Happy Halloween

For the past two years, Hannah and I had somehow missed out on Halloween in San Angelo. The first year, she was in an apartment complex with no kids and I was moving into a different apartment in NJ. Last year, we were prepared, but learned much too late that "Halloween" in San Angelo isn't always on Halloween. We had candy ready, but were out on the observed night. When we learned how the holiday is celebrated in town, we raced home, but the kids were done for the night.

This year, we thought we were prepared. Four-bags-of-candy prepared. Between the last two years in Texas and the previous two years in a condo complex (on the outskirts of town), we hadn't encountered many trick-or-treaters. So, four bags of candy should be fine, right?

We started by handing out two pieces to every kid. Based on our past experience, we still would have been left with a ton of candy at the end of the night. We got a little worried in the first hour when we started running low.

So we did the initial check of the pantry. We had some Dove dark chocolate individually-wrapped squares. Perfect.

Ten minutes later, we had to raid the pantry again. "Hey, we have a bunch of gum. Kids like gum! Who cares if it's sugarless."

Another 15 minutes later we started digging deeper into the cabinets. "Hershey's 100 calorie dark chocolate. Great!"

You can see where this is going.

We went through some individually-wrapped Easter candy that was in the freezer. Then some snack-sized popcorn bags. Then mixed nuts. When I had to bust out the mini-Clif Bars, we got very nervous.

Hannah found a full box of Quaker granola bars. She poured the contents into the "candy" bowl. She didn't tell me what else was in that granola bar box.

More and more kids came to the door. Some were genuinely excited about the Clif Bars and granola bars, others just thought there were getting big candy bars. Hannah just kept dropping things in their baskets.

Then she told me what else was she had slipped in... We turned the lights off after that. Hopefully those kids won't remember who gave them what.

We met somebody cool

Hannah and I went down to Austin for the Livestrong Challenge this past weekend.

Long story short, we had a great time. We got to ride our bikes. It was for a good cause. And we met some really nice people at the Team Fatty meet-up on Saturday.

Naturally, despite having our camera with us the whole time, we only took a few pictures. But boy did we take the important ones.

Are you ready to have your mind blown? Or are you ready to have your mind perplexed while you try to figure out why we're so excited to stand next to a guy wearing the same t-shirt as me? If you're the former, be excited! If you're the latter, go read some other blog.

Hannah and I got the opportunity for a quick photo with Elden Nelson, the Fat Cyclist, and the ringleader for Team Fatty. It doesn't do him justice to just say how incredibly cool and nice he was. I'm pretty sure he made the effort to talk to everyone involved with Team Fatty, either on Saturday or on the day of the ride. Truly an awesome, standup guy.

Luckily we got two pictures with him because either he or Hannah had their eyes closed. I opted to stick with the sunglasses, as I'm sure I have my eyes closed in both pictures.
I found it interesting that I'm actually bigger than someone. Despite this, Elden still looks like he could crush me if he wanted to. I need to spend some more time in the gym.

Waiting at the start. Team Fatty members got to start before almost everyone else. Nice little perk. Another bonus: I learned the little logo on my helmet is reflective.

I'm willing to bet this is also the closest I will ever be to Lance Armstrong.In case you're wondering, no, his speech was not that inspirational. I'm sure he had gotten that all of out of his system in the previous 10 speeches he made over the weekend.

So, super cool weekend. Super good people. Awesome experience. And for a really great purpose.

UPDATE: I'm prominently featured in a well-read blog. Don't believe me? Here's the picture from fatcyclist.com.
What? You can't see me? Are you blind? I'm right next to him......about 20 feet back.

You can all say you knew me when.

Reflection

The more I've been reading lately, I'm leaning towards the theory that my legs didn't cramp in Lake Placid because I was short on electrolytes, but because I just wasn't as fit as I needed to be.

That kind of sucks because I would have bet money that I was fitter than in 2007. My swim and bike splits would attest to that. And my recovery after the race suggest that as well. The fact that I didn't walk anywhere near as much as 2007 would make me think that I was fitter in '09 as well.

I do think that I was fitter overall. But my run fitness may not have been where I hoped it was. A little recap:

In '07 training, I:
- Ran a lot faster in training than in '09
- Did much less cycling compared to '09

While I ran much more in 2009 training, I also trained at a slower pace than in 2007. Do I think that training at a slower pace factored in my slower 2009 run time? Sure. But running slower more often also allowed me to consistently train -- something that I didn't do so well with in previous years.

