Extremely Late Spectator's Report - IMAZ 2009

Yes, that's right. 2009. Eeegads I'm a procrastinator.

Spectating is a bit of a sport (and an art) as I learned while watching Ironman Arizona in 2009. Some thoughts, then a great story and some cool photos. The story is most excellent, if I do say so.

First: Arizona can be COLD in the pre-dawn hours. Really, really cold. Two shirts, two jackets, jeans and knee-high compression socks (I know, I know, I'm a dork), hat and gloves don't do enough to keep you toasty while waiting for your Sugar to start his (or her) race.

Second: Ironman racers are super cool people, full stop. I spent all day yelling and screaming for people that I didn't know -- and all day I heard their messages of thanks (sometimes spoken, other times not -- particularly late in the race). If you haven't gone to spectate and Ironman, you really should -- it was eye-opening for me, and I felt like I could really help people have a better moment by encouraging them.

Third: Ironman AZ is great for spectators on the bike and the run. I lost SJV before the swim (so I never got to see him get in) but I was able to see him go into T1, come out of T1, during each of the three loops on the bike both coming and going (total of 6), during each loop on the run both coming and going (total of 6) and the finish. Not bad! I had good positioning, but the key was to find a good spot and stay put.

And now, the story.

*Ahem.* As I mentioned above, I lost John before the swim. *Sigh* So there I was, all alone, freezing my tail end off, looking around in the dark, trying to figure out what to do with this time before the race. I saw a semi-celebrity (Tara from the Biggest Loser), so I sculked around "celebrity watching" for a bit until I decided that was boring (and a bit silly), and then shuffled off to see if I could get a good spot to watch the swim. Tempe Town Lake has a nice path that you can walk along, and I started walking in the direction the swim would go, thinking I would find a break in the wall of people (great spectating minds think alike, obviously) and stop there to watch. It was packed pretty tight, so even after the gun went off, I kept walking down the shore.

The sun was coming up now, and the crowds were thinning a bit. Right then I saw a floating dock with about 20 people on it. I'm not normally a pushy type. Really, I'm not. But I'm (relatively) small, and there was plenty of room, so I just jumped down there and sortof nosed my way to the edge. Very politely, of course. Only one elbow was used... (I kid! I kid!)

Just then the swarm of swimmers was starting to come up and pass the dock, and a fellow swam to the side of the dock and frantically started pulling off his three swimcaps and neoprene cap (did I say that the water was 61 degrees?). He was obivously overheating and panicking, and there was a flurry of activity on the dock. One guy crouches down next to Unfortunate Panicky And Hot Swimmer and tries to help him put his official swimcap back on, but then doesn't for some reason (I don't truly recognize until later that the crouching guy only has one arm) and asks for help. Another woman comes forward, puts on the swimcap, and Unfortunate Panicky And Hot Swimmer swims off. We all, having witnessed and taken part in said panic, stand together, shaking our heads and saying "oooh - he's panicking. Not good." "Yea. That water's awful cold. Super murky, too. Smell that stench when they swim through? Ugh." "Tough swim, yeah?" And that's when I hear it.

The telltale Aussie accent.

I turned to my right. And. Standing. Right. Next. To. Me. Was. MACCA! OHMYGOD!

"Macca!!" I blurted, hands now covering my mouth, eyes the size of dinner plates.

"Yeah!" Big grin from Macca. I fumbled for my camera and asked for a photo, which he kindly obliged.

I turned to see that none of the other people on the dock seemed to recognize that they were standing feet from an honest to goodness celebrity! (He had not yet made the Wheaties box, but he was still a champion!) Good grief.

As it turns out, I had an audience with not one - but TWO celebrities. The man with one arm goes by One Arm Willie (photo of Willie and I up top) - a paraolympian and amazing triathlete, who has bested Macca at Kona (which he told me in a hushed voice after saying "I should never say this out loud, but..."). He has a great gift for a story, and an infectious sense of fun. Plus, he's tough as nails, which I learned in our HALF HOUR of chatting! That's right! I got to chit chat with two triathlon greats for a good half hour. Amazing.

