DNF at Rockford

Reindeer Mary and I set out for Rockford at 10 a.m on Friday. Mary decided that her cold was probably allergies and was taming it with Sudafed. Blue skies and mild temps made for a nice ride although we did get stuck in some pretty serious traffic just south of Rockford. The last 19 miles took about 45 minutes to navigate, and for no apparent reason! No wrecks, no construction...just sloooooooooowwwww moving traffic. I don't know how people who commute in this kind of crap do it every day.

Stopped at the Holiday Inn Express to check in. Mary had booked a suite using her State employee rate and was disappointed and a little baffled to learn that this did not apply since we weren't actually on official state business. My AARP discount didn't help us either. Neither did USAT membership.

The hotel lady asked if we were there for the "BMX event". That explained all the cars with bike racks and teeny tiny little bikes in the parking lot. Our tri bikes were gargantuan in comparison.

We kept smelling something delicious. The hotel lady said she was "baking the cookies". Is this a Holiday Inn thing? A ploy to quell our discontent over the increased room rate? Whatever it was, it worked. There is nothing quite like a chocolate chip cookie still warm from the oven.

Drove up the street to Rock Cut State Park. The hotel was literally 3 minutes away from the race site. We scoped out the lake situation. There are two lakes in this park and the triathlon is held in Olson Lake, the smaller of the two. There is a very nice public beach that was pretty crowded. Not much chance of getting a practice swim in today. The terrain is rolling and the lake sat in a low area, with parking lots and the transition up higher on a hillside. Looked like T1 was going to be a long one, judging by the distance from the beach to transition.

We checked out the vegetation issue. Being somewhat of an aquarium/nature nut, I was impressed by the variety of aquatic plants that were absolutely flourishing in this lake. There is a healthy population of lily pads that were in full bloom, arrowhead, duckweed and what I think is cabomba. You can buy cabomba in aquarium stores, it's a cold water plant that goldfish like to eat. It also gets incredibly long, stringy and its tiny leaves collect poo particles and other unspeakable things. Ugh...that would be the seaweed people talked about. It did seem to be contained to the outer edges of the lake. The race crew had done a good job of chopping it back.

There were people fishing at a little dock and by the spillway. Wait, a SPILLWAY AT A TRIATHLON????? WTF???? The water had a tiny bit of chop to it, and you could tell there was some current down that way. Not sure what that round thing is in the water, maybe a lily pad? Or some toothed creature pissed about the weeds being chopped back...

We decided to bike the run course. It was all beautiful rolling, i.e. steep hilly roads winding through the pine forests. Mary held the bikes while I visited a rustic "aid station". I was impressed how clean the facilities were. No wasps at all! No poo on the toilet seat. It even smelled ok in there.

This has nothing to do with triathlon --- Pit toilets are scary things. I will show my age here by stating that pit toilets remind me of an episode of the Xfiles where a tapeworm/fluke thing somehow was crossed with a human thanks to Chernobyl. The "flukeman" made it over to the United States where it was captured and subsequently escaped to a park NOT UNLIKE ROCK CUT STATE PARK. Flukeman hunkered down in a pit toilet and went on to kill a whole bunch of unsuspecting people. Shudder...would Flukeman be in the weeds tomorrow?

We then drove the bike course. Very beautiful, mostly flat with some gentle climbs through gorgeous rural areas.

It was about time for dinner. We ditched the bikes at the hotel and drove up the main drag in search of pizza or pasta. Found a place called "Happy Joes'". This seemed like an omen since our coach is named Joe.

Happy Joe's was kind of like Chuck E Cheese for adults. The system whereby you actually order and manage to receive food was confusing to us. Blame it on a long day, I guess. There was about three people in the whole place at 6:30 on a Friday night. That is usually never a good sign. But we went ahead and ordered pizza and a glass of wine and it was pretty good stuff after a long day. We boxed up the leftovers and called it a day.

Race Day

In the morning we arrived at the race site around 6. The skies were clear with no indication of the thunderstorms that had been forecast. Humidity was a little high, otherwise it was perfect weather.

