The Ridiculous Rising Cost of Racing

I've always said that I would keep doing my sport until my body gave out.

Or the price became too high.

The second one is rapidly approaching. 

Eagleman 2012 opened a few weeks ago, and after conferring with my CYB teammates, the decision was that we weren't racing.  Benda said no way, never again.  David Lee said nope, not next year.  Pat was a no.  Alyssa was a no.  Zero was a no.  OJ didn't respond, because I don't think he knows how to read or write.  So there I was, no Eagleman.  Weeks went by.  I didn't think twice.  It was time for some new races anyway.  After racing 9 times in July and August, from track meets to triathlons, time trials to 10k's, I figure next year I need to take the summer to just chill out. 

Then I found out that CTR had signed up for Eagleman, his first attempt at the distance.  Still, I resisted the urge to sign up.

Pat said I should sign up for Bay Swim, the 4.4 mile race crossing the span of the Chesapeake Bay near Annapolis.  Benda and OJ have done this race many times before, with Brian having won 4 or 5 times in a row (and in the process, narrowly edging out OJ).  As my proclivity towards distance swimming seemingly supercedes my other endurance skills, it wasn't a bad idea.  But the race entry process is a lottery, and let's be honest, I probably wouldn't get in because it would require me winning something.  Additionally, it's almost as expensive as Eagleman.  That's because it raises money for charity.

I continued to hem and haw, before I finally gave in and said screw it, let's fill it up and do it again.  Unfortunately, it's a big race, and it's close so I don't have to really travel.  I went onto The CTA website to register and went to the page.  $290 with processing fees.  Alright, that's a little more than it was last year, but within reason.  I recall in 2008 it cost me $225, so maybe a little over $230 with processing.  That's $60 over 4 years.  I began to question, why such a considerable increase?

Then my friends started emailing me about Columbia's registration, which opened last week.  I went to look at it.  $150.  Holy shit.  Who the fuck do you think you are?  When I did that race in 2001 it cost $65.  Every year the price goes up and up, way beyond the scale of what is reasonable.  Last year I think it was $135.  What, praytell, are they changing that makes it cost that much more?

I'd like to do a breakdown of what I get out of the race.  First, I go to the expo, where I get my generally hideous shirt and, this year, a satchel of some kind and a hat.  I then have a handful of glossy index cards promoting other races that I have to recycle.  I go over to the park and I rack my bike, where overnight security guards care for them.  In the morning, I don my timing chip and my little swim cap, and get in the water.  I come out of the water and volunteers are there offering me water.  I go on the bike.  Now, in fairness, this is the only Olympic distance race I've ever seen that has a water bottle exchange.  I've never taken a bottle, because it's a fucking Olympic distance race, who needs an extra water bottle.  Along the way, cops man the intersection leaving the park, and the two intersections on 108 where there are traffic lights.  They are also at the two traffic circles, and at the three left hand turns you make along the route.  They are generally not paying attention and have to do very little work. 

I come back into transition and I head out on the run.  I am offered water and Gatorade on course at 6 locations, two of which are the same, so it's really only 4.  I finish the race and am handed a medal that I will inevitably throw out (although now I simply refuse them, I don't need more shit in my house) and potentially a mylar blanket, although I then realize that it's not a marathon in November, and I am not dying so I don't take that either.  I look around for some poorly mixed Gatorade, I drink some, and then I go up to the top of the hill to get some food.  The cookies are those fake Oreos, and the food selection is pretty terrible.  It is the same disgusting pasta salad that they think everyone loves for the 10 years I've been doing this race.  And, since it rains 98% of the time at Columbia, everything is soggy. 

The awards are pretty nice; I will never win one of course unless I race in my age group at some point.  Then you leave and realize that the parking volunteers jammed the cars in too close and now you can't even leave.  It's like New Year's Eve: a whole lot of buildup and then a ton of disappointment.

It all begs the question: where does the money go?  I understand that costs go up, and if it followed inflation, that would even be acceptable.  But to go up as much as it does, year after year, I have got to question.  It makes me want to yell, from the top of my lungs: Enough is enough!  I am sick and tired of these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!  And then it dawns on me.  This race gets most of its shit paid for through sponsors, after all, it is a pretty high profile event.  The race director pays himself, and quite well, but he puts on good races and has even earned that right.  It's going to charity.  Fucking charities. 

Now, 99.9% of people in the world will think I am in insensitive human for saying that.  But please - don't misconstrue.  I have nothing wrong with charities.  In fact, there are plenty of charities I think are more than worthwhile, and I have donated money over the years to them.  My issue is with the association of racing to charities.  Why do races automatically have to be for charity?  Why is it that when people hear that I'm doing a particular race, they ask if I'm "doing it for charity"?  Why can't we just race...to race?  It's like Ivan Drago says in Rocky IV, "I fight to win...for me!"  Similarly, I just want to race to race. 

But I think the over-charitization of running and triathlon has come to a dangerous point.  More people are doing more races every year, but they are less prepared than ever.  If you go to any triathlon right now, the number of overweight - even obese - participants is staggering.  And I am sure to say participants rather than competitors because that's exactly what they are.  Yeah, I'm an elitist asshole, but it's got to be said.  They are slow and dangerous in the water, which is where, if you noticed, most people who are underprepared are dying.  Heart attacks can happen to anyone, but when you are dangerously overweight and frighteningly unprepared for swimming in open water, your odds of a problem increase exponentially.  Then, they are slow and even more dangerous on a bike.  If I ride 25 miles per hour for 56 miles, it means I am putting together one of the 30 fastest bike splits in the race of nearly 2000 athletes.  I clearly know how to ride a bike.  Why is it, then, that I am scared to fucking death when I'm on that course?  Could it be because not a single person out there can ride in a straight line?  Or knows to stay to the right?  Or can pick up a water bottle while riding and not fall off? 

People:  LEARN HOW TO RIDE YOUR FUCKING BIKES.

For that, I blame these organizations, for not teaching simple safety principles and basic knowledge and rules of the road.  Triathlon isn't hard, it really isn't.  You swim, you bike, you run.  If you can't do these three things, you can't (or shouldn't) be doing triathlons.

Now, as terrible as I may sound, I would never discredit the reasons why someone is out there racing.  As I've said, I race to race, but I know that not everyone is trying to do that.  Some people are out there to change perceptions, to honor a loved one, or just to show they can.  The only thing I care about is getting through a race safely, and as I would respect someone else's reasons for racing, I would expect they too would respect mine and not try to crash me out. 

How does this tie in with the cost of racing?  Well, direct cost is insurance premiums.  I'm sure these races are getting dinged right now to the tune of a pretty penny for insurance.  A 59 year old competitor died of an apparent heart attack at this past weekend's Nation's "Triathlon", which had canceled its swim so it became merely a 40k bike and 10k run.  He had a problem within 5 miles on the bike.  Situations like this inevitably mean that race directors have to pay out the yang to insure that they are not going to be sued when participants get hurt or worse. 

I've noticed, too, that RDs have become lazier and lazier.  Races have taken for granted that people are so enthralled by the notion of doing a triathlon that they put together shitty races and charge whatever they feel like charging, and people will pay it.  I will probably be blacklisted if anyone ever reads this, but who cares.  Piranha Sports is probably the worst.  They have uninspired courses at the same venue all summer long, just repackaging the race under slightly different distances and calling it a different name.  Shit by any other name is still shit.  For a sprint in Delaware to cost over $100 is appalling.  I already voice my opinions on SetUp Events' Rumpus in Bumpass, and in general I actually like SetUp races.  I have always enjoyed Kinetic, and I love Luray.  But again, Kinetic is virtually the same race as Rumpus, is the same race as Acorn or whatever they hold there in the fall.  Luray is on pretty quiet roads with a total of literally 4 cops out there on the bike course, no on course support, and I just don't understand how they charge so much for these races. 

CGI, CTA, they're all the same.  Honestly, I don't even have a problem with paying $600 or more to WTC for an official Ironman race, because at least I know what I'm getting, and they generally have their shit together.  1.4 volunteers at IM Louisville for every 1 competitor. 

Alyssa tweeted something the other day at Columbia Triathlon Association, about the registration fees being ridiculous, and they tweeted back something about how it goes to their ongoing support of charities. 

I haven't signed up for Columbia yet, but if I do it will be $450 to race two races for next year.  I have raced 21 times this year so far.  Some have been lower or no cost, but I did do Eagleman, Columbia, IM Louisville and have IM AZ coming up - totaling some $1600 in race entry fees alone. 

So here's what I feel needs to happen - of course nobody reads this so nobody will ever see this:

1. If it's permit fees and police costs that are driving the rate increases, RDs should really do a better job tallying information of how much money these races bring in for the community.  Look at Louisville.  Nobody is from there, everyone is staying at a hotel.  We stayed 4 nights.  We ate all our meals out in the town.  Multiply that by 2000. 

2. Make the "swag" better, or cut it altogether.  I don't know about you, but I don't give a shit about receiving a medal to commemorate my Olympic distance race, particularly when that medal is a piece of shit.  Or, in the case of my friend Mike's races, a recycled trophy with a new sticker on it to acknowledge my 2nd place finish.  Don't even spend the money.  Everyone has 10,000 t-shirts at home, so unless it's going to be particularly unique, maybe make it a separate option.  The nice thing about signing up a year in advance for races is you have plenty of time to order the shirts.  So how about you make that an option on registration, CTA, whether or not I want a shirt.  And the hats they gave us at Columbia and Eagleman, great idea, terrible execution.  If you've worn yours, you know what I'm talking about.

3. Make competitors feel like they're getting their money's worth.  I have yet to do a Rev3 but I am going to make sure I do one next year.  I hear people are treated like relative royalty.  Columbia, don't be cheap, it's not pretty.  CGI, don't think that you're in Columbia's league and expect $140 for your terrible NJ State Triathlon is a fair price.

4. Do something about the terrible state of participant fitness.  Have physicals or something, I don't know.  If you've never done a triathlon, maybe they should all be in their own wave - the last one.  In other words, be more selective about who you're letting in to your races, if you would consider them a risk if YOU were selling them insurance, then you should consider that before you let them into your race.

5. On the same note, there needs to be more "expert" or "open" divisions.  Columbia has an open wave, as did NJ Tri.  Luray used to.  I understand why it would be tough to do at a race like Eagleman, but they really should flip it around so that men between 25 and 44 are going relatively early.  They are the fastest ones, and more significantly, the fastest ones on bikes.  I probably wouldn't do Columbia in an age group, I'd honestly be too scared of riding past everyone on the bike course.  I don't trust anyone.