We talked about races, and places, and swim times, and Rudy, and prosthetic limbs, and challenged athletes, and Ironman and relationships (and how great my Sugar is at balancing the two) and One Arm Willie's wife (who is a doctor and was apparently in a bad mood for most of her residency), and about a med student friend of mine who hates med school, and about all the things you could imagine yourself talking about with a few cool people with similar interests and lifestyles. Soon after we started talking, Macca was recognized as Macca, and so he was pulled away to take photos and exchange pleasantries. But I continued chatting with One Arm Willie. And it was amazing. I wish I could have tape recorded it. Of course, the only thing that topped it was cheering SJV in that night.

Ultimately One Arm Willie and Macca had to leave and take their triathlon spectating somewhere else. So I was left on the floating dock by myself for a spell before heading out to find SJV at T1, basking in the fact that I had just hung out with some really amazing folks. It solidified my belief that the people that participate in this sport - present company entirely included - are pretty cool folks, and are just the kind of folks I want to surround myself with.

Beginning.

It's easy to forget how hard it was to start being active. As an ... *ahem* ... "adult-onset-athlete" myself, I can relate... but I still forget.

I was reminded of this the other night when I attended a gala for the Chicago Center for Conflict Resolution -- cool mediators getting together and knocking back a few. Anyhoo... I was chatting with a few of the ladies about my "crazy" race schedule (which is decidedly normal for most endurance athletes) when two of them told me in fast-paced-high-pitched-oh-my-god-i-can't-wait-to-tell-you voices that they had just signed up for 8ks and they were getting ever faster -- which they said I had something to do with. See, they had started a running program a few months ago, and were running fairly consistent 12:30 miles. They were dejected, depressed, and totally convinced that they were somehow failing at running. Then I came along, and introduced them to the idea of "beginning" something.

As adults, we forget how to begin.

As kids, we were used to falling down, both literally and figuratively. We'd try stuff and stink at it. All the time. That's what beginners do. There are very few that start something and win right off the bat. Most beginners fall off, fall back, fall down... But at least beginners try.

As adults we kinda forget (or refuse) to try stuff that we think we'll suck at, just because it's painful for your heart and your head to fail at something. But running a 12:30 pace is not failing.

Not getting off the couch is failing.

I remember telling them about beginning, and how they should be patient, and have faith in themselves. That they should just get out there and enjoy, and move, and feel what it's like to let their bodies do what they're supposed to do -- and to feel what it's like to let their bodies (rather than their expectations and mental demands) tell them what is possible from day to day.

I remember that conversation, but was surprised that they remembered it, too. And I'm really flattered that they used that conversation as motivation over the past few months, taking heart in the fact that I, too, was a beginner not so very long ago.

I'm happy to report that these ladies are now running at 10:30 and faster pace. I'm sure they'll continue to get faster if that's what they want. But no matter how fast they end up going, they're winning.

Belly.

It's all in our heads

So, by this point in the season (in the midwest, at least), we've spent hours planning out our training schedules. There are base periods, builds, peaks and valleys. We've got hours blocked for bricks -- runs with swims, and bikes with runs. Our muscles are strengthened, and stretched, and built and broken down with training over the course of the season. So at this point, we're planning for that, and starting the "training" in earnest.

We've done our research over the long, dark, dreary winter. We've read about nutrition being the "fourth discipline" and have added protein, or more carbs, or more natural foods. We've decreased drag, increased efficiency, added a powermeter to track wattage, and have ditched the running shoes to have lighter feet and a shorter stride. We've got heart rate monitors and footpods, pace calculators and spedometers -- holiday gifts, or gifts to ourselves. Something to look at during icy runs to remind us that yes -- summer will come back and there is a purpose to the training.

But all too often there's something missing from our arsenal. Something essential to any racer's success that's far more important than most would admit, and often overlooked or dismissed.

Our brains.

