Where the Moose Does Dwell

So, if all goes right in a year I’ll have finished an Ironman race. Let’s let that sink in. An Ironman. Wow. This is definitely a big deal.

A 2.4 mile swim to start, 112 miles on the bike in the middle, then 26.2 miles of running, a full marathon at the end. It’s easy to see why they allow racers 17 hours to finish the race (7 a.m. to midnight).

I’ve known for years that I eventually wanted to complete an IM race. It’s all RNJTM’s fault - he generously took me up to see him race his 3rd 4th IM Canada in 1999 and ever since it’s been sitting in the back of my brain, waiting for the right time to happen. When IM Arizona announced a second race in 2008, with easy online registration, well, I jumped at it. After an hour or so of contemplation, that is.

This isn’t something one can enter into lightly - it’s going to involve a lot of time, and a lot of foregoing of other activities. Folks who’ve done marathons know what I’m talking about - early bed times, not going out drinking with friends, and lots of time on the road. Just add “in the pool and on the bike” to the “on the road” part.

I know where my first steps are, getting back to my regular exercise routine, reducing my caffeine and alcohol intake, and spending some quality time working on swimming technique. The swim is my big limiter (along with nutrition) - if I can keep my heart rate down during the swim, not have a panic attack, and stay on a good rhythm, then I can get through the rest of the race much more easily than I’ve done to date. I’m getting there, but it definitely needs polishing. Get to test that in May here locally, thankfully.

Did get in a swim this evening, mostly drill work to retrain me how I should be feeling in the water while I’m swimming. It did help - wasn’t terribly fast, but was more comfortable than it’s been in a while.

I’m still processing the magnitude of signing up for this race. I know I can do it. Might not be terribly fast, but I know I can finish it with the right training. Doesn’t mean it’s not intimidating, or freak-out worthy, but I know I can do it. The fun part is going to be the long runs and rides well into cooler weather here in DC (October and November), then adapting to the warmer temps in Tempe.

But before that, it’s getting the base built up, which is where I find myself now. Wow. This is going to be a lot of work.

Not content to stay put, and despite my resolve to race less next year, I just signed up for Ironman Arizona, 23 November, 2008.

Yes, I am insane.

Work has been torture today - it’s my last day in the office until next week, and on top of that our email went down for most of the day (after the firedrill at 10, that is). The network is still hosed for getting at documents, so trying to work on a lot of things isn’t the easiest thing today.

Since my last serious update I’ve run a 5k with BC & his family (local turkey trot this past weekend), made progress in both Super Mario Galaxy and Twilight Princess, picked up a couple more games on sale, found out my year-end bonus is coming (hello, new oven), had a soup & bad movies party, and have been otherwise occupied with life. BC & I are doing well. I’m headed down to see my folks for Thanksgiving, partially to see them before they take off for Florida for the winter, and partially so I don’t force the whole vegan thing on BC’s mother on the first major holiday she’s known me. She and her husband are doing well with it, but I am a bit sensitive to such things.

Back on the subject of games, what nimrod at Nintendo thought fishing would be fun? I spent a good 10-20 minutes yelling at the screen (”This is not fun! This is not entertaining!”) while trying to fish in the damned Ordon village before I gave up and googled the answer - you have to wiggle both controllers side to side, not up and down as Nintendo tells you to do. Once I switched I caught the requisite fish easily, but that was decidedly Not Fun, unlike the rest of the game. They’re lucky its not a larger part of the plot or I’d have been tempted to sell the game. My time is too precious to me for un-entertaining games.

And I beat Puzzle Quest on the DS finally. BC’s envious, he’s still working on it. I saw they ported it to the Wii as well, but I don’t see how the game would be much fun without the stylus and touch screen of the DS.

[...]

I love trying to explain legal citations to folks. Case in point, I was just telling one of my budget folks about 3 provisions of law she needs for footnotes, and for each one there at least 4 different ways to cite it - the amendment which gave us the funds acceptance authority (section XXX of public law YYY-YYY), the original section which was amended (section AAA of public law BBB-BBB, as amended), the US Code cite (cc USC dddd, note), and a statutes at large cite (eee STAT ffff), and all four were useable depending on her audience (Tre*sury, for example, only wants cites to the Statutes at Large). I told her to go with the code cites for our internal reference - they’re easier for non-lawyers to find, in my experience.

Anyway, haircut & laundry & playing on the Wii tonight, then driving to Tidewater tomorrow for the holiday. Hopefully will be a nice, quiet time.

Burnt out. I think that’s about the only way to describe this past month. After I did the half ironman last month I just quit. I haven’t exercised seriously in that time, running only a handful of times, and biking the same. I think I’ve gone swimming once. The half just sapped that much out of me.

