Another Music Post

It's been a while. I know. Don't get your hopes up. I'm not going to say anything definite or provide any kind of factual update to anything that's been going on. Someone asked me recently how things were going and my response was "Things continue and the dude abides." The reference got missed but the sentiment was dead on.

That said, these two songs have been on the playlist a lot lately, along with the rest if these guys' catalog. The band is called Thrice and I think they're my favorite band of the moment. The songs seem a bit contradictory in terms of lyrical content, but they go together for me. They're both from the album "The Artist in the Ambulance."

The Melting Point of Wax
I've waited for this moment
All my life and more
And now I see so clearly
What I could not see before.
The time is now or never
This chance won't come again
Throw caution and myself into the wind.

There's no promise of safety with these secondhand wings
But I'm willing to find out what impossible means.
A leap of faith.

Parody of an angel
Miles above the sea
I hear the voice of reason
Screaming after me
"You've flown far too high boy now you're too close to the sun,
Soon your makeshift wings will come undone"

But how will I know limits from lies if I never try?

There's no promise of safety with these secondhand wings
But I'm willing to find out what impossible means.
I'll climb through the heavens on feathers and dreams
'Cause the melting point of wax means nothing to me.
Nothing to me
Nothing to me

I will touch the sun or I will die trying.
Die Trying.

Fly on these secondhand wings
Willing to find out what impossible means
I'll climb through the heavens on feathers and dreams
'Cause the melting point of wax means nothing to me
Nothing to me
Means nothing to me
Miles above the sea.

The Artist in the Ambulance
Late night, brakes lock, hear the tires squeal
Red light, can't stop so I spin the wheel
My world goes black before I feel an angel lift me up
And I open bloodshot eyes into fluorescent white
They flip the siren, hit the lights, close the doors and I am gone

Now I lay here owing my life to a stranger
And I realize that empty words are not enough
I'm left here with the question of just
What have I to show except the promises I never kept?
I lie here shaking on this bed, under the weight of my regrets

[Chorus:]
I hope that I will never let you down
I know that this can be more than just flashing lights and sound

Look around and you'll see that at times it feels like no one really cares
It gets me down but I'm still gonna try to do what's right, I know that there's
A difference between sleight of hand, and giving everything you have
There's a line drawn in the sand, I'm working up the will to cross it and

[Chorus]

Rhetoric can't raise the dead
I'm sick of always talking when there's no change
Rhetoric can't raise the dead
I'm sick of empty words, let's lead and not follow

Late night, brakes lock, hear the tires squeal
Red light, can't stop so I spin the wheel
My world goes black before I feel an angel steal me from the
Greedy jaws of death and chance, and pull me in with steady hands
They've given me a second chance, the artist in the ambulance

[Chorus]

Can we pick you off the ground, more than flashing lights and sound

Road Tunes

This past weekend, I had to make a solo run from Oakland to San Diego in a pickup truck with no air conditioning. If anyone needs a 2000-something Chevy Silverado extended cab, drop a line.

Now, if you know me at all, you know that I have an uncanny ability to turn the events of my life, significant and trivial, into massive piles of stress using only the power of my mind. Boredom is, and always has been, one of the greatest catalysts of this process. As you may imagine, I was a little leery of 6-8 hours in a car with only my iPod, the San Joaquin Valley and the inner recesses of my head for company.

Thankfully, the iPod and the valley delivered. It was a beautiful day without too much traffic and the tunes worked like magic. I was totally in the zone and made the run in 7.5 hours. I had so much fun with the tunes that I started keeping track of the playlist. One thing you may find interesting, if you've spent any time in a car with me, is that there's no metal in it.

For the first hour, I ran the iPod on library shuffle. Hey, it was 7:30 in the morning and I was feeling indecisive. After the gas stop, this is what spun out of the stereo.

