There was nothing I could do about it but tread water and hope it wouldn't hurt as much as my imagination was telling me it would, over and over again. My imagination had lots of fuel for it's fits of frostbite: I'd never seen frost on my bike before, but the white haze on my seat, bars, and wheels wasn't from spilled Quic Disc. After wiggling into my wetsuit for the first time since August 26, 2001 at Ironman Canada (it still fit!), I finally had to step away from my Teva's to make the walk down to the swim start, and as soon as my bare feet touched the ground, a white-hot flash of color leapt across my eyes.

It was like stepping onto something so cold, it was hot. The grass was wet, cold, and what little heat my body had been clinging to was simply sucked through my feet and sent all the way to Australia, while all I could do was take a shocked breath of biting air that offered no warmth...just as 1000 others did in the pre-dawn chill. My feet went numb on the 5 minute walk to the water...which felt refreshingly warm at all of 63 degrees.

It was May 19th, wasn't it? This is Columbia, isn't it? The site of my first triathlon in 1996 in 90 degree heat? Not today, it wasn't.

41 degrees, the RD announced. Air temperature of 41 degrees. "Wear lots of extra clothing on the bike..." Rob Vigorito intoned in a warning I'd never heard before at any triathlon I'd ever raced. This is a summer sport, with summer clothing. This was now, this cold, just plain wrong.

10 seconds. The sun was just peeking over the man-made dam at the end of the lake, blinding the approach. The guy next to me in the front row asked, "Where the hell is the turn?" I replied, "Swim towards the dam. When you crash into it, turn left." I smiled. He smiled.

*BEEEEEEEEEP*

We're off, once again. I'm the lone white cap in a wave of all red caps. Why? I was going to race Clydesdale, but I didn't make the weight (albeit by 1 pound) so I had to play it fair. However, my cap color hadn't been changed even though I'd requested the re-assignment a week previously. No matter - it made it easy for my mother (The Weather Goddess from IM-USA 2000) to find me from shore! Wearing a leather jacket, hat, gloves, sweatshirt, and turtleneck, she said she watched me all the way to the first turn, until the sun-glare became too much to take.

Another familiar friend that had tracking me made easy was none other than Eric Weiss. Who managed to stay on my heels until the long backstretch, reaping the rewards of a good, solid winter of abuse from his Masters Swimming program. He had plans to break 2:30 today on his second attempt at this race, whereas I had no plans at all. I just wanted to get through the day and go home.

My Spring had been one of missed workouts, bad weather, high numbers on the scale, and a decided lack of motivation. Perhaps because I wasn't looking at an Ironman at the end of the summer for the first time since 1998, or perhaps because I'd done nothing but look at IM's at the end of the summer since 1998...I just felt out of sorts. The workouts (when I could get them in) were good, but I was still almost 10 pounds over my weight last year, my energy was nowhere, and I felt like the summer was just coming along too fast for me to be ready. In the back of my mind I kept thinking, "Has my thyroid tanked yet again?", but I knew there could be so much more at work then that.

St. Lynda and I were working on buying our first house, and we were also working on our first baby. While we were batting 1-2, it was still a huge drain on the emotional fuel tank when I'd really expected things to come so much more quickly then they had. As someone who races on emotion (for better or worse), when the going gets rough with life, I just don't have enough to spare for something as simple as swim-bike-run. Who knew what the problem was, or if it was just one thing: The bottom line, I just wanted to have a good day, finish with a smile, and hope for better days ahead.

The swim was smooth and uneventful. I settled into a small group before the second buoy, and stayed with them all the way down the long backstretch in Centennial Lake. I could feel the chill in the air with every stroke, even though the rising sun behind me felt wonderful on my back and legs as it crept higher into the cloudless sky. As I rounded the final buoy to the finish, I knew I was having a good swim. I'd hoped for something under 22, but that wasn't quite to be. I hit shore and clambered out in 22:50, a new personal best for me at the Olympic Distance swim. With a quick glance at the watch I allowed myself a moment of, "Whoo-hoo!", but then headed up the hill to T1 and the real battle of the day. As I ran uphill I heard a familiar voice bellow, "GO BOB!" from about 1/4 mile away. I turned into the sun, waved at my unseen (but completely recognized with that tone) mother, and trotted on. Only 15 seconds back, Eric hit the ramp to also record a personal best for the 1500M, but I would never see him in T1.

