Timberman 2005

The Timberman Half Ironman
August 21, 2005 -- Belmont, New Hampshire

1.2 Mile Swim, 56 Mile Bike, 13.1 Mile Run.

http://www.timbermantri.com

Typical New England weather on my "A" race makes for a wild day.

Originally Published to TRI-DRS on August 26. 2005.

The plan was perfect. An entire season of solid work and patience, perseverance, and above all else, consistency, ready to be tested in one final exam. Not an Ironman this time, but the half-distance: More of the pain, but half of the time. When I signed up in November of 2004 I knew that Timberman would be my "A" race for 2005. Everything else that came before it would be rehearsal - a chance to make sure every detail was checked, every bolt was tight, and that mentally my head was as screwed on straight as I could make it (at least, as much as an empty head can be held fast).

My final tune-up at Wilkes-Barre two weeks prior landed me at the awards ceremony, as I won the Clydesdale Division in a race I hadn't even tapered for. With rest and time, I was sure to be ready - sure to be fast.

You know what's great about plans? They all look so neat. So tidy. So utterly perfect on paper. Nothing ever goes wrong on paper - when it does, you back up, edit, fix, and tweak it. You make it right. Yet somehow, life is more than a plan. Life doesn't follow plans. Life often goes out of its way to make sure it avoids plans, because a plan is man's way of taking something the size of the universe - something gloriously complex and utterly unmanageable - and trying to make it all fit through an opening the size of a pinhole.

I didn't have a plan for Wilkes-Barre. I had fun. I won.

I had a plan for Timberman. I hoped to win again.

Then came the drive up on Friday. In the rain. All day. The drive should have taken 6 hours. Instead, it took nearly 10. By the time I'd arrived in New Hampshire on Friday night I was a strung-out mess from sitting on someone's bumper from the Connecticut/NY State Line to Massachusetts. My right knee was swollen from the nonstop brake-go-brake rhumba, and everything hurt. At least I was finally there. I could sleep. I could relax.

It's a good thing it rained all night. That was soothing.

Saturday was the usual shambles of checking the bike, packing the gear bag, and checking the window. Repeatedly. I would have obsessively checked The Weather Channel, but there was no need - the rain just kept coming, and coming, and coming, and wherever there was a window, I could see it. I tried to roll with it - I told myself that if it rained all day, the system might work its way through by morning, right? Right? Sure.

When the weatherman said on the local news that night, "We've gone all summer without three days of rain in a row, until now! Tomorrow morning this mess will continue - heavy downpours through the morning, but the sun comes out by 1:00PM for a great afternoon..."

I realized I was sliding towards the edge of The Cliffs of Despair, again. It's happened to me before - things just start to look grim, and mentally I check out and cave in before I've even gotten to the start line. I knew I had to fight it, that I'd worked too hard all summer to let what MIGHT happen wreck me before I had a chance to even see the day begin.

It wasn't easy. I'm not very good at calming myself down. Never have been. I needed a hug. Or a slap across the face. Maybe both.

"Oh, my God. It's going to happen again. I've seen this setup before. Lake Placid, 2003." I had that feeling - that nothing was going right, and I was a passenger. I could see it all in my head - the grey skies, the endless rain, the grime, the cold, wet, never-drying chamois...and I hated it. I didn't WANT to feel that again. Why would anyone WANT to race in those conditions, again?

"It's not supposed to be this way!"

Even as I thought it, I knew damn well that things were exactly as they were supposed to be - as they always are. Just because they didn't line up perfectly to my pre-ordained mental image of the perfect race day didn't mean the day wasn't unfolding exactly as it should; I just didn't like it.

As I laid in bed that night listening to the rain pound down on the roof of the cabin, I could feel my heart beating in my chest - big, anxious thumps. I knew I was coming to a crossroads in my season - I had a choice to make: I could stay miserable and throw everything away that I'd done all summer because I was too scared to deal, or I could turn around and do something I'd never been able to do in 15 years of racing - I could just shut up, show up, and take it like everyone else.

