Check out Peggy‘s finish video here (skip ahead to 1:51:25). She looks pretty happy.

back again, this time from the top west of the south island.  the race?  another notable event due to weather.  in sun: i did it, finished, got the slot to kona, am well pleased.
imnz started perfectly with a calm lake & cloud cover.  i was always with a goodly amount of people so i kept thinking that i was at least still in the hunt.  when i saw the clock as i got out i was elated: my best IM swim ever.  it turned out to be so for the field, with all starters completing the swim, & all under 2 hours.
  the cloud cover was a bit darker by the start of the bike, & as soon as we got to the start of the 20+ mile straight-out road the wind made its presence known.  in our faces.  then mist, sprinkles, full-on rain, sprinkles, etc.  the latter’s annoying, but it’s the wind that’s the slowing factor.
   life changes at the turnaround, of course, since there’s now a tailwind.  this seemed encouraging, & i was still full of some sort of hope for a good (for me) bike time.  that hope headed for the sewer at the beginning of lap 2 with increased wind, rain and effort.  since the word miserable kept popping to mind, & i’m hugely aware that this is a voluntary activity, i started mentally singing a song i’d sung 2 weeks ago in a big choir concert at the l.a. cathedral.  it’s a cheerful melody, & generally about being grateful to god for a gazillio9n blessings.  it stuck with me the entire race.  it needed to.
  i eventually finished the bike & was more than happy to get off the thing.  likewise happy to put on different clothes & get on with the run.
   by now i’d used up the time cushion i’d earned on the swim, so i decided a steady trot would have to do.  we do over 1/2 a mile into town, pass the finish chute, get a wristband, then head out of town on a 6.5 mile undulating road.  everyone is out there, on lap 1 or 2, except for the speedsters who’ve already finished the race.  i’m pretty sure the correct attitude toward these fleet feet is pit…that they get so little race for their entry fee.  i’m positive that their attitude toward people in my time league is unqualified pity.
   a plus factor on the run is seeing  competitor friends.  at this race that included several from my l.a. tri club.  in essence, my homies.  that’s on lap 1—& mostly on the way out, since the increasing wind was big on the way back to town & started to blow good cheer out of us.  lap 2 is in the dark, & a very wistful moment for me is passing the finish chute, & getting the wristband to start another 13.1 miles.  but i did have a pepper-upper in the form of a can of red bull in my special needs bag there.  next time i’m putting in 2 cans.
  lap 2 was more rain & cold, so i pulled up my arm warmers & q was fine.  the bill of the hat keeps rain out of my eyes.
   by now, even with the tailwind, it was a slow slog, & i would have probably done some walk-run had i not gotten very useful time information from an l.a. tri friend at the turn-around.  i ignore most comments as being not based on fact, but adam’s was fact only ("we have 2 hours") & i picked up the pace.  that surely took effort, as it was again into the wind.
   and then it was over.  around the corner, onto the grass of the long chute, seeing friends mike reilly (announcer) yelling my name & particulars, & jane patterson (event director)….into the arms of each & over the line, & all to a deafening commotion from the crowds in the stands.  it’s sort of overwhelming: because of the effort it’s taken, the success, the sweet people being so happy for you, wishing you well, the sheer magnitude of an IM & finishing it.
   after finishing i sat.  i had soup, was interviewed, talked to a fellow competitor.  but i sat.  happily.  then was given a ride to my motel.  then got clean & fell blissfully asleep.  sunday was full of good things, ending with the very happy awards dinner.
   monday i drove back to aukland, dropped off the car, stored bike & suitcase, flew down to wellington, caught the 3 hour ferry over to the south island, & spent the night there.  yesterday i got a bus west for a 4 hour ride to the start of the abel tasman oceanside track.  but it was a van.  over mountainous roads.  i’m queen of carsick & barely made it to the rest stop in nelson (after 3 hours).  i used the break to book a flight out of there on the way back tomorrow.
  i walked the track up to a nice beach & back yesterday.  today i went with a sea kayak company & had a fabulous day doing that. 
    all’s good in nz.  especially with IMNZ.
peggy

Here’s what I think of rest days: they stink.

Typically, I wake up about 15 minutes later than I would if I had set an alarm. Eat breakfast, study for a bit, then I tackle the errands that have been put off. Inevitably the day disappears before I get half of things done that I had hoped to do, and due to lack of energy expenditure falling asleep early becomes a pipe dream. Thus, I start the week behind on sleep. Honestly, if there wasn’t so much data saying that a full day off is necessary, I wouldn’t do it.