As I peeled my wetsuit down around my waist, the air wrapped itself around me like a snake. I could barely get a breath as I jogged up towards my bike, and I could feel my still-wet head going numb with every step. My skin just about jumped off my body and ran back for the lake as I was already beginning to shiver. Once I got to the rack, I fought to get the wetsuit off my ankles. My fingers were numb, and wouldn't curl under the lip on my ankles...which were also already numb.

The net effect of all this numbness was that I spent a good 30 seconds slapping my numb hand all over my ankles while I hopped around like a half-naked seal on ecstasy, while trying not to knock over the entire bike rack. When I finally won the battle and got the thing off, I slipped my shoes on my sockless feet, slithered my arm warmers up my damp arms, grabbed Apollo, and headed up the steep climb to the start of the bike.

I knew the next moment of the race would be as bad as bad gets.

I clipped in, stood up, and began to accelerate out of Centennial Park to Route 108. I was wearing a DeSoto Tri-Top over my TriPower.org skinsuit (A suggestion from John Faith that I heeded before the swim), but both layers were still soaked from the swim. It took less than 5 seconds for the first knives of cold to soak through to my bare skin, and it only got worse with every pedal turn. I put my head down - willing myself to power through the attack of agony, but the harder I went, the colder it got.

I was in a horrible catch-22: To warm up, I had to ride hard. To ride hard meant to ride faster. To ride faster meant the wind-chill against my soaked body would attack even further. There was nothing to do but scream, and I did...all the way down Route 108. Just like John Goodman in "Raising Arizona" when he realizes that they've left the baby in the bank, but colder.

As I went to settle into my aerobars for the first time, I felt a sharp pain on my left arm - my armrest pad was gone! I had double-checked them before leaving for the swim, but somehow it had dropped off on the runout...and now my arm warmer velcro'ed itself down to the hooks sticking up like little barbs. I had no choice but to ride on without it - who knew where it went? I was just glad it was only 41K and not an IM...

Between the pain of the cold and the missing armrest (the net effect of which, now that 1/2" of padding was removed from one bar and not the other rendered my shadow like that of Quasimodo, Triathlete of Notre Dame, while I listed to port the entire way) I didn't know what hurt worse. As I turned right and headed down Homewood Road, I knew that it wasn't ever going to get better today. In years past I'd always felt warmed up by this point...not today. Not even close. I was still frigid to the core, and with a 3/4 mile, 40mph downhill right before me, I just braced for the burn.

The air picked up speed, and the knives went in deeper. My forearms began to shiver uncontrollably, and my glove-less fingers simply disappeared from my hands. As the wind roared through my helmet I stayed in my tuck - I was afraid if I moved I might not be able to control the bike any further, and taking a high-speed header with my mother in attendance was simply unacceptable. As I neared the bottom and the grade lessened a bit, for some reason my mind began to play a song from Moby's "Everything is Wrong" album. A haunting track, with a simple female vocal that repeats over and over..."When it's cold, I'd like to die...when it's cold, I'd like to die..." It was cold, and I was dying.

I soon knew that riding a good split on the clock would be impossible. I kept trying to ride into a good rhythm, but it simply wasn't to be found. My legs were just flat, but it made sense. With a wind-chill now in the 20's to mid 30's as I rode along, my body (and everyone else's body around me) was not going to send the usual race-day supply of blood to the legs, for it was far too busy keeping my heart and lungs from freezing solid and shattering on the next bump.

Despite feeling as if I'd had all the blood and plasma drained from my body and replaced with Folgers crystals, I was passing people from the earlier waves. Those folks had been out there since 6:45am (a full 25 minutes before my 7:10 start), and looked REALLY miserable. I tried to cheer for them when I could read their numbers, just to keep my motivation up. Funny thing how that works - cheer for another, feel better yourself...but I was still just plain, freaking cold at every pedal stroke. I decided to forget about the clock, and to just ride the best I could at each and every moment the rest of the way.

I usually like hills - they give me a chance to use my cycling strength to make a difference against others, and today I REALLY liked hills. Anytime I could work at less than 10mph was a total blessing. The wind would ease up, my HR would climb, and my legs would turn a little less pink for a few seconds. Of course, each up at Columbia is followed by a downhill...and I never really noticed just how much descending there was on this course. While it always seemed to me that Columbia was 41K uphill back to the start, today felt like the opposite - I would be warm for a few seconds, and then I'd spend the next 4 minutes recovering from descending back into hell at 30mph.

Nearing the last 5 miles of the bike, I knew I was having a bad ride...but so was everyone else. I saw John Faith on the back of his officials motor as he waved to me, keeping things clean and legal. The race had been remarkably clean so far - the hills were doing what they always did in keeping the weak from wheelsucking the strong. As I rolled up Homewood Road towards the final big climb, the rider ahead of me drifted from right to left...towards the motor. My roadie instincts kicked in, and I shot for the closing gap between the motor's front wheel and the drifter's rear wheel, accelerating...still firmly velcro'ed to my Syntace's.

