Wildflower Training Weekend

The first thing you need to know is that Wildflower is notorious for being a real asshole of a course. When I did my first tri in 2003, half of our team was training for Wildflower Olympic (3/4 mi swim - 24 mi bike - 6 mi run), and the coaches and mentors would talk about WILDFLOWER in the way that there was that joke on Pete & Pete or some show about your PERMANENT RECORD. That didn't make sense - their naked voices, when discussing it, took on the timbre reserved for ghost stories or penal sentencing. Point being, I've never really been a fan of Wildflower - going, doing, discussing, etc.

At the beginning of this season, I was initially signed up to train just for the half Ironman - Wildflower, in May - and not the full - Vineman, in August. Somewhere along the way I decided to do Vineman, with the added bonus of being able to totally jettison the idea of Wildflower. Let those other suckers deal with demon race. Then, in the course of my strikingly usual not paying attention, I realized there was something called...Wildflower Training Weekend....coming up. But! I could skip it! Because I was not doing Wildflower! My coach and mentor dashed both of those notions in one fell swoop, in one of the most acute, matter of fact shame sessions I've ever experienced, and let me know that I was, in fact, doing both the event and training weekend. What is a superacute shame session? They just give you one sidelong hyper-raised eyebrow, and say, "You're doing it." And you feel SO GROSS about their weird certainty that you do it.

Drove up to Monterey County after work on a Friday, got to camp at about 11 pm, pitched a tent in the dark, climbed into bed, and woke up at 6 am in the freezing. Breakfast cooked by other teammates for their fundraiser - a luxury that will not exist on race day. Drove down to the race start, pulled on a wet suit, and jumped into the lake at 7 am. As we treaded water in a clump at the end of the dock, our Coach Paul, also in the water, did this thing that he does occassionally, that's incredibly humbling. He reminds us of TNT's mission, the reason we are all fundraising, and ostensibly the reason we are all involved. He said, roughly, this, as we gently churned the water: "You guys. Look around you. The sun is still coming up over the hills. It's 7 am. Most of your friends aren't even up yet, and you're in a lake so that someday kids in hospitals can be in a lake. It's a really amazing thing that you're doing, and I feel lucky to be a part of it." He said a little more, but the point is the strange humility of being told you're doing something amazing, or even just genuinely helpful. It's the cartoon time traveler's surprise when his quantum shuttle randomly smashes a Lilliputian dictator, and he spends the rest of the episode posing for statues against his will. Right, not quite, but it's someone telling you this thing you are doing - for whatever jumble of motivations you have - is a truly inspiring thing to THEM, who is a major source of your inspiration. It just makes you pause. And then keep flapping your arms & legs to stay afloat.

The swim was actually surprisingly arduous - I haven't been in major open water in a couple years, and I had forgotten how much energy you expend just navigating, trying to head straight in a huge lake, and scanning awkwardly for the buoys. I felt myself just zone out and swim along, which I'm prone to, swimming being the only leg where I feel comfortable and distinctly understand my limits and abilities. We swam about a mile - half of what I'll need to do in Vineman - and I realized my challenge would be staying focused on keeping my speed up, rather than just doing Zen strokes. I've realized I'm afraid to push, and just do a lot of finding a comfortable speed and maintaining / surviving the course. I'm terrified I'll push and then deplete my reserves, though I have a growing fear I'll hold back and then be left with extra energy. AND then I have the growing realization that that is literally not possible, reminding myself I'm doing a Death Race. The Zen stroking sounds like not a bad idea, when we go full circle.

There is one other thing I forgot about tri swimming: Swim Starts. Meaning tons of people packed into a tiny chunk of water, getting the whistle and then beating the crap out of each other until the pack is thinned out enough to just swim. Here's a tri-community famous commercial thatz funny cuz its true:


I'll talk about the bike in a separate post, since I'm a man now, after that beast.

