anything we needed nearby.

Steve and Laura and the twins (Alex and Will) got in around the same time. After we got all our stuff into the rooms and settled down, we decided to go out to Uno’s for some pizza. Then, we came back to the hotel and hung out for a bit before calling it an early night. At some time (I forget when), Steve’s friend, Matt and his wife, Shauna, arrived. I don’t recall if it was before or after us, but they had some other plans and didn’t go to dinner with us.

I forgot to mention that when I left Leander on Sunday, I’d forgotten my wetsuit, so Lisa FedExed it to the hotel. Although I was a bit worried, it DID arrive at about 8:00 PM Thursday night, so I had it for the rest of the week! WHEW!

Friday, September 7:

At 7:00 AM, Steve, Mason, Matt, and I got up and went down to Lake Monona for the Gatorade open water swim. It was a pretty rough day. The winds were fairly high, the clouds were dark and foreboding, and the lake was pretty tumultuous. Regardless, we jumped in our wetsuits and took a short swim (about 600-800 meters) just to get a feel for the water. It was definitely swimable, but I was certainly hoping for a less breezy day on race day.

After the swim, Mason took off to a business meeting and Steve and I stuck around for a pre-race talk that Steve’s coach, Rich Strauss, was giving to his athletes near the swim. It was a very informative talk. Rich and his coaching partner, Patrick, had some great advice for the group. In fact, I actually ended up using some of it in my race. Pretty much everything he said was spot-on. I can see why Steve likes using him as a coach.

After the talk, we headed back to the hotel to clean up, get some breakfast, and pick up Laura and the twins. Then, we headed back over to the Ironman village so that Steve and I could register for the race. That took longer than I’d hoped! By the way, I think their scales are wrong. They weighed me in at 202 lbs, and only 5 days earlier, I’d been under 195. Talk about a blow to the ego!!

Anyhoo . . . I was supposed to pick up my mom at the airport in the early afternoon, but registration ran late and she just took public transportation. Sorry, Mom!!! Glad you made it, though!

After registration, we went back to the hotel to see my mom, and then Matt and Steve and I piled into my car with the bikes so that we could drive the bike course and I get an idea of what I was in store for. We drove the whole length of the course and stopped at the top of Timber Lane so that Steve and I could ride back a couple of miles and then ride up Old Sauk Pass and Timber Lane to get a feel for how it would be race day. I thought they were respectable hills, but not too bad. Matt reminded me that by the time I got to them, I’d have a bunch of hills already under my belt and my legs would be tired. He was VERY right!

Anyway, after riding the course, we went back to the hotel and then met Mom and Laura and the twins for dinner at Za’s, a pasta house kind of place about a block from the hotel. Gotta get that carbo loading!

After visiting for a while, it was back to the hotel so I could get my transition bags and special needs bags packed up properly. Then, it was early to bed so that we could get a few more things done the next day.

Saturday, September 8:

Once again, Mason, Steve, and I went down to the Gatorade swim. Mason walked over with our stuff and Steve and I rode our bikes over, just to get the blood flowing a bit. It was a stark contrast to the day before! The wind was gone; so were the clouds. The water was like glass. We took turns swimming. Steve and I went out about 400 meters and then swam back, just getting a feel for the water and what it would be like swimming out along the shore line. It was nice. Then, Mason went out for a swim and told us to go on back to the hotel to get things ready for bike and bag check-in.

While we were warming up and getting stuff ready for check-in, Mom was heading to Chicago to pick up my wife, Lisa! I just have to say what an incredible trooper she was! Lisa is not a morning person, but to support me at IMoo, she got up at 4:00 AM on Saturday to get to her parents’ house so her dad could drive her to the airport for a 7:00 AM flight to Chicago. Once at Midway Airport, she then hopped on a CTA train to downtown, had to be shuttled by bus to another train stop, and then took a second train from downtown to O’Hare Airport, where my mom picked her up for the 2 hour drive up to Madison! What a heck of a day she had!

Steve and Mason and I dropped off the bags and bikes and then ran a couple of errands. We finally caught up with everyone else at the hotel at about 3:00 PM. We all just hung out and relaxed and then went back to Za’s for dinner. Mom, Lisa, and Laura didn’t eat at Za’s, they had Afghan food later. Steve, Mason, and I hit the hotel room around 8:00 PM, and just hung out and tried to fall asleep. I think I got to sleep around 12:00 AM.

RACE DAY!!

The alarms were set for 5:00 AM, but I was awake at 3:30 AM. I finally got up at 4:15 AM, and then Steve and Mason got up a little later. We did some last minute prepping, ate our breakfast (for me it was peanut butter on two slices of bread), and then headed out the door at about 5:15 AM to meet Matt in the lobby to drive over to the swim start. Mason parked my car about 2 blocks from the race finish line and we walked the rest of the way over to Monona Terrace. Once there, we did our final bike checks, loaded up the nutrition and hydration, checked the air pressure in the tires, and then went back into the Terrace to wait out the swim start.

At about 6:30 AM, Steve and I got into our wetsuits and headed down the helix toward the swim start line. Steve was wearing his Slowtwitch.com “Peaceful Tribe” jersey, and we ran into a few Slowtwitchers in the chute. The two I remember in the swim line were guys whose online handles were “lunchbox” and “cooterbob.” Funny guys; I hope they did well.

At the bottom of the line, near the water’s edge, I finally saw Mom and Lisa. They were in the stands waving to us. Laura and the twins didn’t make it to the start. The boys were a little sick, and I think Laura was exhausted from caring for them. She did an awesome job shuttling those guys around. It couldn’t have been easy for her. After waving to Lisa and Mom for a bit, Steve and I were off and into the water at about 6:55 AM, just after the pros started off. We treaded water for about 5 minutes, said our “good lucks,” and then at 7:00 AM, the cannon went off and we started swimming.


The Swim:

It wasn’t as bad as I’d been afraid it would be. The lake was like glass; no wind. Steve and I lined up behind the ski ramp and to the outside a bit to avoid the scrum. It worked well. We had pretty smooth sailing throughout the first part of the swim (toward the first turn buoy). I felt like I was swimming okay. I never really got punched or kicked, and I really enjoyed most of it. I did get slapped on the legs a bit, but if it went on more than twice, I just started kicking hard and the person would back off.

I lost Steve immediately. I figured that would happen, so I just stuck to my race and kept swimming. I was amazed at how quickly the time passed. I took Steve’s coach’s advice and counted my strokes. It made the time go by even faster, and before I knew it, I was rounding the last buoy for the second time and heading toward shore.

When I got to my feet, the clock read 1:15. That was about exactly where I thought I’d finish. I learned later that Steve finished in about 1:12.

T1:

The first transition was LONG!! After I got out of the water, I got to the wetsuit peelers and got out of my wetsuit pretty fast. The problem was, though, that we had to run from the water’s edge up the helix, into Monona Terrace, and then into the bag room. Running up that helix was hard at first because I didn’t have my land legs back. About a third of the way up, I finally felt stable and picked up the pace.



Once in the bag room, I got my T1 bag handed to me and ran into the changing room. There was no place to sit, and I knew there wouldn’t be, so I planned accordingly. I had worn my tri top under the wetsuit, so I didn’t have any changing to do. I just stuffed my Gu’s into my shorts pockets, put on my helmet and sunglasses, grabbed my shoes, and ran out. I got to my bike, put my shoes on, and then started running way down the corridor of bike racks to the “Bike Out” arch. It was a LONG way to run. People kept popping out of the racks in front of me slowing me down. I expected this, but it was still frustrating. Anyway, I finally got to the bike out line, jumped on my bike, and headed down the helix to John Nolen Drive.

The Bike:

The bike course can only be described as tough! We biked down John Nolen Drive, along Lake Monona for a bit, then up on the bike path, under John Nolen Drive, and out into God-Knows-Where!!! There were so many turns on the bike course, I couldn’t have told you where I was at any given time. The long and short of it is this: The first 15 miles don’t give you any clue what you’re in store for later.

I cruised along nicely at the beginning. Doesn’t everyone? I’m glad I drove the course with Steve and Matt, though, because the first 15 miles doesn’t give you a clue as to how hard the bike course is. It was flat and fast (somewhat) in the beginning. I was a little anxious, though, because I couldn’t really get things going as fast as I wanted due to the sheer number of bikes out there. That turned out to be a good thing, though, because if I’d pushed harder, I probably would have burned up my legs really quickly.

At about Mile 25, I had my first big set back. I think the volume of travel and amount of time I spent sleeping in hotels and other beds over the last few weeks finally got me because my back, which had been a bit tight the week before the race, finally seized up on me and made it virtually impossible to stay aero for very long. I had no problems staying aero if I didn’t have to pedal, but I could only hold the position for 30 seconds to 1 minute if I had to pedal, so I spent the majority of the ride on the base bar and resting my hands on the arm pads trying to stretch out my back. I know this cost me a few minutes over the course of 90 miles. Still, I did tuck in on the descents to minimize the time loss.

The first loop of the course was just awesome. There were scattered spectators here and there, but when we hit the hill up into Mount Horeb, the crowd got thicker. The crowd right after the water stop at the Mount Horeb high school was loud and they were a lot like a mini version of Verona. It gave me a good adrenaline charge to go through there.

The first climb up Old Sauk Pass was not that bad. I knew it was coming due to my reconnaissance a couple of days earlier, so I spun easy until I got to it. I saw Matt in his bright orange shirt about 2/3 of the way up. He was very encouraging and told me Steve was only about 4 minutes ahead. I picked up the pace a bit, but my inability to stay aero really cost me some speed. I knew Steve had to be putting time on me because I had only been 3 minutes behind coming out of the water.

Just after Old Sauk Pass was Timber Lane. This was the steepest climb, but very short. Based on its grade and length, it reminded me of the climb on Highway 360 in Austin just before Bee Caves Road when you’re heading back towards town. Timber Lane was just a bit shorter than that hill. It was tons of fun, though. The crowd was packed in tight with a very narrow lane for the cyclists to get through. We all had to grind up the hill, so we were slow, and the crowd was like the Tour de France crowd cheering us up the hill. It was just awesome!

