Wildflower, or My Day Climbing the Cliffs on the Surface of the Sun

It’s official, Wildflower 2009 has come and gone. It’s in the books. For those of you with short attention spans (or gratuitous number fetishes) here are the splits so you can get back to your graphing calculators.

675 – Ryan Mashburn
Age 32
Hometown San Diego, CA
Time 07:23:08 at Finish Line
Ranking:
1533rd overall
1214th overall men
255th 30-34 men

Splits:
Swim: 00:34:43.710 28:56 min/mi
T1: 00:05:22.680
Bike: 03:26:59.420 16.23 avg MPH
T2: 00:03:03.470
Run: 03:12:58.720 14:44 min/mi

One of many things I love about triathlon is the fact that I can have my lame ass splits down to the millisecond. As if the .720 on my run split was all that separates me and Chris Lieto. Eh, whatever. On with the race report.

Driving up to Lake San Antonio, I wasn’t sure I was going to race. My cage was still rattling from the three serious bike crashes friends have had in the last month, my foot was still bothering me (though it was improving) and, to top it all off, I have no health insurance. Those factors, coming off the general turmoil of the last few months had me seriously considering forgoing the long course in favor of the longneck. On arrival at the campground, parking next to the RV, however, I started to feel something that has been missing for a while now. What is it, you ask? Did I suddenly regain mobility in my left index finger? Did I have a great spiritual epiphany of some kind? Nope. I just felt focused. As I pitched my tent I started feeling more like, well, me than I have in months.

Thursday night was just like last year, beer, BBQ and chucking stuff in the fire. Laughing and goofing off. Catching up with old friends. General good stuff, really. Which made it a little unnerving when rain on the tent fly woke me up that night. I was a little freaked out for a second. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to wait out rain in a tent. It took me back to my old Boy Scout days. Yes, I was a Boy Scout. Is that a shock? Really?

Friday dawned okay and we killed time until noon, when packet pickup started. A bunch of us cruised down to the lake to do a swim preview. I left my wetsuit in camp, figuring I’d rather brave the lake than put on a clammy wetsuit on race morning. This was both wise and foolish. Foolish because there was a serious algae bloom going on and swimming through it was a bit like something that Mike Rowe should be doing at the safe remove of “on TV,” and wise because it meant that I didn’t have to worry about the algae evolving and running off with my wetsuit overnight. Those things are expensive.

The rain started as we toweled off on the boat ramp. It continued through packet pickup and stopped long enough for us to grab some lunch and shop the expo. By the time we got to camp, it had started again, though it was light and intermittent enough for us to ride our bikes out to the camp entrance and snag free Avia visors and gelato. Mmmm… It was a wet ride back to camp, though. The rain continued on and off into the night and I was nervous about the race the next morning, since I knew there would be some serious downhills and I was riding the Kuota for the first time in a race, though not for the first time in the rain. I calmed the nerves by wandering down to the Fargos’ campsite and hanging out over some pasta and snacks. That, and a couple of Tecates got me calmed down. I even got some sleep, which I didn’t manage to do before Longhorn.

Race morning dawned cool but dry. I had a crisis of confidence when the alarm went off and considered hiding in the sleeping bag, but I ultimately decided that someone would probably figure out where I was. I got up, ate my standard pre-race energy bar and prepped my water bottles. BG and I rode down to transition together and this time I remembered to make sure my brakes were closed when we dropped Lynch Hill. When I got to my spot, number 676 was racked wrong and his bike was where mine needed to go. The official I grabbed wasn’t overly helpful, though he was very polite and wrote down the number to come back and check on it. I wedged my bike and bag into what little space I had and went to body marking.

Now, I don’t want to criticize the race volunteers, but I’m going to. The kid that marked me was cool enough. He got the numbers on my arms and hands, the age on my calf and the number on my left leg right. When he got to my right leg, he did something that makes no sense to me. He lifted the cuff of my tri shorts wrote the number, then put my shorts back. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with tri shorts, they’re spandex and have a strip in the cuff that keeps them from moving. This kid wrote my number underneath the leg of my shorts. He knew he was doing it too, because he had to move them out of the way. WTF, I ask you, WTF?

So I go back to transition and number 676 has returned. The four of us who have been screwed up by his mistake politely stare at him until he realizes what he’s done and sheepishly turns his bike around. At this point, the official returns to ask me, number 675, whether racer number 675 has come back fix his bike. I briefly consider slapping him upside the head with my helmet, but realize that that would disqualify me. I explain that it was 676 who had misracked, but that it was okay now. He wandered befuddledly away and I put on my wetsuit while chatting with the guy on my right, who explained that he was worried about his transition times and therefore had already saved drafts of his T1 and T2 twitter posts in his phone. I wandered befuddledly away.

