My First Trip To The venue

    The race is getting closer. I can almost hear a giant clock inside my skull ticking away the minutes. I fluctuate between, "I got this," to "Oh my gods, this is going to kill me." I know in my heart that I can do each leg of the race without injuring myself. I even know I can do all three in one very long day. But I also know that I am going to have to reach deep and give it abso-fucking-lutely everything I've got. Everything. There will be nothing left when I cross the finish line. I am still worried over my ability to finish the bike leg before the 7pm cutoff time, but there really isn't anything that I can do about my average speed. I will do my damnedest, and I will not allow myself to waste any time in transition or in stopping along the route, but it will be a close shave.
    This saturday I drove to Cultus Lake, the starting point of the race, to familiarize myself with the surroundings and the bike route. Of course it was the one day in the last two months with poor weather conditions. It rained during my drive through the Cascades, but dried out as soon as I got into Central Oregon. I assured myself that it would stay dry, after all, this is High Desert country. My ride started well enough, I decided to ride the steepest section, the back side of Mount Bachelor. This is the section of the route that will be done twice. And when I say steep, I am not even remotely exaggerating. As I rode, blissful in the quiet, the only sounds being the wind through the pines, the cadence of my pedaling, and my own breath, I knew that despite the arduousness of it, it was still a beautiful place to be. It did feel like a constant climb for 26 miles, with one 5 mile section being solid first and second gear, head down, and grinding hard. When I was done with the ride, I did check my sport tracker app, it was truly nearly 26 miles of climbing, going from 4450' to 6400' above sea level. During the outward, westward ride I had dark clouds ahead of me and the sun on my back. When I hit the turn around I decided to put on the thermal jersey I had tied around my waist "just in case." Good thing I did. Within the first mile of my return trip the wind shifted and blew hard and cold down off the mountain. Then the rain hit. Hard. I had hoped it would be a brief squall. But no, it was there to stay. I was quickly soaked to the skin, buffeted by cold wind, and making myself ride the downhill with as much energy as I had used battling my way to the summit. I pedaled hard, and was cruising the downs at a decently 28 to 35 mph. At one point I did have the thought, "Hmm, bike brakes do not work so very well when wet," just as a mule deer wandered onto the shoulder of the road about 100 feet ahead of me. I braked as best I could, the deer saw me and decided to flee, but I still gave the spot a wide berth as I passed, just in case. The cold was penetrating my extremities, and I realized that as cold as it was I was very likely going to do myself more harm than good if I extended my ride beyond getting back to my car. So I decided to let the cold light a fire under my ass and I pushed myself harder than I would dare during a longer ride. So many moments I had to remind myself to keep pushing, never let up, never stop. It was tough, and uncomfortable. My hands and feet were numb with cold, my thighs ached from the combination of massive exertion and severe wind chill. My shoes were full of water, rain pelted my face and ran in a steady stream off my helmet and down across my eyewear. I let myself grin in the face of it all, remembering one of my very first lessons as a firefighter, "It is only water." Despite the sense of victory in the face of adversity, I was so happy to get back to my little car. 54 miles in 4 hours, not my best ride, and definitely about 30 miles shorter than I had planned, but it did encompass one of my Worst Case Scenarios.
    Back at the car there was no time to squander with pleasantries. I needed to stow the bike and get into my running shoes. I powered down an energy bar and took some large swigs of water while I dried my feet and tried to put on dry socks and shoes. My hands were cold, clumsy, and weak. My toes were so numb I couldn't feel them while pulling on my socks and got my pinky toe tangled up to the point that if I had been a bit less attentive I might have dislocated it. And the whole time my quads were shrieking at me, angry at the abuse I had heaped upon them, and threatening payback with a hint of muscle cramps. But I managed. Shoes on, I headed out for a short run. I had to really watch my footing because my feet were almost like dead lumps at the bottoms of my legs, I could not feel the ground beneath them, just the impact coming up my legs with each stride. But it didn't take long for the blood to flow and sensation to return. After that the run was easy and without incident. I only ran 2 miles, wanting to go more, but also knowing I needed to get out of my wet clothes to avoid making myself sick. Back at the car I stretched, my quads no longer angry with me, but still a bit chilly.
    Then I wandered down to the dock, to look out across the stormy expanse of the large body of water that is Cultus Lake. Looking out over it I was a bit alarmed at how big it is, and how diminutive the Cove would look next to it. I know I will be doing two 1-1/2 mile laps around this lake in three weeks, and that scares me just a little. Looking at the enormity of the lake and trying to imagine swimming it's full diameter even once is intimidating. Then I reminded myself that very likely we are not swimming the full diameter, there will be buoys marking the course, as there always are, and it will be fine. I lay down on the dock to feel teh water, and it was much warmer than my mind had built it up to be. Yes, it will be a cold swim, but not horrifically so, my Selkie Suit will protect me.
    I have decided to make one more trip to the site, next saturday, to ride that same uphill stretch, and come down the front side part of the loop around the mountain, then run, and finally put on the wetsuit and climb into thee water for a short swim. I will make this course my ally. I will connect with the earth, wind, and water. I can do this, one section at a time. I will keep my head firmly in the present, giving my best effort at any given moment. I will endeavor to not beat myself up over things that are out of my control, and I won't worry about what has yet to come. Head in the moment. I can do this.