Once over Timber Lane, we had a nice general descent until Midtown Road, which was the last climb before Verona. On the first loop, I made a turn onto one of the roads between Midtown and Verona and then dropped my head as I coasted a bit. I wasn’t paying attention and almost rolled off the road onto the dirt shoulder. I had to ride the lip of the pavement for about 10 yards before I coaxed myself back onto the road. Two guys passed me just after that and both of them complemented me on the “nice save.” It could have been ugly if I’d rolled into that thick dirt!

Going through Verona was probably the most exhilarating part of the ride. The main drag was closed to traffic and there were barriers put up making it a narrow lane, only a bit wider than the path up Timber Lane. There were thousands of people lining the street cheering wildly. Plus, Verona was pretty flat, so we could fly down that lane looking good for the crowd. I saw Lisa holding a sign that said “I love my Danno!” That was a HUGE pick-me-up. Only a few short miles later, I was turning right to start my second loop.

There wasn’t much different about the second loop. I was a bit slower because of the toll that all the rollers had taken on my legs, but I wasn’t THAT much slower. My back was still bothering me a bit, but not so bad that I entertained any serious thoughts about quitting. I knew I’d have to keep my pace backed off a bit or else my back might really bother me on the run. When I saw Matt again at Old Sauk Pass, he told me Steve was now 12 minutes up on me. I knew then that I wouldn’t catch him on the bike. In fact, I figured that I wouldn’t see him again except maybe as he passed by in the opposite direction a few times on the run.

I completed the second loop and headed back into Madison toward T2. I thought I might have a shot at going under 6 hours, but as I checked my watch at the 100-mile mark, I knew I wouldn’t make that. No sweat, though, I raced my race and kept it steady and even, so I knew I’d have something on the run. I preferred to race smart rather than kill it on the bike out of some crazy misguided pride issue.

I was never so happy to see Monona Terrace as I was at about 2:15 PM on Sunday! I rolled up the helix, had a perfect dismount, and hopped off the bike at right about 2:25 PM for a 6:04 bike split.

T2:

My bike to run transition was much better than I’d expected. I was budgeting 5-6 minutes, but I did it in 3:22. I had a great dismount, leaving the shoes on the pedals. My running legs actually worked pretty well, and I got into the bag room and the changing room very quickly. Rolled my socks on, put on the shoes, stuffed my helmet in the bag and took off.

The Run:

As I said before, the run is always my weak spot. I didn’t put in nearly enough run training this year, and I knew breaking 5 hours would be hard. If I had been completely healthy, I think I could have done it, but it would have been tight. My goals had been to do 5:45 on the bike and 4:45 on the run so that I could do 1:15 on the swim and have 15 minutes of transition time to hit that 12 hour goal. My back trouble on the bike and the fact that my leg muscles just weren’t loose enough to give me comfort left me in a 20-minute deficit for my 12-hour goal. I knew when I left T-2 that I was probably not going to make that 12-hour goal. I would need to run faster than 4:30 on the marathon, and given my calf troubles, IT band issues, and general stiffness, I figured that was next to impossible. In fact, even if I’d been completely healthy, I don’t think I put in enough run training to do a 4:20 marathon anyway. I figured the best I could do would be to hit 5 hours even and get somewhere between 12:30 and 12:50 overall.

Alas, if I’d had any lingering hopes of blistering the run, they were dashed early on. At Mile 3, I started getting an upset stomach. I was a little surprised because my bike nutrition/hydration had been spot-on. I dumped my water bottle and Gatorade bottle at each alternating hydration station on the bike, so I always had cold water/Gatorade. I didn’t drink or eat too much and I varied the nutrition I ate so I wasn’t relying only on gels. Still, Mile 3 hit me like a ton of bricks; my heart rate was up and the water and Gatorade I’d had at the first two stations just sat there like a lump in my stomach. So I stopped and walked from Mile 3 to Mile 5. That helped a lot, and I ran Miles 5 and 6. However, at Mile 7, it returned, so I walked Miles 7, 8, and part of 9.

At Mile 9, I was caught by a guy named Bruce in the M40-45 group who had been just a few minutes behind me on the swim and bike. He was walking the aid stations and running in between them. That had been my plan, but my GI issues were putting a crimp in that. He was going at a very easy pace, so I ran with him at Mile 9. We passed the time chatting and alternating our walking/running, and before we knew it, we hit the turn-around and were headed back on the last 13.1 miles. I was telling Bruce about running after Steve and that I was disappointed I probably wouldn’t catch him.

Just after Mile 16, Bruce and I were chatting about how I wouldn’t see Steve again for the rest of the day. Not 5 minutes later, I saw Steve up ahead walking. Apparently, the GI monster got him at Mile 14, and he’d been walking ever since. Bruce and I caught him about 20 meters before the Mile 17 aid station. We passed him and I invited him to come along, but he was hurting and declined.

I guess it was fortuitous that we caught him right before the aid station, because Bruce and I stopped and walked the station, and it was just a little bit before Observatory Hill, which we intended to walk also. Steve was back behind us just a bit and I invited him to come walk with us, which he did. By the time we got up Observatory Hill, Steve was able to walk/run with Bruce and me for a few more miles. So, we walked and ran together, all 3 of us, until Mile 21.

At Mile 21, Steve and I both had to use the porto-potties. We told Bruce to go on ahead and we’d try to catch up. After we got out of the can, Steve said he just couldn’t run anymore. He was still having GI problems when he ran and just needed to walk. I made the decision there to let Bruce go on alone and I’d stay with Steve. I figured that I could have finished about 20-35 minutes faster if I’d caught up with Bruce, but two things held me back. First, Steve didn’t look great and I was worried about him. I knew he’d be okay because of the great support at the race, but he looked like he needed some company to help keep him going. Second, and more importantly, I’d already determined I wouldn’t make my time goal, and rather than get “the fastest time I could,” I wanted to enjoy the experience. I figured that crossing the finish line with Steve would be more fun, more memorable, and more rewarding than crossing with an arbitrary time that was slower than I had wanted. I didn’t want my first Ironman experience to be me second-guessing everything about why I didn’t quite make my time goal. So, I chucked the “fastest time” and decided to walk with Steve. I’m glad I did. We had a fun finish.

We saw Mason at Mile 24 and told him we were going to carry Steve’s twin boys across the line with us, so he called ahead to Laura and had her waiting near the finish line with the boys. When we got there, Steve got Will and I got Alex, and we crossed the line together holding his boys. It was very memorable and a lot of fun. I wouldn’t have done it any other way!

My total run time was 5:42 or so, for a final finishing time of 13 hours, 14 minutes and 49 seconds. Steve actually crossed the line a second after me. It was awesome!

Wrap up:

In closing, let me say that this race was a really incredible experience. The crowd support was better than I remembered it being when I was there supporting Steve in 2004. They were loud, encouraging, helpful, kind, and just so great! The volunteers were simply amazing! I tried to thank as many people as I could, but there were so many of them! They made the race so much easier for us by being there. The city of Madison was great, too. The policemen controlling the intersections were polite and helpful. They did a great job, and I didn’t hear about any serious problems in race execution. All-in-all, it was just a glorious day out there.

Big thanks to Mason Duchatschek for sherpa-ing things for me. He was a great source of information and help. Also, he was all over the course, so it was cool having that inspiration everywhere! Thanks, Mase.

I have to give special thanks to my wife, Lisa. I already mentioned what a trooper she was just in getting to the race, but it went FAR beyond that. She was very patient with me during all my training (which admittedly wasn’t as oppressive as it could and probably should have been) and never complained once. She took on more than her share of the household duties and doggie care duties so that I could get in my long rides/runs. Frankly, I don’t know how she put up with it.

Most amazingly, however, she did all this in a summer that was filled with chaos. Her mother had neck surgery early in the summer, and Lisa had to help shuttle her around to appointments, help care for her, and do a lot of work that her mother simply couldn’t do because of the surgery. She also made the last few plans for and pulled off (almost flawlessly) our wedding in July. In fact, she was patient with me even though by the time IMoo rolled around, we’d been married less than 8 weeks, and I’d been gone for various reasons (work or IM sherpa duties) for just over two of those 8 weeks.

To top it all off, despite the weeks without me around, the early morning on Saturday, and all of the summer chaos, she managed to be just about everywhere on the bike and run courses to see me in action. I don’t know how she had the energy, but it was such a huge pick-me-up every time I saw her.

Then, if THAT wasn’t enough, she drove with me the entire trip home from Madison to Austin. I gotta tell you, I have the greatest wife in the world!

Anyhoo . . . That’s my Ironman Wisconsin report. It was a truly awesome experience. I can’t wait to do the next one!

Brief Training Update and Lead-up to IMoo

Hi, everyone! Not a whole lot to update. I've been tapering my training for IMoo since last week and don't have much to say. Most of the taper work has been easy runs, easy rides, and easy swims. Lately, I've quit running entirely after I strained my left calf muscle Tuesday morning on an easy jog. I figure if I'm not ready to run now, no amount of taper training is gonna fix that and it's better to avoid injury. So, for the past few days, I've been doing mostly 25-mile bike rides at an easy pace of 20 mph or so. Low to mid effort, trying to stay aerobic.

Oh . . . to anyone interested, my bib number for the race is 982. Steve's is 967.

It's now 9 days until race day. I plan to leave for Wisconsin this Sunday and stay over a few days in St. Louis with Mason. I plan to arrive in Madison on Thursday and just soak up the atmosphere for a while.

For those of you (family and friends) going to Madison to spectate, I can't wait to see you! It should be a fun week and a long, hard day on Sunday! Pray for cool weather!

Training Update for the last two weeks.

Not much to tell for the last couple of weeks. Training has been haphazard at best, due to work-related interruptions. I have managed to do long rides and runs each weekend, but my week-day training has been relegated to short runs in the mornings (when I can do it) and my Texas Iron workouts.