There were three waves and women were in the last wave. Unique about this swim is that you swim out from the beach, execute a roughly rectangular course, exit the water and run around some orange cones and then repeat this.

I never did find out what the water temperature was, but suspect it was just on the borderline of being too warm for a full wetsuit. A sleeveless might have been a better choice. One woman actually ran into the water at the start, then turned around, stripped off her suit and jumped back in.

The first lap went very well. You had to do a lot of siting, which was easy to do since there were a lot of volunteers in bright orange life vests at every buoy. Really, there were an amazing number of cheerful volunteers out there. Swimming near the spillway was kind of weird for me, I could feel the current and see the gates when I breathed to the right. Stayed with my wave pretty much and passed a couple of men from the prior wave. Things were going well.

I was a little out of breath when I ran out on the beach and I stood up in some seaweedy muck that felt really gross. Around the cones and back into the water. Halfway to the first buoy, I got too close to a guy who was breaststroking and got kicked in the side of the face. Not hard, but I was turning to breathe and ended up inhaling a full breath's worth of lakewater.

It was pretty much over at that point. I flipped over on my back to regain some composure and coughed. Then I puked lakewater and whatever was in my stomach. It was disgusting and awful.

I finished the swim but had to rest on a kayak twice. My time coming out of the water was something like 41 minutes. The walk up to transition seemed to take an eternity and it was hard to breathe. Got out of wetsuit and geared up and trotted over to bike out. At about a mile, I felt lightheaded and nauseous, was having trouble getting a full breath of air. Got sick again, nasty salty stuff.

I was done. I rode back to transition, turned my chip in and said I was dropping out. I have never done this before and it felt strange. I didn't know what to do with myself. Some people would probably have gotten emotional but I just had an odd sense of peace. This was not my "A" race, things had not gone well but it didn't matter in the big scheme of things. It was just a race, nothing more.

Since Mary was still out racing, I knew I had a couple of hours to hang out before watching her cross the finish line. I walked for a bit, tried to drink some water but it threatened to come back up. An awesome volunteer named Cat (Kat?) said I could help in several areas if I wanted to, and so for the next two hours I sat in a chair and helped with timing the racers coming across the mat. It was great to watch the fast people come in.

Wherein I Do Not Quit

So that's the story of my first DNF. I didn't take home a medal but I sure had a story to tell. I spent Father's Day kind of mulling around why I do this stuff, whether or not I will want to continue, and if it all ends this summer, what will takes its place. A big part of my identity is vested in multisport and I'm not ready to roll over, sell my bike and start scrapbooking (no offense intended for any scrapbookers out there), but today was hard, much harder than it should have been and mentally exhausting and I don't think I have another DNF in me.

Gearing up for Rockford

My next race is the Rockford Olympic Triathlon on Saturday, June 18th. I am going into this with foolish optimism and uncharacteristic bravery. But really, after the beatdown my allergies dealt at Lake Carlyle triathlon, things have got to be better this time, right?

This race is held in Rock Cut State Park in northern Illinois. The swim is in Olson Lake. It is a flat swim, per the race director's informational email. The start is on a beach, and you complete a lap, get out and run across a mat, then repeat the lap. This sounds like grand fun.

Supposedly there is a lot of seaweed type vegetation in this lake.

I read a race report wherein the triathlete described nearly losing his watch to the plant life and having his arms "exfoliated" by the leaves.

The race director sent out an announcement to participants that they had used something called a chopper to cut the greenery back. It sounds to me like they hacked a swath through the seaweed, probably pissing off all of the sea monsters that lurked beneath. Not that there are alligators or pythons, but it's Northern Illinois...aren't there muskies in this lake? Those things have teeth. And snapping turtles. It's something about swimming in murky, plant laden water that makes my skin crawl. It makes me think of horrible, spiny reptilian things snatching at the swimmers from beneath and pulling them down under the seaweed.

Thank God we will all be wearing wetsuits. Whatever gets me will have to chew its way through 5/8ths of an inch of neoprene first.

