Harvest Moon 1/2 IronMan 2006

So here’s the thing. It was freakin’ cold. Me and Charley and Steve and Sybil all sat in Katrin’s car to warm up. The thermometer said 43* and rose up to 53*. Brrrr. ! stood on the beach and my feet went numb. Last time ! stood on a sandy beach my feet were seared. 5 minutes to start ! wandered in for the 1st time. Thigh deep. ! had reservations. Not w/ my shrink. “GO” and ! dove in. It was kinda ok. ! went fast as ! could. It seemed fast. ! didn’t see any caps except my color and some from the earlier wave. ! was swimming next to a gal in a TnT wetsuit. As near as ! could tell she was cute. Those Aurorans drink some pretty clear water. ! pulled ahead of her @ the turnaround buoy then she turned on the jets and went away. ! did the whole swim w/out earplugs. Back on the beach ! was really wobbly. ! saw the clock and got myself confused. It said 0:53. ! thought ! started 20 minutes behind the 1st wave. That would be a 33 minute swim. That was unreasonable. Maybe 38. That would be good. Actual time was 43.

T1 was fair. My feet were cold and ! was trying to do math. Charley had staged a flat before the race to distract me from my setup. ! was in way too big a gear. My ride wouldn’t stay on the rack. Eventually ! had to lay her down so ! could have free hands to put on my shoes. Tom had arrived. He said Charley was 11 minutes out. Tom told me he would be thinking about me that morning. Then he recanted and reminded me he would still be asleep when ! started.

! had told Katrin and Charley ! was going to kick their butts on the bike. ! saw Charley out on Quincy and calculated his lead to be 5.4 miles for his 11 minutes. Then ! started doing math. Based on our results @ the Cherry Creek TT, he should be about 11 minutes faster on the ride. He beat me by 11:37. On the section prior to I-70 ! blew by Katrin. Here’s the physics lesson. !’ve climbed w/ her and by that ! mean !’ve heard her coming up behind me chatting about shopping, barely breathing and then watched her disappear up the hill. Since ! weigh about 1.6 Katrins it takes what most everyone would consider a huge number of watts just to get out of my own way. To be a Tour contender @ my weight, ! would have to generate about 600 watts. Yeah right. On a mostly flat course it comes down to aerodynamics and brute force. Power/weight ratios are irrelevant. My frontal area isn’t much more than hers and !’m a brute. It had been mostly downhill w/ tailwinds to that point too. Katrin’s still wicked fast so ! really turned it on after the pass to get a gap. ! had a huge advantage on that section which would vanish once we hit the rollers. Especially since she had gotten more sleep than she had wanted.

By the time ! got onto I-70 ! had enough of a lead that ! couldn’t ID Katrin. 10 miles of tailwinds on the highway really helped my time. ! was averaging 30 mph out there. Choose your bottle hand-up person and point right @ them. Make them know. ! only bobbled 1 bottle @ 3 hand-ups and barely slowed down. Off into Bennett and onto East, East Colfax the road was wrinkled. ! kept the power on and was doing all the passing. ! just stayed down except to do gel and fluids. The rollers and headwind were starting to hurt. My average was dropping. Then the turn back south. The hills were bigger there. Still pressing onward. ! really needed to pee. Relax. Let it flow. Just a bit. That was the only warm part of the ride. ! passed a guy from team “drink and drive” (that’s Rio Grande’s old nickname) on the side of the road adjusting his chain. He remounted and passed me on the climb. ! passed him on the next climb and so we went back and forth. He commented that ! was stronger and he was lighter. He’s half right.

Onto Quincy the battle continued. He was the only one to pass me the whole ride. The 57 who out-split me must have hit the road before ! did. ! was in front when we turned into the park and opened up a gap. ! got a little draft off an armored car just before the last climb. The drink and drive guy was dropped. ‘Cross dismount and into T2.

Mini Megan claims she flashed me. ! am unable to confirm or deny that report.

The shoe changing ritual doesn’t inspire me. ! knew the run would hurt and cost me lots of time. Before the injury ! could run this distance under 2 hours. If ! could have done that now ! would have beaten half (1/2) (50%) (1 in 2) of the racers who beat me overall. There were only 25 run splits slower than mine. ! wore the trail runners for padding and support. Flats are too thin and the trainers really kill my feet for some reason. The cramps attacked within the 1st k. ! was stretching and rubbing and walking. Here came Katrin. ! out rode her by 6 minutes. ! may have had that gap by Bennett and she matched my pace through the hilly sections. And then she was gone. ! ran w/ Francis Summerhill whose 17 yr old son has been racing his bike in Europe this summer on the TIAA/CREF squad. She is also president of ACA. ! had had 6 salt pills before the run and was still cramping. ! took about 4 @ each aid station. ! told the girls @ mile 2 ! would probably need to take enough to have a heart attack. High school girls panic easily. ! had about 25 all told.

@ 3 miles they had pepsi. That may have been what turned things around for me. A couple miles later it was my lack of fitness that made me walk. ! was jogging about half the time now. Aid stations for pepsi, Heed, salt and water on my head.

Past mile 5 ! saw Sybil coming back. ! told her ! was only 4 miles behind her so she better pick up the pace. ! think ! scared her. Then Katrin experienced the same terror. ! had seen Tom many miles earlier. He was ½ the run ahead of me so he wasn’t scared. And finally the turn-around. It was over half way out and it seemed like it was mostly downhill. ! was feeling better now. Maybe a bit over-hydrated. ! had to pee every mile. ! kept pushing the fluids. Energy drinks, not plain water. Our guy Rick couldn’t come out to play today. Food poisoning he claimed. ! had to harass a Clydesdale ! didn’t even know. Poor fella was doing his first ½. We would walk a bit then jog a bit. ! was hoping he would hang on so we could sprint in.

! made it to the last section of concrete and some chick told me there was beer @ the finish. She lied. It was all downhill. The same finish as Rattlesnake. ! hit it hard (for me) and finished. Totally wasted. After staggering out to the chute ! found Katrin, Sybil, Will and Tom. We discussed how much we peed in our pants and how the common folk would probably not understand. Tom had to make a really unpleasant comment. My strategy was to walk near the end to save energy for the final sprint once everyone could see me. Tom had been watching and knew that is what ! would do. According to Tom, he could see me out where ! thought ! was hidden. Now !’ll have to start running sooner. Damn him.

Time to feed and Darin was doing raffles. Some things you need to have professionals do. He let someone in the crowd pull a name for the Zipp 808s. That guy really screwed it up. The name he picked wasn’t me. It wasn’t even close.

Total time was 6:15:44 for 148th out of 219. That’s my slowest ½ yet. 35 minutes slower than last year. If ! hadn’t sprinted in my run would have been longer than my bike. Thank goodness for team work. Michael didn’t want to do the run and didn’t find anyone to relay w/ him so he went down as a DNF and moved me up a spot. And once again we had lots of good results.