Panic! At The Disco: A Fever You Can't Sweat Out
Drive-By Truckers: Southern Rock Opera
Kenny Chesney: Live Those Songs Again
Cross-Canadian Ragweed: Back To Tulsa, disc 1
Arctic Monkeys: Favorite Worst Nightmare
Dierks Bentley: Feel That Fire
Our Lady Peace: Burn Burn

So if you've got a long drive ahead, that's my suggestion.

Vineman. When You Start to Sizzle, You Move Your Ass.

As usual, for the math geeks and the short attention spanners, here are the numbers:

Swim (Watch split): 0:35:28
T1 (approx): 0:04:10
Bike: 3:02:50
T2: 0:07:01
Run: 3:06:03
Total Time: 6:55:34

Race day dawned before I got up, which was pretty cool. I was lucky enough to have an early start, at 7:02 AM in wave 5. Riding down to the start I had my first thought about how different this race was going to be, since all I had on my back was my mesh Zoot bag. That's right, no transition bag for this race. The Zoot bag contained a pretty minimal kit, too. Wetsuit, flip flops, body glide, goggles, swim cap and sunblock. Everything else I would need before T2 was attached to the bike.

I was strangely calm as we got into transition. I didn't even use my ipod or go through any of my pre-race jitters. Seems like before I knew it, it was 10 minutes to start and I said good luck to a few friends and headed down to the water.

Swim:
The horn sounded and I took off. I had a little crowd control problem in the first hundred yards or so, but I got clear and found a rhythm pretty fast. I made my along the line of buoys and the only thing that worried me was that every time I hit the one I'd been sighting on, there was another pair. I really wished I had counted them ahead of time so I would have known where the turn was. I'd been warned ahead of time about how shallow the river got in places, but I wasn't ready to grab muck before the halfway point, or to swim into the legs of someone who had stood up to walk at the turn. I don't think he was ready to fall on his ass either, so we'll call it even. Around the turn and into the back stretch I ran into problems. Navigational problems that is. I realized how far off I was when I got close to the bridge and realized I was headed to the wrong side of the leg. I made a hard jag back toward center, only to get stuck behind a frog-kicking girls from a wave or two ahead of me. She wound up getting her ankle grabbed as I jerked past her. Sorry. And then it was out of the water. Final watch split: 00:35:28, my slowest half iron swim so far, but still nothing to sneeze at.

T1:
Pretty clean, considering I had to get my swim gear off, bike gear on and the whole shebang repacked into the Zoot bag so it could get moved to T2. I was really looking forward to those flip-flops. 4 minutes or so and I was on the bike.

Bike:
This bike course rocks. Apart from some rough, narrow roads, it's not technical. It's mostly flat/rolling and a lot of it even has shade. As I came up on the first turn, I felt like I was on a course to make my first goal of the race, which was to finish the bike under 3 hours. I know, it was way too early to feel like that, but I did. A couple miles in, I was approaching a hard right turn into a short, steep climb and there's a volunteer yelling STOP!. Right about then I hear the siren and jam on the brakes. My back wheel starts to slide, but I get my foot out and keep from falling, stopping about a foot shy of the side of a moving ambulance. Not a good sign.

The ambulance passes and I start riding again, from a cold stop up the steep hill. I start talking to the guy next to me about how that just totally messed up our rhythm. Strangely, he agrees with me. We crest the hill and there's another volunteer saying there's been an accident and we'll have to get off our bikes. Also not good. A few hundred yards later, we see the ambulance and a giant tree across the road. There's a cluster of bikers standing there waiting to walk under the tree. There's a fire truck and a cop car on the other side. Going under, I realize that there's a guy under the tree. The paramedics are trying to get him onto a backboard. I shudder.

Clear of the tree, we take off. The guy next to me asks whether I think having a tree fall on you is more or less likely than getting hit by lightning. I have no idea, but I know he's drafting, so I accelerate away. Within the next mile I heard one crash behind me, and then heard another one and turned just in time to see the guy slide into the embankment.