Return from Dormancy Vol. 10

My friend Anus Brand Lip Baum is right! I do NEVER post here, and I can't tell you how touching it is that an anonymous friend with a name so ridiculousgusting as to be totally nihilistic ACTUALLY cares! It's true...thank you, Mr. Baum, I feel really humbled.

SO. Things have been happening, is probably the reason I don't post. I find myself writing posts in my head while out on ridiculous training sessions, and then I get back and realize I have to take care of my LIFE. Because training has come to the forefront so much as to truly squeeze out things like bills. Good thing for disconnect notices! Those'll really shake you into paying your utilites.

I'm gonna sit and catch up in a serious way today. What are the major things to talk about?
-report on Wildflower training weekend! foof!
-the changed attitude to what constitutes a "worthwhile" workout
-Wildflower coming up!
-what shitting my pants in my dreams and every other thought I have while conscious feels like

On to the next catch-up post...

Jacket Rah Rah

THIS PICTURE IS A LESSON.
A lesson about how working really hard on something will make you okay with wearing its swag.

I have a long, long history of being down on swag. Of brutally mocking poor grips & stagehands wearing rental house or gear company or gig tour shirts. I even call it SCHWAG sometimes.
I even told Dave Horwitz when I got this jacket how sad I was that they ruined a perfectly good plain jacket with words that would make strangers talk to me in coffee shops and grocery stores.
But guess what?

I wore this jacket in public today! To work even!
Because guess what??
I AM gonna do those things! And I think I'm proud of it. Ask me. Ask me. Ask me about what my jacket says.

Okay. Time to drive 5 hours to camp 2 days to train for 80 miles.

Green Hills Ahoy

That's Lake San Antonio! I am excited today, though still a bit nervous for May. I'm not nervous about this weekend. I've been wanting to camp, this is good. I have 10 gallons of water, a bike, shoes n junk, a cooler of food etc etc in the car out the window behind my back in the parking lot, waiting for me to get done working . . .

The schedule for this weekend of fun is:
today, Friday
6 pm - drive up to Monterey County after work
11 pm - pitch my tent & go the heck to sleep

Saturday
6 am - Breakfast & packing lunch ! Pack. Lunch. Fun. To remember!
6:45 am - Roll Call. More kid stuff! More fun!
7:15 am - Swim Clinic in the Lake!
7:30 am - Swim 1.2 miles !
8:15 am - Bike Clinic
8:30 am - Bike 56 miles !

AND then a break I guess! I brought T.S. Eliot's "On the Problem of Pain" to read...but maybe I'll just eat, pass out, eat & nap instead.

5 pm - Dinner. Probably my favorite part of the weekend!
7 pm - Meeting & it is rumored a talent show - I am not sure what I'll do. I'm good with Excel. And. Uh. Embarrassing myself. Which is. Neither a talent nor immediately reproducable. Uh. Huh.

Sunday
6 am - Breakfast. 6 am again, consistent, I can hang with that.
7:45 am - Run Clinic
8 am - Run. Thirteen. Point. One. Miles. Furthest I've ever gone.
12 noon - Optional Swim. Huh. That's...weird.
2 pmm - Break down & go home.


I think any real anxiety is coming from the fundraising email I am about to send out - I hate asking / I hope it goes well / I need it to go well / eXtreme deadline / I don't have the money to pay the difference in two weeks if I'm not able to raise enough. Yikes. It's just a bit distracting, but I suppose is also the point.

Guess what? I'm hungry!

ONE MORE TIDBIT IN THIS SPRAWL OF AN ENTRY:
Josie Campbell calls Ironman "Death Race." This is one of those things that makes my face warm in embarrassment & pride at once.

Title = Brain Mush

Feeling restive - am packing & unsuccessfully sleeping the night before travelling to Lake San Antonio for Wildflower Weekdend, Wildflower being the half-Ironman course I will be running on May 2, in prep for the real event in August. This weekend we camp + train and it's all snuck up on me pretty quickly. I think I qualify as nervous.

