What's Next?

I have not done a scrap of physical activity all week. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Rien. Res. Niente. Nichts. Othing-nay. My bike and running shoes are still packed. I haven't read any blogs, and I haven't picked up any books (right now I'm reading Lance Armstrong's book, and Jack Daniels' Running formula). I have watched about 15 hours of reruns, stayed up till 11 o'clock every night, and woken up at 6:30 every morning. I have had coffee every day, often several times a day. I have been eating crap food: cookies, burritos, pizza, white pasta in cheesy sauce, white bread, Twizzlers, Cheeze-Its... I have been getting fat.

And it feels like crap.

I know everyone needs to take a break after a big A race, and I'm taking mine. But it's a slippery slope. If I'm staying up late and eating like crap, it's only a matter of time before the idea occurs to me: Why don't I just have a drink? I don't have to be in bed early. I don't have to work out in the morning. If I feel like crap I can just get coffee... Just this once... But with me it never IS "Just this once..." It drives me nuts when people say, "You can't be an alcoholic! You're so young!"

Just trust me on this one...

I've been urged to go to AA several times by several different people, but I just don't want to, and you can't make me. All that stuff about sitting around in a room with a bunch of addicts talking about our addictions just seems like it would make me want a drink. And anyway, all that stuff about finding a higher power... it's just not me. Shane's friend, Jenny, decided that her higher power would be Jessica Beil, because she's hot. That seemed like as good a reason as any for Jenny, but I don't think I trust Jessica Beal enough with a responsibility like that, hot or not.

This athletic thing seems to work for me. If I've always got some big race on the horizon, something that I HAVE TO stick to my training for, then I'm okay. But it's gotta be something hard. It's gotta be something that, unless I do the training, I won't finish. If I'm scared enough, I'll behave myself.

So I'll be shifting gears, but I won't be parking the car this fall. From next week until January, I'll be focusing on running. I am going to learn to run fast! I decided about a month ago that I was going to train to qualify for Boston at Disney World in January, not from an irresistible drive to run Boston again, but because it is an established goal set by somebody else. You are not a true distance runner until you have qualified for Boston, period. This is not a goal that is fast "for me", this is someone else's definition of "fast", and I am going to spend the next 5 months trying to achieve it. I am going to learn to run 26.2 consecutive 8:24-minute miles. From what I can gather, learning to run fast is about learning to suffer. I can live with that, why didn't anyone ever tell me that before?!

I have spoken to Iron Matron, Mindy, and Cranky, some of the best marathon runners I know, to try and get their advice on what elements I'll need to run faster. I'm even willing to listen to them. I'm reading the books that Iron Matron recommended to me, and am basing main points of the training program around that.

But first I have some OTHER unfinished business. I told myself last October that I was going to run a 50 mile race this fall, so until November, my weekends are going to be focused on that. During the week will be all about running faster, and on the weekend I'll be doing the back-to-back long runs that I will need to do to train for Goofy, but I will be doing them on trails (and they'll be just a smidgen longer). You can see my training plan here. (The only thing I would like to point out on the training plan is that: A. runs will probably be a bit shorter the day before long trail races, B. Long runs on trail will involve walking, and slow running, so it's not as much distance as it looks like, and C. days off are on an as-needed basis, not scheduled).

No advice, please. If I haven't asked you already, I probably don't want your opinion on the matter. Sorry. So if you've run a couple of marathons, and happen to be gifted enough to run faster than me, (or worse, if you've just read a book and think you know all about the matter) keep your trap shut and save it for someone who cares. (Experienced ultrarunners' advice welcome!)

So without further adu, here is a list of my scheduled appearances for the fall/winter 2008-2009 season:
August 17, Savoy Mountain 20 Miler in Savoy, MA (Berkshires)
August 24 Green Lakes 50K, in Fayetteville, NY (Near Syracuse)
September 7, Curly's Marathon in Pittsfield, MA (Berkshires) OR Three Notch Century in Lincoln, NH (White Mountains)
September 13, Lobsterman Olympic Triathlon in Freeport, ME
September 14, Pisgah Mountain 50K or 23K in Chesterfield, NH (Southwestern NH)
September 28, Vermont 50K in Brownsville, VT with Maine Runner
October 11, Finger Lakes 50K in Finger Lakes National Forest, NY
October 26, Hairy Gorilla Half Marathon in Albany, NY
November 1, Busa Bushwhack 15K in Framingham, MA (nearby), site of my first showdown with Grandpa.
November 9, Stonecat 50 Miler in Ipswitch, MA (North Shore, MA)
January 10 and 11, Goofy Challenge in Orlando, FL (Half marathon on Saturday, full on Sunday) with Angry and Leana.

So I've got a lot of driving to do.

Beyond that, ideas are hazy. I'm going to try to sign up for Ironman Kentucky whenever that is (November? October?), and give a shot to a Hawaii slot, just to say I did it. After my run-specific block I'm going to hang up the running shoes again and focus on riding, maybe even getting a cycling license and getting into some real bike racing. Next year will really tell if I continue with this triathlon business or just pursue cycling. AIDS LifeCycle is out for next year, since I have a wedding to go to in England Memorial Day weekend, but I had a better idea. Shane might come with me to the wedding, and then we would cross the channel into France and ride our bikes down to Barcelona, doing our own Tour de France.

So, as you can see, I've still got a trick or two up my sleeve. Please be patient while I try to get my mind back into blogging. Thanks for all your support in Vineman, and I'll see you at the races (or at the very least, the race reports).

Murphy's Law: If something can go wrong, it will.

First of all, thanks to all my friends who sent me well wishes and encouragement before the race. I felt like a celebrity every time I got an e-mail, text message, or comment and your words definitely helped; especially the mean ones that made me laugh. I realize that I have a tendency to be a bit long-winded, and while I did my best to only tell you about the important stuff, it still wound up being a V E R Y long RR. For those of you who are busy beavers and don't have all the time in the world to read, I'll try to put the most interesting parts in blue.

Pre-Race

I got to San Francisco around 11:30 on Thursday. Shane had to give a presentation at work, so I spent an hour in his office reading e-mails from you guys and working my stomach into a giant knot reading about the race. We spent a few hours shopping at Trader Joe's, Walgreens, and the organic grocery store for last-minute essentials, then we then went back to his apartment. When I opened my bike box (now covered in a layer of duct tape that it was not wearing when I left it in Boston) I discovered that my rear axle had fallen out of the box somewhere between Boston and San Francisco! When I found a TSA slip in the box I started throwing a hissy fit, accusing the fuckers of ruining my entire race, and thus year, and thus life. I swore like a truck driver until Shane pointed out that it had probably fallen out one of the handles of my fancy, schmancy cardboard bike box. He then pointed out that it was an easy thing to replace, and we would have plenty of time to go get a new one tomorrow.

"Well, if this is the worst thing that goes wrong, that's not half bad," I said, calmer now. Jinx!

Friday morning we woke up early and I packed my run stuff and some stuff for the run special needs bag before we took off for Sonoma. I bought a new axle for $5 on the way out of San Francisco, and Shane was right, it was no big deal. When we left SF it was a cool 60 degrees and cloudy, but no sooner had we ridden over the Golden Gate bridge, we were both peeling layers and rolling down the windows. The famous San Francisco fog is restricted to San Francisco only, and although Sonoma is only about an hour and a half away, it is hot and dry like a desert.

We arrived at the expo an hour early for registration, so we went and had some burritos for lunch. I was sick of eating yucky, healthy stuff. I figured that a nice, high-calorie meal was just what I needed at that very moment. With any luck I would get food poisoning and be off the hook. Standing in line for registration I saw that there was a scale in front of the table. "Oh shit! They are going to make us weigh in?!" I said, trying to calculate the approximate weight of my shoes, belt, clothes, hair, burrito... "I wish I'd known that BEFORE I ate the giant burrito!" The woman behind me in line shared my alarm, but luckily the weigh-in wasn't necessary. I got my goody bag (full of nothing but fliers) and t-shirt, and Shane and I went to set up T2 before it got crowded.