The swim was uneventful. Apart from the muck, it went well. I held a much tighter line than last year and overall swam a cleaner course. I came in a bit slower than I wanted, but all told, I blame that on the dude who kept stopping in front of me to frog kick while sighting and then sprinting ahead to keep me from passing him. I very nearly gave him the butterfly dunk, but I got past him in the end. I felt a little funky running up the boat ramp, but the cheers I got from some friends up on the hill spurred me on into T1. I took some extra time there to settle my stomach and get my heart rate down. Remembering last year’s race, I just calmly walked my bike out to the mount line. Ben, thanks for the cheer at the gate.

Now, the bike was the interesting part. When you sign up for the Wildflower long course, everyone tells you about Nasty Grade. Seriously, everyone. Your doctor, your dog, your dental hygienist, everyone. Nasty Grade is at mile 40. Nobody tells you about Beech Hill at mile 2, or wherever it is. Bastards. I thought it would never end. Frankly, I’m not sure how I stayed vertical heading up it. At the top, we took off on the roads through the park and out to the county road. This is where Marty passed me. I briefly tried to catch him before I realized that I was making a HUGE mistake if I planned to get past mile 5 and so let him go. I dropped back into my aero bars and felt something was wrong. It took a minute of listening to rattling parts before I realized that my aero bottle had come loose and was about to crash down into my front wheel. I got a hand on it and stopped, wasting some time while I fixed it.

Over the course of the next 30 miles or so, I had a lot of time to think, but I didn’t. Apart from the new bike and the aero bottle, there are two other changes I’ve made to my training and racing. I’ve replaced Gu with a Carbo-Pro/Nuun mixture as my primary source of electrolytes and calories. I’ll talk more about this in a minute. The second change is that I’ve thus far eschewed the bike computer on the tri bike. This means that when I ride I have no idea how fast I’m going, what my elapsed mileage, average speed or cadence are. The only things I can use to gauge my progress are mile markers and how I feel. This keeps me intensely dialed into my own legs, heart and lungs and I constantly have to adjust my riding to match the way I feel. Does this help? I don’t know, with only one race under me this way, but I beat my projected bike time by five and a half minutes, so maybe.

At mile 41, I realized I had been going up for a while and that it was really hard. This is about the time I realized I was on Nasty Grade. Who knew? I got about a third of the way up the main stretch and my legs just wouldn’t turn. I don’t know what happened, I just knew that if I didn’t stop I would fall over, so I unclipped and pulled over. I stood on the side of the road for about a minute and then I felt fine, so I started back up the hill and passed the two guys who had just asked if I was okay. That felt good.

This is where the quote of the race happened for me. A guy from the UCSD tri team caught up to me and chatted in between heaving gasps for air as we climbed. We talked about training and the hill, and when I said I didn’t think it was as bad as it had been sold, he said this: “I don’t want to piss on your Cheerios, but up there where it looks like the top, it turns right and goes up again.” I laughed and he left me in the dust.

The coolest thing about the bike course is this: for every ugly climb, you get an awesome descent. The back side of Nasty Grade is worth the whole dang race. I’m actually glad I didn’t have a speedometer. I would probably have slowed down.

Then came mile 48. That sonic boom you heard around noon if you were there…that was the sound of me blowing my wad. My legs just stopped. I was hungry, despite the Carbo-Pro and two Gu Roctanes I had consumed. I was out of energy. I knew I could dig in and just muscle through the last few miles, but I was seriously considering bailing in T2 and calling it a day. I have never thought about that during a race before.

I’m not sure where, but somewhere in here, I realized that race day was the exact opposite of Friday. Instead of rainy and cold, it was crystal clear and roughly a thousand degrees. Oh, and did I mention the head winds? Just like Beech Hill, nobody ever mentioned those.

I got into T2 and I was seriously wobbly. I had to sit down to put my shoes on and that’s when Trent found me. I felt like crap and was convinced I’d just had the worst bike ride since Sleeping Indian. When he said “Nice bike. You killed it.” I thought he was joking. Then I looked at my watch. It had only been 4 hours since the start. I was on schedule. Holy shit. I talked to him for a minute or so and Heather asked how my foot felt, then they shooed me out of T2, where I threw a cup of water on Brian Horne at the gate for ca-cawing at me. Long story.