At 10:45PM after an hour of staring at into the darkness I jumped up, grabbed my laptop, and wrote out the following to the TRI-DRS mail list:

"It is the night before the biggest race of my season. I cannot sleep.

My old foe in Mother Nature has come back to me once again, and has me right in her sights...along with 1500 others who wanted to test themselves on the Timberman course tomorrow. I have done my best to avoid the fear, but I have failed. As the last day sleeps before the sunrise that matters, I do not.

I fear.

I fear the cold. I fear the wet. I fear that tomorrow will be another mental collapse like that which all but destroyed in 2003 at Lake Placid. I fear that I cannot take what waits for me, and will fail again in a race I hold as my final test of this season.

But I do not WANT to fail. I have worked too hard - I have come too far, to fail. Tomorrow will come down to a simple question I will have to ask myself: How badly do you want it?

How badly do you want to finish strongly? How badly do you want to put the past where it belongs - behind you? How badly do you want to remember this season as one where you got it right, and not one where you let some clouds and rain ruin 8 months of work? How much are you willing to reach beyond what you've known? How much have you got?

I do not want to fail.

Tomorrow is not the day my year ends on a suffering, beaten note. I won't let it. Tomorrow will not be Lake Placid. Tomorrow will not be what my fears are trying to make it out to be. Tomorrow I will have the best race of my season. Tomorrow I will have the best race of my life.

I do not want to fail.

The rain may fall. The sun may never be seen. I will not fail.

Tomorrow is not a day where Mother Nature beats me. Tomorrow is a day where she gives me a chance to put my darkest day behind me. Tomorrow is another chance to put it right. Tomorrow is a chance to prove my fears are just that - fear. Tomorrow is a day to shine, even as the sun does not. It's not supposed to be easy. A hard day will just make it that much more special when it goes right.

I will not fail. Tomorrow will be the best race I've ever had.

Let the rain fall. This time, I'll shine.

This time, I will not fear."

I closed the laptop. I went back to bed. I did not go back to sleep. If I did sleep, I don't remember it. I probably had my eyes closed for about 3 hours, tops. The rain and my nerves were enough to keep my mind from ever slowing down enough to let sleep grant me a bit of mercy...but that was okay. I knew the 'night before' sleep didn't matter much anyway.

At 3:59AM I rolled over, turned off the alarm clock before it went off, and stumbled into the kitchen as the rain continued to tap, tap, tap, tap the ceiling. Over my first cup of coffee I turned on The Weather Channel long enough to see lots and lots of green over New England, and to know that I'd better be ready to back up what I'd typed - Mother Nature was listening and was ready for a fight. Again.

I drove to Gunstock Mountain in the dark, and walked through the rain to the athlete's shuttle bus. As usual there were less than 10 cars there when I arrived, and somewhere I could feel Eric Weiss shaking his head at another of my patented early arrivals. It rained all the way to the park. It rained while I got body marked. It rained while I checked my wheels. It rained while I put all of my transition gear into the plastic bag someone had loaned me the night before to cover Apollo.

Then it stopped.

I looked up.

Then it started again.

Sonsab*tches.

After getting everything ready I managed to meet up with John Austin, Stephen Dragoni, and Elizabeth Lambert while walking around the transition area, trying hard not to be too nervous. I'm pretty sure Liz took a picture of Stephen and I, and I'd be willing to bet my eyes are pretty wide-open. When I saw Pam Zawada (who was acting as Head Referee for the day), she looked at me and said, "No wonder the weather is crazy - you're here!"

Ah, it's good to be loved.

Here's the picture mentioned above - this is with about 20 minutes to go pre-race. I don't look as scared as I remember feeling here! Photo credit - Elizabeth Lambert.

But then a weird thing happened - it stopped. Before the first wave of the day went off, the rain slowly stopped. I went for my warmup swim, and as I walked through the shallows back to the beach, the first little hint of blue appeared between the clouds above. Of course, I didn't believe it for a second. I had a long day ahead of me, and I knew I was in New England - a place where all the locals claim, "If you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes."