We went over to set up my run stuff in T2. It was still nearly empty, and we stood right in front of the second spot on the second rack to survey the layout. Transition was set up in a blacktop parking lot, and I regretted leaving my towel at home. The temperature was already in the 90's, and you could fry eggs on this pavement. My stuff would be lying out here all day today, and most of the day tomorrow, cooking in the sun. As Shane and I stood there, not 18 inches from the rack getting our bearings, some bitch swooped in and plopped her stuff right at our feet! We looked at each other as if to say, Ummmm, oooookaaaay, and moved farther on down the rack. It was clear I was about to set up there, but obviously you had to be quick around here. As we walked back towards the expo and the shade we joked about how satisfying it would be to take a shit right in the middle of her transition setup. "Can you imagine?!" Shane giggled. "She would get here and there would be a giant pile of crap sitting on top of her running shoes that had been sitting there cooking in the sun for 24 hours..." he busted out laughing, "AND THEN SHE'D HAVE TO RUN IN THEM!" We agreed that we should have said something, but fantasizing about defecating in her run cap was much more satisfying. Everyone knows Claire's Number 1 Rule of Public Pooping: Don't, but no less important is Claire's Number 2 Rule of Public Pooping: It is okay to do so on a competitor's stuff if she deserves it.

While we were waiting we sat around in the shade trying to spot the gay people. "That whole group's a gaggle of lesbians, I think," I whispered to Shane.
"I don't think so, I think they're just over 40. I can't tell the difference between soccer moms and lesbians," he whispered back.
We took a closer look at the ears and fingernails. "Oh no, never mind," I said when I saw sparkly earrings and manicured finger nails and wedding rings. But still, they LOOKED like lesbians in their tight, sporty ponytails, athletic sunglasses, non-sexy functional t-shirts, clothes that accentuated muscle tone rather than cleavage, and sensible shoes. Yes, triathletes look like lesbians. You, reader, look like a lesbian.
Then we turned our attention to the guys. "He's GOTTA be gay," Shane said. We looked at a man in a skin-tight tech tee and shorts tight enough to accentuate his well-sculpted booty. Then he turned around to say something to his wife.
"Nope," I said. "Just a tri-geek."
We looked over at a couple of guys standing at the information booth looking at the course map. They each had the kind of beautifully tanned and sculpted bodies, with shaved body hair and neat haircuts that gay guys have. Two guys together that looked like that HAD to be gay. But nope, they walked like straight guys. Yes, triathletes look like gay guys. You, reader, look like a gay guy.

Meanwhile there were 2 horses' asses with microphones in the middle of it all blabbering away incessantly. Nearly everything they said was offensive. "And where are YOU guys from?" they asked a couple of guys walking by on the way to registration. Shane and I could only hear the one side of the conversation. "You look like you're in the Marines... Oh the Army? Sorry, wouldn't want to offend anyone there... You came together?... Don't they have a don't ask don't tell policy in the army, hahaha..." They went on like that for several minutes calling these men (who were trained killers) homos until another victim came along for them to harass. They made fun of everyone, especially the newbies, and all of it was annoying, if not offensive. They taunted seasoned competitors and laughed at newbies. It was embarrassing.

Finally it was time for the pre-race meeting. There was a powerpoint presentation, and the opportunity to ask questions. There's always at least one nut in every group who has to ask the stupidest question ever. One gentleman raised his hand and asked if men were allowed to run shirtless. This jogged Moron of the Hour's brain. He raised his hand. "It says in the rule book that there's no nudity allowed on the course..." He had everyone's attention now. "Does that include the changing tents?" All the heads in the room turned in disbelief. "Um, you may be as naked as you need to be in the changing tents," the race director said. "That's what they're there for. You can hang out in there in your birthday suit for as long as you want, just as long as you come out dressed." Moron of the Hour needed clarification. "So I can strip down to ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in the changing tents?" "Yes, you can be as naked as you need to be, as long as it is INSIDE the changing tent." Then he re-thought his answer. "...As long as it is inside the CORRECT GENDER's changing tent." This gave Moron of the Hour a whole new set of problems. "How will I know which changing tent's which?" "They will be clearly marked," the race director said. To preempt a follow-up question from the Iron Streaker, he quickly looked to the other end of the room and added, "Any more questions?"

The meeting did serve for one thing: I realized that I hadn't been given my chip. Once I picked it up, I was sure that this would be the weekend's final problem. Jinx!

We went home and I put my wheel on the bike, did a quick loop around the neighborhood to make sure everything was in its right place, and came back to do final preparations, make dinner, and get ready for bed. I had a tasteless concoction with orzo, broccoli, and spinach for dinner and fell asleep in the middle of an Eddie Izzard DVD thanks in no small part to Tylenol PM: a racer's best friend.

The Morning Of

My alarm went off at 3:00. I took a shower, braided my hair, made breakfast and coffee, and did one final check of my gear. It took Shane and me 5 minutes to get the straw in my aero bottle together, but finally I did. Putting my sunglasses on my head they dropped on the ground, but I was still holding one of the earpieces in my hand. I stared at it, then stared at the glasses on the ground. "FUCK!" I said. Shane, ever the practical one, stepped in before I even had a chance to hit full freak-out mode. "I'll go get some electrical tape!" I taped the earpiece back on and said, "Well, thank god that happened before we left the house and not after! Disaster averted." Jinx! We packed the car and were out the door by 4:00 a.m. When we got in the car, Shane's "Check Engine" light came on. Luckily the car held out. Another disaster averted. Jinx!

By the time we got to the start in Guerneville (which I decided to call Guano-ville), I was a nervous wreck. As usual, my first stop was the porta-potties where I broke Claire's Number 1 Rule of You-Know-What and my digestive tract confirmed that I was nervous as hell, then Shane and I moseyed on down to transition. As I set up my bike, I scoped out the competition. A couple of spots down the rack I saw a face that looked familiar. I looked closer. I stared. "Excuse me, where are you from?" I asked.
She looked up. "Massachusetts."
I looked closer. I squinted. "Are you Kat?" I asked. Kat was my bike buddy from the Patriot Half last month.
She looked surprised. She squinted. She stared. "Are you... Claire?!" After a few Oh my gods! and squeals she asked, "Is this your first one?"
"Yeah. I'm so nervous I think I might drop dead."
"Me too," she said.
"I can't tell you how glad I am you're here! It's so nice to see a familiar face!" I gushed, and hugged her. I hardly knew her, but I didn't care. I was no longer alone.

I took my bike out to ride it up the first rise out of transition and make sure I had it in the right gear. I was so spaced out I didn't realize I'd forgotten my helmet until some bitch snapped after me, "Wear a helmet!" in a snide voice. Bitch. Once I'd ridden the 500 feet up to the top of the hill and picked a good gear, I turned back. I safely arrived at the bottom of the hill WITHOUT my helmet. Had I known who she was I would have pooped in her swim cap.

I found Shane again and begged him to talk me out of this one more time before I got in the water for a warmup. When they cleared the water for the first wave to start I went back out and hugged him. I stood there whimpering for a the first wave's start while he told me to man up already. I sat there pointing out who looked fast while he assured me that I would kick ass. Then, he gave me one last long hug before he pushed me towards the water. He called something like, "Bite their heads off!" after me, and then I jumped in the river and lined up for the start.