And it’s my own fault, I wasn’t nearly as well trained as I should have been, and my nutrition was sorely lacking. All of this meant that the race took too much out of me. I probably should have bonked, looking back on it, but forced the finish by willpower. Not an experience I want to go through again, and I’ve gone over what I was and was not doing nutrition-wise (a workshop the club held last month was a help with that), so that shouldn’t be an issue again.

Anyway, the lack of exercise motivation has been one symptom, but there’s been a more general lack of focus and motivation as well. Which is not exactly the best thing for trying to do, say, work. Or anything else important.

I’ve managed to shift my schedule back to a night owl one, which was my default before I ever started exercising. When I am exercising regularly I’m a bit more of a morning person, at least I’m able to get up and run or bike regularly in the morning when I’m doing so normally. Haven’t felt like switching my schedule yet, so just been coasting along with things.

Went to a class on core training with the club this evening. It was good to get out and get some more instruction, and I’m feeling like it might be the right time to get back to doing more. Thought I was going to get back into stuff at the end of September, but I was still too wiped out. Hopefully I’ll get back into it - I know once I get started it’ll be easy to get back into the groove, but I need to get started.

Fun little race this morning, the Sprint Four the Cure 5k, sponsored by the Four Seasons hotel here in DC (hence the cutesy name). I had signed up on a lark, really going to run it with a friend who, while he’s been running, had not done a race yet. I figured this was a nice, low-key introduction, and for your admission price they provided breakfast, which was a big plus.

Got there in plenty of time. As I suspected from the announcement about race conditions (”this is not a chip timed race”), there were no race numbers, just your shirt and a lottery drawing ticket. My friend Stephen was in town and staying with me at the last minute, but was amenable to the race, so he joined Michael and I. Found Michael quickly, got the shirt (which I ended up carrying through the race), got ourselves some water and set up at the start line at 29th and M, headed downhill.

Starting gun went off, and off we raced. Sort of. The field got going, then got to the bottom of the hill and hit the first bottleneck - the turn onto the C&O canal tow path (the 2nd time in a week I’ve run on a canal tow path, though this was a bit less warm). The first mile had a lot of shifting between running and walking as we had to narrow down to the small path, then open back up again, then narrow, then back, etc. First split was about 12.5 minutes accordingly.

Up and over one of the bridges before that, then out to the turn around. Kept a nice, conversational pace with Michael for the first half out, chatting with him off and on. The turn around was simply two young ladies standing with an umbrella, but everyone filed around the chalk mark on the ground and started on the way back.

I picked up the pace a little bit on the way back but didn’t push too hard, finally coming in at 35:17. Definitely not my fastest 5k, but overall a nice little race. There were more folks there than I expected, and the breakfast spread was pretty nice (though I indulged only in some fruit, preferring to save my stomach for later). Michael had a good run, and finished nicely in just under 38 minutes, which was about a minute faster than he expected. Good times, and a good way to start the day.

I paid off another (sub)loan from one of my student loan providers today. I called to get a payoff amount and they offered to take the payment over the phone at no charge, so I paid it off. Two down from them, two to go. Good stuff.

Combine that with the race Sunday and I was ready to drink with coworkers tonight at our regular work happy hour. So I did. And it was fun. And drink-full.

And I miss my BC. Should see him tomorrow, but it’s been almost a week.

5k race on Saturday. Don’t care a whit about it, but it’s the first race for a friend who’s been running but not racing, so going to be support. Should be an interesting experience. At least the organizers offer a good breakfast after the race for free. Good stuff.

Weight is still down from before the race. We’ll see if it keeps up.

Someone at work today called me lazy because I took the elevator down a floor to find a working bathroom, rather than taking the stairs. I laughed and declined to point out that I went 70.3 miles on Sunday. Lazy. Ha.

Firefox 2.00000000000000000whatever sucks donkey balls on the Mac. Not all the tabs fit on the screen, each one has its own “X” button rather than a single button that would close the one active tab so you have to keep moving the stupid mouse cursor to shut them, hitting apple-key-W won’t close the entire window if it’s the last tab, and the font for the bookmarks menu is too large to hold all of my delicately balanced bookmarks on one page, like it all used to do just fine under version 1.5. I am not amused. Additional features are not always improvements, folks.

I remembered some more vignettes from the race that I want to put to writing later this evening. Should’ve been in the initial race report, but I wanted to get it up sooner rather than later.

It’s the last month of the federal fiscal year and I’m again one of the most popular attorneys in our office, if not the most popular one. The next month is going to be b-u-s-y.