Pros don't have the same concerns, generally, as they get to start a few minutes (or many minutes) early.  But races need to acknowledge the existence of semi-pros, people who legitimately are fast and can and will finish high on the overall.  I have separate ideas on this, maybe another post.  Additionally, if you are fast enough to be a pro, and have qualified as such, you really need to stop sandbagging and just fucking do it.  It used to be what everyone was working towards, and now people seem content to be considered an amateur, despite going to Colorado Springs to train with professionals for the whole summer, then coming back to be #1 amateur and 4th overall at Ironmans. 

Triathlon, don't worry, it's not just you, it's running, too.  Boston Marathon opened the other day.  That went up in price.  NYC Marathon is now well over $200.  And that's a race that draws 45,000 people, with a quarter of the field filling from outside of the country, all descending upon New York to spend money.  I just paid $95 for the race formerly known as Philly Distance Run.  Granted, I signed up just the other day, but I think it was at least $75 when it was early registration time.  Rock 'n Roll/Competitor Group is the absolute worst, whores among whores for money.  They make money hand over foot and put on really annoying races.  Unfortunately for me, PDR is the fastest race I can run.  They are steadily taking over all marathons.  Does anyone really care about the number of loud, shitty bands on the course?  Or all the moms and their friends who buy all the matching clothes they can get their hands on? 

Racers of the world need to unite, and remember that the only thing necessary for great races is a distance and a clock, and perhaps a great field.  That's the spirit of the RM Classic.  We'll start our own races.

It's just so odd to me, how racing is at an all-time high yet the economic climate could not be worse.  Maybe it's because races seem so much less expensive than doing other things?  I don't know, but to a person that spends $2000+ each year just on race entry fees, it's looking like it might push me out of the sport sooner than I thought.  What will the breaking point be for a race like Columbia - $200?  $250?  I hope I'm not here to find out.

And yes, I wholeheartedly realize that I am complaining a lot when there is a simple solution:  don't race so much.  I choose my races, I make the conscious decision to spend that much money on these races, so I shouldn't complain.  What I'm really asking for is an explanation.  I just want to know, where does the money go?  If you give me a breakdown, I'll be satisfied.  I can do other races, I can do no races.  But racing is in my blood, and I'll keep doing it until I can't, and will likely just keep paying.

Never Forget

I will never forget where I was two years ago. 

Fresh off my ACL surgery following getting mauled by a Ford Taurus over the summer, I had my dad drive me from our home in NJ back down to Baltimore in order to put on the RM Memorial 5k.  We had assembled a very competitive field, with a couple of guys coming up from DC, and pound for pound it became the fastest 5k in the area.  It was a Saturday morning, September 12th, 2009.  We held the race at Goucher College amidst cool but overcast conditions.  I marshaled the race from my crutches, and as soon as the race was done I had no energy left and had to head back up to NJ to continue my recovery.

A year later there didn't seem to be a convenient time to host this race, so on an whim we held it on a Tuesday in mid November.  The conditions were quite good for a nighttime track 5000m, and again the results were pretty good for being essentially a time trial on the track.  We held this version at Gilman, the site of our normal Tuesday Night Track Workouts, and we changed the name from RM Memorial to RM Classic.

The 2011 version worked out in a way that enabled us to host the race on 9/11, our own version of a Remembrance Run.  The gun went off at 7pm, so it was a true twilight race.  The air was rife with moisture, and it had just rained so the track was quite slippery.  This year I was finally able to compete in my own race, so after we sang the National Anthem, 12 of us hit the track for what turned out to be an extremely competitive race.  At least 5 track 5k PRs, and one all-time 5k personal best, were recorded.  The average time for our 11 men was 16:58, and we had everyone (including female winner Meg McNew) under 19:30.  Meg had run a 1:27 half marathon that morning, so the 5k time was even more impressive.

For me, I had originally hoped that today's post would have been a glorious celebration of my great triathlon result from Saturday, but alas, the weather had other plans.  The days of hard rain and flooding caused the cancellation of the Lancaster Family YMCA Triathlon, and I was pretty pissed.  Obviously there's not much they can do about the conditions, and safety first, but I'm allowed to be bummed.  It's a race I love to compete at on a course I love to do.  The bike course is hard, the run course is hard.  It's a nice place to race and has always been one of my favorites, but unfortunately, I think I'm probably done with it.  Next year I have alternative fall plans that will not include it, and I have been let down by this race now two straight years. 

But, all wasn't lost, as I had a pretty good week last week nevertheless.  My feeling good finally ran out, about mid-week, so I returned to the reality that was soreness and tiredness.  Could be that I don't really sleep well anymore, or could have been that I ran 45 miles - one of the higher weeks I've had this year, and just a week after ironman.  I probably overextended myself a bit by doing the Tuesday workout, which I did 4x1600 with just over a minute rest.  I started off conservative, hitting 5:56 on my first and second, and then picked it up to 5:51, and then a 5:35.  That made me a little tired, but some of the girls were still running (doing 5, 6 or 7 repeats) so I jumped in the second 800 of each, running about 2:50-2:53 and getting about 4 minutes rest.  I was tired by the end, but 5.5 miles of intervals was more than I was originally looking to do, and I was pleased I could do it at all.

With the comical amount of rain we were having, that prevented me from getting outside on the bike, and I refuse to hit the trainer just yet (plus it is still living at Pat's house from last winter) so I didn't get outside until Thursday, when I managed a mere 21 miles after the roads dried up a little.  I made it into the pool 3 times for 7k, and felt decent, but also got kicked out one day after 200m due to thunder and another day just didn't bother going because it was thundering all day. 

When I found out the race was canceled on Friday (courtesy of Ed), I decided to change around my weekend plans a little.  I ran up to the running store on Friday afternoon, which took a surprising 85 minutes (I think it's at least 11 miles).  The humidity really shut my body down, and I was not psyched running uphill for that long.  I got to the store, pretty depleted, and hung out there while the Brooks Cavalcade was doing their thing.  It ended up being a later night than I've had in a while, so I was not up tremendously early on Saturday.  Then, I wasn't real motivated to do much on Saturday, so I finally got into the pool in the afternoon and then ran with Ben for 35 minutes when he got to town.

Sunday, following the actual Run to Remember 5k (where Ben finished 2nd and Carly won!), I rode just under 60 miles with Ben on my sunflower loop - only there were no sunflowers.  Just dead, brown sticks.  It was just my third or fourth ride I guess since the race, and the others were just short rides, so I was actually a little tired by the end, and still had to race that night. 

We headed up to the track and were immediately greeted by a level of humidity not often seen.  It was misting like we were in the jungle or something, the air was thick and after warming up, I was already dripping.  The track was pretty wet, too, from the rain.  We lined up and got going, and immediately I found myself in 9th place.  Dustin, Tristram, Conrad and Ed were out quick, all gunning for sub 16 minute efforts, and Arjun and Seth were looking to be under 16:40.  Caught in between were Berardi and then Zero, and then myself.  My first 1600 splits were 84, 84, 82, 84 for a 5:35.  I had bridged up to Z and we ran together for the 2nd mile.  On lap 5 I was just a little slow (86) so I decided to back off (visions of BRRC meet flashed through my head) and regrouped.  The 3200 was split in 11:23 so a 5:48 1600, and then I felt a little better and was able to pick it back up slightly to a 5:46 last 1600, and then brought it home with a 37 second last 200 to finish in - 17:47.0.  Mike and I literally tied, totally not on purpose. 

The takeaway is that, two weeks after the ironman, I was able to run the same time for a 5k as I was just 10 days prior to it.  So over the course of less than a month, I managed two 17:46/7 5k's and an ironman - not too bad. 

The disappointing realization is that, in 2008, before I got hurt, I split 17:50 for the first 5k at PDR, and came through 10k in 36:05 and it was very easy.  I don't expect to run that fast this weekend, but if I can keep it to low 6's, and ultimately run a little faster than I did at Miami, I'll be pleased.  In my favor is that the weather should be pretty good, and I generally run pretty well at Philly, so I'd like to be under 1:20 (1:21:49 at Miami).  I wasn't going to do it, I figured I didn't need to do it just to do it, but then I sadly realized it will be my last race as a 29 year old and I haven't missed it since I started going in 2006, so I'd like to keep that going for now. 

The cancellation of Lancaster knocks me down a little bit from my attempt at 11 tri's for 2011.  With it, I was only going to be at 10 anyway, so I was going to have to look for another one to do in the next few weeks.  Now without it, I'm at 9, so I have to decide if I can feasibly do it or not.  I just saw that there is a small race in NJ the first weekend of October, when I was planning on going home, so I may jump into that.  With the next two weekends out of commission, and October 8th already going to be a race, it doesn't leave me with many options - so I may crap out just one short.  Oh well.  I've raced a lot anyway, and if I can get to 10, that's pretty sweet too.  Maybe I'll actually be able to do good in one of them...

In other news, I am having a chuckle at some of the Google search words that have landed people at my blog this week:

dave chappelle jesus juice
drowning death of ryan mcgrath
erin feldhausen ironman wisconsin (brennan's sister)
mumra
old bud lite commercial antibiotics taste loss
rathbones ryan mcgrath
rumpus in bumpass triathlon virginia registration fees
ryan mcgrath umd

The internet is funny.

College Park, Where They Flip Them Birds

Unfortunately, I feel pretty awesome this week.

I say unfortunately because I would not have expected, or hoped, to feel very good a few days after an ironman.  But when you get sick and don't end up running a marathon (opting to walk and just take longer), you tend to recover much quicker.  That was the case last week, as I got back into the (reduced) swing of things:

Monday - OFF. 

Tuesday - 1 mile, easy.

Wednesday - 1000m swim/7 mile run.  I intended on swimming a little bit more, and when I got into the pool I felt awesome.  But it was really cold, and I got a really bad headache so I just got out.  Found out later that the pool's heater had been broken for 3 weeks.  My run was a little longer than I anticipated, but I didn't want to make Ed and Pat amend their run too much so I just sucked it up.  Just about 50 minutes, I was ready to be done by the end. 