The Swim

The swim was in the Russian River, a murky, muddy thing that is never more than 7 feet deep, and never clear enough to see your hand in front of your face. The course was 2 loops (out and back, of course), going upstream on the way out and downstream on the way back. Since it was the dry season, there was hardly any current at all, and the race web site estimated it would take roughly one more minute to swim out than back.

It was a deep water start, and I lined up towards the front and on the inside to try to avoid some of the violence. Then I had to tread water for 5 minutes, waiting for the horn. I think I could have lined up 100 yards ahead of those girls and still gotten beat up! I tried to be aggressive and swim my way to a comfortable spot, but all these bitches kept getting in my way. Finally I found a spot that felt comfortable, couldn't find any toes, but found a girl to pace off of, keeping her in sight over my shoulder, and settled in to a comfortable rhythm. Then we hit the wave in front of us. For the whole, entire swim, every time I would find a rhythm, I found myself coming up on some slow dude's toes. It was sure making it hard to concentrate on keeping my head down. A couple of times I caught myself swimming slightly off course just to get around them. Those other ladies were getting away!

No more Mr. Nice Guy!, I thought. I stopped swimming around people. When I started seeing the bubbles of someone else's toes, I just kept going. When their feet came into view, flailing all over the place, I just started stroking harder. BAM! I would bring my hand back down into the water, BAM! BAM! A couple of smacks from me, and most guys would be out of my way in a matter of seconds. I came up on one guy too close to even get my arm back in the water. I came down on his calf. Rather than moving my arm out of the way and trying again, I grabbed his leg and shoved it behind me with all my might, just like I would with the water. BAM! One more smack on his butt and he was gone.

By the back half of the second loop I was getting pretty tired. My lungs still felt fine, but my shoulders and back were burning. Still, I couldn't believe how quickly it was going by. I'd swum 500's in Masters that felt more tedious than this. I went under the second bridge, a sign that the finish line was drawing near, and suddenly a line of about 4 women went steaming by on my left. They were about 10 feet away, but they must have been swimming 10 seconds per 100 faster than I was. I swam over there as fast as I could and tried to hop on the last pair of toes. There they are! Where'd they go?! There they are! NOW where is she? Thank god for Alison, the best swim buddy ever who always makes me finish strong, because the end came before they were able to drop me completely, and they towed me in the final 100 yards to the finish line. When the toes in front of me stood up I did a couple more strokes, a duck dive, and then stood up and started running. I looked down at my watch as I went under the arch: 1:03!!! That was faster than I expected to go! Maybe the course was short, but I prefer to think I'm a badass.

Swim time: 1:03:26.9 Swim pace: 1:30/100 yd, 1:39/100m Swim rank: 4/19 AG (21%), 14/109 women (13%), 60/379 (16%) coed overall

T1

Ran out of the water, found my bike, stripped off the wetsuit (no strippers here), followed Nitsirk's advice and put on my socks BEFORE my shoes. I smacked my helmet on my head, slipped my almost-good-as-new sunglasses on my face, and took a look around for the exit. Just then I saw Kat sprint by headed... back towards the river?! I had no idea what was going on with her, but I ran out towards the road, dropped my nutrition, had to go back for it, and eventually found the exit. As I was mounting my bike I heard Shane yell, "GOOD SWIM, CLAIRE!" I was surprised to see him there and just shook my head at him as I rode away.

T1 time: 3:05.2 T1 rank: 2/19 AG (10%), 6/109 woman (5%) , 34/382 coed overall (9%)

The Bike

Yes! This was the part I was looking forward to! I passed a few men right in the first mile and my legs felt good. Once I felt like I had a rhythm I leaned down to take a drink from my straw. I had to shove it down really far into the bottle to get a drink. Something wasn't right here. I tapped the top of the straw. It fell into the bottle. FUCK! The straw had fallen apart, and without the straw, the aero bottle was useless. Now, not only was I carrying around an extra 2 lb on the front of my bike, but I would also be short of one drink receptacle and there would be no way to get my nuun tabs into the water bottles they'd be giving on the course. I decided to throw the bottle out at the first drop point, but first I would have to undo the velcro strap that held it in place. I reached forward, and... the strap was open! Now I was going to have to ride the first 20 miles holding the bottle in place! Crap! Well, I thought, there are worse things that could happen. JINX!

I started eating almost right away. I was hungry. I forgot I hadn't eaten in 4 and a half hours, plus I'd just swum for an hour. I dumped my aero bottle and my first regular bottle at the first aid station and picked up a bottle of Gatorade. I twisted the top open and sucked. Nothing happened. I sucked harder. Nothing. I hunkered down in my aero bars and pulled the cap off. They'd left the goddamned tab on the bottle! The RD had PROMISED they wouldn't do that! What the hell?! I almost crashed into another rider trying to get the tab off the bottle and ride at the same time.

I rode exactly 20 miles in the first hour. I only passed a few of women as well (and all in the first 10 minutes), and I didn't know what to make of it. Where was everybody? I had been surrounded by the same guys for quite awhile and was coming up to pass a guy in a black and white jersey for the umpteenth time when I saw some cars up ahead. There was a white pickup facing the other direction waiting to make a left turn onto a small street. At the stop sign on the small street, there was a car waiting to turn right onto the street we were on. We cyclists were just riding straight through, so we had right of way, race or no race. As we drew closer to the intersection (which can hardly be called an intersection, the intersecting street was so small), I drew in for the kill to pass the guy in front of me. Just as he got to the cross street, the white pickup started to turn, and not slowly either. "HEY!" he yelled as loud as he could, and the pickup seemed to hesitate. Not like he braked, just like he'd taken his foot off the gas, which gave the guy ahead of me time to get away. I was about 15 feet back going upwards of 20 mph in my aero bars, and too close to brake even if I had been in the hoods. I had faith that the pickup would stop. Then the pickup gunned it. Was he REALLY trying to make it in this gap?! Time slowed down. I looked up to see if I could swerve right and out of his way. I couldn't without crashing head on with the car stopped at the stop sign. He was still coming at me. He was going to hit me. The stopped car honked. I knew now for sure that I was going to be hit by a car. I thought about all the time and training I'd put into this. I thought about how important my body was to me. I thought about how much money my bike had cost me. I thought about how badly I wanted to finish this race. I screamed. It was the ugliest noise I have ever heard in my life and it came out of my mouth. It was a combination of surprise, rage, panic, and trying to get the guy's attention. It went through about 7 different pitches. I felt the bumper hit my left foot and something come loose. I felt the ass end of my bike skid sideways a couple of inches. Somehow I accelerated and swooped into the closing gap between the front of the pickup and the front of the stopped car and flew out the other side, still upright. My first thought: I've been hit by a car! Then I realized, I'm still upright! Then I looked down at my body. My left foot had been knocked out of my pedal. I clipped back in and it worked. It didn't even occur to me to check for pain. I pedaled a few strokes, trying to feel and see if my bike was working properly. I didn't feel any rubbing from a bent wheel. I listened. It was hard to tell. Then I got angry. I was FURIOUS! All I could hear in my head for the next hour was the sound of my ugly-ass scream. I was so shaken, I couldn't tell you if I rode that next hour fast or slow, I just listened to that ugly-ass scream over and over in my head and got angrier and angrier! So much had gone wrong already and I wasn't even half way through the bike!