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful. I felt strong pretty much the whole time. I remembered my lesson from Wildflower and had 6 scoops of CarboPro and 3.5 Nuun tabs spread across 2 water bottles. My other two were plain water. I exchanged two bottles at the first aid station and rode away with more water and a bottle of Gatorade. I never touched my Gus, but I never felt hungry. It must have worked too, because I also never cramped up on the bike.

My only moment of trouble came on the way up Chalk Hill when I suddenly found myself unable to shift into my easiest gears. WTF? At least it wasn't Wildflower. Chalk hill isn't particularly rough, except that it's at mile 42 or so and you're past the last aid station. I stood up, powered up it and dropped back into aero on the other side.

Not too long later, I was in T2, feeling good but a little disappointed that my dead reckoning split was 3:05. Turns out it was 3:02, but I think that without the attack tree I would have made it under.

T2:

This is just sort of embarrassing. I got to my spot pretty quick, but I had trouble getting my ice jug open. Then the guy next to me on the rack showed up and wanted to chat about the tree. Finally, I had to wrestle out of my jersey and into my Barney Butter jersey, which required a fresh application of Body Glide to my sides and chest. The jersey tore me up at Longhorn and I didn't want to have that experience again. I finally got out on the run 7 minutes later. Need to work on that.

Run:

This was an unstated, though internal goal of mine. Run at least half of the course. I'm pretty sure I did it too, though my time doesn't bear it out. It took about 3 miles for my legs to loosen up from the ride. What has two thumbs and needs to work his bike to run transition? That's right, this guy.

Anyway, once my legs loosened up, I found a pretty good rhythm and was able to run more than walk for most of the way out to the turnaround at La Crema Winery. I didn't see many friends on the way out, except for Chris and Joanna, my fellow Barney Butter-ites. I got a confused look from Chris when I called his name, but had a quick chat with Jo as she passed me. Somewhere past the big hill, I heard the following, which threw me for a second: "The sexy thing is that you're running."

And then Brian Melekian ran past me, looking like he wasn't working at all. We had a quick shouted chat and I was on my own again.

Around this point, I still wasn't hungry, but I had a Gu and a salt tab, just to be safe. I still felt good, although the temperature was climbing. When I got to La Crema, I grabbed a couple of fig newtons at the aid station, along with water and Gatorade. Bad idea on the newtons. I couldn't chew them. I choked one down like prison penance and threw the other two away. On the dirt path through the winery, I felt okay, but the heat and dust started to get to me, so I decided to walk around the first pond and run the second. Oops. The second one is way longer. As I crossed onto the trail, I ran into Derek from TNT and we made snarky comments before I ran on.

Derek caught me at the aid station where I made my second mistake and grabbed some flat cola. What kind of cola? What's a pirate's favorite cola? That's right ARRRRR-C cola! (You're welcome Ben and Mike.) This is supposed to be good on the run for some reason but all it was good for was making me burp.

I ran/walked with Derek for the next few miles, wondering why I hadn't seen more friends. Of course, as soon as I said something, we started seeing all sorts of San Diego TNT-ers. I also saw Dana and Paul about this point. At about mile 8, I had a second wind and Derek dropped off. I ran on through about mile 9.5 before I melted down. My calves started to cramp. And I don't mean "oh, that kind of hurts." I'm talking about mucles rippling up and down on the tendons twanging nerves like like badly tuned banjo strings. It got so bad that from mile 10 on, I couldn't run more than a hundred yards or so without the cramps coming back.

This is of course when I saw Gunn, Jason, Penny, Jodi, Robin and pretty much everyone I knew. Awesome.

I gritted my teeth and ran/stumbled my way out into the neighborhood where Betsy caught me at a walk and told me to run the last mile with her. I tried, but the calves rebelled and she pulled away. As I turned into Windsor High for the finish, I saw Iris heading out. I gave her a big high five and dug deep to find something to run through the finish.

I crossed the finish at a run, grabbed my medal and water and headed out to...realize I hadn't turned in my chip. I went back.