One thing I miss on my off days is my daily visit to Herriott Sports Performance. The training facility is my new favorite hang out. Aside from the computrainer workouts, strength and conditioning classes, and the treadmill that I frequently commandeer, they also have couches and about 100 endurance films on DVD. Tuesday I had Russell Cree play with my bike fit. We were able to flatten by back out for a more aero position, and he adjusted my cleat position to relieve some tension in my knees. It’s nice to get advice from someone so experienced. Russell has a doctorate in Physical Therapy, as well as a semi-pro cycling license (and a bunch of other coaching certs).

I did a cycling race today. It was the Mason Lake Road Race on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. I went down with Brian Davis and his wife Marijana. This was Brian’s first road race, and my second, so we were both entered in the Cat 5 group.  Marijana and I have had our differences in the past (mainly because she always beats me at board games), but I’m pretty sure she was the only significant other that actually wanted to drive 2 hours from Seattle to watch her loved one race. Props to her.

I did this race once last year, and at the end I was bummed out because it came down to a sprint finish that I was scared to take part in, so I never actually got to race hard. (It’s difficult for me to grasp the idea of a race that doesn’t actually push you to your physical limits. That’s more like Golf). In order to make sure i didn’t have the same experience this year I decided I would take off about half way through the three loop, 36 mile, course. Furthermore i wanted to have some fun with it, so I was going to do a couple attacks early just to see how people would react.

There were some problems with that strategy. First, nobody in the pack is interested in chasing down a solitary cyclist who makes an attach 7 miles into a 36 mile race. Second, I’m too stubborn to sit up and let the group catch me when I realize they’re not going to chase. Third, I have not been training for a 30 mile time trial on a road bike.

Still, I put a pretty solid lead on the group, caught the CAT 4’s (who started 5 minutes up on us). I won, but it was definitely not a smart race, and could have been much less painful.

So here’s the bummer about the whole day: My good friend Brian Davis clipped another riders rear wheel and went down hard in the first lap of the race. Unfortunately I didn’t know about it until after the race or I probably would have stopped, seeing as how I was his only way of getting to the ER. The X-Rays show a fractured scapula and clavicle, which is pretty bad news for a swimmer.

I received an email from my friend Peggy, the Grand Masters triathlete from Santa Barbara who kicked butt at her seventh Kona Ironman last year. She didn’t send pictures because her kids have yet to teach her how to use a digital camera, but I thought this story was pretty funny.

hi, from new zealand again.  i’m down here getting ready to do the ironman on saturday.  as i write this thursday morning, it’s early afternoon wednesday for you on pacific time. 
" i got down here sunday and did the usual: got a car, meandered down, came to the same low-key lodging about four blocks up from the race site.  all is well.
       this is the fourth time i’ve done this race, and the town is small enough that it’s easy to feel at home.  and very familiar with everything.  last night, as i had friends over to dinner (first timers), i decided i’d better drop the familiarity and get to serious contemplation of race particulars.  i think an IM week usually goes like that for me: great fun, doing this and that, on vacation, to a certain extent.  then i realize that the race is actually in two days and i need to get all details done. 
   an interesting new thing this year is that NZ is in a panic over the spread of some lake and river growth.  and since lake taupo is the biggest, but also their prime sport fishing lake, they’re on a big push to circumvent lake infection.  so each of us had to have our wetsuit dipped in bug killer.  it smelled like mega-lysol.  this turned out to be somewhat of a show.  a dept. of conservation (like a ranger, i guess) did the deed, but with a good deal of panache.  he was about one step short of being a circus barker, and ended each suit dipping by asking if the owner of said suit wished to see pictures of the offending growth….which he had, laminated, right at hand. 
     one thing missing this year is the annual parade of nations, normally done on thursday afternoon before the pasta party.  i don’t know why, but it’s probably an activity with waning interest and involvement.  and, too, after the wild wind storm of 2006, with a move from on-site event tents to events being about 3/4 mile away in a building, i guess the logistics were not going to work out.
     the weather’s about like home, so far.  there’s some rain expected race day, but it probably won’t amount to much.  as long as it isn’t a torrent and/or happens in town (on the bike) where there are several turns, it’s probably fine.  maybe even good as a cooler, since it can get pretty warm and humid out on a long stretch of highway that has a forest on either side.
      after the race i’m planning to do a trip on the top of the south island, on the abel tasman coastal track, and i’m still trying to get those details in order.  just when i think i’ve got it one way, i find out contrary information and have to reconfigure.  i’m currently on plan C.  it’ll all be fine….i just need it done today.
that’s it for now.  all’s well, i’m looking forward to racing.
peggy

In the past I’ve added capital letters to Peggy’s letters, but I am learning to appreciate her protest.