I came up behind a woman with pink handlebar tape. "Good morning!" she said. I was not in the mood to talk to anyone, much less a bitch with pink handlebar tape.
"Hi," I grumbled.
But then she hung on, and passed me back a few minutes later. "Are you doing the whole thing?" she asked as she rode by.
"Yeah, how about you?" I asked. I was vaguely aware that there was an aquabike and a half ironman going on at the same time.
"No, I'm just doing the aquabike," she said. Phew. I relaxed a bit, since it didn't matter if this pink bike passed me or not.
"Can you do me a favor?" I asked. I explained about the car hitting me and asked her to take a look at my rear wheel to see if it was bent at all. "Sure," she said. "Let me just ride behind you for a second." And she did. She came back around a minute later. "It looks like it might be a tad bent, but I don't think the brakes are rubbing or anything..." "Thanks," I said. Then I wished her luck and urged her on ahead. Now that I had had a conversation I could get my scream out of my head, but now I was worried that my wheel was rubbing. I mean, how much could she really see from back there? I would see her and her pink handlebar tape a few more times during the ride, but she was so sympathetic that I couldn't hold it against her that she pulled away from me in the last 20 miles.

At the next aid station I needed more Gatorade. I wanted to make sure that I wouldn't have to tear the tab off of this one like I did the last one, so as I pulled into the aid station I yelled, "GATORADE, WITHOUT THE TAB!"
The first volunteer pulled the bottle away as I reached for it, trying to unscrew the top. "GATORADE WITHOUT THE TOP!" she yelled to the volunteers farther down the line.
"WITHOUT THE TAB, NO TAB!" I yelled as I approached the next lady.
"GATORADE WITHOUT THE TOP!" she yelled as she held it out for me. I drew my hand back, I didn't want that shit!
I came up to the next one, "GATORADE WITH THE TOP, WITH THE TOP!" I yelled.
She handed me the bottle, and as I caught ahold of it I heard her say, "GATORADE, NO TOP!" as it sloshed all over my hand. I threw it on the ground. I had one more chance.
This time I just yelled, "GATORADE! GATORADE!!!"
"GATORADE!" the guy repeated, as he finally handed me a closed bottle. I took a suck. It was open, but it was warm. I have to admit, still reeling from the car, and with the frustration of not getting the drink I wanted, I was not at my kindest to the volunteers at that aid station.
Over the next couple of miles, I started to hear a kind of creaking or rattling. Oh shit! I thought. What if my frame is cracked?! That gave me another thing to stew about for another hour, until I finally convinced myself that maybe it was the gatorade bottles rubbing in my cages.

I wasn't even in the same time zone as my "happy place", but the fun wasn't over yet. The course stayed on fairly low-trafficked roads, but they weren't closed to traffic. Family and friends were discouraged from driving the course, but not prohibited. Around mile 35 a blue wagon was trailing one of the riders, doing whatever it is that spectators do when they follow their friends. Eventually, they decided to turn around. They found a nice driveway, and began to turn, I can only assume without checking their mirrors. Again, in 1 more second they would have been directly in front of me, and I would have no time to stop before I crashed head-on into their passenger-side door. "HEY!" I yelled out as loud as I possibly could and swerved through a gravel patch to miss them. Thank god they still had the window open from chatting away to their buddy, or they wouldn't have heard me, and it would have been the end of my race. When I passed them pulled over on the side of the road about a mile later I gave him the finger. Maybe I could get disqualified for it, but I figured that I could make a case for emotional distress. It took me a good, long time, maybe until around mile 75, to totally shake the panic that a third car was going to come along and do me in for good.

I passed the 56-mile mark in roughly 2:50:13 and soon after the course took me past Windsor High School, home of T2 and dozens of screaming spectators. I looked for Shane in the crowd. I wanted to tell him what had happened. I wanted to know that SOMEONE felt sorry for me other than myself, but I didn't see him. I headed out for the second loop. Fuck special needs. I didn't need special needs. I could hardly eat anyway from the heat.

Pace per 5 mi on the bike. As you can see, I slowed down a lot on the second loop when the temperature rose and the wind picked up.

It was starting to get really hot out. The course is rolling and rural, and there are a few oak trees along the rout, but mostly it's just vineyards, vineyards, vineyards, and sun, sun, sun. I was starting to get nauseous, my hamstrings and glutes were sore from not enough fluids or sugars, and my feet were aching horribly. The feet were the worst, it was a throbbing, burning pain that started in the soles of my feet and radiated all the way up to the back of my rib cage. I loosened my shoes, but it only helped a little. At one point I ran out of water, and couldn't get more for another 6 or 7 miles. I was nauseous, and it was getting harder and harder to force food down. The wind had picked up to a 15 mph headwind, but it was just blowing hot air in my face.

There are two significant hills on the course: the second and most severe comes for the second time around mile 100. I knew that one was going to be horrible, because the hill would block the wind and I would just be cranking away in my climbing gear going no miles per hour and sweating like crazy. My feet were hurting so badly, that I let out an audible moan. Just as I did, a chick passed me! Crap! And horror of horrors, she was wearing an Mdot jersey. Aw HELL no! I thought, and took off after her. I passed her, but could see her close behind me when I looked over my shoulder. Then we hit the hill. I clicked it into a high gear and powered up the first slope as fast as I could. I was breathing like an asthmatic, but at least she was gone. I never saw her on the bike course again. On the hill there were people walking their bikes. One woman had stopped altogether and was sitting in the shade of a tree. I felt bad, but not like them, at least. Too bad they were from a different race, or perhaps were still working on completing their second lap.

The last 10 miles into town I took it easy. It took all my willpower not to sit up, since doing so brought so much relief to my lower back and feet, but I was racing, dammit! I would finish this thing LOOKING cool, even if it was only at 15 mph! I thought I had finished in about 5:50, but it turns out, I went a bit longer than that.

Accumulated average speed. Watch it drop as time went on and temperatures went up!

Bike time: 5:57:55.5 Bike pace: 18.8 mph Bike rank: 2/18 AG (11%) (1 dropped out), 3/102 women (3%) (7 dropped out), 56/366 (15%) coed overall (13 dropped out) Time ahead of Bobby's bike split: 21:21

T2

I took off my shoes coming in to transition, but didn't do a sexy flying dismount. My feet hurt so bad, and my legs were so stiff from the cramping that I was afraid that I would fall over, or hurt my feet if I tried to do a running dismount. I came to a full stop on the dismount line and stiffly swung my leg over and ran away.

I was dismayed to see about 6 or 7 bikes in the women's racks. I don't know how I managed to pull off 3rd woman on the bike, because it sure looked to me like there were twice that number on the rack right now. (All women had started in the same swim wave.)

The blacktop was boiling under my feet. It took me a minute to find my stuff, and then I quickly plopped down on the ground to put on my shoes and also to quickly twist and crack my back. The black top was even hotter under my butt. I switched out my helmet for my visor, grabbed my run bottle and food bag, and dashed out of transition. Well, "dashed" is a relative term. I didn't know how I could walk with my legs feeling the way they did, and I wondered if I would ever run again.

T1 time: 2:57.2
T1 rank: 3/18 AG (17%), 7/103 woman (7%), 22/356 coed overall (6%) (10 dropped out)

The Run... Excuse me, The DEATH MARCH

Straight out of transition there was an aid station, and I stopped there to get water for my Accelerade powder already in the bottle. We had been promised ice, but they were out. I chucked my snack bag under the nearest bush and waddled off. I thought for sure I was going to start walking as soon as I was out of sight of people.

Shane popped out of the crowd. "What HAPPENED?! Where have you been?!" he asked. "Fuck you!" I screamed. "I rode 112 miles in the heat, you ass hole!" I yelled. I almost threw my water bottle at his head. I had asked him to make me mad to make me run faster, but this was not what I meant. Later I realized that there were a lot of kids around that point, and I'd probably committed a big no-no. But I think anyone who had heard the conversation would have understood if I'd torn him into pieces in front of all those innocent children. "If you keep up this pace, you can still beat Bobby by 5 minutes!" he urged. This was another thing that I had told him to say, but since I had only run about the length of a football field and already stopped for a snack, I didn't really appreciate it. "Go away! I never want to see you again for as long as I live!" I yelled, and waddled off down the path.