After the long run on July 30 was Texas Iron swim day. The workout was fairly routine and were good maintenance. I got a short ride (15 miles) in on Wednesday before the swim workout. On Thursday the 2nd I didn't get a workout in. I had planned to do the Texas Iron bike time trial workout, but it rained most of the afternoon and the workout got canceled. I probably could have found time to run for half an hour or so, but I just didn't get it done. On Friday, I ran about 45 minutes in the morning, but didn't do anything else.

Saturday, August 4 was a VERY disappointing workout. I had planned to ride 90 miles as part of my bike build before taper weeks. It started out bad when I slept later than I'd planned and ended up starting the ride at 8:30 instead of 7:00 like I'd planned. To make matters worse, the summer had finally kicked in and it was upper 90's in temperature and God-awful humidity.

I started the ride from home in Leander. The plan was to go out to Parmer Lane and ride it all the way to Hwy 290. That wasn't too hard. From the Parmer and 290 intersection, I then headed west on 290 to Buckner Road, turned south and took that to 51st Street. West on 51st to Lamar, and then south on Lamar to Barton Springs Road, where I stopped at Jack & Adam's to buy a few extra Gu's and to refill water bottles. By then, I'd gone about 45 miles and was feeling okay. Unfortunately, I had 45 more to go and the hard stuff was coming up.

After leaving Jack & Adam's, I generally followed the Dam Loop route taking Barton Springs out to MoPac and then heading south to Southwest Parkway, up to Hwy 71, and over to Ranch Road 620 through Lakeway. The route was tiring, but I was doing fine until I hit Lakeway. By then, the heat had really kicked in. I hadn't been drinking as much as I should and I was definitely getting dehydrated. Also, I forgot to bring salt tabs, so my legs were getting a little bit crampy.

Once I got across Mansfield Dam, I knew I wasn't going to make the full 90 miles. I got as far as the Walgreen's at FM 2222 and 620 and decided to call Lisa to come pick me up. Although I was dejected and pissed because I didn't get the full 90 in, I think it was the right call. I had planned to turn at Bullick Hollow (right there at 2222) and go through the the area over to Lime Creek Road. Lime Creek has a series of hills called the Three Sisters (or the Three Bitches!), and I just didn't have the legs to do those hills. I could've hurt myself trying to do them.

So, I bagged the ride after 72 miles. Not bad, but I was really worried that I was still 40 miles short of the Ironman distance, and I was so beat. I called Steve to complain and he reminded me that heat and humidity play a huge role in how you feel. Since Madison is not likely to be as hot or as humid, I should do much better there, especially if I watch my hydration and nutrition, and don't overdo my effort on the bike.

Sunday, August 5th was as encouraging as the previous day's ride had been discouraging. I got up early on Sunday and went for a long run. I was worried since I'd been wiped out the day before, but I ended up having a great run. The goal was to run straight for 1 hour 30 minutes at a moderate rate. I managed to do that quite well, but when I got home and plugged in my route to check the mileage, I was astounded to learn that I'd run 10 miles in that hour and a half! I didn't feel like I was going THAT fast. So . . . I was very encouraged by those results. Even more encouraging was the fact that I didn't have any real knee pain! So . . . maybe my running is finally coming around a bit! Let's just see what I can do immediately after a 112 mile bike, though!

The next day, I ran for 45 minutes down at the Town Lake trail. It was a lower intensity recovery run. I had some knee pain, but I noticed that when I focused on form, the pain went away, so I think I'm learning how to manage the IT Band stuff.

Tuesday, August 7th was a Texas Iron running day. I and 3 others who will be doing Ironmans in the next few months got to run "mile repeats," while everyone else worked on shorter distances with speed. My workout was to run a half mile at 5k or 10k pace, rest for 90 seconds, then run another, rest for 90 seconds, then run a mile at half-iron pace. I then had to repeat that two more times. Needless to say, I ran a little faster than I should have. My miles were pretty constant at 7:15-7:20 each. That's a little faster than my desired HIM pace. In the two actual HIM's I've done, my pace was closer to 9:30 or 10:00, but that was due to lots of walking from the knee problems. A good HIM pace for me right now is probably about 8:15 to 8:45. Anyway, the workout went smoothely and I didn't have any pain!

On Wednesday, August 8th, I had an ART appointment with Dr. Z. I reported my good running news and we worked on my achilles tendons and my left knee some. He told me not to overdo it and to just maintain through IMoo. That evening, Texas Iron had an open water swim at Lake Travis near Mansfield Dam. It was a good workout concentrating mostly on short distances and the mass swim start. I'm beginning to realize that I won't have a great swim time, but if I can just get through the swim and the first Transition in an hour and a half, I'll be fine.

Thursday, August 9th was the Texas Iron bike time trial workout. It had been delayed twice by rain, but we had clear skies and hot weather this Thursday. So, I went out to do the time trial and see where I am in my short distance, hard intensity biking. Mad props to Lisa for taking time out of her day to bring my bike shoes and my aero helmet down to the office for me when I found that I'd left them at home!

At the time trial, I had the Sharkboy wheel cover and Steve's Zipp 404 front wheel running for optimal speed. The time trial always brings out tons of casual Texas Iron folks because they love to see how fast they can go. The record-holder for the time trial is a guy named Jake North, who used to be a bike racer and now does triathlons. I finished 2nd to Jake in the age group (non-professional) division of the Rookie Triathlon earlier this summer, and 2nd to him in the last Texas Iron time trial. Jake was there, but he's been hurt, so he didn't have his aero stuff and did the time trial on his road bike instead.

As people arrived for the time trial, Jamie and Andrea had us warm up. I did a half of the 8-mile loop as warm up and then headed to the start line with everyone else. Jamie kept time and Andrea started us off. Usually, Jamie tries to seed the riders by expected finish, but that's resulted in a lot of people crossing the finish at the same time, so this time, he put us in random order. I went 6th. We started 10 seconds apart with Andrea hold our bikes up and us clipped in and ready to go.

The route starts on MoPac, just barely south of Lacrosse Ave., the turn off for the Veloway and the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center. We ride down MoPac to the very end, and then turn around and come back on the north-bound side to finish just before Lacrosse. It took me until almost 500 meters before the turnaround to catch the lead rider. I passed him, hit the turnaround, and then sprinted back to the finish. My time was 18 minutes, 25 seconds, good for fastest time of the day. (Despite being hurt, Jake finished second at 18:55!) My time was 25 seconds better than my last time, so I was pleased!

I did not work out on Friday, August 10.

Yesterday (August 11) was my next long ride. I planned to do 90 miles yesterday since I hadn't made it 90 the week before. This time, however, I decided to do the route in reverse. Instead of heading to Parmer from home, I went west and headed down Lakeline Blvd to 1431, and then over to Lime Creek. This way, I got the hills out of the way early on! Anyway, from Lime Creek, I hit 620 at Anderson Mill Road, and then headed west on 620 to 2222, down to Hwy 360, across the bridge, and down to MoPac. From there, I did the Jack Brown Cleaner's Loop up Southwest Parkway to 71, to Bee Caves Road, and down again to 360 to MoPac. Then, I headed north on MoPac to Barton Springs and rolled into Jack & Adam's for a refill and a short rest. By then, I'd gone 72 miles, and I knew I'd be able to finish up. The only problem was that from Jack & Adam's, I was at least 27 miles from home, so it looked like I'd be doing closer to 100 miles than 90. No problem!!

After I left Jack & Adam's, I headed up Lamar all the way to Parmer Lane, turned west/north on Parmer, crossed MoPac, and headed up toward home. I rolled into the driveway just before Lisa was headed out the door to run a few errands for the day! My odometer read 100.08 miles! My first century! I felt tired, but pretty good. I had thought about running a couple of miles for a brick workout, but my old running shoes were wet and my new ones aren't well broken in yet. I figured I'd wait and do some short ride, short run bricks when I can this week instead!

Today, I plan to run long, but it'll have to be later in the day. I have work to do preparing for trial tomorrow!

More to come later!

Success at a "Long" Run -- My First Since BSLT 70.3!!!

Back to work! I definitely feel refreshed from the vacation, but the enormity of IMoo is starting to weigh heavily on me. Because of yesterday’s long ride and the fact that I have to be in court today for a docket call at 1:30 PM, there’s not much I can do about riding today. So, I decided to make today a "long" run. I was a little nervous about a long run because I haven’t been running much at all since the BSLT 70.3 injury.

Anyway, I took my running stuff to work and was planning to do a 45-minute to 1-hour run down at Town Lake after work. Actually, I surprised myself. Despite the long ride yesterday, I was able to run for 75 minutes today with no pain. I took an easy pace, and granted I hadn’t just finished 112 miles, but I felt really good. This was the first time I’d run continuously for 75 minutes without stopping to walk.

I walked from Jack & Adam’s down to the bridge at Lamar and Riverside, and then ran two consecutive loops of the trail between First Street and MoPac. I took two vanilla Clif Shots with me and I think that helped. I also stopped at the water coolers on each end to rehydrate, so I think that helped a lot. I’m hoping to increase my maximum run time up to over 2 hours before IMoo. I think as long as I run conservatively and with proper form (and get my new shoes – tomorrow, for sure! – I’ll be okay).

Tomorrow is a bike workout (short ride) and my Texas Iron run workout . . . most likely a pretty short distance.

The Build to Ironman Wisconsin -- Only 43 Days!!

Back to the training regimen! I really should have gone to church today, but I’m starting to freak out about the Ironman on September 9. My two rides in Colorado have convinced me that I’m not prepared to ride 112 miles and still have ANYTHING left for the run. I know I won’t be doing as much constant climbing in Madison as Steve and I did in Colorado, but still . . . I’m worried, particularly because of the paucity of my post-BSLT 70.3 training due to the knee problems.