I desperately want to celebrate being home in my own space and the fact that right now my schedule shows no trips until April. The problem is, I have done that same celebration twice now, and every time I do I end up leaving within a week.

I have a new plan: focus on the negatives of being home, and I’ll get stuck here.

1. My room is a mess. In fact, my bag from Hawaii is still sitting partially packed because the space in my closet is filled with all the winter training clothes I had to buy to survive here.
2. It is 20 degrees colder and far more wet than any other place I’ve visited.
3. All that winter clothing adds 10 minutes to the prep time for a ride.
4. My cat puked on my bed while I was gone, and nobody came into my room to see it because there’s a suitcase blocking the entrance.
5. If I’m home I don’t have an excuse for missing class.

Still, a few nice things are hard to ignore.

1. My Family is here
2. I can cook for myself
3. Next to the puke is my kitty, and he’s pretty cute. Maybe even worth cleaning up after.

Because I’m in California, I missed the time trial I was signed up for today. It’s tragedy, but I was able to get my mind off of it with a great trail run in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Brian Davis has been largely absent the last few months from the commentary on this site, but today I sent him an email to see how the Frost Bite Time Trial went. I was expecting a short-but-sweet “fine, but it would have been more fun with you…” or even a “it sucked, you didn’t miss anything” but instead I lucked out with a full race report that I am publishing here without consent.

Hahaha.

I spun a bit too much out of the start and was moving around on the
bike too much (partially because I was out of shape and doing the
“Davis Wriggle”, and partially because I’m pedaling cubes). The race
seemed interminably long, punctuated occasionally with brief rays of
hope. I was getting frustrated by the time I got to the sign declaring
“200m to turnaround”. Relief washed over me in waves. I began pumping
afresh. My heart rebounded.

Now, we’re both swimmers. We know how long 200m is. It’s a distance
burned into your muscle memory.

I pedaled a hell of a lot longer than 200m without seeing a flagger or
a cone in the road or a single [fricking] indication that there was any
such turnaround. My heart, again, sank.

Shortly thereafter, I whistled past a bunch of signs that match the
ones at the start: “Bicycle race 200m ahead”. Then, two guys coming
from the opposite direction (and visibly pissed) screamed at me “TURN
AROUND! THE TURNAROUND IS BEHIND YOU!!” So I flipped around a decent
distance back and started pumping furiously. I passed the guy who had
shouted loudest (an older guy) and then retraced my tracks back to the
“turnaround”, an unmarked section of road only identified by the
bewildered faces of the oncoming cyclists passing through.

The rest of the race was a throbbing pain-fest that was surprisingly
fun. I definitely negative split the thing (still not knowing how 9
miles feels on the legs). I think I averaged around 23mph over the
course distance.

I had words with the race organizer (along with 50 or so others) and
will probably be given credit for the extra distance by ranking people
by speed, not time.

Beyond all that, it was a very pleasurable experience. I didn’t take
nearly as long to recover (meaning I hadn’t blasted my legs enough)
and I know I could have gone much, much faster with a little training
and power work (I could pedal in lower gear forever, but my quads were
cramping hard any time I got into my highest gear). I guess that means
more Cougar climbs…[Anytime bro, I’m always up for a good hill climb -ben]

I was the confused newbie with my number sideways and my headlight
still attached to my helmet. I could have used your guidance, but I
made due.

Kisses,

Brian

I left my computer in somebody’s car yesterday, and the post I had written about the World Shoe Association trade show is saved on it. My post formatting and image adding software is also in that car, so in the interest of not leaving everyone in the dark I’m going to settle for picture free unformatted posting.

I’m in Westlake Village, California. I was originally going back to Seattle from Vegas, but decided to join Erik from K-Swiss for the weekend. Monday I get to go to the K-Swiss headquarters, take a tour, and get a lesson on how shoes are made. I’m pretty stoked about the new K-Swiss performance line after seeing a sneak peak of the new shoes and clothing that will be hitting specialty running shops in a couple of months.

Today we’re riding up to see the tour of California come by. I’ll take some pictures, and hopefully later today I’ll have my own computer back so I can post them.

I’m in Las Vegas right now for the World Shoe Association trade show. I’m staying with Matt Lieto, and getting a chance to meet the crew at K-Swiss. I was hoping me and Matt would get a chance to ride up to the red rock national park, but it turns out I’m the only one that brought a bike. Does that make me an over-packer, an optimist for thinking I would have a chance for long rides, or is Matt just smart for having checked the Venetian’s website to see that they have spin classes?