For the first time in my racing career I'd be starting in the last wave - 11 of 11 at Timberman. That meant after the fanfare of the National Anthems (O Canada and the Star Spangled Banner), after getting amped for the first group to set sail? I'd have to sit back down for over an hour. Once again I met up with Liz and Stephen, and we just found a picnic table to hang out and watch the race slowly getting underway.

I had enough time to swim a second warmup then head to a little green box for one more pre-race pitstop; I also learned just how incredibly hard it is to pull a Sugoi racing suit back up over wet skin when the dewpoint is like 80F. I seem to recall coming out of the box with the groin of my suit wedged definitively between my knees, totally unable to get the thing back upwards without a lot of hopping, grunting, and tugging...but at least I was still warmed up and loose.

When the time finally came to walk in and prepare to go, I felt like I'd been out there for days. It had been 4 hours since my wakeup, and 2.5 hours since I'd arrived at the park - too long. Sure enough when the starter finally yelled, "GO!" and I took my first pulls, I knew right away that I was in trouble. At Wilkes-Barre the Rush song, "Distant Early Warning" started playing in my mind when the race took off - this time it was not that song.

It was worse. Don't know how she got in there, but Cher was bellowing at me about believing. Ye Gods.

As I tried to escape from Cher, my arms felt like complete mud: Heavy, dead, lifeless. Each pull felt like I was swimming with a brick on my arm - this was no time to have my body going to sleep on me! However, I was so worried about how slowly I was swimming that Cher mercifully bolted for the exits before I put the bricks on my arms to good use. I just switched to survival mode right away - long, slow pulls, lots of gliding, and the hope that in a few hundred yards my body would warm back up and feel okay.

It was all I could do.

After about 20 minutes of relatively contact-free swimming, I knew that there would be no recovery during the swim - I was still feeling really bad; completely dead. I took breast-stroke breaks to try and give my arms a moment of change, but it never helped - all the way to the beach I just kept on plugging away trying to put the swim behind me, gracelessly. "This will be my worst swim, ever. Forty minutes, plus. Has to be." I was bummed, but at least I could see more and more space between the clouds as I took my breaths. The ride might be a dry one - hey! There's that to look forward to, right?

The last 100 yards of the swim are shallow and over a very rocky approach - baseball size rocks, tough to walk on. Dave Decker warned me about them, so I stayed low and kept on swimming. As people stood around me and tip-toed gingerly towards the arch, I crawled along in 20" of water, passing them left and right while they looked down at this 200 pound guy in a purple cap just nonchalantly cruising in...picking up positions with perfectly absurd ease.

When my face hit the beach (literally - ploof), I stood up and headed for the bike, pausing of course to wave to the photographers on my way past. Amazingly, my swim was a 32:15 - 208th out of 1199. I don't know how. When I got to the bike racks there were still plenty of bikes waiting, so feeling a little better about things I got the shoes on, loaded the pockets, and urgently plodded my way to the Bike Start.

Once I got rolling, it took about 100 yards to get completely covered in spray from the not-quite-dry-yet roads. The sun hadn't really come out yet, so I got ready for the ride to be a wet one for awhile even if the rain wasn't coming down anymore. At least the initial grind out of the park was mostly (if not nearly) upwards, so there was plenty of time to generate some heat in the body and mentally gear up for the joys of clammy chamois.

"If I'm wet, everyone is wet. I'll just be faster."

Starting in the final wave presented a new issue for me, but one that I've seen written about on the list before: With the entire world strung out on the road before me, I'd have plenty of wheels to chase and pass...and plenty of people all over the road to avoid. For the most part the ride up through the end of the field was very clean, until we got to the first steep grade of the day headed up Marsh Hill, or, "The Marsh Hill Monstah."

There was a group of people riding 2-across on the grade, nobody passing at all. I was coming up about 4mph quicker as we approached the steepest pitch, and I didn't want to check up at all or cross the centerline. There was juuuuuust enough room to the left of the group...when some guy on a Yellow/Orange Cannondale zigged across and filled the gap just as I got there.