So . . . today, I was resolved to do a long ride. I’d mapped out a 70-mile course from home. I figured I could get in a good 70 and then finish off my mowing chores for the day. I got up at 6:30 AM and was out of the house on my ride by 8:00 AM. I had decided to ride west down Crystal Falls Pkwy to Lakeline Blvd., and then take Lakeline to 183, cross under and turn onto another street and head back down (southish) parallel to 183 to avoid traffic on the feeder roads. I guess I got turned around. I wound up on RR 620 heading east toward Parmer Lane, which took me a good mile or 2 out of the way. So, I revised the plan and cut south down Parmer to Anderson Mill Road, and then made my way back west to 183. From there, I stayed on the access road until I got to Spicewood Springs Road and could take the short jog to Jolleyville Road, which has a bike lane. All in all, the unintended detour took me about 4 ½ miles out of the way.

Once on Jolleyville, I road down to The Arboretum and then around Arboretum Blvd. to Hwy 360. I took 360 south, past the suspension bridge, and down to MoPac Expwy. From there, I followed the "Dam Loop" path. I got on MoPac, and then right off again at Southwest Parkway. I took Southwest to Hwy 71, to RR 620 through Lakeway. That eventually hooked me up again with Anderson Mill Road, which I took all the way east to Parmer Lane, and then road Parmer north until I got to Crystal Falls Pkwy. From there, it was a 2-mile ride back home. All-in-all, I rode about 80 miles!

I had intended to do a short brick by running a couple of miles off the bike, but the extra miles and the two days of driving from Colorado had my legs just too tired. So, I bagged the brick and just showered and took a nap. At 3:00, I got up and finished edging the lawn. Lisa got home as I was working in the yard and so when I finished cutting the grass, we bagged up all the excess cut grass and called it an evening. We had PB&J for dinner with blue corn tortilla chips! I’m glad, because neither of us had the energy to whip up a hot meal! It was yummy, and certainly not too heavy!

Except for bagging the brick part of the work out, this was a pretty good day. The tri bike felt good to be on again, although my hard work at staying aero at BSLT 70.3 is pretty much gone now. I couldn’t stay aero very long at all in the last 30 miles of my ride. I just needed to sit up to get air and to feel comfortable. Hopefully I can get most of it back before Sept. 9.

I can't believe there are only 43 days until Moo!

The Trip Home (Day Two)

Not much to today. We drove for 10 hours to get back to Leander. We left Dalhart at about 8:00 AM. There weren’t too many stops or surprises. We did stop at a McDonald’s outside Amarillo because I was jonesing for coffee. Lisa ran in to get it while I walked the dogs in a field. A couple of young boys at the McDonald’s came out and wanted to pet the dogs. They were very friendly kids and so I let them walk the boys around. As Lisa and I were leaving, their mom came out and they had to leave too. One of the boys was so cute . . . he said as he was leaving that he wanted to take Reese with him! Our dogs were SO popular!

The only other momentous stop was when we stopped for lunch outside Abilene. We stopped at one of those roadside rest stops. Lisa made sandwiches while I walked the boys around. It was a very pleasant little picnic!

After that, we just had a few hours in the car and were home by 6:15 PM. We got unloaded and generally unpacked pretty fast. Of course, we’d been gone so long, and the rain had been so heavy in Austin, that the lawn was a mess. I got out the weed eater and started edging the front yard because I was afraid we’d get a notice from the HOA. Just before dark, Lisa called me in for dinner. I still wasn’t done edging. It’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

I miss the mountains and weather in Estes Park, but it’s nice to be home!

The Trip Home (Day One).

Well, today was our last day in Estes Park for this trip. We had to be out of the cabin and checked out by 10:00 AM. As usual, I was up early. I took the dogs out for a short walk and for a potty break. Then, the rest of the morning was spent eating breakfast and getting things packed up to go. Again, Lisa was SO efficient! I’d barely have one thing ready when she was ready with other bags packed! All of us managed to be packed and ready to go by 9:15 AM. We all caravanned down to the Y camp and checked out. We said our goodbyes to the others, and then Lisa and I took Reese and AJ to the dog park for some play time before heading out on the road. The boys had a great time swimming and chasing balls at the park. I think they were pretty worn out by the time we got them into the car.

There’s not too much to tell about this day of travel. We did stop in Castle Rock so that Lisa could check out the outlet mall stores there. She only went into one, though. I was walking the dogs around the parking lot getting them a bit more exercise.

Then, near the end of the day, we were passing through New Mexico, getting close to Clayton when we saw signs for the Capulin Volcano National Monument. Well, this really excited Lisa and she wanted to stop. Since it was only a couple of miles off the highway, I thought it sounded like fun. So, we went! It was cool! We have lots of pictures, but again, Lisa has them on the digital camera, so I’ll have to supplement them later on the blog.

After Capulin, we made to Dalhart, Texas by 9:00 PM. We stayed at a pretty awful motel, the Budget Inn. It was rather smelly and seemed dirty, but at least it was only half as expensive as the Days Inn & Suites in Dumas was! Still, $75.00 a night for that place wasn’t exactly a bargain. They did have an internet connection, so I got caught up on my emails. After walking the dogs, we had pizza for dinner and watched a really bad movie — Reign of Fire (Matthew McConaughy and Christian Bale) — and then went to bed.

A Scenic Drive to 11,400 Feet!

Today, I didn’t do ANY training. I had intended to get up and go swim again, but the pool was SO warm on Monday and my breathing so shallow, I just couldn’t force myself to do it. So, I just relaxed and hung out with the dogs until everyone got up.

In the mid-morning, Lisa and I followed Steve and Laura and the twins (in our cars) up to the top of a mountain (I forget which one). The mountain has two roads up to the top. The one we took was a dirt road with lots of switchbacks. I’m a bit surprised that the minivan made it! (Not really!). But, anyway, we were more than 11,000 feet above sea level at the top. Lisa has a lot of good video coverage of the trip up there, and I know we have some photos, but I’m not sure where they are. If I find them, I’ll add them later.

Anyway, at the top, it began to rain really hard, so we decided to leave pretty quickly. The road down was called "Trail Ridge Road." It’s paved and is very windy. On a good day, I bet it would be a LOT of fun to go down that road on a bicycle! By about noon, we were all the way down the mountain.

At that point, Steve and Laura took the twins for a picnic, while Lisa and I drove out to Charles Eagle Plume’s to look at Indian jewelry. One of our pastors had suggested we go out there to look at less expensive jewelry than what you’d find in Estes Park. It turns out that Eagle Plume’s is on Highway 7, past the Longs Peak trailhead. Steve and I had passed it on Tuesday’s ride, but I didn’t notice it. Anyway, we had no trouble finding it, but we were a bit disappointed by it.

The jewelry was beautiful, and they had an upstairs gallery with a lot of one-of-a-kind Eagle Plume memorabilia (not for sale) that really brought out the history buff in me. But, the prices were pretty darn high for the items for sale. I guess things have changed a bit! The best part of Eagle Plume’s for me was the big hummingbird feeder out front. We got some nifty photographs of hummingbirds hovering at the spouts. If I can locate them, I’ll post a few later.

By mid-afternoon, we were tired, so we went back to the cabin and hung out with Steve, Laura, the twins, and Matt (who had a bad cold and didn’t go on the Longs Peak hike with Shauna). We just sat around and talked. Lisa and I started to do a jigsaw puzzle, but it became clear pretty quickly that we wouldn’t be able to finish it (1000 pieces) before leaving the next day, so we snapped a photo of how far we’d gotten, and then put it away.

Dinner was left overs. We had lots of salmon, chicken (grilled and parmagiana), and even some of Laura’s lasagna left from previous dinners. After dinner and relaxation, it was bed time again to prepare for the long journey back to Leander.

The Glenhaven Loop . . . the Jester Blvd. of the Colorado Mountains?

Today was another bike day for Steve and me. Neither of us was all that sore from the 80-miler yesterday, so we decided to do "the Glenhaven Loop," a roughly 40-mile ride. Matt was supposed to come with us, but he wasn’t feeling well and didn’t get up to come with us this morning. This time, I remembered the cameras, so I’ve included some pictures.

Steve and I started at the Y camp again, behind the Sweet Memorial building again. Here are a couple of pictures of Steve getting prepared to ride.

Like yesterday, we headed down Highway 66 toward Estes and rode through town. However, instead of going right at Highway 36 and then right again at Highway 7, we stayed straight and got onto Highway 34. After a short climb to get out of Estes Park, we had a VERY nice, long downhill ride. It must have been 15 miles of descending! It was incredible! I’ve got a lot of shots of this part of the ride. Here are a few:

Riding view of the climb out of Estes Park. I thought the mountain was pretty against the blue sky. You can’t see much of the climb, but it was only about half a mile and not steep at all.









Here’s a shot of the road climbing out of Estes Park.
Steve was in front of me, so I got him in the shot.










Here’s part of the descent from Estes toward the Glenhaven turn-off.











This photo captures the winding road as it travels next to a river bed.
We’re still descending here.











This one is also part of the descent from Estes Park.
I love the curves in the road.
Not too sharp, and definitely conducive to high speed!





Once we hit the bottom of the descent on Highway 34, we turned off at a sign that pointed us to Glenhaven. I can’t remember what road it was, but I do have a couple of pictures of us on that road. It was pretty much a steady climb up into Glenhaven from the turn-off. There was less shade and more pasture land, too. Here are a couple of the photos:

This is just past the turn-off. You can see the slight uphill nature of the climb. It was very pleasant! It's obviously still a mountainous area, but look at the large open grassland area to the right of the picture. We're definitely in a valley here.




These two pictures were taken as we road up the road to Glenhaven. We were going relatively easy, so we took turns snapping photos of each other.

Here’s Steve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and, here’s me.









There was a great sign on the road and I can’t believe I forgot to snap a picture of it. Steve told me as we turned onto the road that we might encounter cattle on the road. Although we didn’t see any, we rode past one house that had a big sign on the front fence that read: "Cows Not Mine!" I guess the guy was tired of folks stopping by to tell him "his" cows were in the road! Funny stuff.