Just as I reached the gap, a single cell from my frozen cerebellum cried out, "DON'T PASS THE OFFICIAL ON HIS RIGHT! ARE YOU HIGH?" With an audible "SSHHHWACK" I unstuck myself from the bars, and threw my useless fingers at the binders. Somehow the "ALL STOP!" order managed to make it to my right and left hands at the same time, but since they'd had little to do for the first 20 miles, my fingers possessed the smoothness of a 5 year old that had just polished off an entire 2-Liter of Coca Cola. They gracelessly yanked both brakes to the bars, and as cold pads met cold rims, the squeal of carbon dust and protest made John's head whip around so fast, his helmet took a half-turn to catch up to his eyes, forcing him to look at us with one good eye and one nostril until he could see straight.

My speed dropped from about 30mph to 14, and I just about launched my helmet off my head in the process...but I didn't make the pass. I meant to ask - Charlie, would that have been okay? Or did I interpret the AG rules too much? I would have passed the cyclist ahead to the left, but the official simultaneously to his right. As I sit at my keyboard now, I think I would have been okay. Comments?

I waited a beat, and the motor driver backed off enough to make a gap for me, and away I went. By now I just couldn't wait to get to T2 and start running. Running HAD to be warmer than the bike. Here I was with about 4 miles to go, and I was still cold. I was finally dry (save the obligatory clammy-chamois that never seems to dry in my DeSoto), but I knew that this would go down as the most brutal bike split I'd ridden in a long, long time.

I finished the climb up Homewood Road and headed back to the park on 108, not sure I wanted to look at the watch when I got there. I knew it would depress me...

Left turn, Look, don't look, look down, don't look, look down, look...look.

1:15:00. My worst ever by three minutes, and nearly 9 minutes slower then my best here in 1999.

I was right - I shouldn't have looked.

As I dismounted, my mom was right there to cheer for me again. She asked me, "How are you?" I could only manage to stammer the predictable, "COLD!" as I tried to run for the transition area on feet that didn't seem to be listening. Remember that part in T1 about sockless feet? Yeah. That was pretty dumb. Now I knew how very dumb it was, as my feet weren't really going where I pointed them. Have you ever tried running in cycling shoes? With LOOK cleats? Plastic LOOK cleats? Plastic LOOK cleats chilled to 32 degrees?

Three steps, and I started sliding across the pavement like a puppy set loose on a linoleum floor. For one awful second I was literally holding onto my bike while I slid downhill, pretty sure I was about to miss the turn down into transition and crash headlong into the spectators along the fence in a flurry of waving arms, flying debris, and frantic Italian swearing.

I kept my feet underneath me (barely), and headed down the ramp to the bike racks. I racked Apollo, peeled off the Tri-top, and started to struggle with my frozen feet once again, this time while trying to put socks over them. Once I got my shoes on (I couldn't feel them, but the looked like they were on the right feet), I picked up my hat and headed out of T2, passing and saying hello to Joe Hellenbrand in the process. I was relaxed - I knew the pain from the cold would be over now as the hills on the run would work with the sun to bring me back to life; The worst was behind me.

There was just one problem - I was too tired from fighting the cold to care. As I ran downhill along the lake, I knew right away that the fight I would need to pick it up and run a hard 10K, to "get psyched to suffer" as my roadie friends would say, was just gone. I was emotionally flat, and knew that this day had just turned into a training day and nothing more. That had never happened to me before - I had always found a way to pick up a bad race along the way, but on this day I just couldn't...and that was that.

I knew Eric would be coming soon, and so would Stacy Hills - he had made it clear that he wanted a clean challenge with me after beating me by 11 seconds in 2000. With 6 miles to go it wasn't if I would see them, it was when and where. With Eric, it didn't take long at all. As I rounded the evil hairpin that turns runners around at the 1/2 mile mark and sends them up a 12% grade, there he was. I waved and said, "Hey!" and started running backwards so I could talk to him while he ran me down.

"How are you doing?" I asked.

"I feel awful, but okay." he replied, in an answer that makes sense to triathletes, and only triathletes.

"You look good - keep going!" I charged as Eric showed me a clean pair of heels, and opened the distance in just as many steps.