Four Weeks Out

    I am now 4 weeks out from my big event. I've been getting little flashes of nerves now and then, mostly when I realize just how long of a day I will be facing. I figure it will likely take me about 14 hours of constant motion to get from starting line to finish line. Fourteen Hours. At Least. G'damn, what have I gotten myself into? I have pushed my riding to the point that I can do 100 miles in 7-1/2 hours, and get off the bike for a short transition run without difficulty. Yeah, sitting on the bike that long makes my delicate girly bits feel a bit hammered, or as a friend put it, "Like the girly bits have been punched in the face." Yeah, like that.
    I haven't been swimming quite as long as I would wish, but I am doing three open water swims a week, and swimming about 2 miles each swim. Honestly, it is my gut that is preventing me from staying in the water longer. As embarrassing as it is, I have to admit, swimming seems to make my intestines go into high gear. No, I haven't shit myself, but it has been a near miss. Actually, I've figured out what causes it. Swimming really activates the core muscles, which does constrict all the lower internal organs. I figure it is just squeezing me like a tube of toothpaste. Fortunately, on race day I will have been on a very low fiber diet for at least 24 hours preceding the starting gun, there will be nothing in there to squeeze out. Oh, the weirdo dilemmas of an ultra-endurance athlete. On that subject, I actually chuckle over the fact that one beauty of riding the same training course on the bike is that I know where all the good places to go to the bathroom are. It is a fact of life. So, there is one of the down and dirty elements of spending hours and hours of training.
    As I have lamented all summer long, my running is still not where I would wish it to be. My knees just will not handle the amount of miles I would like to do. But I can easily run 6+ miles, and can run after a long bike ride, so I know I can run the distance I need to come race day. Yeah, it will be tough. And yeah, it's really gonna hurt the day after. But, I know I can gut it out and do the run. Even if I have to do a run/walk system, I know I can do it.
    Today, as I was hammering through my abbreviated, recovery weekend ride, I was thinking just how far I have come since last summer. I have doubled my swim and bike distances. I am running consistently 4 days a week, and have been for quite some time. I am actually getting so that I enjoy my 6am, pre-work runs. I am in the best shape of my life. I feel great. My training regime has given me swimmer's shoulders, a runner's butt, and cyclist's legs. I have hit my race-weight goal of 155 without even trying, which is a solid 10 pounds lighter than I was at last summer when I did my 70.3. I have managed to stay very consistent with my training and nutrition, I haven't broken training all summer long. Now, here it is, the final countdown, I just have to stay the course. This week begins my Peak Period, upping the ante just a bit, but factoring in more rest. Then, finally, Race Week. It is exciting, but I need to stay focused. Swim smart. Bike strong. Run tough.

Pre-Race Anxiety

    Gads, life has been so busy I barely have time to eat, much less sit down and write. Today I have been having some serious anxiety about my ability to finish the bike leg of my impending race before the time cutoff of 7pm. It has been a niggling concern since the moment I knew of the time limit. I actually emailed the event coordinator, expressing my concerns. "Oh, don't worry, no one has missed the cutoff." Gee, no pressure there. There is always a first. Along the way I have told myself that all I can do is ride my best, and if I don't make it, it won't be from lack of trying.
    But today, for some reason, I have been feeling the stress. It has raised it's ugly head and glared at me with red, beady eyes. It has taken me nearly all day to calm my fears. I remind myself that I can swim the distance, bike the distance, and run the distance. I know I can. Last saturday I rode 101 miles and my legs felt great. Okay, my hands and feet were aching by hour 6, but pain and discomfort are just part of the game. I know that I have trained as hard as I can without crossing the line into potential damage. I have trained to the edge of what my poor joints can withstand if I am to get to the start line healthy and whole. I am training more than 20 hours a week at this point, with saturday being a nearly all day affair as I cycle for hours and hours. I know the actual day of the race I will push myself harder than I have in training, that is to be expected. I have trained. I have made nutrition truly the Fourth Discipline. The only area that I have not been as diligent in is sleep, I am always just a little sleep deprived. I am at the slimmest and fittest I have been in my adult life.
    So here is where my head is now: All I can do on race day is to race to the best of my ability at any given moment. There will be good moments and bad moments, and all anyone can do is take each moment and make the best of it. If I don't make the bike cutoff, there is always next year. Yes, I would be disappointed, but this really has been far more about the journey, physical and mental, than about the actual destination. I love the training that I do, enjoy finding my boundaries and pushing against them. I have done the best I can to train my body to Swim Smart, Bike Strong, and Run Tough. Just over a month and I will toe the line and truly test my mettle.