I mustered enough juice to run past the crowds and out onto the fire roads before it all went to hell. My legs just quit. My calves and quads felt like they wanted to jump off my body and go searching for a less abusive relationship. I started walking. Sometime in mile 2, I think, Gunn caught up. Now usually he catches up, slaps me on the back and keeps on running. This time, he walked with me. That’s when I knew just how hard this thing was. As we walked, we talked about the race and we both came to the conclusion that our nutrition strategies were severely lacking. We kept up a run/walk, though mostly walk, pace for the first 7 miles or so, before we mustered the will to run through camp and past the TCSD station and the TNT camp. I have to say here that team San Diego ROCKED that turn. The roar as we passed carried us through another mile or so. Brian finally pulled ahead at mile 10 and I ran with a really cool guy for another mile and a half or so who had done the race several times and talked me through “the pit of despair” as he called it. This is a 2 mile exposed stretch of road. 1 mile down and 1 back up. When you come out of it, you’ve got about 2 miles to go and Andy dropped me there.

I finally crested Lynch Hill and began the descent to the finish. I managed to run most of the last mile and yes, I crossed the line at a run. I saw Gurujan and Heather in the finish and the hugs I got were a big help. But I have to say that when I saw Rick Fargo and he told me Ben missed the finish because he was in the pisser, I nearly collapsed laughing.

The beer they gave me after I stopped wobbling was one of the best I’ve ever had.

So all in all, I didn’t hit the time I wanted, but who cares? I needed a win, after everything that’s been going on lately, and finishing the 70.3 course at Wildflower certainly qualifies.

Don't Worry, Be Happy...Or Not...Whatever....

It's been a little while since I've updated this blog and I've been wondering whether I ever would again. I don't say that facetiously. I've been thinking about scrapping this thing.

I've been told several times lately that my posts are too negative, or too raw, or don't make sense, or just generally make people worry about me. Let me tell you this now, once and for all, I am not sitting at home alone in a dark room with a bottle of whiskey playing with knives or out pounding nails into walls my forehead or whatever else those of you who are scared for me may think is going on. Yes, things have been...we'll say strained...lately, both personally and professionally and there is still a lot of shit to shovel, but I've moved from the backhoe down to the bobcat and am in the process of shifting once again to a regular hand shovel. I'm a little ways out from moving down to the garden trowel, but I'll get there.

My road has been redefined rather brutally in the last couple of months, but I know where it points now and I'm actually looking forward to getting moving. I don't know how everything will shake out, of course, but I'm no longer concerned about that. I've set what wheels in motion that I can control and I've accepted the fact that others will just have to be watched and not interfered with.

So that's it for now, and while I know that this post has not exactly been a ray of sunshine, I do hope it explains a few things so you can all stop worrying that the next blog post will be ghost written, pun intended.

I'll check in again after Wildflower, though there's a decent chance that my race report will read "Drove to Lake San Antonio. Didn't race, but still limped home." Such is the way these things go. Until next time, and there will be a next time.

So I Can't Sleep. Again...

I tried to do some real writing to kill time, or hopefully make me tired, but it didn't work, so I went back to reading. Killed The Gate House, by Nelson DeMille. Okay if you're already a fan, but not his best work. So I moved on to Fates Worse Than Death, by Kurt Vonnegut. In the interest of full disclosure. Vonnegut has been one of my favorite writers since high school, so it may not be a shock that at the beginning of chapter two he wrote something that I found to be brilliant. Here goes:

"If a maiden sits on the ground in a clearing in a forest where a unicorn lives, they say, the unicorn will come up to her and put its head in her lap. That is the best way to catch a unicorn. This procedure must have been discovered by a maiden who sat down in a clearing with no intention of catching a unicorn. The unicorn with its head in her lap must have been an embarrassment."

Now we know the best way to catch a unicorn, but to catch it doing what?

That's all. Now I need to find something to knock me unconscious. Perhaps a hammer...

News of the Weird

Apparently, running hurts less than walking these days. Fucked up, right? Talk amongst yourselves.

By Way of Explanation, or Maybe Just Thinking Out Loud

It’s been an odd couple of weeks, or maybe months. In some ways momentous, in others like a hard right hook to the kidney with a fist wrapped around a roll of dimes. As I blink away the tears and try to find a few hours to sleep I’m stuck wondering what exactly has happened. Sorry to be so oblique, but there are names that can’t be used and trains still coming behind the ones that I’ve managed to take as glancing blows. Those could still be direct hits and I’m trying not to tempt fate here.