More likely, my "running" legs still weren't quite back to 2007 strength levels. They were just fatigued during the race. I spent '08 breaking myself down without realizing it (leading to my injury). I'm still building back now, as evidenced by my hip still giving me a little trouble. I always knew getting to where I want to be was going to take a few years -- let's see what happens this year.

I believe my flaw in my '09 IM run was thinking that I was going to run as fast or faster as in '07, while not actually having anything to back that up. I had done no tests in '07 to compare with my '09 data. I had done no races in '09 to get a feel for my actual race speed.

So, what am I changing this year? Actually, not all that much:
- I'm not going to get injured again. That put me in a little bit of a panic. If I do get injured, I think I'm pulling the plug on CdA and getting myself 100% healthy, rather than getting myself healthy enough to train and race, but not okay for the long term. I'll talk about how I'm not going to get injured another day. Mostly it involves me turning my frail 140 pound body into a ripped, strapping 145 pound body.
- I'm going to have at least one test race in addition to all my standard training tests. I had one race in all of 2009: ironman. I might have gone a little extreme in my focus on that race. Gordo also recommends that I try to get one low-priority race in each month through the winter. I think that's mostly to keep me from going crazy. Luckily San Angelo has a ton of running races throughout the year. Hopefully I'll be able to find a masters swim meet somewhere too.

That's about it. I'll let you know how it goes.

The science

I bet you didn't think the "science" portion of our vacation recap would have any interesting photos. But you're wrong! Ha ha!

Well, technically, you're right -- the science itself is incredibly non-photogenic (unless you want to see pictures of me riding a stationary bike breathing into a tube) -- but since the science part of the trip only directly involved me, Hannah was free to wander around Boulder. I'm pretty sure the picture above is the Boulder library. I think the one below is of the other direction.


So, about the science. This is the second year I've gone out to Boulder to have the EC guys put me through some physiological testing (Alan ran the tests this time -- boy is that guy smart). I did a lactate and fuel test on the bike and a run lactate test at the track. If you're wondering what any of that means, ask your local physiologist. You can ask me, but I can't guarantee I'll tell you a factual answer.

The numbers aren't particularly interesting to look at for most folks, so I won't bother to share them here (that and I don't have the charts on this computer). The tests were worthwhile to me though. Both Alan and Gordo gave me a lot to work on to improve my fitness/overall triathlon performance, without overwhelming me.

My big takeaway is that I need to get stronger. It's been more than five years since I could clean more than my bodyweight. I doubt I'll get back to that strength level again, but a good five or so pounds of muscle will do a lot to improve my performance and reduce my now-injury-prone body (five pounds is an approximation, I'm not going to be watching the scale).

So, what does that mean? Some solid time in the gym and lots of time on my bike. Bonus for living in San Angelo: we're entering the windy season (which runs October through September) so I'm sure to get lots of resistance work in outside.

The walking

Since I think the pictures are more interesting that my narrative, I'll sum up briefly and then get to the goods. After my science stuff ended on Tuesday, Hannah and I drove up to Estes Park outside Rocky Mountain National Park. After we arrived, we went for a short walk around town. On Wednesday, we went into the park and did a shorter day hike to the top of Deer Peak. At this point, it had started snowing in the mountains, so we ended up wearing every piece of clothing we had brought. We then drove around the park, although most of Trail Ridge Road was closed due to snow and ice.

Wednesday night we went to a ranger-led talk about elk, who were in their rutting season.

On Thursday, we wore some additional clothing that we hadn't originally brought on the trip and ventured out into the snow to the top of Flat Top Mountain. While tough with a few inches of snow to push through at the top, it was a good pick since it doesn't actually have an actual peak to summit (being a "flat top" and all). That afternoon we drove up to Ft. Collins.

We saw quite a lot of elk on our trip. These guys (and gals) had moved down from the mountains to the Estes Park golf course.




I suppose there was some science involved in the walking as well. Nature, etc.

On the way up Deer Peak Trail. You'll notice the puffy clothing.



Top of Deer Peak... looking at snow.


On the way up Flat Top. Beautiful overlooks.





The snow starting to get deep. You'll notice I made Hannah break trail. I'm polite that way.


Me at the top. Had Gordo not given us the EC beanies, I'm not sure what we would have done (...actually, we probably would have just bought hats. It was cold and we're not that dumb).