The bike course is relatively flat with some rollers, and the run course has a bunch of hills. The forecast is for 'scattered thunderstorms". So it could be an interesting day.

Reindeer Mary reports that for the first time in two years, she has a cold. I hope it clears up, it would suck to have to deal with that. Also she is driving.

Nutrition Fail

Today's run workout was a 15 minute warmup followed by 3 x 10 minutes at 85% with 5 minutes at 65% in between. I was looking forward to something different. The temperature had dropped into the low 70s and there were clouds blotting out the sun, making for perfect running conditions.

I have been eating these little crunchy peanut butter Clif Bars on long bike runs, alternating with GU with success. They seem to fulfill the need for something solid and salty, while there is a somewhat sweet tasting gooey center. Sort of like a Payday bar except it doesn't taste as good.

I got home from work and slammed down a Cliff Bar, chased it with a big glass of water and out the door I went. The warmup went just fine, I eased into a slightly faster pace and started the first interval. It didn't take long to realize that I had forgotten to use my inhaler. Oh well, not the end of the world, it would just be a slightly uncomfortable run. And more like a 75% effort.

Judging by the math this should have been about a 6.5 mile run. At exactly mile 4, my stomach did that sickening lurch thing, you know...the one where you have to stop running or it will be too late. I was about a mile from home. Decided to walk a bit and maybe that would calm things down. And so it went, walk a little, jog a little, get that "oh shit" feeling. Walk again.

Ended up with 5 miles and invaluable knowledge about what NOT to eat before a run.

I Hate the Heat

Mother Nature must be really pissed off this year. We went from monsoon-like rains and dozens of tornadoes straight into 90+ degree heat with high humidity. I'm a little worried about how I'll do at Racine since I tend to wilt in the heat. If it snowed that day I would be soooo happy.

Last Friday after work I tried running in Washington Park, aiming for a mix of heat and hills. I chose a hilly two mile loop with a number of side streets and played a game wherein I had to run each hill twice. This was fun for about a mile, then it became torture. There is shade in the park but since much of the route is in a low lying area with ponds and a lot of vegetation, it is also rather humid.

I stopped at a water fountain to dip my bandanna in cold water and some people asked me if I was all right. My face was tomato red.

"Oh I'm fine," I tried bravely. They seemed unconvinced.

Made it to 4.5 miles and called it a day.

My schedule for Saturday called for a 70-mile bike ride. Steve, being the good sport that he is, agreed to tackle this epic distance with me. We opted to head out at 6:30, which, by the time I was done putzing around and procrastinating, turned out to be closer to 7. I loaded up Jack-the-tri-bike with two bottles of mostly ice, 4 GUs, some Triscuits, a handful of Saltstix and some gum. Our route was new and bold --- we would ride through the towns of Loami, New Berlin, Pleasant Plains and Salisbury. I knew the location of gas stations and/or friends/family so that we were covered for pitstops and water refills.

Things went pretty well for the first 25 miles. The pollen was pretty high, I had forgotten my inhaler and could feel my lungs burning, but my breathing felt ok. We got to Pleasant Plains and stopped at a gas station populated mostly by farmers and high school football players. I felt kind of silly stomping through the store in my clicky cycling shoes. There was no water fountain that I could find, so I slipped into the restroom to refill water bottles.

Noteworthy on this leg is that we saw a large animal at a distance trundling along the side of the road. Initially it appeared to be a groundhog, but it was barely moving. This was no groundhog, it was an enormous snapping turtle that had just crossed a two-lane county blacktop and was ambling down the embankment on the far side. I could see a pond about a quarter mile off the road, which was probably the turtle's point of origin. It appeared to be headed into a cornfield. To lay eggs? I have no idea. I have been known to stop driving or running or whatever to help turtles cross roads safely, but this monster didn't appear to want or need assistance, so we traveled on.

It was getting really hot. A road I intended for us to turn on near Salisbury had recently been white rocked and looked like a flat tire waiting to happen, so we stayed on Route 97, which is a little too busy and narrow for cycling.