So what did I learn? A lot. I learned that it's okay to hold back and leave something in the tank for the run. I spent all last year burning down to the cinders on the bike because I knew that with my feet I wouldn't be able to run. I learned that 6 scoops of CarboPro is hard to choke down, but the 675 calories it give you is really useful. Especially on top of the bagel w/ peanut butter, glass of apple juice and clif bar I had for breakfast. That and 1 Gu (100 calories) was enough to put me through the race with more than enough fuel.

I learned that 3.5 Nuun tabs and 5 salt tabs isn't enough on a hot day. Given that I never felt tired or hungry, I have to chalk the muscle problems up to salt and lack of bricks.

Finally, I learned that my style of racing, which is definitely more relaxed than that of most of my friends, works for me. It's not for everyone, but I'm really digging racing on feel. I'm still happy with not having a computer on my bike, and with not using my heart rate to make speed decisions. I'm happy having my watch and taking splits but not really looking at them. I'm enjoying the races, even when they hurt, and that is progress.

So yeah, my swim was my slowest 1.2 miler and my run was longer than my bike again, but I had a lot of fun. I enjoyed my race and I wasn't destroyed afterward. In the final analysis, despite the issues I ran my fastest 70.3 to date and accomplished my only major goal, which was to break 7 hours. I call that a success.

I've got a lot to do to get ready for Pumpkinman and for the challenges to come, but this race showed me that I'm on the right track.

Holy Mother of God...

It's finally here. Tomorrow morning we hit the road for Guerneville and the long awaited running of Vineman. It feels a little bit weird, to be honest. We all signed up for this thing back in December which, for those of you playing along at home, was in 2008. Two thousand friggin' eight! This is by far the longest lead time I've ever had for a race and it's messing with my head, man.

I mean, I'm not worried about the race itself. The horn will go off at seven o-freakin' early on Sunday and I'll run into the water with the rest of the numbskulls who paid money for this and sometime later I'll finish and they'll hang a shiny thing on my neck. Hopefully, shortly thereafter, there will be beer.

It's just strange in that unlike any of the other races I've done, this one doesn't feel real. I'm not nervous. I'm not excited. I'm just ready to go do it already, but there's still 3 more days to get through. Sheesh!

Are we there yet? No, wait, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. Don't turn the car around...oh, damn it all...

So that's it 'til after the race, kids. See ya at the finish.

On Repeat

I think I've listened to this song about 50 times today. I love the lyrics. It's a Drive-By Truckers song, from the Southern Rock Opera album.

ZIP CITY
(Cooley / DBT)

Your Daddy was mad as hell
He was mad at me and you
As he tied that chain to the front of my car and pulled me out of that ditch that we slid into
Don't know what his problem is
Why he keeps dragging you away
Don't know why I put up with this shit
When you don't put out and Zip City's so far away

Your Daddy is a deacon down at the Salem Church of Christ
And He makes good money as long as Reynolds Wrap keeps everything wrapped up tight
Your Mama's as good a wife and Mama as she can be
And your Sister's puttin' that sweet stuff on everybody in town but me
Your Brother was the first-born, got ten fingers and ten toes
And it's a damn good thing cause He needs all twenty to keep the closet door closed

Maybe it's the twenty-six mile drive from Zip City to Colbert Heights
Keeps my mind clean
Gets me through the night
Maybe you're just a destination, a place for me to go
A way to keep from having to deal with my seventeen-year-old mind all alone
Keep your drawers on, girl, it ain't worth the fight
By the time you drop them I'll be gone
And you'll be right where they fall the rest of your life

You say you're tired of me taking you for granted
Waiting' up till the last minute to call you up and see what you want to do
Well you're only fifteen, girl, you ain't got no secretary
And "for granted" is a mighty big word for a country girl like you
You know it's just your Daddy talking
Cause He knows that blood red carpet at the Salem Church of Christ
Ain't gonna ever see no wedding between me and you

Zip City it's a good thing that they built a wall around you
Zip up to Tennessee then zip back down to Alabama
I got 350 heads on a 305 engine
I get ten miles to the gallon
I ain't got no good intentions

Does this make me a bad triathlete?