That light coming from yon burning orb in the sky? It’s fall light, not summer light. No humidity to futz it up, and much cooler out than it has been. Clearer, but different in hue and tone. Nice to see, nicer to know I can throw the windows open and not waste electricity on the AC. But so not ready for it to get darker earlier.

Unlike my experience after running races, I’ve not had any sort of specific soreness. No torn quads, no knee pain, no problems walking, just a general, overall soreness. Everything is sore. Not in a debilitating way, at least not totally debilitating, just a general feeling of soreness and the knowledge that I should be taking it easy.

Took the rental minivan back to the car rental place this morning. As promised, because of the delay in getting the car on Saturday, they took a day off the rental. I should know this location’s a bit flakey, but I’ll take the freebie (this is the 2nd time this has happened - and I’m okay with an hour of my time spent getting 1/2 the cost knocked off). Afterward I was debating coffee at the little place around the corner when I remember that Sticky Fingers is now open on Mondays in their new location, which is right on the Green line.

Dragged a friend over to meet me, and had what was one of the best sticky buns I have ever had. It was precisely what I needed. Hit the grocery store on the way home, bought more fresh fruit so snack on today, and came home to zone out. And pop lots of ibuprofen.

Tried a nap at some point, but no go. Killed lots of monsters on Sacred, leveled up a couple of times. Thought, briefly, about doing a bike ride tomorrow as I was putting away clean jerseys, but very quickly thought better of it. No exercise tomorrow, likely not any on Wednesday, either. Recovery is more important than feeling like I need to get moving again. Although I think I’m going to go get new running shoes tomorrow. If I feel like wandering out, that is.

The current pair is, well, disgusting, a result of all the water dripping into them from the run, and the dirt of the road coating them. Not to mention they were getting old, and this was the end of them.

Past that the plan is to rest more, do some reading for work, and kill more monsters.

Oh, was down at least three pounds between Saturday morning and this morning. RNJTM pointed out that 7 hours was probably 7k calories, minus whatever calories I put in (nowhere near 7k), although most of it was likely water loss. We’ll see tomorrow morning after today’s eating.

Still processing the emotional impact of the race. 70.3 miles is a long way to travel, both mentally as well as physically. Unlike after the century ride I did in July, there was no sobbing this time, though there have been a few “whoa” moments. I’m sure it’ll process in the time it needs to process, though it would be nice if it didn’t wait until I was back at work to do anything too emotional.

I think it was the promise of a flat, fast course than enticed me to sign up for Diamondman for my first half. It’s not far from DC, easy drive up, and a lake swim. Not a bad set up, or so it looked.

Race day really started the night before. In retrospect I should’ve taken a melatonin or a benadryl or something, but I got I think maybe 2 hours of sleep. This could be a large factor in the time of the race and why I couldn’t get my heart rate to stay up, but more on that later.

So, up at 4-something, out the door finally at 5:45. Made it in just fine, got the bike out, topped off the tires, lubed the chain, and hauled myself down to transition. Set up there was easy, they had everything marked off well, and it all fit down just fine. As I laid stuff out I went over the mental process of moving from one sport to the next, and got it all down. My main focus for transition this time was to make sure I took my bike gloves off. I think both of my last two races I’d forgotten to do that, so kept reminding myself as I laid stuff out.

Race meeting was quick, details were easy, And we walked down the 1/4 mile to the swim start. The swim was in Lum’s Pond, a not-particularly tasty body of water that was nonetheless not bad to swim in. Good wind cover, no waves, good deal. Because of the distance, and because we had to run along a major road to get to the real transition, they let us set up a mini-transition with shoes in which to run over. This was an excellent thing as far as I’m concerned as I’m mostly blind without my glasses, so it gave me a good excuse to leave my sunglasses there as well.

There were three waves for the long course (aka “1/2 Ironman,” but without the trademark sponsorship), and a single wave for the sprint race they were also running. The women all went first, then men to 39, then men 40+ and the relay teams (where three people do one sport each). After the women were off, they put us out in the water. It was 78 in the pond, so wet-suit legal, but at the high end, so I declined to wear my wetsuit. Were it a sleeveless model it might’ve been fine, but I just knew I’d be too warm otherwise.

The guy called out go, and we went. I was toward the back, and forgot to hit my stopwatch until about a minute in. The first few minutes were tough, but I was doing freestyle at the beginning (I’d not swam an entire race through - I’ve always ended up doing side stroke or flipping over on my back, much to my annoyance). Then for some reason breakfast decided that it needed to be burped up (probably swallowing water/air while I breathed). Well, honestly, that just sucked because I couldn’t catch a breath, and ended up doing side stroke and flipping on my back. Until I was finally able to burp it up somewhere around half way through. It was bad enough one of the kayaks came over to check on me. Oy. It was bad enough that I was asking myself why I do these triathlon things instead of nice sensible things like duathlons where there’s no water involved. In other words, it just stunk on ice.

