Biggest Weekend Yet

The past few weeks have been crazy. Sometimes fun, often stressful, never dull. Working around exams and endless unforeseen and unwelcome responsibilities, I have tried to get in all my training. And here I am, six weeks away from the biggest race I have ever attempted.

Saturday was a long ride as usual. Got on the trainer at 5am and hopped off at 8am. It's amazing how you can get used to almost anything - even 3-hour stationary rides. It was so refreshing to hop off the trainer and hit the road with some teammates after for a nice, easy 50-miler. Downtown felt like an oven, but there was a nice breeze off the water, making for a very pleasant ride along the coast. I spun out another half an hour on the trainer before transitioning into my real triathlon: shower, eat, sleep (and study somewhere in there too maybe?).

No helmets on a trainer.

I've done hundred mile bike rides before. I know it can hurt and be boring, and be more of a test of how much you can stand to eat while pedaling. It was today I was nervous for this week. I had a 20-miler on the schedule, but the marathoners-in-training on the team were planning 22, so I decided to hop in on their run. We started in Santa Monica, ran up through Culver City, hopped on the bike path for a little more than 6 miles, made our way through Marina del Rey, then finished up through Venice Beach and Santa Monica Beach. Sometimes everything just comes together. You pack the right number of Gus, have all the best places planned to stop for water, ate just the right amount at just the right time beforehand. I'm proud of this run because nothing came together. I didn't bring any water or gu. I ate way too late and had to go to the bathroom the whole time. I only stopped for water once, and by then my face was caked with salt and my throat was dry. It was too hot. If there were ever a day when I would just completey fail, today was that day. But I didn't. I didn't even think about stopping, that just wasn't even an option. My first ten were slow, then a teammate and I broke away and the next six were a little faster, then I broke off and the last six were fast, right on that pace where I feel strong but controlled. By the time I was 16 or 18 miles in, I knew the pain wouldn't get too much worse, and admitting this made it a lot easier for me to suck it up and run. I could be hurting and run for another hour or be hurting and run for forty minutes. Seemed like an obvious choice.

When I finished, I started walking back down toward the beach to wait for my teammates to come around. I passed a Jack in the Box and decided to stop and get some water. It took me literally a solid minute to ask for a cup of water. After staring aimlessly into space while the guy at the cash register asked me what I wanted three times, I finally said, with conviction, "A cup. I want a cup." It was obvious that I had no money on me, so he just kind of looked at me for a few seconds then I finally realized I should specify. "Water." Cup in hand, I contentedly strolled down towards the beach, shuffling a little bit as my muscles tightened up. I came up to an obviously flustered woman walking 3 very large dogs. Normally, it wouldn't be hard for me to figure out that I should walk around her and forfeit my side of the sidewalk to her giant animals. But in my delerium, I stood there like a deer in the headlights and waited for the dogs to move. She kept yelling at them and tugging their leashes but they continued to jump all over each other. After enough commanding to walk, the one in front of me finally sat. For some reason I decided it was easier to step over the sitting dog than to just walk around. Even the hobos were looking at me weird. About half an hour and one mile later, I found one of my teammates coming up off the beach. I ran with him for his last mile then called it a day. A huge breakfast helped me out of my dehydration-and-electrolyte-deficiency induced dimensia and before I knew it I was forming coherent sentences and feeling ready for a nap.

So today I learned that I can run over 20 miles with no food and very little water but that if I plan to do basic tasks or talk to anyone after I probably shouldn't.

The First Bad Brick

In the past four months of Ironman training, I've had less-than spectacular bike rides, agonizing runs, and painfully boring swim sessions, but it seems like every time I go out for a bike-run workout, I hit my stride and just fly. Until today. Traffic in LA is infamously unpredictable, so it can be difficult to get in a really good ride going for time. I decided company would be the only way to get through this one, so I invited the team and led a group of about 10 out to the beach and to the north end of the Palos Verdes peninsula before turning around. At 7am on a Sunday morning, I can't really complain about the traffic I suppose. Compared to any other time of the week, it was a breeze riding out there today, but compared to quiet winding roads in New England, the stopping and going was tedious. Plus, the fog hadn't lifted yet by the time we got out to the beach, so we weren't even rewarded with the beautiful panoramas I have come to take for granted in California. Despite the disappointments of the ride, I was evenly matched for pace with another team member, so at lease I didn't pull the group alone.

Looking east at downtown from Figueroa Corridor.

But the trouble didn't really start until I got off my bike, at which point I realized in over three and a half hours of exercise, I had drank only half a water bottle and eaten 2 Gus. I had run for less than 10 minutes when I felt cramps in my legs and a slight dizziness in my head. I had company for the first 40 minutes, which kept me motivated to keep going, but my pace slowed to a crawl once I was left solo for the last 20. Those last twenty minutes felt longer and more painful than the entire previous four hours. Fortunately, I have had enough training experience to be able to pinpoint exactly why it didn't go well, and now I know what I need to correct next week. And I better correct it - next weekend holds a 100 mile ride on Saturday and a 16 mile run on Sunday.

I wouldn't say my brick today was all a loss; I did enjoy some of the ride. But I have noticed such a big difference in my attitude towards my training in the past three weeks. All the power I felt during the summer seems to have dissipated and I feel like I am waiting for the next 62 days to pass as quickly as possible (not that I'm counting...). I've found I dread running solely because of how much smog I'll breathe in and how many crude comments I'll get from the people in the community, which is so disheartening after my whole attitude toward the sport of triathlon changed this summer as I enjoyed mile after mile. I'm questioning why I signed up for this race, why I chose this city, why I always force myself to do things that are so extreme. When I think about the alternative - accepting mediocrity - I can answer the third question. When I walk around campus with a friend, I can answer the second. And when I look at my photos from the summer, from all the trips and rides and runs taken in the name of training, I know precisely the answer to the first. In over 2000 miles of riding, 350 miles of running, and 60 miles of swimming, I have experienced highs so euphoric I cannot stop smiling, and I have also been brought to tears to the point where I can hardly see the road in front of me. I found a reason to do what I do. And the reason has never been a finish line.