Why I live here

In case anyone ever wonders why people pay an enormous cost of living premium to live in the Bay Area, I submit to you exhibit A.

When I bike home from work (17 miles on mostly bike paths or in bike lanes) I often feel compelled to stop and take a picture of where I live.

Yes, sometimes I have to elbow tourists out of the way to get the shot. Sometimes it is cold and windy on the Golden Gate Bridge and I have to hold tight to my handle bars to stay on my bike. Sometimes navigating around the tourists on their Blazing Saddles bicycles jerking randomly hither and yon is downright terrifying.

But the view — this view — or pretty much any view along my route — makes it so worth it.

Nothing is too good for my bike

Sent my bike, via a bike transport service, off to Honu this morning. She'll be spending a few relaxing days  on the beach before her big adventure at the Ironman 70.3 June 2 on the Big Island.

This was my first experience with bike transport and I have to admit it was mostly convenient.

Except for:
1. The incredible expense. For $351 (which included $6 in extra insurance) I might as well have bought my bike its own plane ticket and buckled it in right next to me. Good LORD this sport is expensive.

2. Nearly missing the drop-off: My confirmation said "Your drop-off time: 12:00." Because I work on the other side of the city, noon didn't work for me. So I brought my bike in early. That's when the guy at Sports Basement informed me that 12 p.m. was the CUT-OFF time to drop off your bike. YIKES! Good thing I went early.

3. The confusing wheel bag reference: I brought an empty wheel bag because during registration I was asked: Will you provide your own wheel bag? Turns out you only need one if you're bringing extra race wheels. So the aforementioned Sports Basement guy laughed at me, and sent me home with my empty wheel bag.

4. I don't have my bike for 11 days before my race: I know next week is taper week, but still, 11 days seems like a long time to be without my trusty Kestral.

On the upside, I won't have to lug my bike through the airport, assemble it myself or get it to the race start early in the morning. And this eliminates the chance that my airline will lose my bike (though I guess bike transport could still lose it). Those are conveniences worth paying for. Just hoping no other issues pop up for this bike transport rookie.

My training plan, not a plan at all

Three weeks til the Honu 70.3 Half Ironman and in nine weeks of what can only be described as moderate training I've put in: 12 bike rides, 25 ish runs, 10 swims. Give or take. I really don't know.

My husband, a data guy and an Ironman, carefully calculates every single mile he travels, every meter of elevation he climbs on the bike, the paces of his runs, the splits of his swims. He pours over this data. Makes a plan. Follows that plan precisely.

For me, Ironman training is less science, more art. I fit training in when I can. And, instead of planning what discipline I should do each day, for how long, I do whichever one I can get to. If I know I can leave work at a decent hour, I ride my bike home. If I've got only an hour and a half after work before I have to be at an event, I run straight out my office door for half an hour, then turn around. If my schedule prevents me from bringing my triathlon bag (nothing like showing up for an interview in a CEO's office with a giant backpack), I swim that day, since all of my swim stuff fits subtly into my purse.

I haven't written down what I've done, or calculated a 10 percent increase each week. I've just done what I can do. And here's the thing: I have definitely not trained as much as I'd hoped; but I definitely have trained more than I've ever trained before a race, for longer periods of time. My endurance, I think, has never been better. And now, I'm just hoping that I miraculously peak three weeks from now in the Big Island heat.

I've wanted to do a half-Ironman distance triathlon for several years, but committing to the training held me back. Now that I'm in deep, my do-what-I-can strategy seems to be working.


Two weeks ago I biked 50 miles, then did a 4.5 mile T-run afterward. Never in my life have I run so far after a bike ride that long. And I had this realization: I just might pull this off.


Here's what I think I've done:

Biking: 
3 rides home from work (17 mi x3)
2 computrainer rides Alcatraz course (18x3)
7 long weekend rides (40 to 50 mi X 7)

Running:
25 or so runs, worked up to 7.83 miles running

Swimming:
1-2 hours a week x 9 weeks.