In Salisbury we stopped in the shade of some huge maple trees and took a little break. Lo and behold, along came two cyclists, one of them the husband of a friend of mine. He also owns the Corkscrew, a very nice wine store in Springfield. We learned from them that there was some white rock on one of the popular roads ahead, but chose to ignore this warning.

Yup, Stagecoach Road had some fairly new, loose white gravel. There was really no good way to turn around and backtrack, so we just sort of slogged along and hoped for the best.

Steve didn't get a flat tire until we were about two miles from my brother's house. By then the wind had picked up, the ride was starting to suck. I was craving an ice cold Pepsi and wanting to get off the bike.

We made it to my brother's and hung out there for about half an hour, rehydrating and visiting. My legs were pretty tired and it sucked to have to get back on the bike and head out into the wind, which was gusting about 20 mph by this point.

We got home with 66 miles, 4 short of 70. I contemplated riding a few laps around the neighborhood to make the full distance, but decided I didn't give a crap.

Recovery Ride

The nasty allergies turned into bronchitis, sidelining me for most of the week following the Lake Carlyle triathlon. I stayed home on Monday, made a brave attempt to gut out a full day on Tuesday, made it half a day Wednesday. Thursday and Friday were very long days at the office, full of coughing and repeated dosing with Robitussin.

The worst part of being sick, as everyone knows, is missing the workouts. I envisioned the ailment stretching into the next week and robbing me of precious training time.

Saturday was supposed to be a 3:30 ride, outside if possible. Weather forecast called for thunderstorms later in the day, so Reindeer Mary and I set up a ride for 7:00 a.m. A new girl wanted to join us, she was in my Abes Army group last year and is a great runner. She's giving multisport a shot this coming weekend, having managed to procure a spot in the Tri Shark Classic in Hudson, Illinois.

I rode to the designated meeting place and saw a hybrid camped out, complete with a kickstand. So it was going to be a moderate pace, at least for part of the ride. New Girl also did not have a helmet, which bothered me but I kept my mouth shut. She did just fine and promised to get a helmet.

Had a pretty decent ride and no problem with coughing as long as I kept moving. Zyrtec twice a day and a new inhaler are in my arsenal now.

Reindeer Mary and I parted on Koke Mill and I opted to take a different route home. There was a bit of a southwest wind and I wanted to ride against this, rather than avoid it like I usually do. A little rainstorm opened up about 8 miles from home, it was almost refreshing although the pavement seemed a little slick.

All in all a decent recovery ride. Will try running tomorrow and see how the lungs hold. up.

Lake Carlyle - Epic Olympic Fail

I will preface my race report by stating that I have MILD seasonal allergies and a touch of exercise-induced asthma. So mild in fact that I ditched the inhaler a couple of years ago, feeling that the slight improvement in breathing wasn't worth the anxious jittery sensation and high heart rate.

Sometime during the night before the race, I woke feeling like I couldn't catch my breath. It was a scary, suffocating throat-swelled-shut sensation. I got up and paced around the hotel room and guzzled some water. The feeling passed although my throat felt strange and raspy. There was a strong smell of fresh cigarette smoke, perhaps from the room next door.

Crawled back into bed and slept for a couple more hours. At 5:30, my voice was raspy and my throat sore. Chest felt tight. I'm no doctor, but I'll guess that exposure to the smoke triggered some kind of allergic reaction.


Mary and I loaded up and headed to the race site. Weather was good, clear blue skies and warm. It was almost too warm.

Transition spots were assigned by your bib number. Being Number 8, I was in the first row, near the bike out. This meant that once out of the water I would have a longish hike up a hill and then go all the way across the transition area. It also meant I didn't have to worry about counting rows of racks, or losing my bike as I did in Petersburg the month before.
Got set up and went down to the water for a warm up swim. Wearing the full wetsuit in the sun was HOT. We stood in the water and I immediately recognized Derek from the Running Center, who had decided to drive down that morning. Felt pretty calm and composed.