What I’m getting at, I guess, is that I feel like I’ve been missing things lately. Mostly little things. I’m good with the big stuff. The stuff that casts a long shadow and makes a big boom when it lands, that stuff’s easy to see coming. The little things, the ones that slide in like razor blades thrown in the dark, those I’m not so good at. There have been a lot of those lately.

My last post? The one about sleeping only 50 minutes in one night? There’s a reason those things happen to me. It’s pretty much always because I’m sorting through something that I don’t understand, or because I’m beating myself up about something that I’m fairly certain I’ve screwed up. It was a healthy combination of both this time.

I walk on wounds
That seldom prove to slow me down
I laugh this constant pain away
So you can't tell
But there it lies under the smiles
It drains me mile after mile
But seldom proves to slow me down
Here I go

I find that this is a pretty good encapsulation of the way I feel most days. Despite the fact that I actually enjoy most of what’s happening in my world most of the time, there are those moments where I’m talking to someone, or leaving them, and I realize that I’ve missed something, that there was one more thing I should have said or done. That feeling that if I’d just been more alert I could have made something different happen. I’ve reached a point where I am well and truly sick of this feeling.

There are conversations that need to happen. Actions that need to be taken. Most are small things, little movements that can tie off loose threads and simplify things, but it’s also the smallest things that shake the biggest foundations.

As I lie awake at night, my brain churning through all my mistakes, both real and perceived, trying to make sense of what I know I should already understand, I can’t help but wonder where the ride ends. When do we pull into the station and let the safety bars pop up off our shoulders so we can move freely?

How do we know when to pull the trigger as opposed to the ripcord?

Don’t fall, I see lights in the distance
They’re not far away
Stand up because the sky is turning gray

There’s hope in these footsteps of persistence
So don’t go astray
These lights get closer everyday

If the lights in the distance are really getting closer, then the next question I suppose, is whether or not the destination on the horizon is the one we’re supposed to be aiming at. When the road runs out and we finally reach the lights will we find the answer we’re looking for, or just another turn toward a farther off horizon? When we’ve walked the soles off our shoes and talked ourselves right out of our voices; when all that remains is action, will we know what to do? Will we pull the trigger, or the ripcord?

These are the things I wonder about when I can’t sleep, and sometimes when I can. They’re the things that hit me in the shower in the morning and that only recede when I’m kicking the hell out of myself physically.

So if you’ve noticed that something’s not right, that I’m not reacting the way I should. If you think my actions don’t connect with my words. If you’ve seen me staring randomly off into the middle distance, then you’ve caught me square in the act of being out of my depth. I know I owe more than one explanation, and probably a couple of apologies for the last couple of weeks. I think I even know who’s supposed to get which. Now all I have to do is figure out how to deliver. I can say this, though:

A destination, a fading smile.
Another station, another mile.
Another day gone, I swore that I will.
Be there before dawn.
So be there, I will.

Sometimes I'm Amazed That I Can Even Dress Myself

Since I haven't used this particular storytelling device in a while, we are going to revisit The Big Book of Stuipd Things Ryan Does.

Today's reading comes from chapter 972 (It really is a BIG book.), entitled "Insomnia, or How to Put Yourself in Physical Legal and Moral Jeopardy."

I agreed to go to Mt. Baldy on Saturday to get in one last day for the season. All I had to do was get myself to Dieu's at 6:30AM, load the truck and head for snow. Sounds simple, right? Well, I had dinner plans Friday, and we were well behaved. Then I had to run down to South Park and meet some people at Hamilton's. And you CAN'T go to Hamilton's without trying at least one of the beers. Look it up, it's a law. And once you have your beer, it would just be rude to say hi to your friends, pick up what you came to get and leave, right? Exactly.

So I get home at about 1:00 AM. Five and a half hours to go. My phone rings. I answer. At 1:30 AM, I lose signal and the call ends. Five hours to go. The phone beeps. I have a text message. I answer. An exchange ensues. It is now 2:30 AM. Four hours to go. I have stuff on my mind and can't get to sleep so I lie there in bed and watch the ceiling fan until 3:00 AM. Three and a half hours to go. at 3:50 I sit bolt upright in bed, waking up shaking and sweating from one of the most vivid nightmares I've ever had. I don't get back to sleep. At 5:50 AM I shut off the alarm before it goes off and grab a shower.

To read about the nightmare itself, go to the Creative Blog.

