8:30 p.m., July 18th, race day eve and I'm going through the list one last time:
Bars... check
Gels... check
Race kit... set out on the chair waiting to greet my early a.m. rise...check
Sun block...check
Running gear... out at T2 already, check
Bike Tubes...check
Air... check
Bike... check
Sun glasses.. check
goggles... check
All race numbers and bibs are in their place. Now I look for more to prepare, back and forth, car to hotel room, transition bag to bike.. there's more right? If there's not I have to go to bed, if I go to bed I have to go to sleep, if I go to sleep it will be morning, if it's morning, well, it's time to race.
8:45 p.m., lying in bed watching grown men bounce off oversized whoopie cushions and being thrown about by gyrating piston powered trampolines my laughter momentarily keeps my anxiety at bay.
8:59 comes all too quickly and credits roll on this genius of a program they call wipeout. Brushing teary remnants of the hilarity from my face I shut the television off, wrestle the 23 pillows into a position of somewhat comfort and start to drift off.
9:15 p.m., the ceiling is beautiful this time of night, I really love what the America's Best Value Inn has done with the place.
9:23 p.m., SLAM! jolted from my drift into the night I realize I now have neighbors and what's left of the walls are thin, holding nothing back.
9:30 p.m., running through race day in my head, trying to get myself to thoughts of readyness, calm, peace. It doesn't come, but I drift off back into the land of dreams
Swim
It's 4:45 a.m., I'm rested and awake. I grab my alarm and shut the 5:15 a.m. wake up call off and grab breakfast. Bike now into the car, race kit on, checked out of the ABVI (America's Best Value Inn), one last look around the room, door shuts and I'm off and down the road where the Russian River awaits my entry.
With the sun peaking out over the horizon through fields of drunken fruit I venture north on Highway 101 and onto River Road toward Guernville, a town so lost in Patchouli oil it failed to spell check it's own historical snapshot written on the welcome sign (next time you visit, check out the sign outside the Safeway parking lot).
I arrive in sleepy Guernville and park in a vacant lot which is currently being pimped out by the local high school at 5 bucks a pop, donations of course, no requirement... an "it's all good man" approach," get me on the way back". I happily fork over the 5 bucks but quickly make them aware that if a certain father figure shows up he's going to be quite miffed there's no lemonade stand and if this donation is going to the high school why are those darn kids still in bed and not out here at the crack of dawn with everyone else?
Swim and bike gear in tow I head down to Johnson's beach to set up transition. I stumble through the crowd of anxious athletes and find myself aware that I have not been keeping the best track of time. The pro field is taking to the gates and I'm up in 4 waves. Still I have some time and I find a place on the appropriate rack, set up transition, get body marked and take a deep breath. On my walk out of transition I run into my PowerBar teammate Nicole, wish her luck as I pass and then take to the water.
The Russian River, which takes it's time babbling through wine country is currently hovering around 75 degrees and is about 10 degrees cooler than the outside air. For this 1.2 mile swim I'm choosing to go sans wetsuit, a first in a race for me but the water is just too nice to put a wetsuit on.
Some hootin and hollerin then a squeeze of an airhorn trigger, we're off. I take a nice slow approach to the open water start, get into a good rhythm and begin to slip through the shallow waters. About a quarter mile into the swim I breath to my right, take a stroke, another, sight, stroke, another and again another, breathe...then, abruptly, I come to an immediate stop, crashing into a fellow competitor, who is... um... STANDING UP?! He quickly see's the errors in his ways but, standing? really? Who stands?
This quickly becomes a theme between the 1/2 mile mark and the 3/4 mile mark. I don't give in to the trend and continue to plug along, swimming the traditional freestyle stroke. As I continue to sight every 50 yards or so I get snapshots of the river seen in Brother Where art Thou. A bit of a come to Jesus scene and not one that I was anticipating. It's difficult to laugh and swim at the same time.
Johnson's beach quickly returns to view and we're home, task one of three in the books. I emerge from the river as if I have just returned from a leisurely swim and somehow come to find myself exiting the water amongst a bunch of crazy triathletes. Up the beach to the bike I take my time and go through the Mom checklist: Socks, helmet, food, extra tubes, apply sunscreen, put everything neatly in my transition bag so everything makes it back to the finish line.
Bike
Bike mounted, .01 of 56 miles down. Up the hill out of the beach and East down River Rd. All is smooth and all is well, just taking in the incredible scenery.