I managed to keep a sub-9-minute pace going for about a nanosecond, and then held sub-10 for another mile or so, but that didn't last long. I couldn't believe it, the clock still hadn't passed 7 1/2 hours and half of the people on the course were already walking. It took me awhile to figure out that a lot of them were doing a half ironman distance, but many walkers had white numbers on too, indicating they were doing the full distance. These guys weren't the lightstick crowd, these were supposed to be the guns! The run was a triple out and back, so in the next 4.25 miles, I would see every single person who was ahead of me. I couldn't concentrate well enough to keep track of how many women there were, though. Four? Five? Who cared? I could tell that I wasn't going to be running this whole marathon.

There was an aid station roughly every mile, and right from the first one I started walking the aid stations. I even stopped to pee in the porta-john. Despite waiting till I started running to add water, it tasted like my Accelerade had curdled in the sun anyway, so at every aid station I would pour a cup of water on my head, a cup of Gatorade down my throat, and shove a pretzel in my mouth as I started running. At the Mile 2 aid station they seemed to have every middle schooler in Sonoma County working. They were all enthusiasm, but the efficiency was a bit lacking. I came into the aid station saying, "Water? Water?" A boy handed me a cup and I poured it over my head. "May I please have some more?" I asked. He grabbed a pitcher and poured the whole thing over my head. "Thanks," I said, "but I meant some to drink."

Course profile. The battery got low on the second loop and my GPS went a bit loopy, but you get the idea.

Based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever, I had decided that the run would be flat, and was quite dismayed to find that the back half was VERY hilly. I had tried to run aid station to aid station until that point, but when I got to the bottom of the first of 2 steep hills (after several rollers), I knew I was going to have to take this like the ultrarunners do it: walking the uphills, running the downhills. Just as long as I kept moving... During one of my running spells I passed one woman who was walking and a Team In Training member coming the other way said to her, "Keep it up! Constant forward motion; you're doing great!"
He wasn't talking to me, but I almost said, "That's a great way to get yourself smacked, you know!"

I came in from the first loop in about an hour and a half. I just wanted this to be over! It was SO HOT out here, my legs wouldn't obey me, and I didn't give a flying fuck WHAT happened anymore. And I'd only gone 8.5 miles! I got my first armband and as I was running up the driveway out onto the street, Shane turned up again. "How you holding up?" It was obvious that I wasn't going to run a 4:30 marathon, so now he was ready to be more kind towards me. I'd been preparing what I wanted to say to him for the whole first loop. If I had something I had to be back for (getting a message to Shane), I felt like I had a purpose, and it made the running easier. Now was my chance. "Shane, I was hit by a car on the bike!" (That'll teach him to insult my bike time! I thought. Now he HAS to be nice to me!) "Can you find out if anyone reported it?"
"Shit! Are you kidding me?"
"No, it was a white pickup!" I said, and ran away trying to look strong. All these people listening in would sure be impressed if they saw me running strong now that they know I was hit by a car.

But loop 2 was worse than any of the 7 rings of hell. It was hot as fuck, and I found myself extending my walking breaks more and more. My new message that I would relay to Shane when I got back was that I thought I was going to have to walk it in. Just having that in my head made me feel lower than at any other point in the race. I just wanted it to be over. Not only did I stop to pee, I actually waited in line for the porta potty, who cared if I lost 4 or 5 minutes? It even hurt to lean over, so I did something I never, ever do: I sat on the seat. Who even cared anymore?

People with runner's bodies were running with some of the most horrible form I had ever seen. They looked like the clips you see of athletes who collapse within sight of the finish line. One guy turned to me, "It's like running on the sun out here!"
"Worse," I said.


On the way back in loop 2, I finally saw Kat. Where had she been all this time?

I ran past the finish line to get my second wrist band. This was cruel! I saw Shane again on the way back out. We walked together and he filled me in on the information he had been able to gather. No one had reported an accident, and "they" wanted to talk to me after the race. They at least seemed really concerned about it, and wanted to make sure I was okay. "How you holding up?" he asked again. "The pounding is killing me," I said. "This is going to be messy. I may have to walk it in." "Yeah, but you only have like 8 and a half more miles, right?" I groaned. "It's SO HOT out there!" I said. "Yeah, I didn't want to tell you this until it cooled down. It got up to 97 degrees today," he told me. "It's still about 92 now." It was about 6:00 p.m. "Oh, and one more thing..." he said. "... they lost your suit." "WHAT?! Like my wetsuit?!" "Yeah. It's not there. I've already checked twice. You have to 'come by and identify it when you're done.'" "You have GOT to be kidding me!" I said. I just couldn't seem to get anything right in this race! Right before I said goodbye to Shane, the lead woman passed me on her way into the finish line. "Oh well, there goes my gold medal," I said sarcastically. "At least I know that I'm not going to get lapped."

The news about the wetsuit was enough to spoil my final lap. One thing it DID do, though, was make me run more (if not faster). I even choked down some more candy, just so that I could get back faster to ream them out. It seemed to help. On the last loop I saw two men who looked like they were having trouble making their next step, they were so out of it. I saw one guy yacking in the bushes, and another one collapse in a chair at an aid station and ask for medical to be called. I couldn't even see how many wrist bands people had on, let alone keep track of whether I was passing people or being passed. I saw people who had been running beautifully on past loops running with strides that looked worse than I felt, and was surprised when I found they were behind me.

At eleven hours and 13 minutes, I was still at mile 20.5. I never really expected to beat Bobby's time anyway. Three miles from the finish I poured the last cup of Gatorade that I planned to drink in my entire life into my bottle, poured one last cup of water over my head, and gritted my teeth. I was going to run the rest of the way, and I was going to get this over with. With 2 miles to go, a girl passed me. She was flying, maybe at a 10 minute mile. I tried squeezing every last inch of willpower that I had out of my legs, but I couldn't seem to break my 13-minute mile pace.

Run splits. Second loop was by far the worst.

Past the last aid station, around the corner, and into the home stretch where spectators were set up with their lawn chairs I knew people would cheer for me. But they seemed tired. I managed to get a few groups excited for me, but most had lost interest. I tried to focus on the things that I had planned to think about at this moment, how I'd finally managed to quit drinking, getting out of the world's shittiest relationship and building my life up from scratch, following through on something that I'd been trying to train for for 3 years. Instead, all I could think about was whether my bike and wetsuit were okay.

Before the race I got an email from Gretchen, who really hit the nail on the head. She said:

When I started reading it you were in Spain, and you said you hadn't been competing, and I sort of thought you were one of those athletes that didn't compete much. And you always talked about how slow you were, whether it was true or not I don't know. But Now you're like the opposite end of the spectrum from who I used to think you were. You are like THE badass triathlete/bike chick. You train like a monster. Your motivation is stunning. You race ALL THE TIME!! Who are you, anyway??
Sooooooo........it seems only appropriate that you are finally doing this thing. The day is here. I know you will kick some ass, but just don't forget to enjoy it. Of course it will be full of pain and suffering, but you know, that's kind of the point. You can still enjoy it. You will never again do your first Ironman, so even enjoy the shitty parts.