We made the mistake of stopping to eat at the top, which is our usual practice when we go for hikes. Of course, we rarely hike when windy and snowy, so even though we talked about not stopping at the top, we did anyway... and proceeded to get really cold. Once we realized what was going on, we booked it down the mountain to get warm. That meant we didn't pause for many photos even when the clouds started to clear up a little.






I'll wrap this up with the stoic rodent we came across on the way up. We found a copy of Watership Down up the trail a little. I think he had just read it and was emboldened.

Vacation in reverse

Hannah's and my vacation to Colorado can basically be broken down into three categories: science, walking and beer. Quick synopsis: we flew to Denver (me from NYC, Hannah from Texas), spent a day in Denver, spent two days in Boulder (where I did my science stuff), spent two days in Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park (where we did the walking stuff), spent two days around Fort Collins (including a trip up to Cheyenne, WY), then flew back to Texas. Throughout the trip we did the beer stuff.

To keep everyone's interest, I'll start with the beer post, then I'll back into the walking and science stuff.

You might be surprised to learn that Colorado has quite a lot of good breweries. They also have Coors (ha. ha.).

Here's Hannah about to be crushed by a giant kettle (drum? vat?) at the Coors factory. She has a habit of standing in front of giant things that can crush her when we go on vacation. She'd probably blame the photographer for that.
This was the first part of our week-long beer tour, during which we tried to get to most of the local breweries on the Front Range. Between this trip and last year, I think we hit all of the ones north of Denver, except one in Lyons.

Not surprisingly, the beer tours didn't lend themselves to the greatest photo opportunities.
If you think that's exciting photography, you're probably going to be disappointed that we didn't take any pictures at the microbrew places. On the other hand, if you're bored (that is, normal), you'll understand why we didn't even bother bringing the camera with us to the small breweries. Everything was really interesting, just not photogenic.

While the Coors tour was neat, it would end up paling in comparison to the Budweiser tour we took at the end of the week. We were both a little disappointed in that -- since Golden is the flagship brewery for Coors ("tap the Rockies" and all), it was a bit of a let down. The sampling beers weren't all that impressive either, but it might be because Coors beers themselves aren't all that impressive. They're not bad by any means, but we were much more impressed by the Bud options. It might be because Coors doesn't have a "top end" option, while Budweiser has Michelob and a bunch of different seasonal options.

The packaging assembly at Budweiser was really amazing to see. At one point, there was this crazy articulated robotic arm that was doing something cool on the packaging floor. No, we don't have a picture of the cool thing, but we do have one of me staring intently at it.
They also have lots of vats of beer fermenting and whatnot.
Trust me, the pictures will get better when I get to the hiking.

Basically, all but a small amount of the beer we sampled was great. I assume the stuff that I thought was awful is good to someone, but I prefer my bourbon and my beer separate. By that I mean I'll drink the beer, but keep the bourbon in another room well away from me -- please don't make some super-drink. Hannah liked it though. And my brothers probably would as well. So there's clearly a market for it. Me and the sorority girls will take our wussy drinks over here.

The zero returns

While I try to post a blog entry once a week (mostly for myself), sometimes that doesn't happen. So what have I been up to? I've been turning old.

Some brothers take their brothers out to do crazy adventures for a 30th birthday. RDM, JNM and I drove down to Austin. I'm not complaining; it was my idea for my brothers to visit me in Texas. I don't think any one of us was up for swimming in frigid Swedish waters. Maybe someday.

And Austin was plenty crazy with the first UT home game and all. Of course, we ended up picking the one bar that wasn't showing the game ("I wonder why no one's in here?"). But we did see some bats and my brothers learned some Texas history (and the girl working the ticket center at the Texas History Museum was a student from Sweden, so in a way, we were connected to the crazy race around the islands near Stockholm... yeah...).

So my brothers got to see our little area of Texas. They saw some flash flooding, some authentic cowboy boots (and cowboys) and some UT coeds. They had authentic Tex-Mex and both had a breakfast taco for the first time (I don't quite understand that one -- they exist in NYC too).

We spent about half the long weekend in Austin and half in San Angelo. On Labor Day we went for a walk in our local state park. These aren't the most fascinating pictures, but I wanted to capture the fact that both RDM and JNM were in Texas with me at the same time.