Mile 5 we make a right turn off River Rd. onto Sunset. This tight turn was something the Race Director warned us about and without fail there's an ambulance at the turn, but as I get there, slow and make the turn there's no carnage, no fall, nothing. I motor on.
Approaching mile 7, now there's stirring about, some excited movement from the lady with the number one go finger telling us to make a right turn. As we make the turn we see what the fuss is about. There's a tree down covering the entire roadway. We approach, un-clip and duck underneath where we can. In the background there's comments of "wow, I didn't expect an obstacle course," "Do we get points for making it through without un-clipping?" "Man, this is a hard cutoff, seems early." All of this chatter stops when, as we get to the otherside of this fallen member of Mother Nature's army, we find ourselves staring at a downed athlete. Attended to by Emergency crew members he doesn't look at all ok, ice pack on his head, moans from his lips and frantic other riders attempting to explain what took place. With help here we were left to fill in our own blanks and continue on.
After shaking the sight of a downed fellow competitor the miles begin to slip to the rear. A beautiful rolling course through Sonoma County's endless vineyards. This rolling along came to a halt at about mile 30 where I was greeted by my first ever flat tire during a race. I pulled over and began the repair process. Since I'm awesome at changing bike tires this takes some time, I did however get to see Nicole again as she went flying by after making sure I was ok. Which I was, just bummed that I lost about 10 to 15 minutes.
Wheels healed I'm on the road once again. I pass many of those who came by during my timeout and got back into a rhythm. The last 26 miles seem to fly by and I rolled right into transition where for the first time I realized it was frickin HOT. No matter, dismounted the bike and jogged it into T2.
Run
In T2 I found my shoes which after pleading and pleading with higher powers did not turn into rollerblades. Laced up, bathroom breaked, I'm off onto the last portion of this journey.
Mile one flys by, and although I can feel my pesky hamstring it doesn't at all feel like it's going to get worse and this is a huge relief. One foot in front of the other I make the left turn into the first aid station grab some gatorade, hit the homemade misting station and continue with the whole one foot in front of the other thing.
Mile 2 seems to take longer to get to and I find myself now scanning ahead to see where the next opportunity for shade is. It's hot enough now that I'm thinking about it and not about the run.
Mile 3 is a bit of challenge and the shade is beginning to become more and more sparse. I hit the aid station yet again grabbing two drinks, one for inside and one for out. At this point there's a guy on-course on his bike encouraging athletes, but for some reason I'm just annoyed. This is most likely due to the fact that this is an out and back course and most of his words of encouragement are for those at mile 10, a place I desperately want to be.
Mile's 4-7 are more "in the zone" like and stomach issues I was having early were fading. For the first time "rhythm" could be a word associated with my current state. At mile 6.5 / 7 is the turnaround and where a sweet misting station is. It was difficult to not stand there, grab some soap and shower up.
Mile's 7-12, these were the absolute worst of them to the point I'm petitioning to have them removed. At mile 7.5 my inner dialogue had me patting myself on the back with encouraging words of, "man, I haven't had any cramping issue's all year, not since Switzerland a year ago." Mile 8 I was joined on the run by a cramping right leg. What started and stayed in my quad just above the knee also included the calf and foot. The weirdest thing was the foot as I could barely feel it and it was doing stuff I wasn't telling it to. I stopped for a sec and stretched, this slowed the cramping and it never returned to that severity, but made the rest of the run slow and controlled, not sure I would even call it a run.
Amongst the cramping was some overheating, or what I think was overheating. I could feel the heat, I knew I was hot, but I was getting the chills which really threw me for a loop. Just felt uncomfortable, never got to a "I'm losing control" area, but definitely lingered in a weird zone.
12 to 13.1 - This was a great stretch and a horrible stretch, all at the same time. This same road back into Windsor High School that I quickly ran out was longer this time around, this time it was sweltering, dogs were leashing their owners and pulling them toward air conditioning, runners were frequenting the sidelines, some of which looking as if they may not make the last .5.
Out of the high school parking lot and onto the grassy fields that the finish line was currently calling home. No longer cool with the sun I cross the finish line and let one of the many awesome volunteers soak my everything with cool water.
Finisher medal in hand I find recovery beverages (no, not those... protein) and shade. It doesn't take me long to recover and once I am ready to stand again and take on the world I tour the countryside once more collecting my car and bike and then I point all of my belongings south and head towards Los Angeles.
Next.... Canada.
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