When I was in Spain, I didn't compete much because I couldn't. I didn't have the money for the entry fees, I missed several races because I couldn't seem to get to the starting line, and worst of all, my girlfriend wouldn't let me leave the house to train, let alone race. So I drank. And the more I drank, the more I felt like a failure, and the more I felt like a failure, the more I drank. I came home so sick of myself, that I swore that I was going to quit for a year. I was going to spend a whole year NOT drinking and doing whatever the hell I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it. I was going to train as hard as I could, and then I was going to do an ironman. And for once everything seemed to be going right. I raced all the time, and all over the place. This was my fourth marathon in a calendar year. I even started winning some stuff, taking a handful of age group wins and even a course record. But all year I had had my eye on this ironman, and try as I might, I just couldn't make myself enjoy these last few minutes. Finally, FINALLY I came around the corner into the home stretch and this guy sprinted past me! Jerk! If he had all that energy all this time, what was he saving it for?! I still beat him anyway, since his wave must have started 5-10 minutes ahead of mine. The people at the finish scrambled and got the tape up in time for me to run through it. I felt nothing but relief.
Run time: 5:17:08.6
Time actually spent running: 5:04:03
Real average running pace: 11:46
Run pace: 12:06 min/mi (including stops)
Run rank: 7/17 AG (41%) (1 dropped out since T2), 27/87 women (31%) (15 dropped out since T2), 127/310 (41%) coed overall (56 dropped out since T2)

Not my actual finishing photo.

Post Race

A race official swooped in and put his arm around me right after I crossed the line. "How are you doing? You doing okay? How you doing?"
"Okay," I said. Why was he touching me? As they handed me a water bottle and took my chip off my ankle I started hyperventilating. I was going to cry, but I wanted this jackass off of me when I did it. "You sure you're okay? You want to go to medical? You doing alright? It'll only take a moment..." he was saying. "No... wheeze... I'm cool... wheeze... really... wheeze..." Where the hell was Shane? There he was. The bad man was still touching me as Shane tried to step in. I walked over and hugged him, and immediately started sobbing. Shane finally convinced him to go away, promising he'd take me to the med tent if I needed it. I cried for another minute or so and he hugged me tight, even though I was wet and slimy and covered in grime. Shane gets these things. I'm actually still getting a lump in my throat right now thinking about it. When I could talk again I said, "That was awful!" Shane laughed. "No, really, Shane, it was horrible! Did they find my wetsuit???" Yes. They'd finally let Shane in to the gear area, and he'd found my bag. It had gotten wet and the sticker with my number on it had fallen off, that was all. And it looked like my bike was okay too. "Shane, I never want to do that again for as long as I live!" "Yeah, right."

He lead me ever-so-slowly to the food tent where I piled my plate high with food that I was unable to eat. Not long after, Kat showed up looking fresh as a daisy. "Where were you all day?!" I asked.
"I got three flat tires on the bike," she explained. "And I only had 1 tube and 1 cartridge, so I had to wait around until someone came by and could give me one," she said. She hardly even seemed angry about it. She had lost around an hour on the bike, and had still come in only 13 minutes behind me. AND she had done a full costume change in both T1 and T2. That's why I'd seen her running in the wrong direction in her bikini this morning! What a rock star! We agreed to be BFFs, since she lives only 1 town away and since we seem to swim and bike at exactly the same speed.

Before leaving we checked the results. I'd finished 9th overall, but 4th in my age group, since the overall first and second place women were in my age group (bitches!). Oh well. At least that meant we wouldn't have to make the drive AGAIN tomorrow to go to the awards ceremony.

Total time: 12:24:33.4 Overall rank: 4/17 AG (21%) (plus 2 DNFs), 9/87 women (8%) (and 22 DNF), 69/310 (18%) coed overall (69 DNF)

On the way out to the car we saw two medics dragging a guy in. He was limp as a rag doll and ashen, and I never got to see his face because his head was hanging listlessly from his shoulders. After a few steps they had to stop to let him dry heave for several minutes. I thought he might have been about 50, but looked like he was about 100 years old. I turned around and looked again when we'd passed him. On the back of his thigh it still said "24". I couldn't believe it.

When I finally got to my phone after the race, I texted some friends my time and placing and said that it had been a "bad day". So many things had gone wrong that I really hadn't felt like I was able to enjoy the day. I didn't mean that I was unhappy with my result or my time. I had hoped to go faster, but I had also hoped the high temperature would be 82* as forecast. I did what I came to do, which was to finish, but I felt like I couldn't enjoy that achievement while it was happening. I didn't get that thrill I usually got after a long race. I was so worried about being hit by a car, whether my bike was ruined, and whether my wetsuit was lost, that I couldn't enjoy the culmination of all my hard work. I was just glad it was over.

When I woke up the next morning, though, I realized that I'd been one of the lucky ones. I'd been tapped by a car, but in the end it hadn't cost me any time. Poor Kat must have been desperate standing at the side of the road waiting for someone to toss her a spare tube, and I can't even imagine her desperation when it happened again. And at least I'd been able to finish, unlike the 69 people who DNFed. There were people who had collapsed on the run course, there were people who had been pulled off in medical cars, and people who had simply sat down and given up. I wondered what they were thinking about today.

So to answer the question you're all itching to ask: yeah, I guess I'll have to do another one someday, just so I can actually enjoy the experience. But don't anyone talk about a "next time" right now. Right now I'm doubting whether I ever want to get up off my couch again.

I think I might faint

I don't remember ever being this nervous for anything. This is the feeling I had 2 seconds before I got my nose pierced for the second time. 2 seconds before your nose is pierced for the second time, the piercer (who has more tattoos than clear skin, some kind of weird shaving pattern on his/her head, and about 32 man-made holes in his/her head) is holding a needle as thick as a pencil up to your face, the piercer's perforated face is 4 inches from yours and s/he's lining up the sharp end of that needle on the little dot s/he's drawn on your skin and suddenly you realize, "This lunatic, who is probably a junky, is about to IMPALE part of my body with that gigantic needle." Then you remember how much it hurt the first time, and that even after they pierce you, they still have to put the jewlery into the wound, which hurts even more. And if you're a sane person, no matter how calm you look, you're still pretty damned nervous, because you just paid $80 to get stabbed in the face. You wonder what the hell you were thinking, and you'd be crazy not to want to back out. I feel like that. Normally my resting heartrate is in the high 50's in the morning and around 70 while I'm sitting around doing stuff. Yesterday in the car driving (after a day of inactivity), my heartrate was 90! That's how nervous I am.

To prepare for this race I have swum 227,591 yards, biked 2,059.6 miles, rode 99 hours, 20 minutes and 15 seconds on the trainer, and run 782.2 miles since November 11 (when I started my log). But still I don't feel ready! I could probably count on 2 hands the number of times I've run off the bike. I've only run off the bike on exactly 4 rides longer than 50 miles, and only twice was the run more than a mile. I haven't run more than 13 miles since April. I've swum 4000 yards at a stretch twice all year. I've done nothing to practice my nutrition... Was my taper enough? Was it too much? I don't know.

Yesterday I went back to the time trial. My legs had felt like trash all week. Since I tend to perform better towards the end of the week than the beginning, I figured that moving them for half an hour would be just what I needed. Cunt on a Pink Bike wasn't there, but her husband was. With my bike in perfect working order I only went 5 seconds faster. I couldn't believe it! Given, I think I paced it wrong, and felt like I was going to puke for the whole second half. If the 220 minus your age rule of thumb is really true, then I reached 96% of my MHR (187 bpm), and averaged 94% (183 bpm).

While I'm gone, feel free to catch up on the AIDS LifeCycle reports (I've posted Day 6 below; it's a long one, I apologize). I don't know if there's an athlete tracker function, but feel free to check (if you know my last name!). This blog is a tremendous motivator to not suck ass in races, so I figure that if I put my race plan up, it will not only give me a chance to collect my thoughts, but will also give me something to hold myself accountable. Feel free to comment/criticize. I'm sure all of it will go flying out the window when the gun goes off anyway.

Pre-race I will focus on the little things: Getting coffee, finding a bathroom, getting my wetsuit on, peeing in my wetsuit, etc. I will try not to think about what I'm about to do.