I've never had to study much, and never had to do overly much prep for any assignment; winging it is where I feel most comfortable, and I am generally unproductive until the pressure of time is non-negotiable. I don't mean that I put off term papers until the night before. I mean that I stay up til 1 am screwing around, take a shower at 1:30 and start to outline in my head, and then get up at 5 am to write the thing itself. So to some degree, the freaking out I'm doing a bit here - in one month I'll be swimming 1.2 miles, biking 56 miles & running 13.1 miles in one day - is familiar: I know its time to get serious. But I'm afraid I'm still not. Or haven't been and this is the time that everything that's always worked isn't going to work.

Or maybe I'm being too hard on myself.
I also think I'm hungry.

Pool Grumposaur, or, Why I Hate LA Fitness

I went swimming this morning. I was supposed to go last night, but late afternoon nap + gym changing their hours to close earlier, leaving me 30 minutes to swim + superfluity of fake boob girls and geriatric dudes just bobbing along in every lane = swim in the a.m.

Not surprisingly after yesterday's run, I was tired. I don't know if swimming yesterday would have been easier or impossible, but today's mile and a half swim was a plodder. I ended up clocking 25 minutes for the straight mile, but uh......I'm not super impressed with that at all.

What I really want to talk about is gym pool ethics. More specifically, who shouldn't be allowed to use the pool. More specifically, can I make people stop using the pool? Or ask them to adjust the way they use it? When I say this, I am talking right at the following:

1. Aforementioned Fake Boob Bobbers. Have you seen this? They like....walk up and down the pool, never getting their hair nor faces wet. They don't always have fake boobs. Sometimes just big ones. Most critically/mysteriously: I've done some pretty self delusional "exercising" before, but...sigh. It hurts to even repeat it. Pool walking? This has to be the most alimony-supported workout I've ever heard of.

2. Aforementioned Geriatrics. Sorry, world. This makes me too sad / angry to talk about more. They do, however, sometimes put their faces in. One rung above fake boobs.

3. Sprint Guys. These are dudes in board shorts who get in, usually with a buddy taking the lane next to them, and do one lane sprints, then rest for 30 seconds to a minute, then sprint again. They usually do 10 to 20 laps total over 15 ridiculous minutes and then get out. They almost always go in the hot tub after. Please, please just stick to 5-a-side hoops.

4. No Eye Contact People. They are usually slowish but not painfully so, and they won't let my line of sight cross with theirs so that I can ask them if we can do circular swim and fit three people in a lane instead of them and their slow lane partner taking up the whole lane. This is starting to get technical.

The point is I'm used to all of the above types. What I've never seen before today was two kids - maybe 9 and 11 - and their poolside Dad, coaching them for over an hour. Taking up a whole lane (a THIRD of the stupidly small pool) when they were doing the same 25 yard drills and could have gone one in the front of the other while four of us stood around the pool waiting to get in.
Although....they did give me a lot of speculating material while I swam. Their grandpa was perched on a chair near where their Dad paced, and stayed completely silent the entire time. The kids were pretty good, but not so good they shouldn't have been on a team; they didn't seem particulary resentful, but they mumbled to themselves and each other every time they stopped at the end of the lane. There was a slight Slavic feeling to the whole thing. Sometimes they'd be swimming beside me, and I was usually not able to keep up. Tired! Achy! Lithe little swim people!

Swim report FIN.

Records Comma Breaking Them

Um, guys? I had a great run today. I just got back, the sweating has slowed to a trickle, and I'm plotting my path on mapmyrun.com like a kid before Christmas. How far how far how far how far ? ? ? ?

Okay, I was at 5.74 miles at 1 hour, which is a little less than I was hoping, but still further than I've done before....continuing mapping...okay!

So 10.2! That's officially the furthest I've ever run. Good, right? I reckon even if my mistaken optimism was certain I'd hit 12 miles, its probably better to be excited and under-running than angry and barely moving. Or. What? I'm still too fresh from the run, my brain word maker isn't the best.

But! 10.2. Remember?

HA HA! Dave Horwitz just kissed the top of my head-hat and started crying because it was all sweaty! 10.2 DAVE! REMEMBER??