Sleep. Eat. Train. Eat. Work. Eat. Train. Eat. Sleep.

    Sleep. Eat. Train. Eat. Work. Eat. Train. Eat. Sleep. The current story of my life. If friends and family thought I had dropped off the face of the earth before, now they will likely think I have disappeared from the universe. I have reached the point where my life revolves around training. Each meal is either in preparation for training, or recovery from training. I am getting to work early so I can run the paths around Gladstone before work, to beat the heat but also because I have no good areas for running just outside my front door. I am aiming for five runs a week, with one run being a short transition run after cycling. My running is improving nicely, although my knees don't want me running more than five miles a day.
    I am swimming The Cove again, and aiming for two open water and one pool swim a week. I had forgotten how much more fatiguing open water can be. There is the emotional factor, that slight tinge of fear and excitement that adds to the exhaustion. There is also that little bit of resistance from the wetsuit to the forward part of my stroke, not a big deal if I only had to do it a few hundred times, but after 2000 or so strokes it starts to wear down my shoulders.
    Cycling is what is taking the most time. "Cycling is a blue collar sport, you have to put in the miles." No shit. Right now I am aiming for one long ride a week, five or more hours, about 70 plus miles, and then two or three indoor sessions of steady state spinning for two or three hours at a shot. It is time consuming. My ride yesterday was cut short when a 30 minute pre-ride bike fix took closer to 2-1/2 hours, so I got out the door late. Then a flat tire at the 40 mile mark, on my way back towards home on what would have been the first lap of a long ride, made me opt to cut the ride short since I had plans for sushi with a friend (and c'mon, sushi is a perfect recovery and carb-load meal). The real reason was that I don't like to be far from home with no spare tube. So today I will be going long, with two spare tubes, and a system jacked up on sushi.
    Life has a way of interfering with my training plans. Last weekend my long ride was preempted when I got paged out at 4:30 am to go out on a fire. Yes, it was epic to break open a door and crawl through the building hauling a hose, find the fire and get to "put the wet stuff on the red stuff." But five hours later, when I finally got home, I was starving, dehydrated, and tired. A big meal and a three hour nap restored me somewhat, but I was sure how my endurance would be out on the road. I didn't want to be 30 miles from home and totally gas out, so I opted for a solid three hours of strong spinning at home. My endurance ended up being fine, but damn, I lost four pounds that day.
    That is another factor; maintaining my weight. A day or so of not eating a lot of nutrient dense calories and my weight drops. I weighed in at 152 pounds monday morning, which is too light right now. I know [art of it was dehydration, but not all of it. I won't mind stepping up to the starting line at 152, but I don't want to be there now. I almost hate to admit that I had to add daily doses of peanut butter dipped in dark chocolate chips to get my weight back up to 156.
    And now, speaking of cycling being a blue collar sport, I need to get out the door to get miles in during the cool of the morning instead of cycling during the heat of the day. Okay, I will still be cycling in the heat of the day, but at least the first hour or two will be cooler.

I Did It

    I did it. I actually did it. I have officially entered the Epic 250K. The countdown is on, 9 weeks. NINE WEEKS!! Holymotherofallthegods. Just thinking about it makes me just a little queasy. I admit, when I hit the "submit" button for my registration and payment my hand was trembling just a little bit. Okay, more than a little. This is a huge step. Yes, I could still walk away from it all and be out my $321 entry fee. Or I could bail partway through and get a DNF (did not finish). But in all honesty, I don't plan on either of those as being options, especially the idea of not even starting. True, there are a lot of things that can go wrong between now and then, and between the start of the event and the finish line. More than a few athletes have been stopped in their tracks by injury or illness, or equipment malfunction, or crashing on the course, or.. or.. or... The list is actually quite endless. The same could be said for life in general, you really never know when the gig is up, when fate may throw you a whammy. So I will continue to train just as I have been, no more or less committed than before. Now the only difference is that there is money on the line. And after all it's only money. Time to train.