Thursday - 2 hour ride.  I felt pretty good, I don't think I could have put in any kind of real effort, my left quad in particular was still a bit sore, but I was also generally surprised I felt at all good.  It was a month before I got on the bike after Arizona, although more of that was related to it being cold, and having to ride the trainer when I started back up. 

Friday - 6 mile run/3000m swim.  I ran early with Pat and Ed, and I was tired, probably more from it being 5:30 in the morning than anything.  It was so dark, and it was really humid.  When I got in the pool later in the day, I felt awesome again.  I ended up doing 3x200, 6x100, 10x50 and then 600 pull as my main set, and just felt really comfortable.  The heater had been fixed so it was much better. 

Saturday - 2000m swim.  I had to drive to Connecticut today so I knew I'd only have time to get in one thing, and I also didn't really care if I took the day off.  But, it worked out that I was able to get in the pool so I swam, and felt good again.  Whodathunk that the week after IM I would feel better in the pool than I did all summer.

Sunday - 7 miles at Hartshorne Woods.  This is one of my favorite places to run at home (NJ) but also a spot of great peril, as I broke my ankle in there back in 2003.  The Hurricane last week had messed it up pretty good, but it was runnable, so I took Alyssa in there and put her through the wringer.  She had a workout of 20min w/u, then short fartlek intervals of 15sec-30-30-45-60-75-90 and back down with 1:1 rest, then 20min c/d.  This is a really hard place to run, so it wasn't ideal for that type of workout, but I think she had to run a bit faster overall on the run than she would have on her own so it all worked out. 

For the week, that meant 6000m in the pool, 21 miles of running and 34 miles on the bike for just under 6 hours.  I feel like that's a pretty good post-ironman week, not too much but not so little that I wasn't doing anything.  Tonight (Monday) I ran 9 miles in the hardest rain I've ever run in, courtesy of Tropical Storm Lee.  I'm racing again this coming Saturday at the Lancaster Family YMCA Triathlon, one of my favorite races of the year.  It's every bit as challenging as Columbia (course-wise) but a lot more low-key, and it's a great time of year to race.  I was disappointed to hear my buddy Andrew Yoder wasn't going to be there this year, but it's also kind of nice that someone else will get the opportunity to win!

With August firmly in the rearview mirror, I'll take a minute to grade myself:

Swimming - A.  Had Louisville not gone as well as it did, I would probably be giving myself a D right now, but because it went well, I'm in a better mood.  I swam like absolute dog shit at Luray, and every day I dragged myself into the pool was terrible.  I was so unmotivated and so unhappy about the state of my swimming, but apparently it wasn't as bad as I thought, or I cut the course.  Either way, getting under an hour was a big deal for me and I feel much more confident now, and that's even begun to show just this week in the pool.  I was close to getting to 40k in the water for the month, but ended up with just 34,000 meters.  Very little by anyone's standards.

Cycling - B+.  By August I had mostly stopped going to Wednesday Night Ride, and instead opted for the slightly easier Thursday Night Ride instead.  I tried to keep my miles per ride high, but I think I rode less times per week.  I finished up the month with 572 miles.  I was going to try to ride Tuesday or Wednesday of last week to get to an even 600 but I didn't really care.  If I were grading myself on my races, I would probably give myself a lower grade.  Luray went bad, but it was more a problem with the bike.  I had a good race at that Pine Grove TT, but still had bike troubles.  I finally got it settled for Louisville, and then getting sick removed the chance of having the ride I expected.  But, I still rode 18 minutes faster than I did for the distance last year, and I know that over the next few months I can tweak a few things and should be able to be closer to that 5 hour mark. 

Running - B.  Again, looking at the races and I had a so-so run at Luray (compared to some it wasn't too bad, but it wasn't great), I had a decent track race (17:46 5000m following a 5:19 warmup mile) and then a stupefying 5:52 marathon that included more sitting than running.  But, I know that one was a little out of my hands, and, just based on how I've been running this week, I don't feel bad at all about my fitness.  I ran 142 miles for the month, which was a little less than last August, but of course I was trying to get my mileage up that month in order to be able TO race the ironman in November.

This summer has been one of the most sports-filled summers I can remember, with so much being televised.  It also helped that in early August we were gifted with Universal Sports - it finally came to DirecTV!  For me, that has meant I've been able to watch the Vuelta, Diamond League Meets and every event of the World Track and Field Championships.  The US had a great meet, with some truly great performances.  The Vuelta stands as the most boring of the Grand Tours, only because the roads are so shitty and the scenery is so heinous, but the race has actually been quite exciting.  Tom Boonen broke his hand the other day as he crashed out of the Vuelta, and now is unsure of his ability to start the WC race later this month.  But I was laughing when I read that it had been painful for him to ride as it was because of an open wound on his perineum.  AKA his Taint.  I know your pain, bro.

Then, the news filtered through that LeoPard Trek might be folding/joining forces with Team RadioShack, and it was confirmed - only it's RadioShack that is folding!  RadioShack and Nissan will become sponsors of the LeoPard team, which holds the UCI license, so the new team will be something like RadioShack-Nissan-Trek.  The roster is sick.  Between that and Omega-Pharma-Lotto-QuickStep it's a battle for the super team.  I don't know if it's good for cycling, but at the very least it will be interesting. 

At Track Worlds, I felt bad for my girl Allyson Felix, who despite earning 4 medals (becoming only the 4th person in history to do so) did not win either of her individual events, and I'm sure it was a result of having to run the 400 heats and then the 200 heats.  I think she'll be better off focusing on one for next year.  She needs that Olympic Gold in the 200!  Maggie Vessey ran three solid 800s, and Jenny Barringer Simpson had a great win in the 1500.  For the guys, Matt Centrowitz (a native Marylander) won his semi-final heat with gusto, the kid seriously ran like an old pro as he fought and maintained his position, and went into a stacked final where he picked up an unbelievable bronze medal.  Our field events, minus the shot putters, were really good - including our Jumpers (triple, long and high - all gold).  There is one more Diamond League meet on this weekend and then track disappears for a while, but Cycling WCs is soon and it's also marathon season, so there will be plenty to watch during the fall.  INCLUDING Ironman Louisville, end of September on Universal Sports.

Around here you can tell that marathon season is approaching, as everyone has been getting in their long runs and there seem to be many tired legs.  The first one up is Chicago Marathon (Ed) and then Baltimore Marathon (Pat).  After that it's Marine Corps, then NYC (Brennan, Joel, Carly, Nina, Suzanne and Diane), Richmond (Kris) and Philadelphia.  Of course, I have my own marathon to run, again after the bike, in November, so I'll probably try and get in a few longer runs over the next two months.  This Sunday, we will once again host the RM Classic 5k, a race that started after I got hurt in 2009.  We run it on the track and it usually sees some pretty fast times. 

I'm just pretty pleased that I've recovered this well.  I remember back to last year when I felt terrible for a while.  More than feeling beat up, I was definitely not feeling training for anything serious.  Now, it's a different time and it's still early in the season, but I am really ready to go again.  I have been gradually getting over this sickness, although I still have a lot of gross stuff in my nose, which is annoying.  Alyssa and I went to my friends Jay and Mona's wedding in Greenwich CT over the weekend, which was a lot of fun, and got to spend a little bit of time at home and check in with a McGrath family function on Sunday at one of my uncle's. 

I would be remiss if I didn't also mention that the World Champion Green Bay Packers kick off the NFL season on Thursday night against the Saints, in Green Bay, where Brennan will be a communicant of the holiness that is Packer football. 

But for now, I can sleep easy as the TERPS just beat The U in their first trip ever to College Park.  A sign of changing times in Terpville?  The uniforms are crazy, the helmets are crazy, but a win is a win.  Even if 9 players on Miami were not allowed to play tonight!

Hold On (For One More Day)

As I sat down on the side of the road on Sunday, contemplating whether I should, or even could, finish the race, the only thing I could focus on was:

I want my fucking t-shirt and medal.

When Ironman Louisville started up however many years ago, I never understood why anyone would do it.  It almost always produced obscene temperatures and humidity, and just didn't seem fun.  But when I traveled there in 2009 with Brennan to watch Alyssa compete in her first IM, I thought "hey, this isn't so bad."  It was mid 70s, absolutely beautiful.  Never before had I seen better weather at any race.  With the help of Brennan's friend P.K., a local, we got from the airport to mile 90 of the bike course just ahead of Alyssa coming through.  After coming to the rescue of a mechanical (broken pedal), we zoomed back to town and got ready to pedal to various spots of the run course to watch Alyssa.  The course seemed so nice, and it seemed like there were tons of spectators the entire way.  The finish line on 4th Street Live! is among the best in the sport, and the medal Alyssa earned was awesome - it was a little horseshoe. 

While racing on Sunday, I thought "man, this race was a lot more fun in 2009."

Since the 6 or 7 people that read this probably know how I did already, I'm sure you're also wondering WTF happened?  To answer that, I'll go back to the beginning of last week.

Tuesday - I went to the track workout with plans of running just a couple of easy miles, but I felt good and I wanted to stretch out the legs a bit, so I ran with Melissa's group through part of the workout (1200-400-1200, 1000-400-1000, 800-400-800).  I felt really comfortable on the first one, running just under 5:40 pace, and then pulled out a 71 on the 400.  I was going to call it after the 2nd 1200, but I felt alright and continued on the with the 1000 set, and ran a little bit quicker.  After the 2nd 1000, I was done, and felt good about the light workout.

Wednesday - I sucked it up and got in the pool, but didn't feel very good and was really down after the workout, frustrated with my swimming.  I rode an easy 90 minutes in the evening, and it was pretty windy - which reminded me of my Wednesday ride before Arizona last November. 

Thursday - Early morning swim before driving out to Louisville, Alyssa and I swam a short 1600m and I felt slightly better than Wednesday, but at this point I've resigned myself to a 1:10 swim on Sunday. 

Health-wise, I was feeling pretty good this week, with the exception of a canker sore.  I will get these from time to time, usually related to periods of overtraining, stress, or, just general sickness.  I wasn't really going to sweat it, though, because it came early in the week and I figured it should be good by the weekend. 

My memory of Louisville was admittedly a bit hazy, as Brennan and I had taken a 6:20am flight on Sunday, following the wedding of Arjun and Melissa in Chicago.  With fewer than 2 hours of sleep and much liquor consumed, we were somewhat out of it when we got picked up at the airport around 9am.  That, and we were whisked away to wherever P.K.'s girlfriend lived to pick up bikes, then somehow we found a McDonald's (and saw a dead deer right on the road!) and found the bike course.  I remember the bike course being crowded with cars and cyclists having to ride through them.  I don't remember how we got back into the city, but we parked and then were zipping back and forth on the course for the next 4 hours.  It was 7pm when we were done, we ate dinner and then went to P.K.'s apartment to crash for a few hours before an early flight back to Baltimore.