In the swim I plan to start nearer to the front and inside than usual. That way I will get swum OVER rather than swimming head-on into feet. If I find feet, I will follow them. If I don't I will concentrate on keeping my head down, my catch, and not swimming off course. I have no idea about pacing but I expect to swim between 1:03 and 1:10 (I know that's a huge gap, I have no idea how fast I swim in open water!).

In T1 I will put on sunscreen, cycling shoes, socks, helmet, and glasses in that order, put an extra bag of nutrition in my pocket, look around for all my shit, stuff it in my transition bag, and hightail it out of there.

I will not eat anything for the first 20 minutes of the bike and concentrate on settling into a rhythm. Once those 20 minutes are up, I will start eating every 20 minutes and draining a bottle every 45 minutes. I am going to try to hold an average of above 20 mph, but if it's not happening, I'm not going to worry about it. My race is going to happen on the bike, so I'm going to concentrate on keeping my effort at an even 75% from mile 10 to mile 105. The last 7 miles will be about loosening up my legs. I hope to go around 5:30 on the bike, but will certainly be done in around 6 hours.

I plan to do a flying shoeless dismount into transition. I will put on my shoes (with lace locks), visor, and race belt, and run out of transition with my run bottle (empty with drink powder already in it) and transition bag in-hand. I'll drop the bag at the first available bush or tree, and fill up the water bottle at the 1 mile aid station, while I'm still getting my legs.

I have no idea what pace I'll run, but I'm going to try to keep it between 9 and 10 minute/miles and just focus on form rather than distance. We must have sexy photos, you know! There's an aid station every mile with blocks, pretzels, and snacks, so I'll just do my nutrition on the fly. I'll take it easy until mile 18, and see how I feel from there. Really, the marathon is a big, black hole in my imagination. We all know that I hate running, I hate marathons, and I hate running in a triathlon. So it would follow that running a marathon at the end of a triathlon will be the most painful, unpleasant experience of my life. My only expectation is to finish the marathon. I hope to do it running. If I break 5:00 I'll be happy. If I break 4:30 I'll be ecstatic.

Stay tuned, because depending on whether I get Shane's permission or not, I might put up his cell phone number for you to text messages of support. Please, no "you're doing great" stuff. Please send things that will get me fired up, like, "I bet you can't do it!", "You're a winner just for finishing!", "I'll be so mad at you if you don't beat Bobby's time!", etc.

Day 6: I won the race!

Related posts:
Prologue: Dykes and Bikes
Day 1: A Ride Down Memory Lane
Day 2: And I'm faster than YOU, and YOU, and YOU...
Day 3: Back Pedaling
Day 4: I find a Fan Club and an Archnemesis
Day 5: Red Dress Day

I woke up early on Day 6 in order to hit the road early. All the holdups on Red Dress Day and the subsequent argument over how much pizza a human being has the right to eat had me feeling sullen and cranky, and I really wanted to get out there and see what I was capable of on my 6th consecutive day of riding. I still felt good, but everyone else seemed to have faded long ago and now they were cracked and peeling. Meg's friend, the heavy one, sagged before she even left camp (when I heard that, I was even more bitter about the pizza comment!). Meg would have problems later in the day. Shane was falling apart and just wouldn't admit it. "I saw Mdot girl in the med tent last night," he confided. "She was walking all funny and had her leg taped up." Alisa was in better spirits after her meltdown, but ready to get off the bike. Word on the street was that if you got too close to Trish she might explode. The only ones who still felt good were me and Lorraine. So while Shane decided to spend the day with Meg and Jess, I rolled out just as they opened bike parking and struck out on my own.

"Just to remind you, you'll be held at Rest Stop 2 until 9:00, so you might as well take your time!" a man was yelling over and over as he paced bike parking. It was 7:00 in the morning and Rest Stop 2 was only 25 miles away.


Coming out of camp we started to climb immediately. It was a long, long hill about 1,000 feet high and 16 miles long. It wasn't too challenging, never going above 5%, and I trucked my way to the top without much trouble. One guy that passed me on the climb said, "Hey, I know you! We talked yesterday. I'm Merc."
"From the cell phone chargers?" I said. Electrical outlets were hard to come by, and people tended to congregate around them to make sure their stuff wasn't unplugged. Now that I think about it, this man wasn't who I thought he was and I have no idea who he really was.
"What are you doing out this early?" he asked.
"Sometimes I ride with my friends, sometimes I want to beat the crowds."
"We call that, 'racing for the blue water'," he said.
"What? What does that mean?"
"In the Porta-Potties. You know, the blue water that no one's used yet." He had a point. I liked that. So even though they were going to hold me at Rest Stop 2, I raced for the blue.

Finally I got to the long, glorious downhill on beautiful, glassy pavement. The only problem was that we were on a sort of freeway at that point, and I was stuck behind a guy who was riding his brakes the whole way down, weaving all over the lane. "ON YOUR LEFT," I called as loud as I could. He continued weaving. He simply wasn't holding his line, and I didn't dare pass him going 35+ mph on a freeway. "ON YOUR LEFT!" I called again. Still, nothing. I came in a little closer. "LEFT!" ... nothing... "PLEASE don't make me ride on the rumblestrip!" I pleaded. Finally he moved way right for long enough for me to pass him. "THANK YOU," I yelled, adding a few impolite nicknames under my breath.

At the bottom of the hill, even before I'd lost the momentum from the descent, the rout spit us RIGHT onto highway 101. If you don't know the area, this is a MAJOR highway, and the best way to get to LA from all coastal points north. It's pretty and runs right along the water, but it's still a freeway and it's still scary as hell to ride your bike on. On top of that there was an UNBELIEVABLE headwind gusting up the coast. I'd never had to ride into a wind like this for any significant amount of time. In fact, I don't think I'd ever encountered a headwind like this until this week. When I got into Rest Stop 2 there were only about a dozen people there, and the roadies were still setting up. They were having a hell of a time getting the canopies set up in the wind, and it took me and another rider to hold one of the posts down while the roadie tied it to the bumper of his truck (the milk crates filled with full jugs of water weren't enough to hold it down). I still had 40 minutes to wait, so I grabbed a couple of Mojo bars and sat at the top of a 100' cliff to look at the ocean. A tall man, about 30 years old sat next to me. "Hi! What's your name?!" he said. He was so flaming, he would set off sprinklers.
"Claire, what's yours?"
"Joseph." Then he looked meaningfully into my sunglasses. "I want you to remember me," his voice dropped and he said it like it was really important. If he weren't the gayest man I've ever met (and that's saying a lot), I might have thought he was hitting on me. Now that I think about it, he may have been a positive pedaler not wearing a jersey. Either way, it was clear that he liked being the center of attention. "I haven't seen YOU here before..." he went on in a Cheshire Cat kind of way. I swear, if I didn't know better I would think he was hitting on me.
"I was here the other morning. Sometimes I ride with friends, sometimes I ride alone."
"Well I'm your friend now, honey!" he said.

At a quarter to 9 there were over a hundred riders in Rest Stop 2, and dozens more coming by the minute. I decided that if I wanted to keep my lead, I'd better line up now. I grabbed my bike from its spot right at the front of the rack and nosed my way to the front of the gathering crowd. Then I spotted Shane. "Come have snack with me!" he said.
"Like hell I'm giving up this spot!" I said. "Come here when you're done!" But when he was done I was surrounded by another hundred people. He found a spot about 20 feet away and we made faces at each other, since we were too far apart to talk. Mdot girl was there too, just a couple of shoulders away to my right.

