There will probably be limited blogging in the next week as The Great Magnetic Wife and I are off to Paris on Saturday. I guess it will be a run focused training week, because I don't see much opportunity to swim or bike.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Ooh La La
There will probably be limited blogging in the next week as The Great Magnetic Wife and I are off to Paris on Saturday. I guess it will be a run focused training week, because I don't see much opportunity to swim or bike.
Yikes!
On most Friday mornings I swim with a group from the L.A. Tri Club, somehow thinking that there is safety in numbers. We've seen many dolphins, seals and other aquatic creatures, but fortunately, never a shark. It was disturbing to hear about the shark attack this morning in Solana Beach. Dave Martin, a member of the Triathlon Club of San Diego was out for his usual Friday swim with some fellow triathletes when he was attacked. He died of his wounds a short time later. It gives one pause and it is certainly making The Great Magnetic Wife nervous, but I will be back in the ocean week after next, when we get back from France.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
My Addiction
While The Great Magnetic Wife is out of town, I have had to fend for myself in the morning. Not so bad, I did it for years. On Friday I made coffee and went to work. At about 2:00, I started to not feel so great. I was getting a headache and alternating between being really hot and freezing cold. I though, "oh, no, I have a fever. I don't want to be sick." By the end of the workday, I was not feeling good at all. I just wanted to get home. I keep my bike at work during the week so that I can get in a ride afterwards. I usually bring it home on Friday for my weekend long ride, but at that point I was not interested in doing anything, but getting in the car so that I could get home and go to bed.
I had plans that night to go to the House of Blues to see Ratt, but I realized that I wasn't going anywhere. My head was pounding, I felt nauseous and all I wanted to do was to pass out. It suddenly occurred to me that I had the symptoms that I have had before when I forgot to drink coffee. But I had had some coffee that morning. Then the thought came into my head that perhaps I made decaf. I looked at the bag of coffee, and there was no indication, but I know we have decaf around. I made another pot of coffee from another bag that I knew was caffeinated as quickly as I could. But I knew from past experience it wasn't going to be a quick fix. It would still take a couple of hours for the sickness to go away. A call later in the evening from The Great Magnetic Wife confirmed that I had made decaf.
I am obviously addicted to caffeine. If I don't have it I get terrible withdrawal symptoms. It is funny, because coffee doesn't really give me a buzz. I drink it because I enjoy it and if I don't, I feel sick. But I don't drink a lot. I usually have one small cup in the morning and very rarely have any more during the day. I never crave it, I just like to have a cup. But the addiction is strong. It would be hard to go through complete withdrawal.
Cramps!
On Wednesday night, I took The Great Magnetic Wife to the airport. The mother is quite ill and she is going to visit her in New York. However, I also had my last session of a swim clinic I have been taking. As it was on the way to the airport, we stopped for the swim clinic before preceding to LAX.
We did lots of drills while one by one each of the participants was taped doing a lap. I think it will be quite instructive to see a video of myself swimming. On the last lap before I was to go, I got a little cramp in my legs. It is not that unusual for me to get cramps in my feet while swimming, but I can't remember cramps in my legs. I stretched out my legs a little and then it was time for me to be taped.
I started to cramp up a little while I was being taped, but not that bad. I was able to continue. Then shortly after I did my lap and I was about to swim back to the other side of the pool, I started to cramp in my calves and my quads like I have never done before in my life. The pain was excruciating. I couldn't even swim to the other side of the pool. I went to the edge and managed to back up the little pool-side ladder. By this time, Jamie Silber, who had been filming me had rushed over and helped me out. The Great Magnetic Wife was behind him by a few seconds. Jamie massaged my leg for about five to ten minutes until I could walk again. He was really quite helpful. I am grateful that he was there.
I have no idea why I cramped so badly. But I sure hope it never happens during a race. I would probably have to drop out.
Ironman Arizona, Pt. 2
By the time I arrived at the race at about 8:45 and the bike was well under way. I saw Michellie Jones speed by to a big cheer from the crowd. A few members of the L.A. Tri Club I don't know also went by, but I dutifully shouted out, "go, L.A. Tri!"
By 9:00 It was starting to get hot.
Near the transition area in Tempe is the Hayden Butte. It overlooks all of Tempe and it seemed to me it would be a good place to watch the event. I decided to hike up there before it got too hot. The view is fantastic. You can see all of Tempe, including ASU's Sun Devil Stadium, and it was a good way to see a lot more of the bike course. However, there were a few hikers up there, but not a lot of triathlon fans, so after about a half an hour, I went back down to be amongst the cheering throngs.
I wondered around for a while getting different views and finally settled on a spot on one of the bridges over Tempe Town Lake where a could view the end of the bike course and also look down into the transition area and also view part of the run when it started. I stayed there until the first pros came into transition and then ran by.
I still needed to get my planned training run in and so I took off for about an hour. While I was running, I really got an appreciation for how hard it was out there. I was only going to run for five to six mile, but it was brutal. Hot, windy, dry! I went through all the water in my fuel belt by about 3.5 miles in. I was sweating because of the heat, but because of the lack of humidity and wind, there was almost no sweat on my body. I had been slathering sunscreen on myself about every half an hour and whatever sweat I did have seemed to make the sunscreen drip into my eyes. I just kept telling myself, "you have it easy. If you want to be an Ironman you have to keep on going." I did and I got in about 5.5 miles. I was glad it was over and I was glad I was not competing that day. I sure hope it is cooler and less windy next November.