Then we turned around at the end buoys (it was an out-and-back swim course) and it was like I was in a totally different race. I did freestyle, I was zipping along much more quickly than I had been, and I was pretty darn relaxed. I could feel my heart rate coming down from the panic of the first half, and thought, you know, maybe this isn’t all bad. Now if only it could have been like that for the first half, too. Something more to work on.

Got my tevas and sunglasses, and hoofed it over to transition. Popped in, got my stuff, rinsed my feet to get into the bike shoes, and off I went. From the first, the bike was So Much More Pleasant than the swim. My heart rate was lower than I expected, for the most part my speed was higher than what I had expected. It kicked ass. Even the bridge we had to go over (and return across) with the slow, mile-long incline wasn’t that bad. I loved this bike ride, it was definitely my favorite of any race now. Loved coming off the bridge into a nice wildlife refuge, then looking across the water at the iconic shape of a nuclear plant cooling tower.

Oh, and note to the guy who passed me twice and whom I passed twice and left in the dust at the end, if you’re as slow as I am, that fancy teardrop shaped helmet probably isn’t doing you any good and is just keeping your head warmer than my vented helmet. Just sayin’.

Transition went well (aside from the tool next to me who racked his bike under the rack and on top of my stuff. jerk). I did remember to get the gloves off, and picked everything I should. Slathered myself with sunscreen as it was starting to get warm and ran out, posed for a quick picture for BC, then made a b-line for the port-a-johns before heading out on the run course.

It was in many ways a cruel beginning. I wanted to keep my heart rate down at the start, but it wasn’t having much of that. And it didn’t want to be comfortable in the ranges I normally run in. Not good. We had to run around the camp ground where transition was set up and where we parked, so had this big mile or so loop before heading out to the main course, mostly in the sun, with little shade. Did some walking, no biggie, then ran across the street to run down the main drag (with off and on shade), then walked and ran to the mile 2 marker and aid station. All this time I was trying to figure out where my heart rates would let me run, since they didn’t want to go up with serious nausea, and it ended up taking me quite a while on the run to find out where my limits were.

After mile 2 was a downhill to the main course, the C&O canal towpath up in Delaware. Now, the part at the top and the slope was in shade, but once you hit the canal itself, you were in direct sun, with no shade whatsoever. And it was probably around 87 or so, while the sun reflected nicely up off the light dirt. For a mile or two I was afraid this was going to become the Diamondman Death March. Suddenly the presence of an aid station at every mile marker seemed to take on much, much more sense. It was hot, sunny, and slow.

Thankfully around mile 4 or so we began to get some clouds blowing in which proceeded to cover the sun for most of the remaining race for me. The wind also picked up, which gave us a nice breeze off the canal. But it was still far too hot to be comfortable. I am very glad I brought along my hand-held water bottle. That allowed me to sip water at my own pace rather than gulping once a mile. Much easier on the stomach. After the turn around I did try some Gatorade (which I never do during a race - don’t like the stuff). I had looked at my arm, which had a nice build up of salt. Took a sample on a finger, took a taste to check it. Nothing like the taste of sunblock and salt. Yuck.

Finally found a grove around mile 6 or so, with a good (if low) heart rate than allowed me to sort of run. I think I ended up doing abysmally slow 15+ minute miles. Not quite the death march, but close.

On the road into the campground I got a lot of thumbs up from folks leaving with their stuff. The run back around the campground was moderately better than the first time around in terms of ratio to running and walking, but still disappointing. Rounded the corner (forgot to flip my race number around), through the chute, and off to the nurse to get checked while she took my chip. Grabbed one last thing of Gatorage (it was there and cold) and choked it down. I just hate sports drinks, especially after a race when I’m all sugared out from the nutrition that’s the norm at these things.

Total time, somewhere around 7:35 from the finish clock (we popped in 5 minutes after the official start, and the clock showed 7:40). I’ll get the real time on Tuesday when they post results.

I think it’s a good thing that I scheduled a sprint for a month from now. That’ll give me a nice, relaxed end to the season. Doing this race certainly gave me a better appreciation for the long course and the training needs involved. I’ll do another, but not any time soon.

Finished the race, will work on a race update tonight/tomorrow. Seven hours and 35 minutes or so (I forgot to hit the stop watch when we started the swim). Sore, but pleasantly so. Tomorrow, probably not so pleasant, but for today, not bad. Sucking down water now that I’m home, just ordered in dinner from the local Thai place (hmmm, stand in the kitchen and cook, or hobble downstairs to let the guy in. Decisions, decisions…).