Here's RDM and JNM searching for the elusive San Angelo elevation change. It's out there, you just need to look for it.

And here are my brothers walking away, shortly before Joe imploded in the sun/heat (it's not just me!).

Definition

With the exception of this post, I don't think I've ever actually called myself a "triathlete." More often than not, I usually say that "I do triathlons."

It's not usually a conscious effort, but it is something I debate internally from time to time. I definitely used to be a swimmer. I used to be a rower. I used to want people to know I was a swimmer or rower and address me as such ("The Esteemed Nicholas Robin Mathers the First, Rower").

Now I don't care. Or, to be honest, I try to avoid being defined as any one thing. Sure, it's partly because of the stigma associated with triathletes. But, the more I think about it, it's because I want to keep my options open.

I like being fit. I like training. I like having an event to use as a goal. I don't NEED it to be an ironman though. Sometimes I need to remind myself of that.

All this rambling might be me having a minor freakout because my hip is bothering me and I've already got this expensive race on the calender 10 months from now. It's probably worth noting that Hannah has made it quite clear that it's okay to walk away from a $500+ event if I don't want to do it. Having "permission" along with the financial means to not worry about that decision is reassuring (not that I'll be throwing away $500 weekly). But I still have anxiety.

Or it could be that I'm closing in on 30 and I'm having a mini identity crisis.

Whatever. I'm excited to get back to training -- even if it's mostly hikes and swimming until I resolve my various stability issues. Somehow I've also been appointed (I might have volunteered) as the key person to get a masters swim program started at the local university. Hopefully we can get something going. It'll be good to train with other folks and not worry that I'm going too fast for my own good or that I'm holding someone else back. The pool has a nice way of leveling everything out -- mostly because everyone is crammed into the same 25-meter box.

Back to basics

This was originally a much more fatalistic-woe-is-me-self-flagellation kind of post. Then I edited it. Now it's just a me-being-grumpy kind of post. If you think it's overly dreary, imagine what it could have been like.

My hip hurts. More accurately, my hip hurts like it did last summer. The summer I trained and raced through some severe hip pain. The summer that led to the fall that led to this past winter where I did no running or cycling for three months.

So, I'm understandably a little frustrated and apprehensive. And I haven't really been doing any substantial training. What I have been doing is trying to figure out why my hip hurts. Here's what I know:

1) I was dumb. I raced a 6mi road race three weeks after LP, with no running between LP and the race. While my hip and knee didn't hurt specifically, I was sore for five days after the race. And I really overloaded my calves.

2) I was dumb x2. I went out for a ride with the local Loop Group. They go hard about 10 minutes into the ride and seemingly don't let up until they're in their cars driving home. I started with one group, got dropped, then got picked up in the back half of the ride by the fastest pack that was doing a longer loop. I blew myself up staying with them for as long as I could, then got dropped again. This was my first ride since LP. I was exhausted for three days. And since this overlapped with #1 above, I was still sore for another day.

3) I'm weak. Towards the end of the spring and the beginning of my build to LP, I was able to move some decent weight on the hip abduction, leg extension and leg curl machines at the gym. And I could do multiple sets of hip bridges and high rep hip abduction exercises using a high-resistance band without too much trouble. Right now, my legs get all wobbly and burny with one set of 10 hip bridges. I'm a little surprised my strength faded so quickly in a few months, but apparently that's what happens.

I'm pretty sure #3 is the problem here. And then #1 and #2 exasperated everything.

Fortunately, I'm aware that for me hip pain preceeds crippling knee pain. I won't spend the fall thinking that my belt is rubbing my hips weird (that was last year).

So, here's what I'm doing:

1) Get my stabilizers consistently stronger. I'm tired of feeling like I'm one run or ride away from ruining my season (a season that hasn't even started yet).

2) No fast running. It's part of the plan I'm supposed to be following (the no fast running part). I should probably follow the plan. Technically I was between plans when I did the race, but that's not much of an excuse.

3) No group rides. I thought I had enough self-control to not get sucked into the kill 'em all mentality. Apparently not.

So, if anyone wonders why I'm being all anti-social or spending stupid amounts of time in the "women's fitness" room at the gym, now you know.

Lots of effort, little change

I swam as part of a relay in this past weekend's Wool Capital olympic distace triathlon (1.5k swim, 40k bike, 10k run). Two guys from Goodfellow Air Force Base did the other legs, which was nice, since that means I only needed to show up with goggles and swim suit. I also opted to bring shorts and a shirt, mostly because I didn't want to scare any children after I finished my leg ("Why is that man walking around in his underwear?").