It's strange to think of, but from what I can tell, most of us spend very little time training mentally for the races that we prepare our bodies so methodically for. I mean, how many of us log into Trainingpeaks to add in a "workout" for "Mental Visualization"? I don't think anyone discounts mental preparation, but it's just not given the same marquis treatment as tempo runs, or swim stroke training. And I think it should, because I think it matters just as much. Maybe more.

So, in a few blog posts, I'm going to advocate that we become better self-coaches (really, self-parents) and start prepping our mind as well as we prep our bodies, and talk about how we can make our minds as tough as our quads.

Belly.

Goodness. And Grape Sorbet.

SJV and I went to Denver this past weekend to attend the wedding of some truly amazing people. Kirk (one of SJV's best friends from childhood) and Carrie tied the knot on Saturday, and we were psyched to be part of their weekend. And I was psyched to meet many of SJV's childhood friends. They are, without a doubt, a fantastic crew.

Truth be told, I was a little nervous about meeting them.

They played central roles in SJV's stories about his childhood and, frankly, I wanted them to like me as much as I knew I would like them. They're also a very tight group, and I wanted SJV to have his time to catch up with them. I figured they might not want a chick hanging with the guys, and I worried I might not really get to know them. I promised myself that if it looked like they were going to hang back with me there, I would retreat to the sidelines and make sure SJV got his time with his guys.

I guess I shouldn't have worried.

By the end of the weekend my stomach hurt from laughing so hard. My cheeks were sore from smiling so much. And my memory bank was gloriously full. There were so many stories. Houses and health code violations; Adam and Eve bars and odd fungal infections; pick up lines revolving around grape sorbet lip balm (that were strangely successful)...

It was as if I was part of a 48-hour standup routine.

And I loved every minute of it. Every gut-busting, giggle-inducing, guffaw-creating second. But I especially loved those moments (between jokes) when these tough guys would look at one another, or at Kirk, with a softness that made me melt.

During the ceremony, the officiant relayed the answers Kirk and Carrie gave to some questions he had asked them. Responding to one of those questions, Kirk -- a guy who has been to hell and back and lived to tell the tale -- said something that really stuck with me. He said that there is such a thing as goodness in this world, and it should be pursued.

Indeed.

Before we left Denver, we had breakfast with everyone -- a few short hours after we had left them when the bars closed down. And as I looked around the breakfast table, I had to smile. Yes, there is such a thing as goodness. And Kirk pursued it. He found it in his wonderful wife, who's love for him is blinding. And he found it in each of those guys. They have it in spades.

We can't wait to see them again.

The Year of the Half (or why we aren't doing IMOO this year)

Sweet Johnny V (now "the hubster") and I have decided that this is the Year of the Half. We'll be doing three of them -- two independent races, and one Ironman brand. Why would we do this to ourselves, you ask?

Good question.

The answer? So we can eat more food!

(Well, that's partially true. We've already proven that newlyweds do, indeed, gain weight... particularly in the off-season.)

But the real answer is that we opted out of Ironman Wisconsin - at least for 2011. The plan had always been to have the Racing Year To End All Years in 2011, so that if we do decide to have little people, we (errr... "I") would feel like we were ... ready. Ready to give up training and racing for a little while, and ready to embark on that new adventure. We both figured that if we were going to do Ironman together, 2011 would be the best time. As a DINK couple, we'd have the resources and the time.

So, we signed up to volunteer with some of our friends at Ironman Wisconsin. The plan? Ride the course on Saturday, volunteer on Sunday, and sign up for the race on Monday. We drove up on Friday after work, bikes in tow. Saturday morning it rained quite a bit, and we thought our plans would be thwarted. But by the afternoon the weather broke, and it was a perfect fall day for a ride. We got the bikes ready and headed out to the course. We would do just one loop of two, so "just" a 40 miler. Piece of cake. Right?

Now, normally SJV and I are extremely prepared. We carry i.d.s, money, extra fluids and food. For some reason -- perhaps because we felt particularly "expert" at the end of the season and because we had already taken our Speedfills off of our bikes, we brought two water bottles for each of us and a gel. We thought we were being pretty conservative.