Total sleep: 50 minutes.

Between my house in Kearny Mesa and Dieu's in PB, I knock down 40 ounces of soda and two pop tarts. At our breakfast stop, I drink yet more soda. I am now on something less than an even keel.

I drive like a demon to Mt. Baldy and we beat the other car by almost an hour. Finally, they arrive and we can all suit up, cash in our $5 ticket vouchers and hit the slopes.

On my first run, I manage to bury my nose in a slush pile and flip multiple cartwheels down about 50 yards of wide open groomer. I take a second and laugh it off, after making sure that all the parts move properly, and bomb down the rest of the run. My riding never really recovers. I'm jittery and gun-shy the rest of the day, and manage a couple more hard falls that I'm lucky didn't hurt much more than my pride.

We had agreed to meet at the cars at 3:00 to head down and find food on the way back home. By 2:00 my foot hurt so bad and my control was so shot I had to stop. I made my way back to the lodge where I grabbed a Gatorade, a soda and some cookies to get my energy levels back up.

We get back to the cars and head out, stopping for lunch/dinner in lovely Rancho Cucamonga before making our way back to I-15. At this point, everyone in the car is asleep except for me and Dieu. He's in the back seat, playing with my digital camera. I am trying to stay awake while driving by calculating just how long I've managed to be awake, assuming that the 50 minutes of sleep don't count.

This is when my phone beeps. I've got a text message. Now, I know just how stupid this sounds, but I answer the message. An exchange begins. I'm driving down the freeway with a bum foot, exhausted by 36 hours awake (interrupted by 50 minutes, of course) with a carload of sleeping friends who have entrusted me with their safety. And I'm texting. This is because I am a good friend. Hear me out.

I drive a Ford. It has the sync system, so the phone is connected to the car stereo via bluetooth. If I take a call, it goes onto speaker phone. This would wake up all my tired passengers and make them cranky. No, far better to let them sleep and risk their lives without their knowing, not to mention the ticket I'm up for by now. So I'm texting and driving, like a champion, I might add. Thank you for keeping me awake in 160 character chunks my friend on the other end of the phone.

I get home at about 7:30 and shower, planning to have a beer and fall blissfully asleep watching a DVD. Fantastic plan, right?

My phone rings.

I'm back in the car, driving off to watch movies somewhere else, drinking yet more soda to stay awake. As these things go, I manage to be up and in hang out mode (with a few interruptions for unconsciousness and station identification) until 5AM. Well, 4 AM, but daylight savings started so take your 4 AM and stick it. It was 5AM. At that point, I pass out.

So the upshot of all this: I am an idiot. Yes, I can still go for two and a half days on no sleep. Woohoo! It's like college all over again, but without the Jack Daniel's and Jack in the Box. And Mark, thank you for not taunting me into working out this morning. I think I would have died. Those aero bars would have made too tempting a spot for a nap.

Running: The Bane Of My Existence

Actually, the title of this post is a bit misleading. When I'm healthy enough to run without random bits of my legs and feet feeling like they're made of broken glass, I enjoy running. Strapping on (yes, I know, I said strap on) the ipod and hitting the pavement for an hour or three is a great way to burn tension, unplug and work through stacks of the crap and assorted detritus that accumulates in your brain during your day to day life. Believe me, this is a good thing, especially if, like me, you currently have huge swaths of your world being torn apart by heavy equipment and the scraps left to rot in the sun on your front lawn.

So why am I writing like this? Because I went running twice this weekend. The first time, yesterday, was at the tail end of a brick workout. For you non-triathletes, this is a workout comprised of two sports. In this case a 40 mile bike ride followed by a 30 minute run. Now, if you follow this blog, you know that I have had assorted issues with my feet and ankles over the last year and that I haven't done much running beyond racing.

I've been working on it, though, and the foot has been doing a lot better. I've been running again for a couple of weeks and was up to four miles. So I thought the brick would work out okay. Not so much. Seven minutes into the run, Mark was out of sight and my foot was thunking down on the road like a cinder block. A cinder block wrapped in nerve endings. I tried to tough it out. Pros play hurt right? Fuck the pros. I decided to walk until minute 10 and try again.

No dice. I walked to minute 12. 13. 15... Are you seeing the pattern? 24 minutes after the run began, I limped my way back to the car.

Which brings me to today. Just to make sure I'm not broken, I decided to try a run only workout. I went down to the boardwalk and banged out 5.75 miles pain-free. What the fuck? Seriously...