We handidly won, although things might have been different had one of the other teams actually had their mid-30s 10k runner instead of a substitute.

The relays go off with the sub-35 age group racers, so the majority of the fastest athletes are in this bunch. Since I didn't have to worry about the bike or run, I decided to open it up and see what I could do in the swim.

Incidentally, there's not much difference between me going all out and just putting in a steady effort. While the course probably isn't exactly the same (buoys move, etc.), I swam about a minute faster than last year, when I did the entire race and swam with a moderate effort. While I wasn't surprised at that outcome, it's still enlightening to experience first-hand.

Also of note: This is the first time I've raced that a bunch of people were wearing the various "swimskins" that have become all the rage since the last Olympics. The overall winner didn't wear one (he went the Speedo route the whole time, chafing be damned), but the top three fastest swimmers did. I don't know if I would have been as fast as those guys had they not been wearing those suits, but I don't think it would have required as much effort on my part to hang on their feet (which I lost when we started swimming through the earlier waves). They definitely are a device that improves speed in the water. In any event, I'm glad FINA is going to ban themfor pure swimming events. I don't think triathlon will follow FINA's example, but I'm not really bothered about that. If there's one thing triathletes love to do, it's spend money on "free" speed... or, to be more accurate, "expensive" speed.

I wouldn't have been able to hang with the top swimmers for the duration of the entire race, so the fact that they get a minute or so on me in the swim (as opposed to 30 seconds sans-speedsuit) doesn't really matter. And I can still beat the folks that are slower than me, swimskin or not. It just creates more of a margin between the fastest guys and me. Besides, I'm saving my $300+ for something that will improve my bike splits... like a motor.

Tough day

Some of you already know about Fat Cyclist's wife's passing the other day. I don't remember when I first came across the FC blog, but I'm pretty sure it was before I started my current job (4+ years ago). That's a long time to be deeply interested in someone else's life, especially someone you've never actually met.

When Hannah and I were talking about it last night, we discussed that while we can feel sympathy, it's hard for us to feel empathy -- we haven't been in his situation (and hopefully we won't ever).

In any event, we'll be in Austin for the Livestrong Challenge at the end of October. I'll have a donation link in the sidebar in the next few days if anyone feels inclined to support the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Say what you want about the dude, but his foundation is making a difference.

Nostalgia

I still keep a toe in the rowing world, mostly through friends, although at this point it's probably just my pinky toe. Whenever I go out to lunch with some of my post-collegiate rowing buddies, inevitably the conversation comes back to the current goings-on at our old club, what other old rowing friends are up to (very few of whom are still in the sport), or, most often, reflecting back on how awesome we were, or how awesome we almost were.

This week is the Canadian Henley, without a doubt the best annual rowing race in North America, and a tie with the Head of the Charles for best rowing "event" on the continent. It's also the most competitive club race. The elites are super fast too, but since the best elites are preparing for Worlds/Olympics, are in the middle of their trials or have just finished their trials, there's not much depth in the fastest events.

That doesn't really matter, as Canadian Henley is primarily a junior, under-23 and not-ready-for-primetime/past-your-prime event. There is a competitive field across the board in those categories (technically called Junior, Under-23, Senior), with almost every event requiring heats. The best, most meritocratic, most cut-throat aspect of the race is awards are only given to event winners -- there is no silver or bronze. So, you either win or you don't.

Anyway, I periodically check out a rowing news site and I saw that Canadian Henley is this week. So, I clicked through to the regatta page and looked at the results page. The picture on the page is a winning crew from my old club. I don't know any of these girls (I think they were in elementary school when I last raced), but seeing the picture gave me a little wave of nostalgia.

From there, I was pleased to see the Canadians really have it together. I don't know of any North American rowing event that archives their results as well as Canadian Henley. Certainly not US Nationals. So, since I was feeling nostalgic and all, I looked at my own results from the years I raced there. I was shocked to see the results haven't changed since I raced -- first in the 145lb 8+ and 3rd in the 145lb 4+ in '02 and 3rd again in the 145lb 4+ in '03. I would have thought that, by now, our years of talking about how the events unfolded would have at least moved us into 2nd in one of those two other races. Damn the Canadians and their effective record-keeping.