This year I had decided on driving out there, and Alyssa was up for it so we left Thursday around 7:30.  Following the earthquake on Tuesday, Baltimore was bracing for the potential wrath of Hurricane Irene.  I don't know if we drove through it, or some other weather system, but for five hours of our drive we were in a torrential downpour.  While it made the drive a little tough, it actually helped time pass a little quicker, and before we knew it we were in Charleston, WV, eating surprisingly good pizza in an otherwise unsurprising town. 

We had made fairly good time when we got to Lexington, and since it seemed lke UK's campus wasn't far off the highway, I wanted to go have a look.  This unfortunately added an hour to our drive, as the traffic was terrible and campus was super busy.  I like to run a lap on the track at campuses I visit, so I was disappointed when we found their track and it was gone - just dirt!  They were clearly renovating the entire complex.  My disappointment was abated by the UK women's cross country team that ran by us though.  To keep the spirit of Title IX alive, the men's team was out there too, for Alyssa.

Back on the road and we were in Louisville by 7:30, and we checked into the hotel - some 300 feet from the finish line.  We headed out for a shakeout run and there was a commotion a block up.  Apparently someone had climbed to the top of a construction crane, drunk as a skunk, and was threatening to jump.  I've never seen anything like it.  Nor have I seen anything like the people on the ground, all the les miserables of Louisville, filming with their phones.  When I caught a glimpse of the man on the scaffolding, who eventually came down, I swear to you that I recognized him.  I am 99% sure that this guy was driving in a car that was stopped at a light when we got into town, and he was throwing up in his car.  The timeline and level of inebriation was right, so I'm pretty sure it was. 

Crisis averted, it was time for dinner, then bed.  Friday morning we got up and headed over to the Galt House for registration.  Pretty easy process, and then Mike and I headed out for a little ride.  We just went out and did the first 12 miles of the course, enough to see the way out of transition (very flat, but road surface not great at times) and then we saw a hill that we didn't expect, so we went up that before turning around.  When we got back, I started getting a little stuffed up.  I thought maybe it was just allergies, as I tend to not do great with new environments this time of year (e.g., lots of trees) and occasionally have trouble in hotels.  I brushed it off and we went about our day, but by dinner it was a lot worse, and I caved and got a Claritin and some throat lozenges.  I still struggled to sleep on Friday night.  Part of that was definitely the obnoxious level of noise bouncing up from 4th Street right into our 10th floor, 4th Street-facing room.  I would have expected live concerts to have to finish by 10 or 11pm, but apparently they can keep going until 1am.  In case you are in the same situation, ask for a non-4th Street-facing room!

Saturday morning I woke up and it was not good.  Mike and I walked down to the practice swim, and we did about 20 minutes in the water.  The current wasn't as friendly as I thought it might be, but you could obviously notice it.  The water was warm, and it was dirty.  It definitely did not help me get better.  After the swim, Mike and I went for a 25 minute run and my body was starting to feel pretty achy.  We ate lunch, and then got our stuff to transition.  To avoid another mile walk, Mike and Alyssa rolled down on their bikes while I transported mine, along with our bags, in the car.  Then, we drove the bike course, to find out that it was much hillier than we thought!  The three of us certainly didn't mind, as the topography was pretty similar to Baltimore County, and most of our rides.  The out and back section looked tough, with a fairly fast, twisty descent into a long climb up to the turnaround, then back out onto the loop.  The last 20 miles or so looked like they could be pretty quick. 

All the while, I was not able to breathe.  We had even acquired a Neti Pot and I tried that to no avail - my nasal passage was so blocked that the water wouldn't go through.  I felt like I was coming down with a little fever, and I finally took DayQuil around 4pm.  We went to dinner that night as I called friend and triathlon confidant, Brian Shea, to ask if he had any suggestions for how I could get through the race.  I was not positive I could make it through the race, but since I could obviously wait until morning to decide, I took a NyQuil at 9pm and tried to go to sleep. 

I woke up Sunday and could breathe a little better, not much, and I was really, really dehydrated.  We went down to transition, and then over to the swim start, where apparently 6am was too late to get there and have a decent position in line.  Holy shit.  I was not going to sit in line from 4am on, that was for sure.  We were pretty close to the end of the snaking line, and just sat there as we heard the cannon boom for the pros (6:50am) and then age group (7:00am).  We eventually got moving and finally made it onto the ramp when they stopped athletes from getting in the water.  A few minutes went by and then all of a sudden paramedics were racing down to the water, where they had just pulled someone out.  He was a big guy, probably 250 pounds or more, and he was completely blue.  I have never seen anything like it.  They were doing chest compressions and racing him to the hospital, but you knew.  You just knew.  There was no way he was going to make it, and unfortunately, that was confirmed after the race.  It was upsetting, and the IM staff then had to regroup and try and pump everyone back up to get into the water.  And that's where my day started.

Swim - 59:42 (138th overall, 21st 30-34)

I did three things different in this race that I could possibly attribute this great swim (for me) to:

1. Shaved my legs
2. Wore my watch
3. Breathed to my right

I normally shave my legs, but this year I got real lazy.  I hadn't shaved since prior to Eagleman.  And really, it doesn't matter, it's not like that was making me swim terrible all summer.  As far as the watch, I didn't even turn it on, I had just forgotten to put it into my T1 bag so I had to wear it.  But the breathing to the right may actually have helped.  Normally I have trouble doing that and going in a straight line, so I just breathe to my left.  Which then means that I'm breathing basically every other stroke, and that seems to tire me out a little bit more.  My left arm will be more tired and my head/neck gets tired. 

Alyssa jumped into the water first, then me, then Mike.  I saw Mike just take off, but didn't see where Alyssa went, and it was just a sea of green and pink caps.  The swim starts off with a little shelter from Towhead Island, swimming upstream, before turning around and then coming back with the current to the finish.  On the map it looks like the first third is up and the second 2/3 is back, so if the current is friendly, most athletes can see a time close to what they would swim with a wetsuit.  I felt much more comfortable in this swim, and I think part of it is the time trial start.  Despite having to swim around many people, it allowed me to warm up and then get rolling, as opposed to a mass start where I feel compelled to go hard at the start, then have to recover a bit. 

As I steamrolled people, I thought "I have never felt so fast" - so thanks to all the slow swimmers for making me feel good about something on Sunday!  I rounded the far buoy and was able to sight the buildings for the way home.  The morning was also somewhat overcast, and even if the sun had been out, it would have been behind us on the way home, so I felt like I could just put my head down and go.  At some point, though, I looked and I was really far to the right of the buoys.  I corrected myself, and a few minutes later was really far to the left.  I don't know how that happened.  Either way, I felt like I was swimming forever, and while I was comfortable, I was also ready to be done.  Imagine my surprise when I exit the water and see 1:33:xx on the clock - that meant I had swam about an hour!  I couldn't believe it.  Then I started thinking that the water was probably super friendly and people probably swam under 45s because there was no way I swam that fast.  Either way, I wasn't going to complain.  I made it under an hour, which meant 2:39 faster than I went at Arizona last year, and it would be great if I could swim about the same time even at AZ this year.

T1 - 4:12

It was maybe 100 or 150m to run up the concrete to the transition area, where we picked up our bags.  I went a row past my bag's row, and the ground was really wet and muddy and my legs went out from underneath me as I tried to correct to my row.  I stayed upright, fortunately, grabbed my bag and went into the tent.  I had the top half of the speedsuit already off, stripped the rest and put on my jersey (yep, wore a jersey on the bike, best decision of the day).  I carried my socks and shoes with me to my bike so I didn't have to run on the mud in my Speedplay cleats, which tend to pick up mud quick.

Bike - 5:14:21 (76th overall, 14th 30-34, 21.38mph)

I rode 5:32 last year at Arizona.  The effort was not hard, but I got really tired after the wind, rain and the boring course.  Now with months of hard riding back under my belt, and a new bike, I felt like <5:10 was going to be pretty easy, and my goal was 5 hours.  As I don't ride with a computer, I rely on my watch to give me 10 mile splits so I can keep track and have some idea of how fast I'm going, but really I just go on perceived effort.  Can't ride faster than you can ride. 

In the first few miles I wanted to establish a rhythm but also had to be careful, since my late start meant I still had to pass hundreds of people.  I was pretty much hugging the yellow line, as the hordes of novice cyclists rudely and inappropriately rode all over the road.  I barely trust people I know to handle bikes properly, so I certainly don't trust people I don't know - especially not Ironpeople.  I passed through 10 miles around 26 low so I knew I was riding pretty well, and headed up the hill.  That was a cluster.  I slipped into the small chain ring and just cruised on by, and at the top it began to open up a little.  It was shortly after the top that I passed Mike.  But, I was so out of it that I didn't know what happened, and thought he was coming up on me.  He goes "you must have swam pretty well" and then I was just confused, I thought he meant I came out of the water ahead of him, which then made me think I must have somehow swam less, because I wasn't sure how I hadn't seen him as I came up on him.  I finally figured it out and continued onto the out and back.

That was pretty harrowing.  People of varying skills and stones meant there were people zooming down the hill on the left, there were water bottles rolling down the hill, bumps at the bottom, really dodgy.  I felt good though and rode up the hills really well.  My only concern was that, at an hour in, I haven't gone to the bathroom since the early morning.  The medicine had dried me up and despite my best attempts at rehydrating, I wasn't going to be able to make up the deficit.  And eating was very tough still as I couldn't breathe through my nose so I had to chew and breathe at the same time.  Otherwise, I felt okay.

Onto the loop, and as we headed into the town of La Grange, we were going into a stiff headwind.  This was not fun.  Coupled with a number of false flats, it felt like I was going nowhere.  But it's deceptive because I'm flying past people and nobody is going by me, so it's hard to say how I'm actually doing.  I had been riding pretty consistent 10 mile splits but then around mile 60, with a tailwind, my quads seized up.  They had just not been lubricated enough, and there was simply no way I was going to be able to get enough water to them.