American Gladiator

My parents were worried when, at 7 years old, I told anyone who asked that I wanted to be an American Gladiator when I grew up.

When at 13 I was still telling them I wanted to be an American Gladiator, the worry was elevated to extreme concern coupled with anxiety attacks and therapy.

Sometime after American Gladiator was cancelled, I shifted my attention to becoming a reporter, instead of drinking steroid cocktails and wailing on people while wearing metallic spandex.
But, as they say, you can take the Girl out of American Gladiator, but you can't take American Gladiator out of the Girl.

I was quick to sign up for the Women's Rugby team at the University of Georgia when it was resurrected in my junior year. And after a short stint at fly half where I was responsible for a lot of passing and ball handling I switched to flanker, where tackling was essentially the only job. I felt like it was the first thing in my life I was born to do.

I also picked up weight lifting in college and was amazed at how quickly my body responded. Some would say it was slightly too responsive as I dropped to 18 percent body fat and noticed that my lats could actually pop out and retract like ladybug wings. You can see them, there, in the rock climbing photo. Rock climbing, please note, is a lot like climbing the cargo net wall on American Gladiators. I also took up Adventure Racing and liked the obstacle course events, like the mud pit, the best.

So, long story longer, when I found out American Gladiator was coming back, I was freaking EXCITED. It's like I've been training for years. And now, I'm actually old enough and possibly in shape enough to compete.

Then I made the mistake of actually watching American Gladiator remix. Please, God, tell me it wasn't always this cheesy. I mean, it couldn't have been, right? I didn't have brain injury as a kid or anything and I had lived for this show. And I'd wanted to be a Gladiator. Lace, in fact. I wanted my name to be Lace (Was there a real Gladiator named Lace? I can't remember).

As I watched the show, I was distracted by that big guy, Titan, the absolute ringleader of cheese. Any kid without brain injury could never idolize that guy, I told myself? But then the wussy red contestant — a fully grown man, mind you — got hurt after his second basket in power ball after, who was it? Mayhem? laid the smack down on him. And the wussy red guy said: "Titan, if I don't make it back, you're the reason I got into weight lifting man." And Titan came running over and got down on one knee and cooed over the guy. "This guy's a warrior man. This guy's a true champion." Barf! I think the steroids have inflated the part of his brain that controls cheesiness.

At 6'3", 251 pounds, my guess is that Titan breaks down like this: 200 pounds muscle, 50.9 pounds cheese, .089 pounds brain and .001 pounds nutsack (you know what steroids do).

Then there's the Wolf guy. Wolverine, or Wolf man. Whatever. He howls. He looks really crazy. Where'd they find that guy? Skid Row? Seriously. Something's not right with him.

Plus you've got the Cheesy banter the Hulk is perpetuating between every event. Every event. "How'd that go?" "You were a maniac out there." "You got wet but you're not even worried because the bull rider lady stepped on your pedestal and you know that's illegal."

And don't even get me started on Helga. Seriously?

All of it: lame lame lame.

As an additional critique, they've redone the studio so that it's harder to see the action. Where are the lights? And the camera angles are less than satisfying. Then there's the pool. You have to swim under fire in the pool: fire that could never touch you because it appears to be burning on Plexiglas. What's the point? Several of the disciplines now end up pushing contestants or Gladiators into the water, including joust and assault, during which Gladiators are flung through the air via a cable attached to their cheesy, metallic costumes. Seems like a lot of effort for a cheap dunking booth stunt. And I love the way they celebrate the winners of the obstacle course while contestant No. 2 is still fledgling along. The poor bull rider lady who wanted to get her mom out of the trailer was just crashing through the wall when the fitness model red contestant was hugging her kids post Hulk interview in the stands. Mental note: if you make it onto American Gladiators, do not come in second in the obstacle course.