Next came Stacy, along the tennis courts at mile 2. As I looked down at my HRM (which was pegged at 135) I heard someone yell, "Quit looking at your watch! RUN!" I looked back, and up the hill came Hills. We chatted for a bit, and I told him, "Weiss is about a minute a half up - go get him!" Stacy responded with an almighty "UGH!" but set off, undaunted. I tried to pick it up just a little bit after him, but my stomach rebelled just a little bit - the can of Ensure that I'd had back in the hotel room pre-race now needed a place to 'go', but there would be little I could do about that until the end. That had never happened before in an OLY distance race - another unpleasant first I would just have to deal with until the finish.

I knew I just had to put the miles into my legs, and this day would be in the books. It was weird to be out there feeling that way - almost like I didn't belong. Everyone that passed me was running with the same look: Focused, grim determination, and in battle with the pain. I had been there before, and it made me feel a bit guilty for giving in for a moment...but I knew that on this day, it just wasn't going to happen. I'd cheer for the people that I could recognize, like Greg Sullivan, Bill Hauser, Doug Johnston, and it helped to pass the miles along, but there was still that lingering feeling of just, "Damn."

Another feeling I had, was that something was stuck in my shoe. Maybe my sock was bunched up, maybe I was blistering, but then it faded and I knew what it was - the bottom of my feet had gone numb on the bike, and it took 3 miles just to get the circulation back into my skin. THAT was weird, and I wasn't the only one to feel it. My friend Bill later told me that he'd stopped in the park because he thought he'd left a GU hidden in his shoe...but there was nothing.

I plodded on through the hills of the neighborhood, getting warmer with every step. Soon it was back onto Annapolis Road, and the turn back for home. As I passed into the park at the 5 mile mark, I knew I was going to run the second-slowest split I'd ever run at the Olympic Distance, but so what? There would be other days. The bottom line - I would finish with a smile, and most of all, I wouldn't be so totally spent from the effort that tossing my breakfast in front of my mother was not going to happen.

I crossed the dam as I had 5 times before, and could hear the finish line party just beyond. Finishers walking back kept telling me to "Pick it up! He's right there!", but I just used their cues to move out of the way and let those going for it have a clear lane to the end. There would be other days for me...

As I entered the finishing chute once more, I waved my hands in the air - a finish is a finish, and deserves to be celebrated! I was happy to get there, but I knew that the clock would not smile at me on this day. I smiled across the line in 2:37, a personal worst for the Olympic - even worse than my first ever race here in 1996. I knew that might happen, and it did, so that was pretty much what I thought it would be - a bummer.

I gave back my chip, was handed my medal (Yahoo! A nice one with a red, white, and blue ribbon), and set about trying to find my mother, Eric, and the rest of the gang. I was glad to have put this race behind me, and I was already thinking about Escape from Ft. Delaware in three weeks. Then I might be able to put my head in it a bit more and give the distance a proper go...but I was also really thinking about getting in a warm shower and letting my body slowly come back to life for the first time in hours.

As I hung around the finish for a bit and talked to Sean Gallagher, Keith Wobeser, and Stacy, there was one common thread in everyone's reports: They'd all felt off, slow, and or recorded personal worsts somewhere along the way. There was some comfort there - I wasn't alone in how I felt, and the weather was 95% of that (the other 5% being 50% mental, as Yogi Berra would have said). Eric, my mom, and I didn't hang around too long - it was still too chilly to be social, so we picked up our stuff from the transition area, and beat a hasty retreat back to the hotel...where I had the best freaking hot shower I've ever had.

As I stepped out I went to take off my HRM from my wrist so I could dry it, and my still-thawing fingers dropped it like a Cubs outfielder. It landed on the bathmat, and let out a perverse, Finnish "CHREEIP" - one of those sounds you hear and know immediately is a 'not good' sound. Sure enough the display came up all corrupted, spelling out the equivalent of, "Ouch!" or "TILT" in Finnish (I think). I reset it a few times, but there was no joy - just like my Timex after the Philly Marathon last year, my watch had died and taken a bad race worth of splits with it.

It was just as well. No need to rehash what I already knew. It was just a cold day in Hell, and I'm proud to have gotten through it. Despite how I felt with the numbers, I still had a very respectable day when I saw the results. My swim split was 150th, my bike was 110th, and my run was...well...652 (all out of 1052), and I finished 48th of 163 in my Age Group, well enough to place me in the top 1/3rd - another National Qualifying performance as Columbia was the Mid-Atlantic Olympic Distance Championship.

Even so, I'm still looking forward to Escape this weekend. There will always be other days, and one comes up on Saturday!

Hurricane Bob
* Don't look back - something might be chasing you. *