I didn't lift - I hoped if he was moving I could just follow him through, but no. That would have been to easy - instead, he stopped. Died. Ran out of leg as soon as he got there. Now I HAD to check up, kiss my momentum goodbye, and STILL this guy lagged there riding now THREE-across. One-Mississippi. Two-Mississippi. Three-Mississippi. Four-Mississippi. At Five-Mississippi, my patience ran out.

"C'mon, guy! Finish the pass or get out of the lane! PLEASE!" I begged. Instantly, Cannondale-dude lost his cool. "WHAT'S YOUR F%$#ING HURRY, MAN!? JESUS!" I love that question. In the middle of a race someone wants to know why I'm in a hurry? I didn't have time to explain. I spoke like a proper, polite Sicilian as I rolled past.

"My friend, it's a race. We should all be in a hurry. I can't pass you without crossing the centerline. That would be a DQ, and would ruin my day. So please. With sugar on top. Move over. Thanks." There was no reply, so hopefully Cannondale man wasn't too tweaked with my urgency to get by. As I descended the Monstah, the spray was still coming off both wheels pretty well. When I spotted the volunteer gently waving his flag at the bottom, I braked early for the right-hander...and NOTHING happened. My left lever went to the bars, and Apollo didn't so much as even hint at slowing down.

For one awful second I thought, "Downhill, 40mph, no brakes. I'm so VSF. If I go straight and miss the volunteer, I bet I can hit those weeds there - I bet there's pine needles on the ground..."

(VSF = Very Severely F*&%$ed)

I had no brakes on the front wheel! I slowly pulled the rears in, and managed to drag them enough without locking the rear on the wet pavement...taking the corner without any real trouble (other than the metallic taste in my mouth from the adrenaline hangover I was going to work through for the next 3 minutes).

As I rolled along in the aerobars I could see what had happened - my barrel adjuster had been knocked open by one click (1999 Chorus calipers have two quick-releases, one on the lever, and a 'clickable' mechanism on the barrel adjuster), and was stuck in the open position. I reached down and tried to click it back, but it was stuck there. I still don't know how it happened - when I'd test ridden around transition the day before everything was right, so how in the world did it get opened? It didn't really matter now - I knew that I would just have to brake a little earlier and a LOT harder on the rear wheel for the rest of the ride.

After the early drama, things settled down pretty quickly. For the next 15 miles I was passing, passing, passing, trying to find my legs from Wilkes-Barre. Trying to find that speed which came easily and just flowed as the road passed below me, eyes blurred looking farther and farther for the next target.

Unfortunately on this day, much like the swim, nothing felt right. My legs were there, but the 'snap' was gone. I was running out of gears far too easily on some of the false flats, and flirting with cross-chaining by riding in my 53 x 21 when it should have been 53 x 19. Maybe it was the cool air? In some places on the course we rode into fog (of all things), and it was the first time I'd been cold on a bike months. The air temps were in the upper 60's - nearly 30 degrees cooler than what I'd been training in for two months. I had to laugh at that.

"Train in the cold, run Boston in the heat. Train in the heat, race Timberman in the cold. What is it that New England has against me?" I shook it off - I had work to do. "If I'm cold, so is everyone else. Just be faster than them."

Head down and turning over the gears I stuck to my plan - Gatorade on the bike, Pringles at the turn-around, Carb-Boom gels twice on the way back. Without a watch or bike computer, I was blissfully ignorant as to how the day was going (for better or worse). Most of the time in my races this is a good thing. Time becomes elastic; it means nothing. I focus on the moment I'm in, and not where I've got to go or where I've been. However, on this day, I just felt like I was on a road that would never end. That feeling of deadness from the swim was still wrapped around my entire body - I couldn't shake it. Each time I thought I'd be at one mile marker I'd see another one - usually 5 miles short of my mental roadmap. For whatever reason my entire body was out of synch, out of sorts, and never in any kind of rhythm. Kind of like Menudo used to be.