There were three waves and Mary and I were in Wave 3. Watching the two waves before us go off, I started to get nervous. For the most part, however, the swim went very well. I forced myself to hold back and focus on just breathing and not worry about keeping up with anyone. Just took long, easy strokes and moved from buoy to buoy. I caught up with some of the women in my wave who had gone out too fast and even passed a couple of men from the prior wave.

Got pretty tired on the return and took a few breast stroke breaks. Chatted it up with a gal who was not only doing her first Olympic distance, but her first open water swim. Yikes! Kudos to her for bravery!!!

I came out of the water feeling extremely fatigued but pleased that I had met my goal time of 35 minutes for the 1640 yard swim. Walked to the top of the hill peeling off the wetsuit. The warm sun felt good. I jogged across transition and saw Steve and Carol O'Connor cheering me on. This perked me up considerably and I got out on the bike and took off.
This is where things started to go to crap.

I was cruising at 20-22 mph and it was feeling way too easy, which usually means there's a tailwind. At mile 8 I came to the first of a couple of good hills and noticed that my throat felt really dry and scratchy. I was taking water and GU and chewing gym, but by the top of the hill I was even wheezing a little. That is a definite first. I watched my speed drop to 7 mph on the hill and I wondered if maybe I should unclip in anticipation of falling over.

At the turnaround, the headwind blasted me. Nothing pisses me off like a sturdy headwind. After the rainy, cold and windy spring we have had, I am so over the wind. I pedaled grimly back, pissed off about the wind and mad that I couldn't breathe. I was just so pissed off. I had trained really hard for this day and my allergies/asthma were teaming with the wind to screw it all up. Passed a couple of people who were having just as much fun as I was. Comments ranged from "this wind sucks" to "this fucking wind sucks."

It seemed to take an eternity to get back to transition and by then, I was done. Instead of the 1:15 I was hoping for, my time for the 24 mile course was 1:35. 20 minutes is a lot of lost time to make up, especially for someone whose weakest sport is running. My legs felt great, no fatigue at all, and despite the bright sun and temps close to 80, I did not feel overheated.
I just...could not...catch my breath. My throat was closing up and my lungs were burning. It felt like I was breathing through a tiny, tiny straw.

And that is how the entire 6.2 miles went. Pollen and the ammonia smell of fertilizer being sprayed on a farm field nearby only made the sucktastic run suck more. On a scale of 1-10 with 1 being the worst run, this was a -2. I crossed the finish line with a 10K time of a blistering 1:29:41. Total time was 3:40

Still, on the upside I had finished my first Olympic distance and by virtue of having a bad day, had set the bar so low that there was nowhere to go but up. I had entered the Athena category, and since there were only three women in this category, I won a great beer glass as a trophy.

Mary had a great race day, coming in just a hair over 3 hours. She is smoking fast!

After the awards ceremony, I drove home alone (Mary's husband and daughter had come down to watch and she rode home with them) and splurged at the drive-through McDonalds in Greenville. A fish sandwich and chocolate shake really hit the spot.

The allergy issue turned into a nasty respiratory infection, so three days later I am coughing up pieces of lung. I did manage to get a new inhaler prescribed, plus now I'm on Zyrtec twice a day. When this crud clears up it will be fun to see if the new meds help.

Lake Carlyle Olympic Tri -Gearing Up and Getting There

My first Olympic distance triathlon was Sunday. In a rare moment of lucidity, I realized that I had NO IDEA what people do with spare tires, CO2 cartridges, etc. on these races. All I have ever raced are sprint distances and I figure if I get a flat, I am a DNF since it takes me about a day to change a tire. Normally while out riding I wear a jersey with huge pockets that can carry pretty much everything one would ever need.

But I would be sporting a Tri singlet - not much room there. There are two tiny slit pockets on the side, enough to hold a GU maybe. A bento box would hold important nutritional items like GU, fig newtons and possibly a ham sandwich. I realized that I had no idea what the big kids do with this kind of stuff.

Email advice from Coach Joe was "just use a small seat bag". Well duh...So off to the LBS I went to spend some money. I settled on this great little kit. I love that it is pretty much self contained and compact.