In a bit of irony, our coxswain in those two years of races ended up rowing in the 145lb 4+ in 2004. And they won. So maybe we should have had him rowing instead of steering and yelling.

Of course, I can take solace in the fact that I'm still part of the reigning champion crew in the 145lb 8+. It's not at all important that they retired the event after 2002.
I'm sure I have a non-watermarked copy of this somewhere, but this is what's still available online (7 years later!). For those that can't tell, I'm the shortest guy there (aside from the coxswain) -- second from the right.

Number 3

Since most of the folks who read this blog aren't too interested in the gritty details, I'll keep it short.

Ironman Lake Placid went very well for me overall. After a series of injuries earlier this year (all self-inflicted), I was unsure of my true fitness. Now that the event is over, I can easily say I'm far and away much fitter than two years ago.

I made some mistakes during the day that hindered my ability to have a great run, but despite some rough patches, I still pulled out a PR. I knew halfway through the bike that sub-12 hours wasn't going to happen, but that didn't really get me down at all. I did what I could with what I had on the day.

You can see some photos on RDM's site. I might need to go with a crewcut next time, the spastic hair isn't too photogenic. But then again, neither were my facial expressions.

On a revelatory note, Hannah informed me that I'm not very enthusiastic to see my supporters during the run. Up until being told this information, I would have sworn that I stick my hand up and excitedly wave and smile as I run past. In fact, I have a distinct memory of doing so to Hannah and her parents when I came into the Olympic oval for the finish. Hannah's folks corroborated her story that I barely acknowledged them. Clearly there's some neurological disconnect going on here.

Thanks to everyone who came to watch: Hannah, my parents, RDM, JNM, significant others, Hannah's folks, as well as my college friends Trevor and Diana, and, of course, the other 50+ people that were there only for me. Also, thanks to Gordo at Endurance Corner -- I've learned a lot this year and I'm looking forward to what's coming up.

EDIT: Somehow in my early thanking, I left out the two folks that traveled the farthest to watch me: my aunt Robin and uncle Bob. Whoops! I blame the leg cramps on the run for that oversight.

My entourage

Hannah and I fly from San Angelo to Philly via Dallas today. She's hanging out on Thursday in PA and driving up to Lake Placid with her parents on Friday. I plan to be in LP on Thursday in time to register and get that out of the way as early as possible.

Each time I do an ironman, my fan base grows -- I want to say exponentially, but with some simple math, anyone would be deceived into thinking that's not true. So, I'm going to explain it with some complex math. Those of you who aren't professional e-mail writers like me may have trouble following along.

I've created an intricate chart to illustrate my popularity. The x-axis represents the number of ironman races. The y-axis represents those individuals willing to lose a weekend to watch me wear lycra and run around in circles.

An obvious answer to my increased fan base is that my family has grown, what with inlaws and various significant others, most of whom were around before, but clearly deemed me not interesting enough. Or they had work. Or they got suckered in this time around ("Oh, the Adirondacks are so amazing when it's not raining. And the day-long race is unbelievably captivating.").

It then occurred to me that there are a few other attendees that I can appropriate as part of my own loyal crowd. I'll have some friends from college watching the race this year. It's not important that they're actually there to cheer on one of their family's friends; I'm not above Venn-diagramming them into my circle of well-wishers.

And then there are the other people I've met over the years, many of whom are racing. I'll just assume that they're on the course to cheer me on. They couldn't possibly have their own goals (other than to be my supporters). And let's also assume that all of their friends and family are cheering for me, in that they'll be cheering for their own racer, who is, as we've just established, only on the course to support me.

It's not so hard to put that total number north of 50. And, if you take my previous incredibly involved chart and drop in the new numbers...

...you can see that I can easily claim a more than exponential increase in fan base. And that, more than anything, is the reason I do ironman.

How it's going to go down

I have a race number for Lake Placid: 262. For those interested, you can track me on ironman.com on Sunday, July 26. It should be pretty obvious how to do it once you're on the website.

The weather will probably be pretty cool compared with my current "I'm dying in the Texas heat" standards, so the temperature shouldn't really be a factor. I'm giving it 50/50 odds on if it rains or not. I lost my weather-control wand but I have a new jacket, so I'm not too worried.