I just kept on pedaling - it had to get better, right? "So what if the race has been a continuous 50-mile bad patch so far - if I keep moving, it'll get better. There's still the run, right?" Now I KNEW I was in bizzaro-world. I actually caught myself getting psyched to run. In my world, that's like getting psyched to go to a meeting. Weird, but I had to roll with it.

Even though my legs were elsewhere on the day, at least my wheels were staying beneath me. I counted an unbelievable 22 flats along the way. People were grouped, sometimes 3-4 at a time, changing tubes. I'd never seen anything like it - it was like the road was just cutting tires to ribbons along the way. There were people within the last 3 miles getting dinged - argh! I would have ridden in and killed the insolent tire had that happened to me.

As I rolled towards T2, the sun was FINALLY starting to come out, completely and unreservedly. The roads were dry, the skies were clear, and it was then that I thought, "What a shame I didn't pack a hat for this run, or put on sunscreen. I mean, it was going to rain all day, right?" As I entered the no-passing zone for the last 1/4 mile into the park, everyone around me held position (amazingly), and we took the hard left turn back into Ellacoya State Park.

At the dismount, I was sure my ride had been close to three hours. Much like the swim, I just felt like I'd been out there for days, and was very thankful to not have a watch to give me the bad news.

Bike Split - 2:45:35, 20.3 MPH. My slowest ½ IM bike split in 19 races of the distance. 279th of 1199, still.

I took my time in T2 to change the shoes, grab the Pringles, stop at the little green box (hydrated - check!), and make my way across the timing mats to get the party started. It was now a gorgeous, sunny day for a run along the lakeshore - what was there not to smile about? As I passed the finish line clock, I saw the time was up to 4:14. I figured that I'd started about an hour behind the pro wave, which put my race time at maybe 3:14 or so? If I could run a 2:00 half marathon, I might be able to salvage a 5:15 finish. Hey - that's almost decent. The Clydesdale win was probably miles up the road by now, so making sure I finished strongly was all I could aim for.

Ding! New goal. Sunny day. Pocket full of Pringles. AND, the TRI-DRS dogtags. The dogtags have traveled the world; they've been to Kona, Baghdad, Alaska, Nice, and now they were racing with me. I gave them a little squeeze in my back pocket to make sure they were staying put under everything else, and reminded myself that I was running with a little extra help.

The run out of T2 at Timberman is N-A-S-T-Y, my name ain't baby, it's Janet, Ms. Jackson if you're nasty, NASTY. On top of rubber legs from the bike, you just plow straight up the steep pitch of the lakeshore road, gaining altitude with every single step. At least the view was nice - at mile 1 there was a big arrow spray-chalked on the road that said, "VIEW —--->."

That was smart, since everyone running there was probably looking straight down just like I was. When I followed the arrow I could see across Lake Winnipesaukee; a gorgeous, never-ending vista of blue water, blue skies, and boats zipping back and forth. it looked so cool, so tranquil, so peaceful. It also looked about 100 degrees cooler than I felt, for the sun was now turning all of us into adobe sculptures after the wet roads of the morning had done their thing during the bike.

I watched the pro's coming back down the hill towards the finish, making it look easy. Somehow I missed Steve Smith in there (sorry Steve!), but caught a glimpse of Susan Williams running 6-somethings downhill, simply FLYING. I kept reminding myself that they'd all had an hour headstart...but still, it was hard. I had 11 miles plus to go, and they were almost done. Argh.

At the first aid station I grabbed for a cup of Gatorade, or what I thought was Gatorade, and got HEED instead. I'd never tried HEED. When I took a gulp, I learned that my body does not like HEED. I reached for whatever the next volunteer was offering, and it was Pepsi. Whahoo! "No Coke, Pepsi!" I sang as I showed my years, and chugged down the instant sugar hit. Rather than worrying about going to desperate measures so early, I felt good about it. "My race hasn't been that great, so go for it. Pepsi the rest of the way - take it out hard, and die like a man, Mina!"