I backed off a little to let them relax, and then found my rhythm again and kept going.  The same thing happened on the second loop though, in basically the same place (mile 90).  At that point I was thinking shit, I have 22 miles to go, another hour of riding and I'm at 4:12 or something.  This is not the day I thought I'd be having, and more importantly, how am I going to run??

When we left the people going onto their second loop you finally had an idea of just how few people were in front of you.  I exchanged positions a few times on the way back in with a couple of people and the last 10 miles were particularly annoying as we were treated to a cross/headwind.  I came into T2 at 5:14:21, which is an improvement on my soft time from November, but I wasn't real psyched.  I was, however, psyched that it was so easy aerobically.  I really do feel good about that distance and riding it pretty quick, so I expect to ride fast in November.

A few other notes from the bike:

1. I think I will always wear a regular jersey on the ride at these races.  Since I don't wear a one piece for the race, I can race in tri shorts and no top.  Then, just leave the jersey in my bag, packed with my food, thus eliminating the need for a Bento box or anything like that.  The less on my bike, the happier I am.  After the bike, I just take that off and put on a running singlet anyway.

2. I had acquired one of the little setups to put a water bottle cage in between the aerobars.  I don't like the idea of having them behind my seat, so I decided the front would be good.  In general, I liked it, but the cage did not embrace the Deer Park 20oz sport bottles very well, in fact at all.  So I either have to find a different cage or figure out something else.

3. Besides it tasting terrible, Powerbar's Perform drink is annoying.  When you tried to twist the top of the cap to drink, the entire top would come off.  Very annoying, very sticky.  Powerbar should do something about this.

T2 - 4:59

I took my time here, I ended up taking off my tri shorts and put on my running shorts, and changed into my singlet. 

Run - 5:52:08 (1136th overall, may as well have been DFL, 13:25/mi)

I can actually break this down to what I was thinking every step of the way.

Miles 1-3 (7:23, 7:00, 7:14):  Surprised.  My legs actually felt okay.  I was concerned about going out too fast, so I made sure it felt like I was walking.  7:23 up and over the bridge, 7:00 down.  Super comfortable.  Hey, there's Mike, how did he get in front of me?  (note: he had virtually caught back up to me by the end of the bike and then passed me in transition tent)  I feel okay, I can do this.  Don't think about being sick.

Miles 4-6 (8:13, 8:13, 9:13): Ugh.  I stopped in the bathroom in mile 4 to try and pee.  It actually hurt coming out, it was so dark.  Without that stop it would have been a 7:35.  Then I just had to slow down.  I was carrying a flask of orange Gu, and could not get it down.  At the aid stations, I could not take anything other than water.

Miles 7-10 (9:43, 10:55, 12:14, 16:28):  Uh-oh.  I was walking a lot more now, and by mile 10 I had come to a complete halt.  I realized that there was nothing I could have done, I was just too sick to have competed.  I was sad for a minute, but kept on.

Miles 11-13 (13:13, 16:50, 29:56):  Dammit.  Why?  All the time.  Can't catch a break.  It was here that I literally sat on the sidewalk for a really long time.  People were asking me if I was okay.  Then two cops came and made sure they didn't need to call medical.  I said I was fine, I just didn't want to do it.

Miles 14-15 (54:14): Yep, just sitting here, hanging out.  I looked pretty casual at this point, as I was just wearing running shorts and a white singlet.  My number was somewhat obscured by the singlet, which was covering it, and if I hadn't been wearing a chip, I don't know if anyone would have thought I was racing.  Here I was hanging out near the hotel, but not at it, because I didn't want to see it.  I waited for Alyssa, who had swam and ridden the shit out of the course (1:05, 5:43, was in 3rd in her AG off the bike, had the 28th fastest bike split of the day) but was struggling on the run.  Her coach, Hillary Biscay, was racing too and had passed her, and told her she had to finish.  And so it will be, I said.  I'll go with you.

At this point I was feeling very ill.  I hadn't eaten anything in 3 hours, because I couldn't, not because I wasn't hungry (I was starving).  I actually contemplated grabbing money from Alyssa's dad and walking over to Qdoba and getting a burrito.  The course also seemed very quiet, much quieter than 2009.  I remember riding our bikes on the sidewalk and actively having to avoid crashing into people, and the special needs volunteers were so loud, and the aid stations were loud.  I remember the Ford Inspiration Station kicking, and the Louisville U. aid station being awesome.  They were all physically there this year, but they were just quiet, and there were fewer overall spectators.  I also realized that, at 20 minutes per mile, I'm covering 3 miles per hour and that's going to be 4 more hours.  I had to at least do 15 minute miles so I could make it in a reasonable time. 

As we headed out onto the second loop, the two of us silently shuffled along the road.  I was able to run for a few minutes, then I'd have to walk, then I could run to an aid station, then walk.  The process was arduous, but the rhythm had us splitting miles of 12:24, 13:41, 12:05, 11:42, 11:40, 12:32.  It was the most I could do.  I couldn't breathe, and I was really struggling, but I was getting there.  Alyssa seemed to be doing a little better, but not much.  After we hit the turnaround and were on our way back, I felt worse but was buoyed by the fact that we were at least on our way back in.  Almost amazingly we split the next three miles at 13:30, 13:30 and 13:32.  I didn't plan it, that's just how fast you go when you walk for a few minutes each mile. 

At one of the final aid stations, it was probably the best thing I'd heard all day - Justin Bieber's "Baby" came on, and suddenly it was all good again.  Not that I physically any better, but I just felt better.  We hit mile 25 in 12:58 and then we could finally see the end.  We crossed the finish line together in 12 hours, 15 minutes and 20/21 seconds. 

What I said at the beginning, about all I want is my t-shirt and medal, I wasn't joking.  During my hours of quiet time with myself, enduring yet another beyond terrible day, I realized that I don't train for races to not finish.  I don't start races to not finish.  I work entirely too hard to go to these things and call it a day because it didn't work out in my favor.  On this day, I got sick.  I just needed my body to hold on for one more day and things probably would have gone my way.  But it didn't.  I could look back and say "hey great job doing as well as you did in the swim and bike being sick, and then finishing when it was really tough" but I really don't care.  I finished because I wanted my t-shirt and medal.  It could have been a 5k, it could have been a marathon - if it's a race, I will finish it. 

I got through the finishing chute as the sun was behind the buildings, so it was just starting to get dark at 7:45pm, and walked over to get some food.  It was freezing in this building, so the trip inside was brief.  I happily ate three slices of pizza, and then walked back over to the hotel to take a shower.  What started as a shower turned into a bath, where I then fell asleep for a few minutes, before going back down to meet the gang at Red Star.  Around 11pm we drove down to transition to get our stuff, and then headed up top of 4th Street to watch the last half hour of finishers come through.  While there, we took the opportunity to get some frozen beverages from Wet Willie's, our favorite Miami post-race spot (so it's cool that Louisville has one).  Since the race had been held up 10 minutes to evacuate the downed competitor, they let the official race finish go until 17:10:00.  We watched the last people come through and headed back to the hotel, ready to sleep. 

We woke up the next day and headed to Panera for some breakfast, and then over to Galt House for the rolldown allocation.  Mike ended up with a great day - 9:49 for 44th/13th with a 58:01 swim, 5:16 bike and 3:26 run, but as our competitive age group only had 6 slots, he was out.  Strangely, in W25-29, one of the two spots went unclaimed and since 3rd place had already earned her slot, it went to 4th.  But 4th wasn't there.  Neither was 5th.  Or 6th.  Holy shit.  Despite a terrible day, Alyssa's 17th place was not looking out of reason to earn the slot.  It finally stopped on 12, and the girl freaked out and gladly accepted.  Oh well.

Then it was over to Awards Banquet, which I did not go to in Arizona.  This was pretty fun.  The food was great, and they do a really good job.  And, Hillary and her friend, another pro from Australia, chilled out with us and we had some good chuckles.  After awards it was time to hit the road, and Alyssa and I made our way out of Louisville with some great weather to drive in.  I stopped a few times to stretch, and I unfortunately had another fairly severe case of hiccups (note: if anyone knows why this happens to me and only me following these events, I would love to chat).  We were going to stop in Morgantown, WV, for the night, and got there just in time to get some sushi from a place that closed at 10.  It magically stopped my hiccups, so that was cool.  Went to bed, woke up the next day and made the rest of the trip (after running a lap on WVU's shitty blue track), stopping in Cumberland, MD, for lunch.  The weirdest part of the day was for as nasty as it was on Thursday, it was beautiful on Tuesday, and we heard the SAME songs in the SAME places as we did on our way out.  Not strange if it's top 40, but these were some definite random jams from back in the day that you would almost never hear with frequency.  It was very strange, as if we were caught in some Bermuda Triangle wormhole.  I half expected to get back and the race never happened, like we were heading there this weekend or something.

Last November I was able to finish the Ironman, finally accomplishing that goal, and moreso capping the tumultuous year and change since the accident.  This year was a lot different.  Louisville was a race I signed up for largely because Alyssa and Mike were going to do it, and I figured I'd be in shape for it so why not.  I also wanted another opportunity to get the distance in.  Last year, it was Thanksgiving week, and I was tired, and I came back and it was cold, and I was ready to be done with training and racing.  This year, I still have a fall schedule of races and a return to Arizona.  And I'm more excited for it than I thought - I legitimately had concerns that I would finish the race on Sunday and be complacent and not want to do anything.  Maybe that's the benefit of having a bad day. 

The only thing I can say is that most people I know have not had bad days like that.  Most haven't suffered like that.  I wonder what would happen if they did?  Would they quit?  Would they continue, even though the marathon took them nearly 6 hours?  To put it in perspective, my 12:15 race was 711th out of 2439.  That's a lot of people finishing after that time.  A 12 hour race is faster than a lot of people could ever imagine going, so it would be disrespectful to drop out just because I'm going to be out there for a real long time.  I guess, if I had to, I would have completely walked the entire thing (I actually don't think it would have been much slower considering how long I stopped on the side of the road).

For now, a small break this week to let the legs rebound, and then next week will be light too as I head into the Lancaster Triathlon on Saturday, 9/10. 

Oh, and the medal this year?  It sucked.  No horseshoe.  Just some lame rectangle thing.  I was so mad.

Age Old Adage

What's that old saying that seems particularly applicable to me?

If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have any [luck].