The only thing that was pretty great about the show was that when Helga got tossed during the assault, she did a full on belly flop from about 30 feet up into the pool. Production staff maybe should have practiced that stunt a couple times before launching the 205-pound Helga. As Steve Carrell says: Ouchy.

So despite my disappointment at the overwhelming cheese and the "lets-make-the-show-worse-than-the-original" changes, the allure of competing with and potentially beating down a Gladiator still burns inside me. There are casting calls and I'm making arrangements. And in the meantime, the Gladiators better start eating their Wheaties.

Yeah Helga. I'm talking to you.

Christmas Swimming

After JO and I opened stockings, drank coffee, made breakfast, opened presents, spent a couple hours on web cam with my family in Atlanta and put our 11.49 pound turkey in the oven, there was only one thing left to do.
We went swimming.
When we first started dating about 9 months ago, we swam at Aquatic Park in San Francisco every few weeks. But since I live farther away now, and since the oil spill and since the weather has gotten colder, we have been neglecting our little swimming park in the shadows of the Ghiradelli Square sign. And we have both missed it.
So we loaded up the gear in a new gear bag JO bought me for Christmas and headed to AP about 3:00 p.m. There was an inordinate number of tourists sauntering by en masse and staring as we disrobed and crammed ourselves into our wetsuits. The tourists were wearing scarves and hats and big, puffy jackets because it's aout 49 degrees outside -- which in Northern California is like polar ice cap cold. But not too cold for us, we thought.
The first step was deceiving.
"It's not that bad," I shouted to JO, to penetrate the earplugs and layer of silicon sheilding his head from the cold. But once we were in to our waists, I had changed my mind. My feet burned like touching dry ice. And my hands, too. But we were already there. JO took off for the buoy, without putting his face into the water, and I followed, trying to stir up some circulation to heat up my body. As the water seeped into my wetsuit, it took my breath away. So we bobbed for a few moments to try to catch our breath before heading for the orange flag that marks the end of the swimming course. Each lap at AP is a third of a mile, I think. So one lap takes less than 15 minutes to complete. John got brainfreeze within 30 seconds but he carried on. My face stung. But the pain all over my body did ease a bit as I scraped through the water.
One weird side effect: I swear I have never swum so fast.
Cold is like pure adrenaline. But we also clenched every muscle in our bodies against it as we swam. My jaw hurt for two days after I emerged from that half-hour swim. And my arms and back would be aching sore on Boxing Day.
We kept what I felt was a fast pace though I never did feel like I caught my breath, completing two laps in the last moments of daylight before heading to shore.
Looking like two latex-covered creatures making the evolutionary step from sea to land, we were greeted by a smiling man with an Eastern European accent who called us Superman and Superwoman. And we laughed at his sweetness but also because we felt like it a little bit. We would have really felt like superheroes except for a guy in a red swim cap and no wetsuit who we could barely make out, still swimming steady and stealing our superhero thunder as we dried off.
It took more than an hour for my core temperature to heat back up and I shook for awhile after deck changing into dry clothes and slipping on my Ug boots. But I also felt an amazing and almost misplaced refreshment. Our swim was invigorating.
When we looked at the San Francisco Bay buoy report post-swim, we found out the water had been 51.1 degrees, which is at least 15 degrees higher than a non-melting polar ice cap. I hope to make the Christmas swim a holiday tradition.