Get the job done
My swim will be the easiest long-distance swim I've done. Part of that is because I haven't done the necessary swim training to mix it up with anyone and part of that is because -- after getting roughed up at LP last time -- it's not worth the mental energy getting frustrated. It'll be what it is.

I'm going to have a much quicker transition than my last two IMs. I've got a better wetsuit which shouldn't be too difficult to get off (unlike my last LP race, where I struggled with the top for five minutes and felt like I dislocated my shoulder). I'll probably be wearing my knee warmers under my wetsuit to save time during transition, so if you're there and looking for the dorkiest looking guy coming into the change tent, it'll probably be me -- essentially I'll be wearing capri pants.

I'll put on bike jersey, socks and shoes, put my gels and such in my pockets, roll on my arm warmers and grab my helmet and sunglasses. Depending on the weather, I'll either put on my rain jacket or a wind vest.

The bike is going to be controlled. I'm probably going to get passed by a lot of people. If everything works out, I'll see a bunch of them again in the last half of the marathon. We'll see how my bike fitness falls out. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I have no real sense of my actual race speed, as I haven't done any race testing. I have done a whole mess of outdoor riding for the first time this year, so I know what efforts I should be putting out. We'll see what happens.

My second transition is going to be quick. I'm doing a full change to running gear as I like to have something to focus on. If it's cold/rainy, I'll still be wearing the arm warmers. High fashion.

The first 18 miles of the run is going to be relaxed -- just rolling along. I'll be walking out of transition and waving at the crowds telling me to get running. Once I start my actual run, I'll be walking for a bit (15-45 seconds) every 10 minutes. If everything is going great, I'll open it up in the last 10k and see what I can do. If everything is going good, I'll maintain pace. If things aren't going so good, I'll do everything I can to keep the wheels from flying off. Whatever happens, I'm going to PR the marathon.

Will I break 12 hours? I don't know. But I'm going to race like I'm going for a personal best, whatever the day brings.

Bonus points if anyone knows who that is at the top.

Beards, Battle Scars and Bears

Beards
Since I'm mostly working from home, and don't really have to worry about my professional appearance, I wondered what happens when I don't shave for two weeks (aside from keeping the scraggly bits under control). This: Despite the quasi-beard and no one to see me, I still make sure to wear a suit to the (home)office every day. Keeps me in the zone.

Battle Scars
The cat has been mixing it up with somebody. The other day I noticed his ear had dried blood on it. And there was a small chunk missing (we originally thought it was just some errant fur). Well, we cleaned him up and his wounds are healing nicely, although now he's the tough cat in the neighborhood.

Since he is a cat, it's virtually impossible to get any clear pictures of his scars (with those cat-like reflexes and all). Here's what you get:



Bears
Hannah and I went up to the Abilene zoo on Friday afternoon. Many of the animals were hiding in the shade, but we did come across a black bear who was very interested in one of the local birds.

Sorry about the picture quality. Everything is via my phone.

Meltdown #2

Yesterday I had my long run scheduled. Even though it's only an hour difference between New Jersey and Texas, I've been having a hard time getting up the hour earlier (mainly because I've been going to bed an hour later).

I found myself unable to get out of bed to do my run in the morning, so I chose to do it in the evening. Since I'm still working on Eastern time, I was out the door by 5 p.m. Central. And that was a mistake.

A mile into my run, I passed an electronic sign at a carwash that read 95 degrees. "That's pretty hot," I thought to myself, as if I didn't realize it was hot without the temperature reading. "This might not go so well."

Things actually weren't so bad for the first 90 minutes, although I had to walk a few of the steeper hills to keep my heart rate from going out of control (yes, contrary to my own belief, there are hills in Texas).

For my longer runs when it's warm, I typically carry two liters of water in a backpack. That started to dry up around the two hour mark. That's also about the same time I noticed I was covered in salt, all my body hair was standing on end and I was feeling a slight chill. A few minutes after that I completely detonated. Walking uphill had my heart rate in the high 140s. My legs ached (and not from the blistering 10 minute per mile pace I had been running). My inner thighs were rubbed raw (no more short shorts for long runs).

I waved at a police car that drove by. He waved back. A minute later, he came by again. And then less than a minute later he came back again. Each time I waved and kept on my way (at this point, I was moving at an aggressive walk). I suppose I couldn't have looked that bad, or else he would have stopped, right? Maybe he thought I was lost. Or maybe he was checking out the short shorts.