While I do always have a chip on my shoulder, feeling like things just never seem to work out in my favor, this summer has been particularly oppressive.  Take this past weekend, for example.  Following the debacle of my rear wheel at Luray just the previous weekend, I decided I wanted one problem-free ride on Frankenstein before Louisville.  Just one.  The obvious choice was to go to Church Creek out on the Eastern Shore for their 40km TT on Saturday.  It's essentially the Eagleman course, in reverse.  Flat, fast.  3 years ago in my first time trial, I rode 58:55.  I didn't feel it was my best day, my legs seemed really stale that month, but it was a good result.  I figured I could go out there and do at least that again, but regardless of how fast or slow I went, I just wanted a good ride on my time trial machine.

It must have been on Thursday that Alyssa brought to my attention that the registration had closed for Church Creek and that there would be no race day registration.  Shoot.  But, fortune smiled upon me, as Alyssa then found another race, on Sunday in PA, that was about the same distance from Baltimore and seemed pretty decent.  Done.  Before I registered, I emailed the director to make sure it was going to take place even if the field was small (there were just 5 signed up by Friday morning).  He said yes, so I signed up.  The race was in Gardners, which was 18 miles past Gettysburg.  The drive on Sunday was pretty easy at 6am, and since I haven't been to Gettysburg in a really long time, it was cool to see it again.

Backtracking for a moment, last week's training was super light.  After the track meet on Wednesday, I actually took Thursday off completely.  More and more I've been feeling really just low and my motivation to train is non-existent.  The weather last week didn't help, with a lot of afternoon/evening thunderstorms of great intensity.  Following the Thursday day off, I ran with Brennan and Ed early on Friday morning.  Brennan was aiming to get in his weekend long run (20) and Ed was looking to do his Friday run (9) so there was a big spread.  I wanted to run 12 or 13, basically 90 minutes.  We crafted a route that would have been a lot more hood if it was run in the afternoon, but at 5:45am it was quiet.  It was also uphill for the first 35ish minutes, before we started coming back down towards the city.  I felt okay, still sore from Wednesday's track effort, but got through 90 minutes by 7:15 and was pleased.  I went to swim later in the day, but found that the pool was closed for a private event, and then I would have gotten kicked out anyway as another storm popped up. 

Saturday morning Alyssa, Z and I rolled out early for an easy 2.5 hour ride, which Mike and I chased with a 4 mile easy run.  My legs were a little tired but more concerning was my heart rate, which just seemed way higher than it should have been.  I hadn't ridden since Sunday though, so I figured maybe it was just that.  I had wanted to get into the pool later, but a few friends randomly descended upon Baltimore so we spent the rest of the day with them. 

Now it's Sunday morning, and I wasn't totally psyched to have to get up real early to go race again.  But I got up and went.  Alyssa came with me, and was going to do her hour run when we got there.  We arrive at this place after 95 minutes of driving, and it is assembling in a parking lot for some kind of fast food shack, Swirly Top, on the side of PA Route 94 (Carlisle Rd).  It was the entrance to this state park, Pine Grove Furnace or something, where the AT crosses through.  There were a few cars in the small parking lot, so it looked like it was going to be a pretty small event.  I went to warmup, looking to get in at least 40 minutes.  The race director kept telling us how flat it was, and that there were just a few rollers in the middle.  As I rode my warmup all I could think was "You ain't got to lie Craaaaaaiiiigg" because this thing was only going up.  Every so often you'd go up something steeper that would enable you to then go down a little bit, but the route was clearly going up.

I went out about 20 minutes and came back and since it was a little faster, I wanted to keep warming up until 10min before my start time (9:03).  I turn around and I noticed that someone was on my wheel - which is weird, especially on a warmup.  I saw a little patch of gravel and didn't want to ride over it, but as this person just showed up, I didn't know if he was sitting there, if he was going to pass, whatever, so I just went over it and then PSSSFFFTTT.  Rear wheel flat.  Shit.  Shit, shit, shit.

Now I'm about a half mile away from the start/finish, and while I had stuff on me to fix the tire, I just didn't even feel like it.  I had just 10 minutes, and it was not going well.  I couldn't get the valve extender off, it was glued on too tight.  Fortunately, some other guy was warming up still and saw me, so he went back to the start, got his van, drove back and picked me up, and then lent me his training wheel to ride.  But, for some reason it did not want to cooperate and I was having trouble getting it on. 

I was super frustrated - scratch that - really angry, and didn't want to ride anymore.  Alyssa was tremendously helpful in trying to get the wheel situated, because I was out of it.  Fuck, fuck, fuck.  I just drove an hour and forty to come to this stupid race, to have ONE day where shit doesn't go wrong, but clearly that isn't possible.  And yeah, I realize it's just a flat, and that they happen and whatever, but this is the second flat in 7 days I've gotten on this bike.  The other one came last weekend following the race, driving home.  How does a tire explode when you're not even riding it?  So, here is me officially telling Vittoria that this tire you make is complete shit.  I've never had problems with a bike before like this one. 

Whatever.  I get the wheel on and am ready to go.  The guy who loaned me the wheel started, and :30 later, I went.  We were last by many, many minutes.  Off the line, this guy got after it.  That probably helped me because otherwise I think if I didn't see anybody right away, I would have just phoned it in.  I was using him as my carrot, and for the first mile or 2 he stayed about :30 up it seemed, I certainly didn't appear to be making any headway into his head start.  Then the first bigger hill came, and I started bringing it back.  On the second one, it was all over.  Since I had ridden it in my warmup, I knew I wasn't going to be stupid and try and get up in my big ring, so I dropped down and was able to spin up.  I passed him, and two other people, real fast.  Then I just got rolling.  I wouldn't say there were false flats, as you knew you were riding uphill, but they were at a small enough grade that you could still push in the big ring and stay in the aerobars, but it was hard.  My HR was really high, I was working.  I managed to pass a few people and then saw a couple more ahead.  I tried not to stand too much, saving my legs a bit.  I had a watch going and would check my 5k splits, and I felt like I was going to hit the turnaround around 32 and change. 

It's 31 minutes now and I see people coming back at me.  Cool, maybe I'm riding really, really well, and picking these people up!  But where's the turnaround?  It should be here...Nope.  Turnaround was still another couple minutes away, because from mile 9 to 12.4 it was seriously difficult.  I finally get to the turnaround, and now you can see what you just went up.  I don't think I even pedaled for 3 miles on the way down, I was spinning out and I felt like I may as well just tuck in a little bit.  There was nobody in front of me at this point that I could see, and I just focused on keeping an honest effort so that none of the poor climbers behind caught me on the descent. 

For as hard as I was working on the way up, it was really difficult to work on the way down.  My HR dropped, and for the first half of the way back I seriously didn't pedal that much.  With a few miles left, I saw one person ahead of me, who I could tell was a girl, and I passed her inside the last mile.  It had flattened back out and I was pushing hard, but the finish was not coming quickly enough.  I crossed the line in 1:02:04 and thought holy shit, that is not fast.  I recovered pretty quick and while my original intention had been to ride another hour, I didn't want to have to ride on this dude's wheel so when he came through I asked if he wanted to go cooldown.  He said he wasn't going to ride, but he was thinking of running, so I said sure, I'll do that.  We just went out a mile and came back, kept it chill, but I felt really good. 

Got back and they were finalizing results, and here's how it shook out:

1. Scruffy college kid, 58:43 (!!!)
2. Some other guy, 59:35
3. Some really, really old looking dude, 1:00:02
4. Another pretty old dude, 1:00:45
5. Moi, 1:02:04

My initial reaction was, I can't believe I got TIME put into me by these old guys, how does that even make sense?  But then I realized I'm a week out from an Ironman, they appear to be cyclists, no big deal.  The kid that won went to Franklin Marshall College, and as he rolled out I noticed he got into a minivan with Colorado tags.  Makes more sense now. 

It took me 34:36 to ride 20km to the turnaround, an average speed of 21.55mph.  On the way down, I rode 27:28, or 27.15mph.  For the entire effort it was an average speed of 24.03mph.  For my effort, I was rewarded with an amazing certificate (something I would have made on my Gateway Computer when we first got Microsoft Publisher or something) and a check for $15.  Time trials are way better than triathlon.  I paid $30 for the race.  I won back half of that.  I put in a really hard effort, and was able to run off the bike.  I think next year I may just find TTs to do, and run off the bike.  It will save me hundreds of dollars each year and make me less angry because I won't be around triathletes.  And, since swimming sucks anyway, I can just do that when I get back home. 

Oh, and the elevation profile?  692 feet at the start.  1453 at the turnaround.  That's 760 feet over 12.4 miles, with 400 of those feet coming from mile 9 to the turnaround.  I don't know how to post a picture so I'll just link to the graph: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=5027179

The temperature was around 70 when we got there, and had worked up closer to 80 by the end, and it was really humid.  The pads on my bars were soaked.  We left and headed back towards Gettysburg, and stopped there for lunch.  I realize that Gettysburg is quite the tourist destination but I think it must have been moving day for the college because there seemed to be a lot of college age kids and families.  It started raining, then stopped, and then as we got back into Maryland we could see the storms to the south.  Since I now had to get a(nother) new tire, I stopped at Race Pace in Owings Mills to get that done.  I should have just saved myself $160 from the get-go and not bought the tires I had.  I am hoping these new ones will not fail me.  Coming back into the city and it was one of the more insane storms I've seen in a long time.  Fells was already flooded and not long after I got home, a tree on my street (I know, rare in the city anyway) came crashing down on top of a car, totaling it.  My roommate's car was behind the one that got totaled, fortunately his was okay.  His car had gotten totaled in front of out old house earlier this year when a drunk driver crashed into it in the middle of the night.  The highlight of the day was Fox45 coming to check out the scene and since Ed and I were the only ones on the street, we were interviewed and got on the news. 

For the week, it was less than 10 hours.  I rode just twice for a whopping 75ish miles, and ran 32 miles.  Just one swim for 3k.  At this point I guess it doesn't matter a whole lot, other than confidence.  I swam yesterday and felt alright. 

