This is a rad thing. Under 8 hours makes me totally happy. The Pros did it in four, which is almost - really, quite literally - unfathomable. HOW would you even fit that much into that amount of time? So if I'm only taking double the time some genuinely insane people take to do it, I can sleep at night. Great, now that I feel proud again, let's recount.I'm skipping all the stuff about camping except for saying that my friends Justin + James came with me, and that MADE the weekend. A.) Having people I could count on to cook for me, set up tents, complain to, and get hugs from = priceless. B.) Having faces to scan the race for really gives you something to look forward to. C.) Letting people from your real life witness what all your hard work has been for is gratifying. D.) They are funny boyz. Justin in particular gets my personal MVP for seeming interested in the training since the fourth day I really knew him, incessantly calling me 'Ironman' and thereby casting a general support-shame-rahrah aura over my would-be procrastinations, dealing with the fact that I've taken his interest for permission to verbally crap all over him whenever I want, and then actually coming to Wildflower. It means a lot. Here is a picture from when he accompanied me for awhile on the run - I gave him a medal to make up for flipping him off. It was Mile 9!!!
That was fun, no? Okay, let's finish this post. And by finish I mean I am about to write A TON. Settle in.
The night before the race we met as a team after dinner. Wait, I should say: I had a sausage, and started to drink a beer, and was spotted. I wasn't really sure how bad consuming those things was for me, until it was pointed out that I'd been drinking water until my pee was clear all week - a reminder that almost everyone else pays more attention to the vagueries of nutrition, gadgets and planning than I do, which in turn made me believe them that the sausage was going to "screw up [my] stomach" the following morning. Okay. That's nuts, but at this point I'm willing to do almost anything to make Hell Race easier. I might be ignorant but I'm also compliant!
So. We met as a team after the Pasta Feed, and our coaches said some of the best things I've ever heard. The reasons I'm doing this seemed to really be what was on the table for all of us, and I think had less to do with athleticism than even I would normally imagine. I've always been drawn to endurance activity, but have never meditated so heavily on what it's about as the past few months, and Coach Paul articulated it beautifully. He told us that the event - any Iron event, but specifically the brutality of the Wildflower course - was about patience. The cogs in my brain slipped into gear, hearing that, the way I had wanted them to when vainly reading The Tao of Pooh or Siddhartha as a teenager - is THIS Zen? Is that what this is? Is this being in the moment? Will I lose track of my brainself?
He went on - those of us assembled at those two tables had signed up because we wanted to explore something about ourselves - and he didn't specify what. We all heard and knew it was true, and this is when I felt my head slowly start moving back and forth - slow barely side to sides - while my stomach buzzed and my brain tingled. I noticed my teammate Allan, the one most directly in my line of sight, just staring. We were all alone together, and our tables were still. There was no false solemnity, but there was a gravity as we each pulled into ourselves. I took turns being aware of the hat on my head, and the grass below my chair, and the texture of the plastic molded table, imagining the ride, remembering the practice weekend.
Paul kept talking - the bike didn't start until Mile 41, we should be eating and resting as much as we could in the miles leading up to that - while we were out on the back half of the course, pedaling through the 30's, we should spend some time with ourselves. One more time he didn't elaborate on a resonant phrase. At this distance, two weeks after the event, I've conflated hearing him say this with the visual I imagined when he said it with the visuals I actually saw on the ride - I'm not sure which is which. But I found, starting in that moment and continuing into the next day and now as I reflect, a new part of me where I can go. There is a room in a house in one of my favorite books - The Man in the Ceiling by Jules Feiffer - where the mother character goes to do her illustrations, and be away from the world - she calls it her Sanctum Sanctorum. The Latin literally means "Holy of Holies", which is a bit...sanctimonious...but when you take that and divide it by the realistic-domestic textures of a den or workroom, I think its a lovely way to describe the rough-hewn place in yourself where you get to know yourself. Now I've wallpapered mine with the countryside going by at bicycle pace.
Got up at 5:15, though I was mostly awake and ready to be so by 4:45, despite sleeping on the ground and getting up in the semi-cold. I heard some of my teammates saying the same, so I'm assuming this is wakefulness cum jitters, or a micro-version of what I'd been going through all week - you're ready or at least want to be doing the damn thing, but the realities of time and calendars don't allow it. Ate some super carby (learning!) cereal and a banana, filled my 5 water bottles - most of the rest of the team did their water bottles the night before, but I NEED something to do in the morning or I'll go crazy. Got worried and ate another banana, then got worried I'd eaten too much. Then got worried I'd get hungry waiting at the start, so I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that I subsequently forgot about for the next four days, at which point I had an anxiety time capsule sandwich rock. Then I went to the bathroom. Then I walked around. Then I touched my bike. Then I walked around. Then I then I then I. Too much time!
We biked down as a team at 6:30 to the transition area, and I went to pick up my packet - with race number + stickers, timing chip / ankle bracelet, and silly schwag. I found my racking position, among the other 2,000 riders - here's a good shot of the scope. I set up my little transition area: towel on the ground, backpack holding everything I didn't or would only occasionally need - the clothes I took off and would put on after, comfy shoes, iPod, bike tools, extra socks, the sandwich. On the towel, in the order I would need them: sunblock; Body Glide + PAM (cooking spray) for my neck, ankles and wrists to help get the wetsuit off easily; goggles and swim cap; bike shoes with socks stuffed in them; bike jersey (my bike shorts were already on under my wet suit); in my helmet were my bike gloves, cycling cap and sunglasses; my running jersey with race number pinned on and my digital watch. What a silly sport that needs so many things. I checked my stuff twice, decided I would go into panic attack if I checked it again, and put my ipod on to take a wander to Body Marking.
Rituals really help me, and I think body marking is the thing that most tickles me about tri. You walk up to a volunteer stranger, tell them your number (1907!), and they write it on your upper left arm, your upper right arm, your lower left thigh, your lower right thigh, your left hand, your right hand. When they write on my hand I think how similar and different the moment is to getting your hand stamped or written on to get into a club, and I reflect on the compartments of my specific existence. They ask your age (25!) and they write it on your left calf. Then they ask my favorite part, favorite like finding a friend's diary: they ask if you are a pro. If you say yes, they are going to mark you accordingly. Something about you, standing there in your shorts and dumb t-shirt with your ipod on and smelling like sunscreen, isn't totally refutable out of hand as a professional triathlete. You have the opportunity to GO FOR IT, and you want to. But you don't. I amble away, and do little hops to my music, and watch the boys start to head to the swim start. It's 8 am, and the only rituals left before I'll be working too hard to note them are zipping up the wet suit and standing in a pack at the shore.
1 comment:
That picture is awesome!
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