In any event, about a mile from home I ducked into a convenience store, bought a 32 ounce Gatorade and trudged most of the way home, before Hannah stopped to pick me up on her way to a work dinner. After I got home I checked a few weather sites and learned the carwash sign was wrong. It was still 101 degrees at 7:30.

That's two big workouts where I completely fell apart in the heat. Maybe I need more water. Or maybe I need some new, trendy gear. All the cool kids are wearing this these days.

Or maybe I should just wake up early and not train when it's 100+ degrees outside until I'm used to the heat.

Implosion

Now that I'm more or less set up down in San Angelo permanently (for those that didn't know that... surprise!), the weather gods have decided to mess around with me.

My last few trips down to Texas from NJ were leaving warm weather and coming in to warm weather. In some instances, it was actually cooler in Texas than in the northeast.

As anyone from the north knows now, the mid-atlantic region has recently been trying to one-up the northwest for the soggiest coast award. Temperatures have been consistently in the low 60s in NJ. So, that's two weeks of very mild temperatures.

Imagine my relief upon returning from my horrible long ride yesterday to learn that it was 96 degrees -- that gave me an easy excuse (actual or imagined) for blowing up (figuratively, not actual) three hours into the ride.

And for those that don't know, it's also incredibly windy in west Texas. At one point, after driving myself into a headwind for 30 minutes and not really moving anywhere, I decided to turn around. After spinning, just by picking my feet off the ground I was carried along at 6 mph. I'm not sure how strong that means the wind was blowing, but I assume it was strong.

So, Texas greeted my official move with a kick in the pants.

Where's the humor?

I think I used to write a pretty clever blog. But lately, it's been sort of mopey. Or, at best, boringly factual.

There are some changes coming my way that should turn that around. Ironman Lake Placid being just one of them. The Adirondacks in general and LP specifically are a powerful place for me. Going there should lighten my mood, if only because everyone else is so intense (or pretends to be intense -- and we all know the importance of intensity in a day-long race).

That faux-intensity manifests itself in some strange ways. If you go to any triathlon, but especially an ironman, you're bound to see some of the most condescending bumper stickers or t-shirts around. I don't know what it is about triathletes, but the sport isn't short on egoism or self-importance.

These are two of my favorites, and are a good representation of the field.
Because nothing defines "excellence" like half-assing three different sports instead of committing to speed in one.


On second thought, I just might be too cynical. This last one isn't condescending at all. The sticker is just being exceedingly honest. Most ironman participants really do use the marathon as a cool down -- a 22-mile walk after they blow up on the bike and the first few miles of the run. As such, those with this sticker are genuinely impressed that someone ran an entire 26.2 miles.

Expectations

I wrote this last Thursday. It's interesting what a week's reflection will do. Incidentally, I'm no longer worried about having a herniated disc. It's just my hips (always the hips!). Shouldn't be anything some diligent stretching won't take care of.
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I had decided a while back that I would only attempt another ironman if I felt my fitness was such that, in a year's time, I'd be able to put myself in a position to go sub-12. In the summer of '08, I felt I was fit enough to do that between '08-'09.

Then I got injured (IT band). Then I got injured again (rotator cuff). And now I'm a little nervous that I have a herniated disc. I've only had pain in my back twice -- both times after my longest runs and both times using a Nathan hydration vest. I need to do a very long run without the vest to find out. Of course, I'm writing this a day after my longest run this season and my back is killing me. So I'm not in any huge rush to go test things any time soon.

I'm not so sure that the sub-12 goal is going to happen this year. It's not really just my injuries/lost training time (although that doesn't help). Mostly, it's that my training results aren't matching up with what it would take to go sub-12. I used to think that you can rise above your training efforts, peak with a good taper and pop out a lifetime best performance.

After training under the Endurance Corner program, I realize that's not actually the case for ultra-distance events. Sure, for a shorter race (even including a marathon), there's the ability to transcend what you've regularly put out in training. But the transcendence in an ironman is really about pulling everything together in one day. Right now, the individual components aren't fast enough -- I won't get magically faster when I'm 10 hours into my day.

Do I still believe sub-12 can happen? Yes. But I'm basing that on the fact that I'm consistently throwing down workouts that I couldn't even comprehend two years ago. I'm also counting on the crappy chip-seal road surface in Texas slowing me down at least a mile per hour and that there will be a "magical" difference in Lake Placid. Here's hoping...