In other news, the Vuelta a Espana began over the weekend.  It's cycling's third and final Grand Tour of the season, and unfortunately, the most boring.  I wonder if it was always as boring as it's been for the decade or so that I've been following.  Most of the race seems to take place through the desert.  There is very little variation in scenery, and while it does offer up some really, really tough climbs (among the steepest in cycling), it is just so boring it's hard to watch.  Most of the sprinters use it for prep for the World Championship race (late September) so they do a few stages then drop out.  Very few legitimate guys treat it as serious, and they are usually the ones who crashed out of the Tour.  And they seem to ride a lot of miles on highways.  Meanwhile, in Colorado, the US Pro Cycling Challenge is concurrently taking place, and it seems like a one week race was more enticing, and they probably have a lot of money because EVERYONE is there.  For us viewers it just means more cycling to watch, and then World Track Championships start this weekend.  I won't be able to watch much over the weekend, which is too bad.  I'll post again before I leave.

Dimensia, What a Beautiful Name

"It means 'insanity'"

I am definitely losing it right now.  I just walked into 7-11 and stared at the drinks for about ten minutes before selecting what I was probably going to choose anyway - a Coke.  I am becoming increasingly incoherent, and my body really seems to be failing me.  I seriously just sat there and hemmed and hawed over what I wanted to drink following a failed attempt at getting in the pool.

With IM Louisville now in real sight (9 days away), I do realize that there's nothing I can do to increase my fitness above where it is.  I do understand that rest is best.  But, I still feel like I'm not doing enough.  I ran our 7 mile run on Monday, and Tuesday got in the pool for 3k pretty easy.  Wednesday I elected to head to the final BRRC Summer Track Meet, which would feature a mile and a 5000m.  It's almost embarrassing how far I've slipped in my "speed" since May.  Looking back, I was on the track more then than I was now, and doing some shorter, faster workouts, but the 5:20 I ran on Wednesday felt just as hard as the 5:00 I ran in May.  Crazy. 

I went into the meet with a goal in mind for the 5k, and the mile was serving more as a warmup.  I honestly intended on just running 5:30, and trying to negative split it and run comfortably.  The first lap (409m) I was behind the two Megs as we crossed in 83 seconds.  It was comfortable.  Then I ran 80.  Still okay.  Next was a 79.  Not too bad.  But at this point I realized I could run under 5:20 and thought that was worth trying for, so I attempted to pick it up.  I ran a 76 last lap, which is obviously not great, and the last 100 I was tying up.  I'll see what their "official" times have me at, but I had 5:19.7 on my watch. 

Yes, I finally got a watch.  I didn't want to have to get a Timex Ironman one, but I didn't want to buy another Polar as I never use the HRM feature and I still have faith that my old one will show up again.

Following the mile, I tried to keep loose as we waited for the 5k.  It finally arrived and there was a big field - 31 people toed the line.  It was crazy.  With nearly half the field comprised of people from my squad, it looked like a TNT workout, and was just as competitive.  My goal going into the race was to run under 17:30.  17:15 was going to be a stretch, but I thought if I felt good, I would go for it.  That meant splitting 5:30-5:35 for each 1600.  The first "mile" was spot on - 5:32.  I still felt reasonably comfortable, but something happened in the next 200.  I just...slowed down.  I had been running 41 for each 200 and then all of a sudden it was a flush 42, which meant 2 seconds slower for that lap.  Shit.  I went from 5:32 pace to 5:40 pace in an instant.  And, because I'm not a dummy, I realized that if I go into the well for a 5k ten days out from an Ironman, I am an idiot, I just reeled in the effort.  I figured slowing down was smarter.  I relaxed a bit, and came through 3200m in 11:21 (5:50ish 2nd mile), and hoped I'd have recovered enough to pick it back up from there.  I was, but only slightly, as my next 1600 was 5:46.  With a :39 last 200, I managed to run 17:46. 

While it was a little off my goal, in retrospect it wasn't that bad of a performance.  For one, it was on a Wednesday night, in the middle of summer, when I haven't run under 6 minute pace except maybe a handful of times since June.  And, despite being in "better shape" in 2008, it's faster than I ran the last time I did a 5k on the track in August (17:54).  Finally, while it may only be the 2nd 5k I've run since I got hurt two years ago, it is the fastest I've run.  So, I'll take it.

Unfortunately the meet wasn't over until late, which meant eating late, and then I was wired, so I really struggled on Thursday waking up and did not swim.  Then, later in the day, the weather was real bad so I did not get out on the bike nor did I make it into the pool.  I was running early today, so I just took the day off.

Woke up this morning and was tired and the delayed onset of 4 miles of track "racing" fatigue had settled in.  Brennan arrived at our place at 5:45 and off we went.  Brennan was doing 20, Ed was looking for 9 and I was hoping to get in 90 minutes for my last "long" run.  It was pitch black as we headed north through the hood, and then through hood park (Clifton Park) and finally on hood drive (33rd) the light started picking up.  35 minutes uphill, then we got to come back down.  It was a comfortable temperature but very humid.  I had told Ed that the run we planned would likely be more than 9, and sure enough it was (75 minutes back to the house).  He can obviously handle that, and it was cool because it meant I had less to run once we got back.  Brennan and I did a quick Brewer's Hill loop and then he continued on his way back home, done with his 20 miles by 7:30. 

I wanted to get in the pool this afternoon, but when I got there, there was a private event going on outside so pool was closed.  My only other option was to drive down to Locust Point, but I didn't want to go down that way with the Ravens playing the Redskins tonight in pre-season football, so I just went home.  It worked out anyway as I would not have even made it to the other pool before getting kicked out for another thunderstorm.

As I've said, I realize there is nothing I can do about my swimming immediately for next weekend, but I always feel better when I'm getting in the pool.  I have really struggled this summer with making it into the pool consistently, and I'm paying the price.  It's like I just don't have the energy, and I definitely don't have the motivation.  I just hope I can keep it inside of 1:10 next weekend.

I also went and got my bike looked at to make sure it's functioning properly.  It seems to be okay now, and I had to get a new tire for the front (300 miles and the Vittoria one just falls apart at the seams?  That doesn't seem right).  I also had them take a look at my position and since there were no glaring imbalances, the only conclusion is that my knee is just not cut out for the time trial position anymore.  This is probably pretty accurate, as the angle is pretty steep and my knee doesn't bend as well.  Especially when I'm trying to squeeze every drop of power out of it, it's just going to happen.  I may have to go back to racing on a road bike.  I'm going to do this time trial in PA somewhere on Sunday just to make sure it's cool, again I won't be going into the red to do it, just want to get the legs ticking over.

This little block of ironman training has really taken it out of me.  I would wager that other external factors are causing my fatigue and my general malaise, and maybe if I can get those straightened out I'll feel better and more optimistic.  I need to focus on those life things a little more after Louisville so I don't have the same problem before Arizona.  It really has caused me to go a little insane, or at least become imbalanced, which is weird because I have done less this summer than last summer, and should not have a problem handling the training.

You know that saying that all bosses always tell you: "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results"?  Well it makes me wonder, what does it make you if you do the same thing and expect the same results?  I would truly be happy if I could just run the same as I used to, or swim like I used to, or ride as comfortably as I used to.  That would be cool for me right now.

We Won't Get Fooled Again

Or, the story of my weekend in Luray.

Last week I was feeling pretty beat, and in general haven't been handling things very well lately.  I am beyond tired, I'm annoyed at my fitness, disappointed in my results and more than anything, really, really banged up.  Not that I would wish my injuries on anyone, but I sometimes wish everyone could experience a week's worth of these workouts with my worthless knee.  As a result of all these things, I didn't do much last week.  Very light week in the pool, only getting in twice for very short workouts, and only running two days during the week for a miniscule 7 miles each time.  On the bike, it was also fairly short, with the highlight coming from Wednesday's longer ride (50+) riding up from my house to Oregon Ridge (20ish) to meet Alyssa, then riding the Wednesday Night Ride route.  In all, it was quite a dissimilar week from last year as I led up to Luray, when it was my first race in 13 months.  I remember going into that week excited, albeit nervous, to race again, and then got a scare when on Wednesday of that week my PT jacked my knee so hard that I didn't think I'd be able to race.  That time, I managed to miraculously feel better on race morning, and had one of my better races, relative to my fitness, of the past few years.  I had swam a 25:52 in the non-wetsuit swim, rode a 1:14:12 on my road bike and ran 39:49 for the 10k on just 6 weeks of running and riding. 

This year my ambitions were slightly higher, expecting to ride at least 6 minutes faster (I've ridden 1:08:12 on the course before) and I figured I would, at worst, swim and run about the same.  If I took out 6 minutes, that would have put me around 2:16 and I felt like that would be good enough for a top 10 finish, and with two weeks to go before IM Louisville, I'd be pleased with that. 

Friday:  Alyssa and I roll out from Baltimore around 4:30 and make it to Luray around 3 hours later.  The highlight of the trip was drinking a huge thing of Arizona Green Tea, then hitting some minor traffic near Harper's Ferry and having to squirm and wiggle in the car to hold in my bladder until we could get to a bathroom.  The lowlight was on Route 340, when we approached a vehicular accident, which I guessed was a motorcycle going over the rail on a curvy descent, before we got there.  I was right, unfortunately, and as we saw the mangled bike and the officer wheeling out some distance, I figured he must have perished.  This was confirmed later by Pat, who had gone through right after it happened and the M.E. was placing the white sheet over the deceased.  This was supposed to be the road we were going to be riding on on Sunday's ride, which we immediately nixed. 

The cabin we were staying in was a different one from last year, and the owner of the house was really harping on making sure we had 4WD to get up to the crib.  Thinking that it was probably just a steep, dirt driveway we didn't think much of it, until the other guys (Andy aka Chicken Tender Runner, Ben, Zero and Pat were already there) confirmed that it was, in fact, non-passable for their cars.  Alyssa has 4WD on the Tracker, so we felt fortunate we did not have to walk the half mile up the super steep climb as the other guys did.  They managed to get halfway up the road or so, but had to walk the rest.  Dinner was a pretty tasty yet simple pasta with meat sauce made by yours truly, and then we hit the sack pretty early (after seeing a little black bear waltz through our backyard).  The view from the cabin was insane, and in general the cabin was quite nice.

Saturday:  Arrive at transition and start getting ourselves together.  My bike has been throwing some tantrums lately and it did not feel like accepting air into the tires, so I brought it over to Race Day Tech.  He helped out, and I got myself situated in transition.  Over the years I have gotten the amount of stuff I bring down to quite a small level for these distance races.  Bike, helmet, sunglasses (both on the bike); flats on the ground with race number; shoes clipped into bike.  That's it.  The water had cooled down but it was still non-wetsuit, so all of us put on our pretty little speedsuits again and got into the 78ish degree water.  The swim course had changed slightly from years' past and looked really stupid.  As the gun sounded for our wave (the first one), we got out predictably quick.  Not really much jostling, but something felt off as I swam towards the first buoy.  My HR skyrocketed and I started thinking too much, about everything - life, why am I swimming so terrible, I should just stop - and then I wanted to stop swimming at the buoy and just breast stroke for a minute.  I decided against it, slowed down for a second and lengthened my stroke, and took a few deep breaths and seemed to calm down.