Anyway . . . we eventually made it to Glenhaven. Here’s a picture Steve snapped of me after we passed through. I stopped for a pose:














About a mile and a half past Glenhaven is a helluva climb! It can’t be more than 3/4 of a mile to a mile long, but it’s SUPER steep and has two switchbacks. Since I was on my Colnago, I had an 11-23 cassette for this climb. OMG!! That was hard. I was dying for a bail-out gear, but with a 39-tooth small chainring and a 23-tooth "granny" gear, I wasn’t getting any relief. I had meant to buy a 12-27 cassette before this ride, but I forgot. I wanted to get off the bike and walk up that hill SOOOOOO badly, but my ego wouldn’t let me do it. I ground it out at 5 mph or less until I finally made it up. Oh, my legs and lungs hurt so bad after that, but I made it!! I have a picture of the hill, but it’s on a camera that hasn’t been used up yet, so I’ll have to post it later.

After that big climb, the rest of the ride back into Estes Park was pretty much all downhill. Good thing, too, because my legs were TOAST for the rest of the day. Steve and I rode back into Estes Park and then made the short trek back up to the Y camp where we drove back to Broadview. We got back at around 9:15 AM or so. We had a little breakfast, chatted with Lisa, Laura, Shauna, and Matt, and then agreed to watch the boys while the girls went on a hike, and Matt went down to the Y camp to use the internet to do some work.

I crashed for about an hour and a half at about 10:30 AM. Sorry to leave Steve to watch the twins alone, but I was beat! Almost 120 miles in 2 days was a big strain on my legs, especially with all the sustained climbing we did yesterday and the steep hill we did today.
At noon, after I got up and had some lunch, Steve and I just hung out with the twins and the dogs and didn’t do much of anything! Matt came back in the early afternoon with some Tour de France news, but other than that . . . not much else until dinner.

Tonight’s dinner was our eating out experience. We had 5:30 PM reservations at the Dunraven Inn. Ordinarily, we wouldn’t eat so early, but Shauna and (possibly) Matt will be hiking Longs Peak tomorrow, and we need to be back home early. So, we loaded up and drove down to the Inn for a nice Italian meal.

Here’s a picture of Lisa and me in the car on the way to the Inn. Its doesn’t have a lot of significance other than we thought it turned out pretty nicely considering Lisa held the camera out in front of us and just snapped the picture.














Here are two pictures of us (individually) standing by the Dunraven Inn sign.













And, finally, a picture of Steve holding Duck at the table inside.

Eighty Miles of Cycling! It Doesn't Get Much Better Than This.

Today was all about the bike! Steve and I planned to ride a 60-70 mile route from Estes Park to Boulder via the town of Ward. The plan was to take Hwy 66 from the YMCA Camp down through Estes Park, and then turn off on Hwy 7 and climb past the Longs Peak trailhead and descend toward Lyons until we hit Highway 72. There, we’d turn off onto 72 and ride what we thought would be a generally downhill route to Ward, at which time we’d turn off onto a road called "Lefthand Canyon" and descend just east of Boulder. Unfortunately, our plan didn’t work out quite right.

We left Broadview fairly early in the morning, around 7:00 or so. I forgot to bring any of the disposable cameras, so I have no pictures of this ride, which is a darn shame. It was beautiful! We drove to the Y camp and unloaded our stuff back behind the Sweet Memorial building in the parking lot next to the pool. From there, Steve and I headed out of the camp and onto Hwy 66 to descend into Estes Park. Following our plan, we went through Estes Park and turned right onto Highway 7 toward the Longs Peak trailhead. This was pretty much a 6 or 7 mile climb with no real breaks. The grade wasn’t bad, but I don’t recall ever climbing for such a long distance straight. It wasn’t easy, but we warmed up nicely by the time we got to the trailhead and began our descent. The descent was a VERY welcome break. It lasted about 3-4 miles and felt great. At the bottom, we then had some rolling hills before we finally hit Highway 72.

At Highway 72, we turned right only to discover that what we THOUGHT would be a descent was really an 8-9 mile climb to Ward. Oh my goodness, that was a LONG hour! To make matters worse, when we got to Ward, we missed the turn-off for Lefthand Canyon. The road wasn’t marked and we just went right by it. We got a couple of miles outside of Ward before we decided to turn around and go back to look for it. Unfortunately, the 2-3 miles we went past the turn-off were all downhill, so we had to climb back up to Ward to find the right road. Since it wasn’t marked, we had to guess whether we were in the right place. Turns out, we were. But, by then, we were so tired from the extra climbing, we stopped for 30 minutes or so at a small general store in Ward. The sun had started to heat up the air, and at close to 12:00 PM, it was at least 90 degrees already. We refueled, topped off our water bottles, and then hopped back on the bikes for the descent on Lefthand Canyon Road.

Wow, what a ride that was!!! We must have averaged over 32 mph down that canyon road. We took turns leading the charge, and must’ve passed 10 other cyclists going down the road and more than twice that number coming up. I think the canyon road was more than 8 miles long, but it didn’t take us too long to get to the bottom. Once there, Steve pointed out the turn off that was part of Old Stage Hill, the big climb on the Boulder Peak triathlon course. We didn’t go that way, but we did end up a few miles east of Boulder on Highway 36. We then peddled into downtown Boulder and stopped to have lunch at Chili’s. By then, it was 1:00 PM and we’d already gone 65 miles! From our planning, we’d thought we would have only gone 35 to 40 miles by then. The missed turn off added at least 5-8 miles, and I think we misjudged the distance Ward was from the Highway 7/Highway 72 interchange. In any event, we were already pretty tired and were looking at hitting 100 miles if we tried to ride back up to the Y camp.

Although both of us wanted to try to do the whole 100 miles, it wasn’t going to happen. Tonight was Lisa’s and my turn to cook dinner, and I had to be back early to start helping out. If we’d ridden the whole 100 miles, Steve and I wouldn’t have made it back until at least 4:00 PM. Dinner was early tonight because Matt and Shauna were meeting a friend to play tennis at 7:00. So, Steve called Laura and she agreed to meet us in Lyons to pick us up and drive us back to Estes Park.

After lunch, we saddled up and headed out to Lyons, which was only about 17 miles from where we were in Boulder. The ride was pretty uneventful. It was mostly slightly downhill from Boulder, which surprised me. It was an easy ride, but about 2 ½ miles from where we were to meet Laura, my rear tire hit something and I got a flat. First time in about 600 miles on that tube! I changed it out okay (a little slow, but I wasn’t hurrying!) and we were on our way. We met Laura (and as it turns out, Lisa and the twins were with her) at the corner of Highway 7 and Highway 36 in Lyons. My odometer at that point read 80.56 miles! That’s by far my longest ride this year. We got there at 3:00 PM, so I was right about the time. If we’d tried to ride the additional 20 miles to Estes Park and the additional 2 more miles back to the Y camp, we’d never have made it in time for me to help out with dinner and Lisa might have been a little ticked by that! Although I’d have loved to do the full 100 miles, I think we made the right call!

Dinner tonight was good! Lisa and I had bought two large salmon fillets. She seasoned one with salt and pepper and the other with Italian dressing. We threw together a mixed salad and some long grain wild rice, and had a very nice meal. We even cooked up some chicken for Matt, since I learned after we got the salmon that he’s not a real fish guy! Lisa also whipped up a chocolate jello pudding oreo pie for dessert. It was YUMMY! Of course, more wine with dinner and after dinner!

Another fabulous day!

The First Day of Vacation . . . Easing Our Way Into It.

Today was relatively uneventful. Lisa and I basically used today to settle into the vacation mode. I got up at 5:30 AM and had a small breakfast with Steve. Then, we did a short, easy run about 1 ½ to 2 miles from the Broadview cabin down to the YMCA camp where we did a short swim workout. The mountain air was so clean, but very thin. I was huffing and puffing in the pool! After swimming, Steve and I warmed down by running back up to the cabin, so we got in a good 3 ½ or so mile run and a 40 minute swim workout. Nothing spectacular, but it was good to get some training in.

Later, in the early afternoon, Lisa and I met Steve and Laura and the twins down at the Estes Park Dog Park. We let all four dogs run around and play in the water until they were good and tired. There was some guy there with two yellow labs. Reese had a bit of a spat with one of them, but it was over quickly, and he played well with others for the rest of the sojourn. Then, Steve, Laura, and the twins went and did their own thing while Lisa and I walked Reese and AJ around downtown Estes Park. That was a lot of fun, too. We walked along the trail next to the Big Thompson River and just enjoyed being outdoors.

I know Matt and Shauna had plans to hike or do something with a friend of Matt’s who had relocated to the Estes Park area, but I just can’t remember what it was. In any event, after we left for the dog park, we didn’t see them again until late afternoon.

This evening, Shauna cooked chicken parmagiana for dinner. It was excellent! I tried hard not to overeat, but I just couldn’t help myself. When she brought out the creme brulee for dessert, I was in hog heaven. More wine and conversation made this an exceptionally pleasant day. Matt was funny . . . he’s been getting updates on the Tour de France for Laura and Steve, but he claims to have little to no interest in the race himself. However, our conversations seem to always devolve back into discussions of the Tour, the doping scandals, and Matt’s insistence that he’s not really following the Tour this year! It’s so nice being around intelligent people with quick wits who can hold an entertaining conversation!

Lisa and Laura seem to be bonding, and that makes me so very happy. I think the world of Laura. She has such a hard job caring for those twins! She’s been a terrific companion, friend, and soulmate to Steve since they met back in 1998 (‘97?), and now she seems to be equally good at managing the mothering role. I know that Lisa’s affection for the twins has certainly endeared her to Steve and Laura! She (Lisa) is SO good with little ones! Laura also has a very similar sense of humor to Lisa’s. Since Steve and I are so close, I’d always hoped that our spouses could develop the kind of relationship that would make it easy for us all to spend time together (which is hard to do now that they’re in Colorado and we’re here in Texas). Based on what I’m witnessing this week, I think we’ll have many years of fun to come!!!

Bed time tonight is rather early. Steve and I are riding from Estes Park to Boulder and back tomorrow, so we need a good night’s sleep.