I kept the power on the best that I could. From one station to the next, from one Pepsi shot to the next, I carried on. No walking, no slowing. I had no idea what pace I was running, but I felt better with each mile. I started moving up at the first turnaround, actually settling into what felt like a strong run (for me). It felt great, and it was totally WEIRD. I knew I'd passed through the looking glass now - I was weak on the bike and feeling strong on the run? WTF?

"Shut up and run, Mina! So what if you don't know what you're doing - fake it!" I tried to keep my head on straight and just stay in the moment. Things were going well for me where I usually struggled - I never expected that! Considering how this day had been, who knew how long it would last.

Somewhere on one of the long grinds, a fellow ahead of me just went "Urgh..." and started walking. I tried to cheer him up. "Hang in there, man! It's just a flat road that goes up!" "Yeah," he replied, "But it's still up." I carried on, "True, but you'll come down in later. Just think of it as investing in your finish!"

He turned around, and I smiled up the road. "Hey, I know it's B.S. I'm trying to convince myself here, too, you know?"

It must have been the "B.S." line, but the guy tilted his head as he looked at me and asked, "You're not Hurricane Bob, are you?" That was it! My day was complete. One sighting per race is all I ask, and now I'd had it! I put my hands together and bowed his way, "In the flesh, sir. Nice to meet you! Now you know I don't just write the ramble - I ramble out here, too."

We ran together for a bit - turns out he's from Bethlehem, PA and knew Dave Decker. It's amazing to me that I can be 400 miles from home, but still meet someone who knows Dave. Then again, who doesn't know Dave Decker? He's like triathlon's version of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

I kept plowing onwards, taking the run one section at a time. As I learned, the run course at Timberman is easy to split into chapters - it's four sections, 3.25 miles each. You're never more than a few miles from a turnaround, so even though it's still 13.1 miles I just found it easy to take on one section at a time. I kept taking Pepsi at every chance (knowing it might run out being back where I was in the race), and just moving on the best I could at every moment.

When I rounded the stadium section to complete lap one (you enter this awesome little looping section that takes you through the finish area - it felt very Placid-esque), I tried to spot the clock to see how I'd done, but I never could find it. I headed back up the endless grind to start lap 2 pretty much unaware how things had gone, but I felt GOOD. I had 6.5 miles to go, and was feeling better with every mile.

I gave the dogtags a squeeze again and thought, "C'mon guys - keep on pushing me."

By now all of the fast people were done, and I was the one moving up through people just starting their first loop. Even though it was total illusion, it felt great to be passing people late in the run. I did my best to cheer on people walking ("Hang in there, man - everybody walks..."), and keep the energy flowing. It was getting really warm now, but it still wasn't anywhere close to the 100F+ days I'd spent running at noon around my shadeless corporate center.

All those runs in stupid weather. All those days flirting with heat stroke. THIS was why I'd done that. People were cramping around me - fighting the sudden upward swing in temperature, but there I was plowing along, knowing that today was still about 20 degrees cooler than I'd trained for. My body could take it - finally! A plan that worked!

I was having a great run, and enjoying every step. As I powered up the final grade around the 11-mile mark, everyone ahead of me was walking, but I refused. I had made it the entire way without breaking for so much as a stride of relief, and wasn't going to give it up now. Head down, I groveled, shuffled, grunted, huffed, puffed, and got over the top...into the sunshine, right fist in the air. "Whoo!" 2 miles to go, mostly downhill.

It sounds sick, but I enjoyed those last two miles. I always love the last mile of a long-course race; you work so hard to get there, and the moment rushes by so quickly sometimes. I took my time to look over the lake, to thank the volunteers, to try and think about all I'd experienced on the day.

The fear, the dread, the slow swim, the cold, wet bike, the change in weather, the change in mood, the change in my race. This race was only 70.3 miles, but I'd been all over the map in terms of how I felt, where I'd been, and how I'd gotten to where I was: Running hard, running strong, running to bring down the curtain on my year...now with one mile to go.