Maintenance Training

.. kind of like getting hit by an 18-wheeler.
That's what I felt like after a 9-mile tromp through the Tennessee Valley in the Marin Headlands on Saturday. Coach Neil kicked my ass, as well as talked me up the 1.5 mile uphill that started our run. Coach Neil ruled. I didn't even know I could actually run up a hill. Usually I see them and I am intimidated and I resign myself to walking. But when your coach is running next to you, you can't stop. I felt nervous but remarkably not terrible for about the first 3/4 of a mile. After that it was a little painful, and Coach Neil was talking most of the time trying to keep my mind off of the feat. At one point he said: "Do you hate me and do you want me to just stop talking?" (Please note that Coach Neil was not even the slightest bit winded as he said that.)
"No.... huff... Coach .... I ... huff... just... .huff.. don't... huff... want... huff ... you ... to ... huff... think ... i ... huff... can ... huff... contribute."
About 1.25 miles into the run, Coach asked what my RPE was. For those un-tri-dorks out there, that's "rate of perceived exertion." It's a scale of 1-10 where one is lying in bed reading a magazine and 10 is a pulmonary seizure.
"I'm... a ... huff... 10... coach."
"No you're not a ten," he says.
And that's why I love my coach. Because even thoguh I feel like I'm dying, he knows I'm not actually dying. And he knows how far to push me.
Did I know I could run 9 miles with 4,100 feet of vertical elevation?
No. I didn't.
And if you would have asked me Saturday morning, I would have said, "No freaking way can I run that far."
And then I did.

My friend Neva is a rockstar BTW

In all my sad self-loathing about my duathlon performance, I failed to mention that my BTF (best triathlon friend) Neva freaking rocked it. After up-close encounters with several scary things during training including, but not limited to, sealions and pavement, she pulled off an amazing race. She placed sixth in her spritely young age group. And she did the run in sub-10 minute miles which totally rules. Not bad for a former field hockey-playing, sorority girl East Coaster who didn't own a bike on our first day of training. In summary, Neva rules.
Tell your friends.

Is a triathlon, with only two events, still really a triathlon?

Answer: No.

Mood: Depressed.

Body: Sore like after a car wreck.

So after 10 weeks of training in the beautiful and uncharacteristic sunshine at the Aquatic Park in Fisherman's Wharf and at the former Naval base Treasure Island, the San Francisco fog and rain finally rolled in, clouding what was already a gloomy day.

The 58,000 gallons of bunker fuel that spilled into the Bay last week caused race directors to cancel the swim portion of the triathlon that I, the reluctant triathlete, and 20 others trained our asses off to complete. It also desecrated a coast we have come to know quite intimately, which fouled everyone's mood.

For the last 10 weeks, we have learned to navigate through the Bay's choppy, sea-lion-infested waters, and even to appreciate its heart-attack-inducing cold. We have ridden our bikes into the Headlands where we are rewarded for the pain of the climb with mesmerizing views of our ocean-enveloped city. And we've run along its shores dodging police on horses and packs of Blazing Saddles bicycles carrying kamikaze tourists, breathing in its salt air. Every day that we trained we were reminded of what an amazing place San Francisco is and we felt lucky to live here.

So it was especially hard to get psyched up for the duathlon that reminded us of our injured ocean, instead of the triathlon we had trained for. It was especially hard for those of us who count the swim as our best event. For me, I was hoping for a large enough lead so as not to be totally humiliated in the run.

But alas.

We started the race barefoot to simulate the transition we would have made if we had swum. Our pack of 30-and-under women and (was it?) 40-and-over women took off running to our bikes, threw on shoes and helmets and clogged out of the transition area.

The bike was OK though I couldn't find my pace and I kept getting blown away on straight aways. I found myself zoning out and would shake it off every so often and remind myself to speed up.

It was a six-loop, 40k course with no drafting allowed, so the long stretches into the wind felt like biking underwater. But I wasn't breathing hard. I kept wondering if that meant I should be going much faster? When I racked my bike, my legs felt like stones. And in six miles they never did loosen up. The good news was my calf did not bother me. Instead, as I told Neva who was at least a mile ahead on the 3-loop run course as we passed each other, it was the "out-of-shapeness" that bothered me.