Mr. and Mrs. Perkins' Arrival in Estes Park, Colorado.

So, a week after we got married, Lisa and I were off to Estes Park, Colorado for a week-long stay with Steve and Laura, their 9 month old twins, Will and Alex, and their friends, Matt & Shauna. It was originally going to be a mostly relaxing week, with Steve, Matt, and I getting in some bike riding and training for Ironman Wisconsin on September 9. However, Matt has decided to pull out of the race. He hasn’t been able to commit the time to training, and after his muscle problems at Buffalo Springs Lake 70.3 a few weeks ago, he just didn’t think he could do it the right way. So . . . that leaves just the Perkins Twins’ showdown!

Anyway, Lisa and I (and the dogs!) left Leander yesterday, (Saturday, July 21) at about noon for the 17 or so hour trip to Estes Park. We made it as far as Dumas, Texas yesterday before we just had to stop for the night. Reese and AJ were so good in the car. They had a small area, but it was big enough to hold them both and give them some room to stand up, turn around, and be relatively comfortable. We made pit stops ever 2-3 hours so the boys could stretch their legs, we could top off the gas tank, and answer any calls of nature. Lisa has a few pictures from the trip up to Estes Park, but I don’t seem to have them available on the computer, so I’m sorry we don’t have them at the moment.

Anyhoo . . . let me just say ONE thing about Dumas: They RAKE you over the coals with the hotel rooms. We stopped at the Days Inn & Suites. The front desk clerk asked if I had any applicable discounts and I mentioned that I was a State of Texas employee, but that I didn’t have my ID. She said "no problem" and gave me the discounted room . . . which came to $150.00!!!! I’d hate to see the price of the NON-discounted room! I wasn’t too happy, but I took the room anyway. It was 9:00 PM, we had a long drive the next day, and I just wanted to walk the dogs, eat some dinner, and go to sleep. Well, for our $150.00, we got a smelly room with a sheared-off safety lock, a loud wall unit air conditioner, and crappy TV service. Note to self: don’t stay there again! Despite the outrageously expensive accommodations, it was an uneventful night. I took the dogs on a long walk to stretch out, and then it was off to bed to rest for the next morning’s long drive.

Today, I got up early to walk and feed the dogs. When we got back to the room, Lisa was up and getting ready for the day. She is such a fabulous travel companion! We complement each other very well. As she was getting ready, I was loading up the dogs and bags. I got in a quick shower (at least the shower was pretty nice!) and we got on the road by 8:30 AM.

Our first stop was in Raton, New Mexico, about 2 ½ to 3 hours after we left Dumas. We needed a bit of gas, and the dogs had to go relieve themselves. BTW . . . the gas prices in New Mexico are simply outrageous! It was almost $3.50 per gallon in Raton! Holy Schnikey’s! While we were there, Lisa was walking the dogs while I pumped gas and ran into answer the call of nature. When I came out to relieve Lisa so SHE could go inside, there were a couple of redheaded kids, a boy and a girl . . . no older than 9 or 10 . . . talking with Lisa and petting the dogs. When I took over, they were just non-stop questioning me about the dogs. The boy wanted me to "sell" one of my dogs to him. It was funny. I said "no way!" and he said, "well, what if somebody paid you a billion dollars for him. Then would you sell him?" Reminded me so much of when I was a little boy and said silly stuff like that all the time!! Anyway, we got back on the road pretty quickly and turned off of Highway 87 onto Interstate 27 for the long drive to Denver.

We made a few more stops before getting to Estes Park, but none of them were all that exciting. The traffic in Denver wasn’t bad at all, but getting through Boulder on Highway 36 was a hassle. I understand that it always is. I know Dad likes to stay on IH 25 up to Longmont and then cut over on 66 to avoid Boulder. Steve doesn’t think that’s any faster, but it’s GOT to be less frustrating than sitting in Boulder traffic. I might give that a try next time.

So, we rolled into Estes Park in the late afternoon today. There wasn’t time to do anything that day, so after we got settled in and said our pleasantries to everyone, Lisa and I took the boys on a short walk to explore the area and then we came back to the cabin for dinner and some catching up with Steve, Laura, Matt, and Shauna. We also got a little bit of nephew-time with the New Perkins Twins!

Laura cooked a fabulous lasagna for dinner! Yum! After the twins were down for the night, we all hung out, drank some wine, and just had a wonderful time enjoying good company.

Countdown to "The Big Day"

No training/triathlon stuff on today's blog entry. It is officially ONE WEEK until Lisa's and my wedding day! So much left to do; so little time to do it! All the big stuff is set to go, but little things keep popping up. This week is going to FLY by, I'm sure.

Anyway, I won't bore you all with details of that stuff, but those of you coming to the event, I can't wait to see you next Saturday!

Love to you all!

My First Experience with Active Release Technique.

Yesterday, I had an appointment with Advanced Rehabilitation, a therapy clinic here in Austin that caters to athletes and performs Active Release Technique therapy. I was referred there by my tri coach, Andrea Fisher, to help me with the knee pain I'd experienced at Buffalo Springs Lake 70.3.

I must admit that I had a little trepidation about going. I didn't know much about it, but everyone I talked to highly recommended it. It's not cheap either. They do take my insurance, but I have to get a referral from my PCP in order to justify it to HealthSelect. Since my PCP got dropped last week from the network, I didn't have one to refer, so I have to pay out of pocket until I can get in a visit to my new PCP and get a referral. The cost was something that had me thinking I might not go. I'm glad I didn't trust THAT instinct.

I had an 8:15 AM appointment with Dr. A.J. Zelinski. That guy is great! Younger than I expected and very, very knowledgable. All the literature (and wall decorations) in his office are a testament to his experience. He's been treating endurance athletes for several years, and has been an official ART therapist at the Hawaiian Ironman World Championships in Kona a few times, too.

So, when I got there, I had some forms to fill out and had a short wait. While I waited at least two other Texas Iron athletes came in. I recognized them and chatted with them both a bit. One of them, a woman named Summer, who is in my Wednesday swim class, told me that A.J. jokingly refers to his clinic as the "Texas Iron Triage Center."

When I got back to the examination room, I chatted briefly with A.J. about my main problems: the knee and the fact that my back was still tight and sore more than a week after the race. He asked a few pointed questions about what I'd done to prep for the race, whether I'd changed anything on the bike, etc., and then did a manipulation to release the muscle tightness.

It wasn't at all like I expected. The name makes it sound so imposing, but it's really applying pressure to specific points in the muscle and actively moving the affected body part in a certain way to stretch the muscle and "release" the tension. A.J. worked on my leg for about 5-10 minutes, and then had me go out into the main area to do some work with some rollers to massage the leg muscles.

The manipulation was incredible! It didn't hurt and only felt mildly uncomfortable in some instances. I felt immediately better afterwards and was really thinking this might be the greatest thing ever! The rollers were also good. I found some pretty tight knots in my calves, quads, and hamstrings. I probably should get some of those for use at home. I'm sure A.J. will recommend that!

So, after I did the rollers, they had me lie face down on a bench and applied electricity and ice to my left leg at the knee. They also had a technician apply ultrasound therapy to my left gluteal muscle. That all took about 15 minutes, and then I was finished.

When I got to the office that day, I had no pain in my leg at all. As the day wore on, though, my muscles tightened up a little more and I was beginning to think maybe I'd been hasty on my praise for ART. Oh no! Not at all. Although the immediate benefits faded a bit, this morning, I woke up with no back pain or discomfort at all! My knee was a little achy again, particularly behind the knee and at the bottom of the knee cap (not places I'd had pain during the race) but the muscles in my calf and hamstring didn't even feel tight anymore. I had a little bit of tenderness (as A.J. said I would) from the manipulation, but the pain was pretty much gone!

I have another appointment on Thursday, July 5, so I'm looking forward to continued improvement! IMoo, here I come!

The Long Awaited Buffalo Springs Lake 70.3 Race Report.

I've been putting off posting my race report for BSLT 70.3 because it's the first time I've had to write a report of a disappointing race. Well, the race itself was not so disappointing as my performance was. I know I'm so much better than what I did, but I guess it was a good learning experience. Before I get to the long race report, as is my custom, I'll put the "short" version with just the results. Here they are:

1.2-mile Swim: 00:37:18
Transition 1: 00:01:45
56-mile Bike: 02:35:54
Transition 2: 00:01:43
13.1-mile run: 02:16:37

Overall Time: 05:33:19

This was about 3 1/2 minutes slower than my time at Iron Star (which had a longer bike leg of 59 miles). Obviously, my swim was poor (4 minutes slower than Iron Star), and my run was pathetic (9 minutes slower than Iron Star). My bike time was faster (by 10 minutes), but if you adjust for the distance difference, it's not faster by more than about a minute or two.

I'm pretty disappointed, since I expected to be faster. I'm in better shape now, with more base work and more running work. Still, I attribute at least part of my poor swim to the fact that I did not wear a wetsuit here, and that I did wear my tri top, which created drag. That's only a little bit of the problem, though. I quite simply need to swim more. Once a week will keep me from drowning in a long course tri, but it won't make me fast at all.

With respect to the run, I don't know what happened. I didn't push that hard on the bike (or at least I didn't feel like I did). I'm in much better bike shape than I was before, but apparently, I overdid it just a bit. Although I felt fresher off the bike this time than at Iron Star, my legs apparently weren't ready for the hot run. I never felt tired or spent on the run, but that stabbing pain in my left knee, which began at mile 3 or so, made it impossible to run up the hills and damn near impossible to run down them. Anyway, more on all that below. Suffice it to say that I will have to monitor myself much better on the bike in Madison to avoid the same kind of problem. Therefore, I'm revising my goal of 5:30-5:45 bike split to just staying at or just under 6:00. This ought to allow me to back off (more than I want to) and save some strength for the run. Hopefully, this will avoid the knee pain and let me actually run a decent marathon pace.