After my run I went down to the transition area. The Ironman races are incredibly well organized. Competitors don't have to worry about finding their rack space and parking their bikes. As soon as each athlete dismounts, a volunteer takes the bike, another volunteer announces the competitor's number, another volunteer grabs the bike to run transition bag and the athlete goes off into a changing tent. As nice as that is, there was no doubt that many of there athletes looked wasted. The winds and heat had brutalized them. It seemed to me that an unusually large number were dropping out. When I later looked at the results, there were over 300 DNFs, that's over 18% of the participants, the 3rd highest rate in Ironman history. Wow! On most Ironman races there are about 50.
The men's pro race was quite exciting. I was very happy when, as the winner was less than a minute from the finish, suddenly over the PA system Black Sabbath's Ironman came blaring out. That was totally rockin' hot! Jozsef Major came from 4th place with about three miles to go to first. It wasn't quite a sprint to the finish line, but he beat TJ Tollakson by a mere 17 seconds. The first four finishers athletes finished with 1:13 of each other. The fifth place finisher Rene Goehler collapsed at the finish, always quite dramatic. I spent a few more hours there and then finally went back to my cousin's house. I ended up watching the quite a number of finishers on the coverage at Ironman.com.
All photos were taken from Ironman.com and were taken by Lee Gruenfeld.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Flying and Ironman, Part 1
On Saturday morning I headed off to Arizona. The last April version of Ironman Arizona was heald on Sunday. It will be switched to November this year and I will be competing. Way back when, before I knew that the race was being switched to November, I planned on going so that I could sign up for the at the sight and ensure myself a spot. You can look back on the first post of this blog here to review how those plans changed. In any case, I still thought it was a good idea to observe the race and see if I could glean any wisdom from being there.
It took about six and a half hours to driver to Chandler, where I stayed with my cousin, Allan Tellam. I figured that door to door it would take about four and a half hours to fly there, so for the price of spending another couple of hours in the car, I would have a lot more freedom to come and go when I felt like it. I remember the olden days when I just loved to fly. I miss those days. Allan is a Captain for Southwest Airlines and lives in a community, Stellar Airpark, that is next to a private runway. In order to build a house there, you are required to have a hangar. You don't have to have a plane, although almost everybody does.
Allan offered to take me up in his plane on Sunday morning. I had to do a quick evaluation of what I wanted to do. The whole reason I was even there was to observe the Ironman. It would be a lot of fun to watch 2000 athletes do a mass swim start. There is a bridge over the swim start that would make it especially good for viewing. On the other hand, I have never been up in a small plane. The thrill of flying that I used to love on major airlines would be even more intense on a small plane, with the pilot right beside me. I would miss the swim, but heck, the fastest guy out there is going to take more than eight hours to complete the bloody thing. I went flying and boy, I'm glad I did. It was really quite a thrill. Allan even let me have the stick and throttle while we were taking off. His feet were on the rudder, which I sure is the hard part, but it was a lot of fun to make that thing take off!
We took about a five minute flight to Chandler Airport and had breakfast at the Hangar Cafe. Then we went flying around the desert. Allan flew low over the desert, which was a great deal of fun, then did a "touch and go" landing. Also a thrill. And then we finally landed and came back. It would have been fun to see the start of the Ironman, but it could not have compared to flying!
Mechanical Bull
What a weekend! So much so that it has taken until Wednesday to write about it. On Friday night The Great Magnetic Wife and I met her good friend Lori, and Lori's daughter Diana for dinner at the Saddle Ranch on Sunset Blvd. We have lived just down the street from there since it opened, but have never been. The food was so-so, but the service was good and the atmosphere was fun. There was a drunk guy who annoyed just about everyone there, but eventually he was kicked out.
They gave us a free desert and then the manager came over and offered a free mechanical bull ride. You betcha! Having never been on a mechanical bull, but always secretly wanting to, this was my chance.
I signed my life away on their disclaimer form and within ten minutes was up on the bull. The guy who operated it gave me a few pointers and off we went. I probably lasted about six or seven seconds and then was bucked off. The guy asked me if I wanted another round and I said sure. The second time I was doing quite well. I counted to eight seconds in my mind and so that would have been a great ride had it been a real bull. Then some I started to think, "this kind of hurts and it's not that much fun anymore." So I let go and got tossed off. I'm glad I did it. I can now cross that off the list of things I need to do. It wasn't very high up on the list, but it was there. Now it's not.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
The Funk
It often seems that when a big event that I have been preparing for a long time finally comes and goes there is a period let down and bewilderment afterwards. The big event in this case was, of course, the Ironman California 70.3. I prepared and focused on this race for about six months and the week after it finally happened, I was happy I did it, but a little down that it was over. I felt that way for about two days after the L.A. Marathon, but I knew that the half-ironman was less than a month away and I had to stop feeling aimless and start training.
I took a break from training almost the whole week after the Oceanside race. I would log onto The Great Magnetic Field and see my Ironman countdown clock ticking and see that I had over seven months to worry about that and go about my day slightly depressed.
Finally I went to see Cherie Gruenfeld speak, she's a multiple age-group Ironman world champion. She was promoting and selling her new book, "Become An Ironman," I bought a copy and reading it began to get me out of my funk. I realized I will need everyone of those days in the next seven plus months to prepare for Ironman Arizona in November. I started training again quite vigorously last Monday and mapped out my training plan for the rest of the month.
Speaking of Ironman Arizona, I am going to Tempe this weekend to observe the final April version the race. I hope I will be able to learn a few things about how to prepare for the race in November.
The Great Magnetic Wife may or may not accompany me as taxes are due and she is in charge.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Photos From Oceanside Ironman 70.3
D'oh! I dropped my swim cap. It's always my favorite souvenir from races. Swim time 46:09
On the backside at Camp Pendleton.
More Photos From Oceanside Ironman 70.3
Thursday, April 3, 2008
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