Memorial Day Weekend, and then some!

"The most important things in life aren't things."

Busy 3-day weekend, with training wrapped around real life… Friday pm was a long run on the treadmill after work; Saturday was a 2-hour bike ride with more-of-the-usual Texas winds; Sunday was another 1-hour run outside, followed by a motorcycle trip to Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio to visit my dad’s grave, and ended up talking to a few military veterans also visiting their lost loved ones –hard to believe it has been almost 50 years since I lost my father; and Monday was a short run after 4 hours of kayaking the swim portion of the CapTex Tri. - truly an awesome experience to watch and support the challenged athletes taking part in the paratriathlete championships.

Next weekend, the June century ride is Saturday. I am riding the Atlas 4000 for the third year in a row. While the Atlas is actually only 70 miles, my plan is to ride to the start, which is about 20 miles or so from the house, and then finish whatever is left once we get to the winery - yes, we finish the ride at Pillar Bluff Vineyard!

Sunday, I am kayaking a race again, this time the Danskin women's triathlon - come to think of it, I will be doing this for the third consecutive time as well. Another opportunity to give back.

Training for IMAZ continues. Yesterday was a one-hour run in the heat followed by a swim at the pool. I hit a wall about 43 minutes into the run, and the heat got to me. I don't think I recovered from the run very much before the swim, so it got shortened to 1500 meters from the 2500 originally planned. Oh well, it is what it is!

Training, Volunteering, More Training, Charity…

The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses – behind the lines, in the gym, out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights. – Muhammad Ali

We are now about 4 weeks into the Ironman Arizona training. A lot of pool swims, a few at the lake, more miles on the bike, and the usual slow plodding through the run, but I am happy to be back in the swing of training. Makes for longer days, but I still enjoy it all.

I volunteered as a bike course marshal on the motorcycle for the Ironman Texas event last weekend. I had some friends racing, and I figured as long as I was down there, I may as well volunteer. I went down Friday after lunch, and once I checked into the hotel, I got the motorcycle off the trailer and drove the bike course so I would know what to expect Saturday morning. I kept thinking “this is not a bad bike course” the whole time I was out there.

I learned a lot from the race officials – and how much of a variance there is from one official to another.  I was able to ride alongside some pros for a while, and later many of the age-groupers.  There were a lot of participants dropping out of the race during the bike portion, because it got hot and windy. The headwinds they faced were on the second half, in-bound part of the ride, and it had indeed started to get hot. I pretty much decided that if I was ever going to do this event, they would have to schedule it in much cooler weather! Speaking of that, we found out that while volunteers normally can register for the next year’s event the morning after the race, the Ironman folks have delayed opening registration because they supposedly have not obtained the permits and such – a number of us were talking, and we think it is more likely because some of the political supporters of the race were up for re-election, and until that was determined Ironman might not get approval – and maybe they ARE trying to change the date of the race. I am guessing a lot of the volunteers who had made the trip specifically so they could register Sunday morning were quite frustrated.

My friend Kristi completed IMTX, her first Ironman! Definitely something to be proud of! A couple of the athletes and volunteers from our Team Red, White and Blue tri camp in Austin also were racing, and I saw in the results that they also finished, with great finish times. So congrats to all the finishers!

Other news – on Thursday before I left for the race, I received the letter from IRS approving Do It Like It Means Something as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charity! So we can now accept tax-deductible donations! Very exciting for me – another big step in my support of the fight against cardiac disease.

June 2nd, I will be riding the ATLAS ride, the first leg of the Texas 4000. We will finish the 70-miler at Pillar Bluff winery, which is a great way to end a long ride. I am also riding from the house to the start so I can make this my century for June.

On the 3rd, I am volunteering as a kayaker for the Danskin women's tri. It is always good to give back when you can.

Father's Day I will be doing the Pflugerville Tri for the 3rd year in a row. Sprint distance so it will be fun on the bike.

Onward - rubber side down...

HITS Olympic

Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful.-- Mark Victor Hansen

On April 28^th, I participated in the HITS Olympic Triathlon in Marble Falls. My original plan for that day was to ride the Red Poppy century with Carl, since I couldn’t be there in Tahoe for his 5-year remission ride. But that ride fell through when Carl got scheduled to work. Bummer – so then it was a choice between the Marble Falls race and the No Label Tri in Katy. I just couldn’t bring myself to wanting to drive all that way for a sprint in a pool, so I looked at the Marble Falls race.