On to the report:


Pre-Race

I drove up to Lubbock with my bike on Thursday, June 21. I was staying with my friend, Victor, and his family, and he graciously agreed to have me in early. I got to Lubbock at about 2:30 PM after an uneventful drive. Victor and I took care of some work-related business for Texas Tech, and then we went back to his house. Not much to say, except that Victor's youngest son, Jack, took an instant liking to me. We were best buds for the next four days! He's an adorable kid.

On Friday, I got up early and drove out to Buffalo Springs Lake. I wanted to test out my wetsuit in the warm water. I was afraid that it would be too hot to wear, especially since it was a full Pro-motion suit. I was right. After 10 minutes of easy swimming, I was pretty darn warm! I didn't make the decision then and there, but I was pretty sure I wasn't going to wear it during the race. After my swim warm-up, I shed the westuit and got on the Sharkboy bike to do an easy spin up the first two hills of the bike course. They were a little steep, but nothing I hadn't seen before riding around Austin, and certainly weren't very long. Just enough to get the heart rate racing.

The rest of Friday, I spent driving around Lubbock looking for a shop that might sell me a sleeveless wetsuit. Apparently, there are only two bike shops in Lubbock that carry triathlon stuff, and only one that had wetsuits. They did have some Quintana Roo sleeveless wetsuits, but none in my size. Probably best, anyway. I can't really afford another wetsuit with the wedding day coming up. So, I bagged the idea and decided to test the waters again on Saturday and Sunday.

At about 3:00 PM on Friday, I went to the packet pick-up site and got myself registered. Then, at 5:30, I accompanied Victor's wife and kids to Jack's t-ball game. Victor had had to go to Houston for the day for Texas Tech business and was on his way back when the t-ball game started, so he didn't make it. It was so cute seeing those kids play ball. Lots of runs scored, but little Jack scored the winning run just before time expired!

On Saturday, I left Victor's at about 7:30 and went back out to the lake. I was supposed to meet the other Texas Iron folks and Steve out there for a short workout at about 9:30 AM. The group met, and Steve got there just before we went out for a group ride on the run course. It was funny to see the reactions of the group to seeing me and Steve together. I'd almost forgotten what it was like to be a twin!

It was at this point that the weekend started to go south for the Perkins boys. Steve was getting his bike off the car (he had driven Laura's car), when we noticed that the exhaust pipe had melted his rear tire. What was worse was that it had also melted and warped his carbon rear wheel, a Zipp 404 race wheel. Those are expensive wheels!! He was pissed! I felt bad for him! I know that must have been disheartening. Luckily, I had my spare rear wheel, although it wasn't a Zipp. At least he was able to ride!

So, we biked the run course and took mental notes of the hills -- two big ones in the middle of the course and one slight incline at the beginng. After that, we did a short (1-mile) run and then topped it off with a 10-minute swim. I tested my wetsuit again, and I was still boiling hot after a few minutes of easy swimming. I was pretty sure at that point that I would not be using the wetsuit in the race.

Just after we finished, Steve got a call from his friend, Matt, who had just arrived in town. We got a bit cleaned up and then met Matt at the entrance to the Buffalo Springs Lake Park. Steve told Matt about the melted Zipp wheel, and we decided to get some food and then set out looking for a new Zipp wheel for Steve. Here's where the disappointment got even worse:

First, I took the guys to Gardski's, a restaurant in "downtown" Lubbock that I'd been to many times in my trips there (although not for a few years). Oh my god it was awful -- not at all what it used to be! The sandwiches were okay, but the soup was luke warm and the fries tasted stale. The water tasted dirty, and it just wasn't a happy experience. After all that, we headed to the race expo to see if we could find some wheels. Major disappointment! Zipp was not a vendor at this race, so we couldn't go to the source. Both Lubbock bike shops were there, but neither one had any Zipp wheels in stock! WTF?!?!?! I would've expected them to have some, especially knowing that the triathlon was that weekend and folks might either need to replace one (like Steve), or might be primed by the atmosphere to buy some. Nope. No Zipps.

So, Matt was going to let Steve use his spare rear wheel (also not a Zipp, but better than mine). As the put the wheel on, however, they noticed one of the spokes was broken! (MORE disappointment). So, Steve was stuck with a Franken-bike. On a positive note, Steve did let me use his front Zipp 404 race wheel on my bike, since he knew this was a "race" for me going for a PR (personal record), while he and Matt were just using the race as a tool to gauge their fitness for IMoo.

After the wheel fiasco, we tried to go check Steve and Matt into the hotel, but they wouldn't let them check in until 3:00 PM. So, we took off in my car and drove the bike course. Wow! I didn't know Lubbock had that many hills/canyons! I was getting nervous about the bike ride as we drove the whole course checking out the roads and the climbs.

After that, we checked Steve and Matt in and went in search of a place to fix Matt's wheel spoke. At the expo, the bike shop booth told us to try their store, only a few minutes away. It was close to 5:00 and they were closing soon, so we high-tailed it over there. Unfortunately, the mechanic there couldn't fix the wheel. For some reason, he didn't have the tool necessary to remove the broken spoke. This picture basically illustrates our frustration! Plus, we had to wait FOREVER for the mechanic to help some yahoo with expensive HED trispoke wheels. I just about lost it when the mechanic started explaining to the guy how to fix a flat tire! Gimme a break!

On the plus side, at the shop, we did run into Lubbock resident and professional triathlete, Shanna Armstrong, last years(?) women's winner of the national championship Ultra triathlon race. She's pretty hard core, but nice as can be! She offered to let us borrow one of her wheels, but it wasn't really a race wheel, so we thanked her and declined. Steve just suffered through with my stock Ritchey DS wheel. It was fine!

The rest of the evening, we spent getting stuff ready for the race the next day and having dinner at Orlando's italian restaurant. Here are pictures of us at the restaurant:



(I promise Steve's not drunk -- just tired from the drive on Friday! He was the only one brave enough to get a glass of wine with dinner. I should have, too!)

After dinner, I said "goodbye" to Steve and Matt and went back to Victor's house to get my stuff ready.


Race Morning:

I set my alarm for 3:45 AM. The park opened for transition at 4:30, and I was a bit further away than most of the folks staying at hotels. I had everything packed up and in the car the night before, so that all I'd need to do was grab Sharkboy and head out the door. Good plan. But, I forgot about my morning breakfast routine. I was out the door and on the road by 4:00 AM when I realized I'd forgotten to eat my normal routine of 2 slices of toast with peanut butter and 1 banana. So, I improvised. I ate a Powerbar (mmmmm, vanilla crisp!) and a couple of packets of peanut butter crackers I had bought as "road snacks" for the trip from Austin. It wasn't the same, but it did fill me up.

I got to the park just before 4:30 AM and they were already letting folks in to park. I followed the crowd to the parking area and parked the car. Although there aren't really any other places for such mass parking out there, it seems a bit cruel to put the parking area at the TOP of the first hill out of transition. After the race was over, it really SUCKED climbing that hill to get back to the car.

Pre-race here was much like pre-race everywhere else, but just a bit longer. I had my bike set up and everything ready to go by 5:00 AM, so I had almost an hour and a half to kill before the pros would start. I had another package of peanut butter crackers at about 6:00 AM and chatted with other racers. Ran into a couple of guys from Austin and, after chatting with them, decided for sure I would NOT wear the wetsuit. The water was just too warm for it.

I found Steve and Matt. Steve had a great transition spot. He was right on the end near the "bike in/out" area. Mine sucked. I was on the same row as him, but all the way down to the other side and in about 4 spaces. Matt was on a different row about 10 rows away from us. He was closer to the "swim in" area, but a LONG way from the "bike in/out." He was also in the middle of the row, so he had the worst spot of the three of us.

Other than just putzing around, there's not much to tell about the rest of the pre-race. I saw a few Texas Iron folks and chatted with them, but mostly, I was just nervously walking around and trying not to think about the swim too much.

Here's a picture Steve snapped of me about 15 minutes before we went down to the swim start. I think the look on my face shows my concern over the impending meltdown I was about to have on the run:

At 6:15, we made our way to the swim start for the pre-race announcements. After that, the gun went off at 6:30 for the pros. We were the fourth wave, so we waited through 2 more waves and then the gun went off for us at 6:45.


The Swim:

The swim wasn't too bad. I never got jostled or swum over, nor did I jostle or swim over anyone. I started a little far to the inside and had to cut over a bit to avoid too many people, but all-in-all, it was very uneventful. It was, however, a VERY long swim for me. I noticed about 5 minutes in that my tri top was unzipped a bit and was creating a lot of drag. Funny thing, though, I felt like I was moving along at a pretty good speed. I knew I was in for a slow time, though, when I got to the back side straight-away and saw a red, green, blue, and white caps mixed in with me. I was wearing purple. It meant I'd caught a few from the previous wave or two, but had been caught by folks from the waves after me. I knew that would happen, I just thought it would happen much later.

Also, without the wetsuit, I wasn't terribly bouyant. My legs were dragging quite a bit, slowing me down. I was secretly regretting not wearing my wetsuit, but I bet if I had worn it, I'd be secretly regretting that, too. Oh well, it was a bad swim. I simply haven't been swimming enough, or doing enough shoulder/lat exercises to keep myself in good swimming shape. I've been getting progressively slower because of this, and the swim at BSLT showed it.

Swim time: 37 minutes, 18 seconds.


T-1:

Thankfully, when I got out of the water, I couldn't see a clock. I might've been really pissed off. I high-tailed it up the incline out of the water and over the timing mat to the carpeted run into the transition area. I knew my swim was slow, but I had no idea how slow. My goal was to get to Sharkboy, get my gear on, and get out ASAP. Thankfully, I was able to do just that.

My T-1 time was pretty fast, especially compared to my age group, but 2 things factored into that: (1) no wetsuit to take off; and (2) I didn't put on my socks for the bike. Neither of these "time savers" was ultimately worth doing. Swimming with no wetsuit probably cost me at least 2 minutes on the swim, maybe more. It would've taken 10-30 seconds to get the wetsuit off because I'd be half out of it by the time I got to the bike. Not putting on the socks probably saved me 10-20 seconds. That's free time, but I think I started to get the makings of a couple of blisters toward the end of the bike. Those hotspots were aggravated by the run. It probably would have behooved me to take the extra 10 seconds and wear the socks on the bike.