I seemed to be, at the very least, steadily moving up through the field, giving me the false impression of swimming decent.  I thought I took the right line at one point but I think it lost me a few seconds, and then we got to the far end of the swamp and turned back into the middle of it.  I still felt okay, but didn't really feel like swimming much anymore, so I was glad to be done.  Only towards the end did someone from the next wave (3min back) catch up to me, so I felt like I had done at least a little better than the last couple of swims.  Later, this was confirmed to not be true, as I swam 26:28.  This is the same time I swam at NJ a few weeks ago, which was in 90 degree water on a 90 degree day, where I was swimming into a blinding sun and generally felt like death.  Comparing a few of the other swims would lead me to believe the course was at least a little bit long, and I wouldn't normally say that but I think it was this time.  I was a staggering 3:50 back to Pat (last year I had at least kept it to 1:40, but this year he is swimming much better) and 2:45 to Z, and about 2:30 back of CTR.  I'm disappointed with my swimming still, but it's too late to fix it before next weekend, so I just have to deal.

In transition I ran along the beach, on the grass and up the dangerous steps into the bike area, and ran out with my bike.  Nothing special in T1, but I got onto the bike and people were immediately glad to see me because I was once again racing in the NEON GREEN SPEEDO and no shirt.  I was quickly dubbed "Speedo Guy" by the announcer and received considerable applause.

Onto the bike.  The bike course is flat for a quarter mile but then you turn left up a fairly steep, quarter mile+ long hill.  I felt strong riding up it, passing one or two dudes immediately, but something was wrong with my bike.  It was making an awful scratching noise and I felt like I was pedaling through molasses.  I rolled down the other side of the hill and pulled over to check out the problem.  Aha.  The rear brake was rubbing against the rim, someone had closed the little thing - I always leave it open because for some reason it is not able to be closed and spin freely.  I figured maybe the race day tech guy had done it when he was helping with the wheels.  No big deal, I'll get on my way and be fine.  Only it wasn't.  Not even close.  The sound was still just as bad, and I was going NOWHERE.  I don't get passed by people on the bike.  I especially don't get passed by people who are older than 40 (generally, there are a few dudes I know who are pretty sweet at riding bikes and will pass me).  Now I'm real mad.  I stop again at the top of this other steep little hill around 5 miles in and notice that the wheel is just not spinning at all.  In fact, it's not even centered properly.  I honestly don't know how I hadn't crashed out.  So I think I fix it, but in reality, I hadn't done anything.  For 26.2 miles I rode on this non-functioning bike and got passed all the way.  Somehow I still managed to pass people going uphill, but I was getting burned on downhills.  And the sound was real bad.  I finally pull into T2, again to raucous applause, but had ridden a beyond disappointing 1:15:36.  I was so angry I wanted to throw my piece of shit brand new bike into the lake.  Never in my life have I had a mechanical that has prevented me from riding, especially not one that just appeared out of nowhere.  Andy had passed me on the bike, making up the 6 minute head start I had, and I was just like fuck it.

T2 at this point was of no consequence, so I went out onto the run and decided I'd rather just keep the effort even.  Truly my only motivation now was to make sure that Ben didn't pass me, which was a real threat.  I had no watch again (getting old) and just ran.  The course was different this year, instead of two loops on the shitty rolling road it was one loop (out and back).  Half of it was paved - the first 1.5 and last 1.5 - and the middle part was on gravel, dirt and rocks.  Not very comfortable in the flats, but I managed.  Here is where I first glimpsed Mighty Matias, some 6 minutes ahead of second place, and Z was in 5th on the road, followed shortly by Pat.  They appeared to be having good races.  CTR was next up, making up his 6 minute stagger.  At the turnaround I was rolling the slower dudes ahead, but then as I trudged up the rocky hill, I saw Ben, FLYING.  Yikes.  With no clue how fast or slow I was running, but guessing that Ben was running in the 5:40 range, I realized I better be running at least a minute per mile faster than he is or I'm going to be caught.

I decided to not look back at all, until .2 to go, when I gave a quick glimpse and made sure he wasn't there.  I strided across the line in 2:24:36 - like 2 minutes slower than last year - for 24th place.  My run time was 39:56, which, all things considered, wasn't too bad.  It was the 15th fastest run of the day and only 7 seconds slower than last year, when I felt like I was going very fast.  And, compared to some of the other runs, was pretty decent.  It was also, sadly, my fastest 10k off the bike this year, with probably the least amount of effort (other than Rumpus, where I was literally jogging). 

Andy had ended up finishing 7th, a few seconds ahead of Z who was 8th, and Pat was 9th.  A great day for our little gang of buttcrushers.  Ben was 30th, on the heels of an admittedly weak swim, a solid bike and a great run (4th, 36:50).  Page County is no joke man.  Then it was Alyssa's turn, who probably turned out her best performance ever, finishing 2nd to Katie Gage Davison-soon-to-be-Palavecino.  Alyssa swam 2 minutes faster than last year, ran 2 minutes faster than last year and rode a mind-blowing 10 minutes faster.  Her bike split was better than mine, and was 2nd among women.  Insane.  At least everyone else did well.

When we got into transition and examined my bike, we saw that I had completely fucked up my wheel.  Brand new Zipp 808s.  They look like they are structurally okay, which I will confirm tomorrow at the bike shop, but they look messed up now.  I was a sad boy.  More disturbing was how they got that way, and that was in fact a non-centered wheel which was rubbing (or whatever gerundive is worse than rubbing) against the chainstay.  The wheel barely moved at all, which is no wonder why I didn't move at all.  When you've had the 3rd best split of the day at this race before and then you have the 63rd best, something clearly is wrong.  Aerobically I didn't feel too bad off the bike, which is why I think I ran "okay" but my legs were shredded from pushing pedals and going nowhere.  Then I started thinking, how long has it been a problem and I haven't noticed?  I put the wheels on at Eagleman, and I had trouble with them that day.  It was fine at Eagleman though, I know that.  I then didn't ride the bike again until Randolph last month, and it seemed fine that day, but I remember thinking at NJ that something didn't feel right and I wonder if it got knocked out of sorts around that time.  Either way, it didn't make the sound it did on Saturday, so I just didn't notice it I guess if it was a problem. 

Ben and I were the only ones who didn't get awards, which was sad, but we went and got lunch and made the best of our day.  We got back to the cabin and had to haul a ton of groceries up the hill - foolish Ben was concerned about the watermelon (which we did not even eat) and the beer, so he was pretty wiped by the time he got up to the top.  We then feasted on red meat while watching Justin Bieber: Never Say Never and Dinner For Schmucks.  Classic Luray weekend.  Zero also helped figure out my wheel situation so I could at least ride on Sunday morning.

Sunday:  After going to bed pretty early Saturday night we were up early to ride on Sunday.  The weather was iffy at best, and looked like we might get rained out of our planned Skyline Drive ride.  But, it seemed okay, so we went.  We drove down to town and started there with 5 miles steadily uphill before the 4 mile serious climb to Skyline Drive.  It was epic.  Fog, drops of rain, and with my wheel markedly improved, I felt awesome.  I set a furious tempo to the top and felt great doing it, even though I hate riding that bike.  I no longer trust that bike, and more than anything it hurts my knee, which makes me think my position is not solid on there because I feel cramped.  I hate climbing on it too.  We get to Skyline and have to pay $8 to ride on it, and the woman was definitely trying to dissuade us from riding there due to the fog.  Fortunately, the fog cleared up after a few more miles of uphill and we enjoyed some scenic views from many thousand feet above sea level.

Andy and Pat were riding a little less and then running off the bike, so they turned around at 20 miles.  Ben was hellbent on getting to 80 on the day (never having ridden more than 70 miles I felt this was ambitious, particularly the day after a race and being on Skyline Drive), and me, Zero and Alyssa were staggered along the road.  We had Alyssa turn around a few minutes before Z and I did, and then we got right back into the climbs.  Ben had gone a little further out on his own, taking off, and then somehow got back in front of us, so he acted as my carrot up the climbs.  By the 3 mile climb back up to our day's high point at 3385ft, I knew I would catch him.  I got him with a mile to go and rode up to the top super comfortably.  I was loving it.  Those are definitely my types of climbs.  From there, it was actually a nice little trip back downhill into Luray, so it was pretty quick, and we needed to add a little time.  By the end of the 4 hours I was no longer wishing to ride my bike, and then we chomped on some McDonald's.  After that it was time to get back to the cabin and make our way home.

It was one of those weekends, a disappointing race but a fun weekend overall.  It was great to hang out with CTR, who we have never really hung out with much before, and always great to see Ben, even though he has to endure my old man jokes.  We were pretty tired upon returning to Baltimore, and yesterday I took pretty easy with just a 7 mile run.  Today was just a little bit of a swim.  Tomorrow heading to the track to race a 5000m, and as long as I can get my bike squared away with its necessary fixes, I'm going to do the Church Creek 40k TT on Saturday out near the Eagleman course.  I wasn't going to do it, but this weekend left a bad taste of no confidence in my mouth, and I want to ride that bike again well before heading to Louisville next week.  For the week it was pretty light at just 24 miles on 3 runs, something minimal like 6500 in the water and then maybe 130 miles on the bike.  This week will be just a little more than that and then next week slightly more chill. 

Race day is almost here, and I'm hoping for weather like we've been having.  The high today here was 86 degrees I think, and it felt almost cool.  As long as it isn't above that next Sunday I think I'll be alright. 

In summation, things I won't get fooled again by:

1. When someone down there says you need 4WD to get there, they probably mean it, and we're probably going to be walking up and down some gnarly hills.

2. My bike.  It better not fool me again into thinking that it operates properly when it CLEARLY does not.

3. Skyline Drive is hard.  Especially on tri bikes, the day after a race.  I like Luray, and the Luray weekend.  Maybe next year it will be Saturday race followed by spelunking or something non-training related. 

Great job to my Team CYB teammates this weekend!