As we got out onto the course, we began to see why Ironman Wisconsin is considered a "hilly" course. There are the mythic "three sisters" hills, and I hadn't mapped out where they were. The first five minutes into the ride, we went up a fairly impressive hill and I thought: "Ahhh. This must be the first of the three sisters!" Ummmm... no. Not by a long shot. That was a bunny hill compared to some of the monsters we encountered. Every few minutes we were going up or coming down a hill.

Screaming descents, grunting uphills -- it's a good thing that I like climbing and I have a good bike setup for it.

It became clear, however, that we had miscalculated our nutrition needs. Massively. By the time we got about 20 miles in (so that we couldn't really turn around) we realized our mistake. But with no cash and no way to get back, we had to push onward. Hard. And at this point, we were trying to beat dusk.

I've never used EVERY gear available on a ride. Now I have. And I've never been so happy to be done with a ride. Considering the fact that we had no nutrition and not much by way of fluids, we didn't do too bad -- I think it took us about 3:30, and we weren't really dawdling. And we were in excellent shape. For us, at least. So rather than giving each other a high-five at the end of the ride and having visions of IMOO dancing in our heads, we spent a good ten minutes silently contemplating whether this was such a good idea. I was more concerned about bike handling skills and descending; John was just less enthused because although the course is gorgeous, it was just a lot more challenging. Would this be fun? We both pondered, and decided to sleep on it.

The next day we volunteered at a water stop that had a "Super Hero" theme.

I waited until the second loop before I unveiled my costume.

That went over pretty well with the tired men-folk, and with the ladies who appreciated a little comedic relief. Nothing like catwoman screaming "Water! Perform!" (They were serving Ironman Perform rather than Gatorade...)

We volunteered all day, and then spent the evening cheering friends in to their finishes, finishing our night as the last racer came in at midnight. And even though we were inspired by the racers we saw finish, we were still left with the conclusion that we just enjoyed ourselves so much training for and racing at the half distance, that maybe an intense year of racing that distance would be more ... Fun.

And isn't that what this is all about anyhow?

So, 2011 will be the Year of the Half. Maybe 2012 with be the Year of the Full. We'll see...

Whatever you do, have fun...

Belly

Back

I didn't have the heart to replace the post detailing my grand-mama's incredibly strong heart for a very, very long time. So much has happened since that post.

There was Ironman Arizona, where I met the 2010 Ironman World Champion (Macca)

...and "One Arm Willie" - a very accomplished paratriathlete.

(More on that in another post.) There was our trip to Sedona after Ironman.

There was Sweet Johnny V's proposal in February on the beach in St. Joseph.

There was Steelhead.

And there was our wedding in St. Joseph, on the beach where we raced.

But now I'm back.

We'll be training for three 1/2s this year - Grand Rapids (June), Door County (July) and Steelhead redux (August). It's going to be an awesome year.

Belly

A Strong Heart

Saturday was Steelhead -- the mother of all races for me this year, and the culmination of my year of training. But, on Saturday morning, rather than donning my tri top and wetsuit, compression socks and arm coolers, I readied for the day with a smear of lipstick, a simple black dress, the most delicate black heels I own (grandma loved heels), and a handful of kleenex.

On Thursday, July 23, 2009, my 91 and 3/4 year-old grandmother slipped on some outdoor stairs leading to her nephew's home. She fell backwards -- something any of us could have done -- and landed heavily, hitting her head quite hard. She lost consciousness almost immediately; it was never regained. She was with family from the second of the accident -- her nephew's wife was home when my grandmother stopped by (unexpectedly, I might add) and was there to call the ambulance. Grandma was life-flighted to the nearest hospital that could handle that sort of injury, in Toledo.