So Much To Do

    I have had a few doubts about my ability to do the challenge I have set before me. It is hard to devote so much time and energy to something that I know will be long, painful, and exhausting in the extreme. But at the same time, I am really digging the difficulty and challenge of it all. I do think I have more than a little trace of masochism running through my veins. Yesterday I set out on my long ride of the week. I set my sights on 70 miles, which is what I had planned on doing last week, but maps lied and my right knee was being bitchy. I know how many miles it is from Mulino through Oregon City to Canby so I decided to add distance to that route. It is a favorite route of mine, I love hill climbing much more than the tedium of cranking a decent cadence in a high gear on endless sections of asphalt. I started from my house and headed across country roads instead of heading straight north on highway 213, thus avoiding log trucks, dump trucks and semis on narrow road with no shoulder. True, I was on narrow roads with no shoulders, but far less traffic. The only close shave I had was grinding uphill on a blind S-curve when a truck hauling a flatbed with a tractor and disc came up behind me. He was careful though, and missed me by several feet. I watched the flashing "Wide Load" sign disappear around the curve with no damage to me except for a slightly elevated heart rate.
The ride was great. My legs felt fabulous. Once in a while my left knee would start whining but I would tell it, "None of that," and it stopped. The main discomfort I had was in my hands and wrists, which has galvanized my desire to install the ergo bars I bought a few months back. I need a different stem to mount them, so this week I will make a trip to a bike shop for a stem, handlebar tape, and maybe some gel gloves. The other problem I am having is with my feet, they really start to hurt after a bit. I did manage to lengthen my confort zone considerably with the addition of some $3 gel insoles that only pad the ball of the foot. I was 65 miles into teh ride before I got seriously uncomfortable. This has made me decide I need the next size up in shoes, so I am on the hunt. Sadly, add the word "triathlon" to any pair of Shimano cycling shoes and the price nearly doubles. Damn it anyway.
    I have a list of necessary gear that must be bought soon: stem, handlebar tape, gel gloves, cycling shoes, running shoes, socks, racing tires. Not a long list, and not particularly expensive, but I am the budget triathlete, every penny counts.
   High on the list of expenditures is a bike tune-up. I need to have this done so I am not wasting valuable energy fighting against my beloved bike. I don't know if I am losing watts to a mucked up crank, or goobered wheel bearings, but I can't afford to waste any energy. The downside, I can't afford to have any time away from my bike, and I imagine that I will have to leave him with a mechanic for a several days at the very least, and that just isn't acceptable. This will be a question for the bike shop when I go in for my stem.
    It is getting down to the wire, just over two months remaining until my day of judgement, and there is so much to think over, get taken care of, and spend money on. I get little twitchy attacks of nerves now and then at the enormity of it all. I wish I had a manager to handle all the details so I could just focus on the training. While I am wishing, I wish I had a coach, a masseuse, a cook, and a housekeeper. And while I'm at it, a sponsor, so I could take 6 months off to train with no other distractions. Oh well, I have no one but me, so I need to just keep forging ahead.

Enjoy The Journey.

    Slowly building my time and distance, but it isn't easy. My body rebels against me, and I don't blame it. My current workout schedule is a bit neurotic, as it must be at this point: Swim 3 times per week, run 5 times per week, cycle 4 to 6 time per week, strength training and core work twice a week. That is, let's see... 14+ workouts a week, and about 20+ hours a week. Damn. But I am making it work. I am swimming 2 miles on the nights I do technique drills, and 2-1/2 miles on my straight up distance swim. I am running after every swim session, not far, about 3-1/2 miles, as well as running after every cycling session. When I run after my long bike I only run for 10 to 20 minutes, not wanting to abuse my body too much. I want to be boosting my cycling time more, right now my long rides are just under 4 hours and about 55 miles, mostly hills. Today I had mapped out a 78 mile ride, but Mapquest lied, it was only 50 miles. It was probably for the best, as my right knee decided to start giving me grief at about mile 45. If the knee seems okay tomorrow I will try to get in another longer ride, maybe 3 hours or so. I have got to get my miles up! I had told myself I needed to be able to do 100 miles with relative comfort by mid to late July. I am running out of time. I will be disappointed if I can't manage to get my body to cooperate for this race, I have invested a lot of time and energy. Don't get me wrong, I love the investment of both time and energy, but I will feel like I failed. Like I didn't train hard enough, or push myself far enough.
    But you know, as I train I can't help but think how much I am enjoying this journey. Yes, it is difficult. Yes, I am pushing myself further and harder than I thought imaginable. In the process I have discovered just how motivated I am, even if it does border on the compulsive. I am tired all the time, but it is a well earned fatigue. I wake in the night and my muscles feel hot, nearly burning, but it is not an unpleasant sensation. It is as if my muscles are regenerating, and glowing with the effort. I love that I train alone, with little distraction. This is all on me, there is no one else to factor in, either as a support network, or as an unknown element that might derail me. I love the solitude, the time spent inside my own head as my body toils and sweats. I count cadence; swim stroke, run pace, pedal speed. The counting, the metered rhythm, is soothing, peaceful, calming. There is a Zen to all of it, it is my meditation. I don't wear headphones when I run or bike, I don't want the distraction of music, instead I listen to my body. I hear what it has to say, we interchange information on speed, tempo, rhythm, breathing. I feel my heart and lungs working in harmony. I truly am enjoying this journey, no matter what the end result.