Anyway, in this race, started with my shoes off the bike instead of clipped in. In retrospect, that was a mistake. The run out to the "bike out" line wasn't far, and I'd have had plenty of time to get my feet slipped into the shoes before the first hill. The reason I didn't do this was because everyone I talked to who'd done the race before said the first hill was too close and I'd lose time. I think I may have lost about 5-10 seconds trying to run in my bike shoes. I just don't like doing that. In any event, I got to the mount line, ran over it by about 3 yards, and then hopped on the bike and started going.

T-1 Time: 1 minute, 45 seconds


The Bike:

This course promised to be punishing, and in a sense, it was. Riding hills in Austin is different than the "hills" at Buffalo Springs Lake. In Austin, the hills are undulating and you generally go up, then immediately down. They're tough, but you have that whole downhill as recovery. Not so in this triathlon. At Buffalo Springs Lake, you generally go down, then immediately up, and then right into a flat straightaway. It doesn't sound too bad until you realize that you don't get that rest after the hill climb. You have to start hammering right away to keep your speed up. If you rest too much initially, you lose time and have to hammer that much harder. It's best to just keep accelerating until you get to your goal and just spin out a bit as your lungs recover.

So, the first hill out of transition is maybe 100 meters from the bike mount line. By the time I got there, I was into a decent acceleration. The hill wasn't that bad . . . maybe a quarter of a mile long and between 6% and 8% grade. It wasn't a piece of cake, but I started in a small gear and just spun up it without any real effort. It was followed by a short flat, then a downhill, across a short bridge, and back up on another very similar hill. After the second hill, it was a flat several miles to the park entrance, and then out into the Lubbock flatlands.

The early flats weren't bad at all. The sky was cloudy and the weather pretty cool. I had gotten on the bike at a bit before 7:30 AM and it felt great. In fact, it was never very hot for the entire time I was on the bike.

About 2-3 miles after I'd gotten out of the park and onto the straight aways, I saw Steve up ahead of me. Before the swim start, he had been sandbagging me about how bad his swimming had gotten and that he was going to have an awful swim. In fact, he kept talking about how badly I was going to beat him on the swim and that he just couldn't swim much anymore. As I rolled up on his left side on the bike, I kicked it up a notch and spun past him saying in a mock-whiney voice: "Wah, wah, wah! I can't swim anymore!" He flashed me a big smile, but I think he was surprised to see me behind him. He told me later he had thought I was way out ahead of him.

The rest of the ride was pretty much uneventful. I caught up to a guy I knew, Carlos, from the Saturday morning ATC Taco Rides. Carlos is a STRONG rider and runner, and is in the Male 30-34 age group, so he started 5 minutes ahead of me. He's not a strong swimmer, though, so even with my bad swim, I made up some time on him. We played leap frog a LOT for most of the way from about Mile 10 through about Mile 40, when I decided to kick it into higher gear and get my butt back to the transition area to start the run.

Most of the ride was pretty uneventful. I saw quite a few people I knew/recognized out there, but didn't have time or energy to say much to them. The ride was mostly three separate "out-and-backs," so I saw Steve a few times and could gauge how he was doing. I wasn't putting as much time on him as I thought I would on the bike. For a guy who didn't train much, he was doing VERY well.

There were several hills to contend with along the way, all of them in the same "down, flat, up, flat" pattern. It took alot out of your legs to do things that way, but I tried to stay fairly conservative. Two of the hills were just plain FUN. They were both kind of spiraled with switchbacks, not terribly technical, but definitely not straight down either. The first one was an "s" curve that climbed at a darn steep angle. Fortunately, it wasn't long, and you had a pretty long flat at the top to spin out on to get your wind back. The down hill for that one was fun, but a little hairy because some of the folks coming up were wandering precariously close to the downhill lanes. You had to pay attention.

The other fun hill was on Spiral Staircase Road. That is a darn accurate description of this hill. It came about 3 miles after you descended the "S-curve" hill, and about 1 1/2 miles after a water bottle hand-up station. It was longer than the "S-curve" and seemed a bit steeper, but I'm not really sure that it was. Anyway, getting up required me to sit up out of aero position and even stand on one particularly steep part. I had tried to get through the race without standing on any of the hills, but the Spiral Staircase got me. The descent on the staircase, though, was more fun than I thought it would be. Driving it in the car made me think I wouldn't be able to descend very quickly. When I got to the descent on the bike, though, it wasn't as hard to navigate as I'd originally thought it would be. Snaking down those turns was the most fun I had out there.

The other cool thing about the Staircase is that it was the last big hill. We still had to climb a bit of an incline to get back to the main flat ride, but it wasn't much. Also, I knew I'd have one short steep, straight climb once I was back in the park, but that would be nothing. The last 16 or so miles were mostly just flat spinning to the park. The downside, though, was that the wind had been picking up, and it was mostly a crosswind or a headwind.

The ride back to the park was not exactly pleasant. The winds were just hard enough to force me to push a little harder than I wanted. Plus, my ass and back were hurting from being on the seat and in the aero position for so long. I'd also forgotten to use Body Glide on my shorts and my taint, so I was getting some rub in some pretty sensitive places. When I finally got up the last hill and headed to the descent into T-2, I was pretty darn happy to be getting off the bike.

Bike Time: 2 hours, 35 minutes, 54 seconds.


T-2:

My T-2 time was also very respectable. As I descended toward the bike dismount, I got my feet out of my shoes and decided to leave the shoes on the bike. I did a rolling dismount and ran into T-2 barefoot. Some folks who did this thought it was a mistake because of rocks/gravel in the T-2 area. Not me. I didn't step on anything too sharp, and I definitely ran faster without my bike shoes on.

I got to the rack and re-racked Sharkboy, rolled on my socks, pulled on the shoes, turned my race number around, put on my hat and grabbed what was left of my Gatorade for the run. I slugged most of the Gatorade and tossed the bottle in a trash can as I ran over the "run out" mat to start the run.

T-2 Time: 1 minute, 43 seconds.


The Run:

This may have been my most disappointing run ever, primarily because I didn't see or feel this meltdown coming. When I got off the bike, I felt better at that point in the race than I have in most, if not all of my other races, including the sprints. My legs were not really tired (considering that I'd just bike 56 miles at an average pace of just under 21.6 mph). As I ran over the run start timing mat, it was just a couple of minutes after 10:00 AM. The sun was just starting to come out from behind the clouds, and it wasn't even too hot yet. I checked the time and realized that all I needed was a 2 hour half marathon and I'd hit my goal of 2:15:00. Considering how good I felt and that I'd been running more than I had before Iron Star, I thought it wouldn't be too hard to do. I ran a 2:07 at Iron Star on very little run training. I really thought I was golden.

The first 3 miles were cake. I felt like I was going slow, and I was. I purposefully tried to stay slow and easy to keep my heart rate down and conserve energy. I knew I'd need it on the hills and for the back half of the run. My legs felt great. No cramping, no straining, no pain of any kind . . . until . . .

Just after the aid station at Mile 2, all hell broke loose on me. I took a step on my left leg and it felt like somebody jabbed a knife into the outside of my knee. I immediately stopped and rubbed it a bit, walking a bit to see if I'd just stepped on my foot wrong or something. No real issues with walking, so I started jogging again. Not too bad, but as I passed the Mile 3 aid station, I could feel a light pain in the same place. It got worse and worse until I just had to walk to relieve it. I walked up the first big hill and jogged slowly out of the park. I was able to jog down the second hill and as I jogged slowly toward the BIG hill, I passed my coach, Andrea Fisher, a pro, coming back in on the back half of her run. She shouted at me to stay strong and focused, but by that time, I knew my knee was done. I managed a slow jog/fast walk alternating pace out to the turn around and back toward the down part of the BIG hill, but by the time I got there, it hurt so bad to run downhill, I had to walk it.

One thing I didn't mention before this part, though, is that after I hit the turn around, I saw Steve again heading toward it. At that point, he was about 20 minutes behind me. He saw me first and with a big smile, yelled at me in his best Forrest Gump voice: "I ain't got no laigs, Lieutenant Dan!!" That guy is so funny! Cracked me up, even though I was having a bad day.

So . . . back to the suffering . . . . By the time I got to the last 2.5 miles, my knee was hurting with every step, even when I walked. I manged to continue the walk/jog limpfest until the last mile, when I just had to walk as my knee felt like it was going to explode. I ran into Matt just a few hundred meters after the 11-mile mark. He had stopped his race right there -- on the way out -- because of bad cramps. He didn't have a good bike and barely made it onto the run before his legs siezed up on him. He was very encouraging, letting me know I didn't have much further to go. I just walked until I got to about 200-300 meters to go, and then jogged in. I didn't want to finish at a walking pace!

What a disappointing run. I thought I had a 2 hour half marathon in the bag when I started, but my knee just blew up on me.

Run Time: 2 hours, 16 minutes, 37 seconds.

FINAL TIME: 5 hours, 33 minutes, 19 seconds.

After-Race:

The post-race festivities were lacking at BSLT, in my opinion. There wasn't any food like pizza or anything like that. Lots of fruit, Gatorade, and water, but I was disappointed with the spread. I chatted with a few folks after the race and got some feedback from Andrea about my knee and what to do about it.

When Steve finished (he finished in about 5 hours, 57 minutes) and Matt made it back in, we packed up our stuff and headed out to get some food and then to Victor's house so Steve and Matt could shower and head home. I was staying over the night and would drive back the next day. Here's a post race picture of us:


I know our expressions, especially mine, don't fully convey the disappoint-ment of the day. Maybe it's because we had fun anyway, and I learned a bit. Who knows? It was a fun race and a good one, and I'd like to come back next year to try my luck at it again.

I'll post another entry on the blog later about all that I learned and such. Right now, I'm tired after writing this thing!

See you next year, BSLT!