Last Thursday, I was under the weather. I had gotten only four hours of sleep the night before, and had had a stressful day of my own. SJV and I were sitting on my couch when I got the call from my mother. We didn't yet know the full story -- so mom gave me the cliff's notes version, and said she would call back with more information, and let me know if I should make the 4.5 hour trip straight away. SJV and I agreed that everyone was overreacting. Grandma was an independent, strong, courageous woman. She lived on her own; she drove herself where she wanted to go (much to our chagrin, and notwithstanding our protests); she conducted herself with grace and class, and valued her privacy. SJV and I thought that she fell, but that the EMS would take her to the hospital, where they would do a quick scan, proclaim her right as rain, and send her home, where she would complain about the fuss that had been caused and the fact that everyone would know that she had been taken to the hospital. (She had never had surgery, had never broken a bone. At nearly 92 years old, grandma was in amazing health.)

The second call that I got was far more grave. Grandma had both an epidural and subdural hematoma, and they hoped that she would hang on until family arrived. There was nothing they could do. Suddenly I was a flurry of activity -- trying to get my bag packed, trying to get someone to care for Idgy the Cat, trying to let work know that I would be taking Friday off. SJV let me borrow his car, and I started out at 9:00 or so -- hit some major traffic (thanks, Obama, for messing up our streets when you come into town) and finally got to The Toledo Hospital at 3:00 a.m. (or so) on Friday morning.

Grandma and I spent a few hours there alone, in the dark morning hours on Friday, a ventilator breathing for her, and all manner and sorts of monitors keeping track of how she was doing. It was quiet; other than my voice as I talked to grandma, there was only the whirr of the ventilator, and the rock of her body as the ventilator worked for her. I told her all of the things I thought she might not know; how amazed I was at her strength, how proud I was of her independence, how glad I was to have her on my side, and how much I respected her.

Katie, my grandmother's nephew's wife, was there as well, although she was sleeping when I arrived. Soon, my mother would arrive after driving all through the night from Missouri; my sister would fly in from her home in Georgia, and my aunt and uncle would arrive from Virginia. We were told that Grandma would not be long for this world without the ventilator. She had a living will; my uncle had that in her papers. We did not have to make any difficult decisions -- she had made them for us. At 4:45 on Friday, they removed the ventilator and all other forms of life support while we waited outside her room in the neuro ICU, shuffling our feet and trying to talk about somethig that wasn't as ... hard ... as what we were doing, and what we were going to do. They called us back in, and we surrounded her bedside -- crying and holding each other, waiting for grandma to take her leave.

An hour passed. Then two. Grandma was obviously stronger than anyone had imagined. Four (or so) hours later, my mother and I had to leave -- we had to go home to Grandma's house and get some sleep. I think we both expected to get a call during the night, but none came. Over the next five days, my mother, my aunt, my sister and I took shifts through the night and the day -- holding Grandma's hand, singing, telling stories, reading from her Bible, watching Lawrence Welk.

As each day came and went, and melded into the next, the doctors would arrive en masse, asking if we had any questions, appearing perplexed that a nearly 92 year old woman would survive day after day without any form of nourishment or breathing assistance. But, for those of us that knew Grandma, it was certainly like her. One doctor looked at us and said: "She has a strong heart, and strong lungs. Pretty amazing." Indeed.

Ultimately, Grandma waited until we were all at her bedside (unexpectedly, actually, as my mother and I felt anxious back at Grandma's house and came back to the hospital before our "shift" began) to pass away. Five days after she was removed from life support, on July 28, 2009, my Grandma passed away surrounded by family that loved her so very much. We sang to her, caressed her hair, held her hands, and told her how much we loved her as she left this earth.

And so, on Saturday, August 1, SJV and I piled into a car devoid of triathlon gear, but packed with heavy emotion. We didn't tune up our bikes, or assemble our race belts. But what we did do required just as much endurance, and just as much strength. Perhaps my training over the summer was in preparation for those moments. Who can say.

I can say, however, that my Grandma was an amazing woman. Spunky and classy, and full of life. I hope that I've inherited my Grandma's heart -- strong and persistent. Determined. Unwilling to take no for an answer. Unwilling to let anyone else control her life, and, ultimately, her death.

Live life to the fullest.
Belly