Soaring over Lake Winnipesaukee, knowing that soon I'd be there soaking my body in cold water...thinking about dinner...thinking that sometimes it has nothing to do with the plan, the clock, or the place. We race for the feelings. How it feels to finish. How it feels to have a great day. How it feels when you're standing there just after the line, finally having stopped, letting the relief baptize the doubts away, again.

As I plunged down the hill that had tried to beat me twice today, I reached back into my pocket and pulled out the dogtags. I wrapped the chain around my right hand, and held them tight. "Finish time - gotta' get them in the picture!" As I approached the park four women stood off to the right, clapping for all the runners coming in. Imagine my surprise when out of nowhere one of them asked, "Bob Mina?"

"Yes ma'am!" I nearly saluted...

Turns out it was Tania Larkin, Beth Blake, Robin Cain, and Liz Lambert from the list! Tania had told me to watch for her group, but I'd completely forgotten about them until right then, when they all just gave me the BEST cheer I'd heard all day. It was really great! As I rumbled down towards the big banner that read, "TO FINISH" I just let the whooping and clapping push me all the way there.

As I turned onto the grass the last 200 yards of a long, long day were there before me, perfectly straight, barricaded off like an Olympic marathon finish line, draped with flags the entire way. As I got ready to really soak in all in, I heard the footsteps. AUGH! A sprint? NOW?! I had to do it - I hate being passed at the end! I picked it up - I got ready to fight, when I suddenly heard a gasp from behind...

"SON! You're not in my AGE GROUP! PLEASE!" Son? Uh, oh. I pulled over, and waved the gentleman past. "Enjoy your finish, sir!" As I backed off to give him some space and a good picture, I glanced at the age on his calf.

63.

Wow.

After getting my doors somewhat unhinged with that pass, the last 100 yards were all mine. I was SURE I'd had a great run - I was so proud of myself! I'd fought through the day just like I'd hoped, and sealed the deal with a sub-2 run split. It HAD to be a 1:5x-something, I knew it! I crossed the line with my arms aloft, dogtags towards the sky, and finally, it was over. A volunteer draped an ice-cold, wet towel across my neck, and I just let the ice water flow down my back and legs while I looked for a chair.

Then I saw the clock. It read 6:25. Wait. What?

Immediately, using both remaining brain cells, the mental math started. "It was 4:14 when I started, right? So I just ran...a...wait. Minus the 60, carry the 4, crap. CRAP! 2:10?! 2:10? 2:10." I couldn't believe it. That's barely a 10-minute per mile pace. As I sat in my chair, towel dripping, it made no sense. "How could I have felt so good, and run so BADLY?"

My official run split was a 2:09:24 (527th out of 1199), for a total finishing time of 5:33:25. I was 9th out of 46 in the Clydesdales, and 344th out of 1199 overall.

Once again, I guessed I was just out of synch on the run, but at least it had felt good. What else could I have done?

As I tried to find out where all that time had gone, I just shook my head, and let it go. I sat there in the shade of the finish area, at peace. Disappointed, sure, but at peace with my effort. Through everything this day had thrown at me, I hadn't given up, I hadn't caved. I never allowed the doubts to be with me for long. When things were wrong, I fought back. When things were right, I went for it. The clock was not going to be kind to me today, but that was alright - as the curtain fell on my triathlon season (and on my pre-baby career!), I knew I had nothing to be ashamed of.

Some days you fly. Some days you don't. So long as you are sincere in your effort, sincere with yourself, and sincere with others out there, there is nothing else you can do.

I made my way down to the lake, and slowly soaked my legs in the shallows of the swim course. I looked up at the now endless blue sky above me, and thanked God for all the years, all the lessons, and all the time I'd been able to race on days like these. Have I really been at this game for ten years?

ife is not a plan - as John Lennon said, "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans." Life was busy doing its thing as I was busy doing mine. More changes were coming on the horizon, and I knew that just like today I'd better be ready to keep changing directions...quickly, and constantly! Maybe that was the last lesson after all?

Who can say? All I knew was that on this day, on this course, I had my plan, and did my best.

And I had not failed.

Hurricane Bob

* Making it up as I go, just like everyone else. *

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