Because I wasn't running before I started the 10-week training program, and because the pulled calf kept me from running for the past five weeks, I never did build up to a point where even three miles felt comfortable to me. So a 6.2-mile tromp -- and my first run in over a month -- was expectedly difficult. The first four-miles felt better than the last four-mile run I had done, despite being smoked by attractive women in tiny bikini bottoms (how do they keep those from riding up?), not to mention all of my in-shape and also attractive friends in our group. The last two miles felt increasingly long and torturous and I had no kick left when the finish line finally came into view. It took me about 1:15 minutes to complete the run, which amounts to more than 11-minute miles. It was disappointing given that during our half-distance training tri, I ran three miles at a 9:30 mile pace. I couldn't even look at my coach who had invested so much time in me and in making sure I was as ready as I could possibly be for this race. Instead, I burst into tears.

The duathlon did not feel indicative of what I'd trained so hard for. It was disappointing. And it was painful. And it was frustrating. And despite all of this, I still want to do a full triathlon. The adrenaline of it is intense and addictive. The camaraderie is the best part. I am sad that I won't be able to complete a triathlon before I turn 30 despite trying my damnedest. But maybe, at 30, in my golden year, it will feel that much more incredible.

Oil spill threatens triathlon

A tanker spilled 58,000 gallons of fuel into the San Francisco Bay! There are oiled up sad ducks everywhere.
Here's what the triathlon is saying: Tri-California Events is aware of the Oil Spill effecting the San Francisco Bay. At this time, the San Francisco Police Department and Water Safety has determined that there is no oil in or around Pirates Cove, Treasure Island where the swim takes place. At this time, we have approval to swim in Pirates Cove. Please continue check the website for updated information. We are planning to continue with our regularly scheduled events.

Here's a link to the SF Chronicle story: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/08/BAD8T8PLU.DTL

Week 10

Week 10 makes me want to throw up.

It's a "taper" week, though Coach Neil is on crack if he thinks swimming 1600 meters and lifting weights felt like a vacation today.

I promised myself that I would do full-length triathlon before I turned 30 and for the past 9.5 weeks, I have devoted my heart and soul and wallet to Coach Neil's Tri and Give training program. With the Treasure Island Triathlon -- no wait, it's now called the San Francico Triathlon at Treasure Island (like the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim) -- just a few days away, I've already begun having anxiety dreams in anticipation.

I tend to have anxiety dreams the night before big events like tests and rugby tournaments. Usually the dreams force me to awaken in the wee hours of the event morning. But this time is special. I started having anxiety dreams related to the triathlon last Friday night. In the dreams I am on my way somewhere. So far: a vacation, a wedding, traithlon training (that one was pretty literal) and a play. I have forgotten or lost crucial things including my luggage, then a dress and my biking shoes. In the play dream I forgot to memorize the script and I was the lead.
It has not made for a week of good sleeping.

I watched 4 of the 5-part Accenture Escape from Alcatraz clips on YouTube today to attack the anxiety head on. I saw the freakishly athletic professional triathletes coast 1.4 miles through the freezing, choppy waters of the San Francisco Bay, some in less than 30 minutes. My swim was not quite as treacherous in my gymnasium pool last night though, last week, there was a 5.6 earthquake centered down the road from me as I swam. (Of course, I missed the whole thing and was only slightly confused by the choppy waves in the otherwise empty pool.) But that's mildly treacherous, right?

When I'm watching the professionals, I am thinking: Is this really what I'm going to do?
I have worked hard over the last 10 weeks, practiced my transitions, adjusted and replaced my gear. I have completed my workouts and pushed myself to the point of bonkign. I have sacrificed weekends to training and recovery and eating. I have been injured: pulling a calf about five weeks ago that has limited my ability to train for the run. And I'm hoping the adrenaline alone will be enough to carry me through. I'm also hoping the anxiety dreams aren't foreshadowing. Instead, I think they're an indication that I care a lot about finishing this race and seeing what I'm capable of in the last fleeting moments of my twenties.

Then, in my 30s, I can work on winning or at least acheiving freakishness.