Today's Stats:

Sleep: 6 hours (pretty good for me)
Workout: 2850 yd master's swim. 57 minutes.
Nutrition:
Breakfast: 2 Pop Tarts, 20 oz Diet Dr. Pepper
Snack: Powerbar Harvest Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip bar
--workout--
Lunch: 6" Subway Club on wheat w/ swiss, all the veggies. Cheddar Sun Chips. 32oz Diet Coke
Snack 2: Vending Machine Crackers
Dinner: Rubio's bean and cheese burrito, chips, 22 oz Diet Coke.

I'm listing this for a reason, not to boast about my crappy eating habits. I've been going to these noon master's workouts every Wednesday for a month. Yes, today was my fourth time. I typically get to split the lane, though I did have to circle my first time.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you may remember me posting about pool work earlier in the year, before things started going squirrelly. I was zeroing in on 3500 yards in an hour. At a minimum, I was hitting 3000. Today is the first time I've come anywhere close to that in a good long while, and I feel pretty good about it. I mean, the coach's workouts are tough, and I'm still learning all this base pacing stuff, but that's where the point of this post comes into play.

Since I started into this whole triathlon adventure, I've done a lot of things I never thought I would ever try. A half marathon. Two, soon to be three half Iron tris. 9 other triathlons. Several layers of goofball workout that I don't even want to think about. Along the way, I've learned a lot about myself, both what makes me tick physically and mentally, and how I relate to this bizarre world I inhabit. I've met loads of people, many of whom I'm lucky enough to call friends and some even good friends. I wouldn't trade any of this for the world, believe me.

So what am I on about?

During this time, I've also gone through my periods of obsession, where all I think and talk about is practically triathlon. Where I count calories and schedule my training sessions to the minute. I've had periods where I swing the pendulum all the way across and drink too much and stop sleeping and eat like a jackass. What I've learned so far is that none of this really affects my ability to race. I can swim and bike as hard as I want. I may gain a minute or lose two, but I never move the needle too far. My runs are getting better as my foot heals and I see good things in the future.

But now I'm weeks away from Vineman, my second half of the year, and while I originally wanted it to be my "A" race, the one I just killed, I find that now I don't care so much. I know I can finish it. I know how I'd like to do, but I also know that if I don't do it I won't be heartbroken. Frankly, I'm getting in touch with my motivations in the sport and they aren't what I thought they were.

I had a talk with Mark a week or so ago and I was telling him about some workouts I'd been doing with people who weren't as fast as me or didn't have the same endurance. Usually, I just hang anyway. He got a little concerned that I was sacrificing my training. I probably am, but the thing is, I know that if I set my mind to it, I'll finish the damn race. I learned that at Wildflower this year. I'll just get it done on race day. I might not do it as fast as maybe I can but I'm a pretty simple machine. Point me in a direction, turn me loose and I'll find the end of the path.

What I'm learning is that I don't care so much about my times. I don't care about my position in the field. I care about what I do on the way to the race. Who I train with and get to know. Who I can help to meet whatever goals they have. Mostly, I find that what I care about is that I enjoy the time I put into it and the people I spend that time with. As long as that's going on, the racing seems to take care of itself.

So you tell me, does that make me a bad triathlete? Should I be more gung-ho about the numbers? Should I be charging for a podium that I'll never reach, or am I onto something? Maybe my mind will change after Vineman and I start gearing up for 2010. Maybe not. I sure as hell don't know, but I'm having a lot of fun with the puzzle.

Oooohhh....shiny....

The day after I got back from Wildflower I bought new bike shoes. They're awesome. They fit great, have cool carbon-fiber soles and don't make my toes go numb. They're also very, very white. Tooth commercial white. Albino in the sun white.

Today I bought new running shoes. Asics Kayanos, just like I had. Again, great fit, nice and light. Very shiny. Very, very shiny.

I look like a newbie.

I gotta train more.