HITS is a new race organization that has scheduled a number of sites across the country. Their concept includes scheduling sprint and Olympic distance races on Saturday, and the half-iron and full-iron distances on Sunday, at each site. I opted for the Olympic distance this time around. My only other Olympic-distance tri was in Waco last year and that was no fun, so I thought I would have another go at it.

I drove up to Marble Falls Friday night after work to pick up my race packet, check out the race site and hear what they had to say at the athletes’ meeting. Turned out to be a good decision, since they told us the swim course had changed from a straight out-and-back swim to a two-loop triangle (pretty evident once I got there, since the buoys were already set out) and the run course had been moved, since USAT doesn’t allow courses to cross. And the Age Group start had been pushed back to 7:40 for the Olympic men. Oh well, it is what it is. Interesting note, though: I had never seen stools included in transition, nor had I seen the box-type bike racks rather than the usual pipe-bar racks. And my spot was at the very end of transition – but what you don’t see in the pic is that the bike out/in was just to the left of my stool! No running with the bike this time!

Saturday morning I was up at 3:30. I had packed most of my stuff in the truck after I got home Friday night, so there was not a lot left to do. Mixed my Infinit, grabbed the PB bagel and water, and off for the 45-minute drive. I got there a little after transition had opened but there was not yet a crowd. Got my bike checked in, transition laid out, and went back to the truck for a nap.

We watched the Sprint swim. For the Saturday races, there were one men’s wave and one women’s wave 3 minutes later for each of the sprint and Olympic. We were a couple minutes late starting, waiting on the last of the sprint swimmers to finish. In-water start, and we were off!  I was glad I had decided to swim in the sleeveless wetsuit, because the water temps would have made the sleeved suit a bit hot. Almost exactly 38 minutes later, I was crossing the mat coming into transition; ran the length of transition in the wetsuit, on the stool to peel, and into the bike shoes. T1 time was decent – 4 minutes.

Out of transition to the bike – you had to be careful here, because there was a bit of gravel at the first turn, and it was a bit crowded with the first sprint riders coming in. There was a short section of road under repair, which the race director had said would be hard-packed, but the construction crew was out there and had wet the road base so it was slick in places. Fortunately I did not see anybody go down on it. The course was 14 miles out and 14 back on the same route. The first half went pretty well, but there wasn’t a flat spot in the ride. I realized I probably should not have even bothered to put the race wheels on, since there was so much up and down, curves in the road, and speed changes. I don’t think I gained anything with that choice – in fact, I realized at the turnaround I had made a mistake because I spent the ride back just trying to stay upright with all the winds! I would get gusts hitting the wheels from the side, and you could feel the push to one side. Whenever I was passing somebody on the way back in, I made it a point to be in the left half of the road, rather than anywhere near the other rider – I didn’t want to risk getting blown into them!  1:32:46 on the bike; 2:21 in T2

So I felt pretty beat up getting off the bike. About that time, it started getting pretty hot. So I knew from the outset the “run” would be ugly. The run course had been changed to be the same first 3.1 miles of the bike course, and back – which, again, was not flat! I did a lot of walking, and I knew that I had not hydrated very well on the second half of the bike (I didn’t want to risk taking my hands off the bars!), so I carried one of my bottles with me on the run. that turned out to be the right thing to do, because there were only 2 aid stations on the run, and they ran out of ice and water on the second one. I couldn’t stomach the Gatorade at the strength they were mixing it, so I drank my Infinit and got water when I could. Suffice it to say, I was happy to be done with it! 1:30:32

3:47:40 total

Not my best performance on the course, but I was approached by a number of folks at the finish line, inquiring about my jersey. I explained my story, and was humbled by a number of those sharing their stories with me. I met Paul, who is a few years older than me…he is doing 2, and maybe 3, Ironman events this year! He has lost one kidney, has had colon cancer and continues to fight some medical issues – if there ever was a poster boy for determination, this is the man! He did tell me he was racing Ironman Texas, so I hope I get to see him since I will be there.

Maybe the best part of this day was the crayfish boil at my favorite vineyard, Perisso’s out by Inks Lake. I first met these folks when a number of us did a wine tour which included Perisso’s as our first stop. We ended up talking to the owners for a bit, as it turned out the two guys were getting into triathlon. Extremely nice people – and great wine! I also had stopped out there for a glass of wine when I was out on the motorcycle checking out the wildflowers this spring. Seth, one of the guys, actually did HITS sprint that morning. I had a blast that evening, and even noticed that the malbec grapes were doing fantastically well, so I will be looking forward to that come early next year.

Not a bad way to end a race day, huh?