While at the LBS, I bought some new water bottle cages that actually MATCH. I then went over to the Springfield Running Center to pick up some sundries and talked up the race to Derek, co-owner of the store.

Back home, I laid out my practice transition area in the middle of the kitchen. The cats, in true cat fashion, realized that something was up and attempted to block my escape.

Reindeer Mary worked at the Girls on the Run 5K Saturday morning and then came straight over. We loaded up my Escape and hit the road for Carlyle. Weather forecast for race day looked terrible -- wind and thunderstorms. The rain would be ok, I would take that over wind on a bike ride any day.

The drive to Carlyle was uneventful. Getting there is easy. You hop on I-55 and take that south to Raymond, then follow 127 the rest of the way. You pass through a lot of little towns that have been hit hard by the recession.

In Greenville we stopped at McDonalds and got grilled chicken sandwiches. It seemed like one of the healthier options. There are some very cool old mansions in Greenville and the town has a distinctly southern feel to it.

Once through Carlyle, we took Route 50 to Salem, Illinois and passed through more sleepy little towns and rolling pastures. Lake Carlyle is a Corps of Engineers lake that was formed by damming the Kaskaskia River and there has been a LOT of flooding this spring. So much in fact that as recently as a week before the race, there was some question about whether or not this event would actually occur.

I had made reservations at the Comfort Inn in Salem, so we went there first and checked in. It was hard to find a hotel room for the weekend. We learned that there were graduations going on, plus there were two huge weddings, so hotels were at a premium.

Dumped my stuff in the room and although it had a "nonsmoking" sign on the door, I was pretty sure the room had a distinct odor of stale smoke. Being in a hurry, I thought nothing of this.

We got to packet pickup, which was uneventful. They checked licenses and USAT status. Mary had mistakenly grabbed her Blue Cross card rather than driver's license. Fortunately the good people at pickup accepted this as a form of identification. We were handed shirts, race bibs and bright yellow swim caps.

We Meet Some BT Folks

Walking through the parking lot, I saw a guy who looked really familiar. He looked like Mike (code name ransick) of Beginner Triathlete fame. We introduced ourselves and exchanged phone numbers. While typing in "ransick" my iphone autocorrected his name to "ransack". I knew better than to fight an iphone and left it.

Down to the water we went for a practice swim. While shoehorning ourselves into our wetsuits, I noticed another BT'r, also named Mike. He was there camping with his family and had just tried out the chilly waters of Lake Carlyle. Mary and I stood on the shore and looked out across the waters at the orange buoys. This picture doesn't really do it justice. It looked like the last buoy was at least a mile out there.

The water was a brisk 65 degrees and kind of a murky greenish brown. You couldn't see much more than a foot in front of your face. We decided to swim out to the yellow buoy that marked the sprint course and then come back. This went well although I could feel the slight wave action on the return. We clambered out onto shore, went to the restroom/bathhouse and hosed the skanky lake water off.

It was getting late in the afternoon. JHouse and his lovely wife, Michele, their baby William, and their giant dog Haans rolled into town. They had missed packet pickup by about a half hour. The website for the Gateway Olympic gave two different times, so it was a litte confusing. We sat around on a picnic table and searched for a restaurant on our iphones. Ransa(i)ck made a call to his brother-in-law to get a recommendation and came up with nothing.

Applebees in Salem seemed to be the safest option. Everyone piled in their cars and drove the 24 miles. The House clan were lodging at the Super 8 next door to the Comfort Inn (dog friendly kind of place) and went to check in while we got a table. The place was absolutely packed with softball players, triathletes, and some people who had so many tattoos that I wondered if a carnival was in town.

We had some pretty good fare at Applebees. This is a cajun shrimp pasta that was tasty and came with a nice breadstick.

Mary enjoyed some kind of shrimp-on-a-stick that looked really nice. Coach Joe's baby enjoyed what I think was some kind of pureed chicken with vegetables. It was about the color of Lake Carlyle.

A highlight of the dinner was watching Suzie the Giraffe be tortured in a deep pool of ice water.

After dinner it was off to the hotel for an early bedtime.