The reason for the hold was that just beyond the rest area there was a narrow bridge with no shoulder. The CHP (California Highway Patrol) had agreed to close down a lane for us between the hours of 9:00 and 12:00 a.m., but no earlier and no later. As the crowd thickened, tension rose. Nine o'clock came and went, and there was still no sign that they were going to let us go. "C'maaaaaaan!" a guy right behind me yelled. "WHAT'S THE FUCKING HOLD-UP?!" I don't think he realized how far his voice was carrying. "It's 9:15 already! Let us GO already!" It was only 9:10. These obnoxious comments continued at regular intervals, whether encouraged or not. He would say something, maybe laugh at his own joke, wait about 15 seconds, and then say something else obnoxious. People around him (including myself) were starting to turn and give him dirty looks.

Riders waiting to leave Rest Stop 2 at around 9:15.

Finally, one of the roadies started moving down the line yelling, "We are just waiting for the CHP to come back and tell us that the cones are set and we will let you go. We can't let you leave before that!"
"That's fucking CalTrans for you!" (CalTrans = California Transit) yelled the obnoxious man behind me. "Fucking Schwarzenegger won't give any money to fucking CalTrans..." What the hell is he talking about?! He thinks just because ONE trooper is running late setting up some cones it's a giant government conspiracy?! This is hardly the Super Dome! I thought. It was like having Gilbert Gottfried right over my shoulder. More people started turning and giving him dirty looks.
"Uh oh, Jimmy!" he yelled to someone at the very front of the pack. "I think I'm starting to piss off the neighbors! Time to leave the neighborhood!" 'Jimmy' turned around and gave him a half snicker, half snarl and turned back to the guy next to him.
"What the fuck IS this?! Are we going to have to wait her all fucking day?! TYPICAL CalTrans, doesn't work for fucking shit..." he went on.

Mdot girl turned around, "You know, you have real bad energy about you, you know that?!" she said. "It's not like you're the only one waiting here, so why don't you just calm down."
"I got a real bad energy?! I got a real bad energy?!"
"Yeah, so why don't you just keep it down," she said. Alright, she was kind of a bitch, but at least she was actually SAYING what the hundreds of people around her were thinking.
"I should come over there and kick your ass!" he said. "I'll kick your ass and throw your bike in the ocean and show YOU who's got bad energy!"
She just raised an eyebrow and turned away. Still, Gilbert Gottfried didn't shut up.

At about 9:30 the roadies started making the rounds again with an update. "The trooper laid the cones only about this far from the barrier." She held up her hands about 16 inches apart. "We're going to have to wait until he re-lays them, then when he comes back here, we'll let you go.
"I could ride through something like that! Let us go!" yelled Gilbert Gottfried. "If you can't ride through something like that, you DESERVE to fall under a truck." Oh yeah, well why don't you go out there and try, then, thought a couple hundred annoyed cyclists. I'll drive the truck.
"Where's he in such a hurry to be?" I said to the guy next to me. I said it loud enough that I could be overheard. "He got an appointment in camp or something?"
"Some people just have to make asses of themselves, they can't help it!" he said. This guy was another Ironman athlete from the New York area and we bonded over triathlon, location, and rolling our eyes at each other every time Gilbert Gottfried opened his mouth.
He'd started to repeat himself. "If fucking Schwarzenegger weren't so busy blowing shit up and would put money into CalTrans..." What planet is this guy living on?! What is Schwarzenegger blowing up?! He may be Republican. He may blow shit up in movies, but he's hardly responsible for the war in Iraq..., thought hundreds of people around him.

The roadies were trying to make the best of a bad situation by inspiring us. "There are now roughly 2,000 cyclists gathered her right now. That is more than participated in the first AIDS/LifeCycle 7 years ago!" It wasn't inspiring anyone, just stressing us out that there were 2,000 of us and our bikes squashed into a tiny little Park & Ride off highway 101. I'd been lined up for nearly an hour.
"YOU SAID YOU'D LET US GO AT 9:00! WAS THAT 9:00 EAST COAST TIME?!" yelled Gilbert Gottfried.
Finally I turned around with the best look of disgust I could muster. "East coast time is 3 hours AHEAD, you moron."
He pretended like he hadn't heard me, but yelled, "I mean Hawaiian time?!" If this guy wasn't careful the crowd was going to pick him up and throw him over the cliff.

FINALLY at around 9:45 they announced that they would be releasing us in waves roughly 5 minutes apart. I smooshed forward to make sure I'd be in the first wave. They let us off, and I saw that Mdot girl was also going to be in the first wave. I got lost in the shuffle trying to clip in and she pulled out first, getting a roughly 50 meter head start on me. I made sure to say, "ON YOUR LEFT!" good and loud as I passed her, and surge ahead so that she couldn't catch me. Once I got up the momentum I kept it going. The headwind had died down a bit, but it was still strong. I didn't care. I was so sick of being around people that all I wanted to do was get AWAY. I hammered as hard as I could for the next 20 miles to lunch. Some people passed me, but not too many.

When I got to the bridge and the cones I couldn't believe it! The bridge was no more than 10 feet long, and there were only about a dozen cones laid out to block the lane! 40 minutes to do this?! Now that WAS silly. After about 10 miles on Highway 1, we hit Santa Barbara county and moved inland a bit. The road began to roll and I pushed harder. I saw a girl up ahead. She'd ridden away from me on the way out of Santa María and I hadn't been able to catch her. I was going to hang in behind her, but eventually momentum got ahold of me and I just passed her. I looked over and smiled, "Hi," I said.
"Hi."
Then I rode away.

As I pulled into lunch, I was among the first 10 or so riders into the stop. I looked around and didn't see any women. I stuck my fist up in the air, pasted the biggest, most triumphant smile I could on my face and yelled, "I WON THE RACE!!!" Of course, it's not a race, and this wasn't even any kind of finish line, just a rest stop, but it was a joke. Some people clapped, others smiled, others laughed, some looked confused.
I racked my bike and was walking right to the lunch table when a big guy in a t-shirt that said Media stepped in front of me. I froze. "Hi, I'm with the media and we've got a camera crew right over here and we'd really like to get an interview with a woman..." He stopped. My face was already ashen. "Not interested?"
"No. Thank you, but I am NOT interested!" I said. My mother will resent this answer for as long as she lives, but I knew that if I stepped in front of a TV camera I would just say something stupid. I wouldn't think to say anything about the charity, or to thank the supporters, or to say great things about the communities. I would probably get up there and start talking shit on all the other riders and how I was so much faster than all of them, even the boys. I don't really have a filter for what comes out of my mouth, so I just try to stay out of situations where it could get me in trouble.

I got my lunch and spent a few minutes refilling my bottles. When I sat down in a nice, sunny spot the girl that I'd just passed was at an empty table a few feet away. "Who do you race for?" she asked.
"No one. Just me," I said. "How about you?"
"I race against myself," she said. "It's more fun that way. You're a really strong rider."
"You too," I said. "You should race. You'd be good at it."
"Thanks." And then we both turned to our sandwiches. See? I'm not competitive off the bike. Not unless you're asking for it (Mdot girl! Cunt on a Pink Bike!).

Suddenly a guy started yelling from over at another table. It was probably Gilbert Gottfried, but I wasn't sure because even though I'd stood right in front of him for an hour, I never got a good look at his face. "Yeah, well if they ask you if you rode every mile, you can't say you did! You didn't ride every mile!"
He was yelling in our general direction. I looked around for someone behind me. She looked around too. "Who's he talking to?" she asked.
"No idea."
"What does he mean?"
"Hell if I know."

I was totally happy to be all by my self, wolfing down my sandwich in peace when a stranger sat down across from me and started yapping right away. He introduced himself, told me several details of his life which I did not ask for or listen to, and then finally asked, "Where are you from?"
"Boston, and yourself?"
"Boston? Really? What part?"
"About 10 miles north."
"What town?"
Nobody knows my town. People the next town over don't even know where my town is. There is absolutely no reason to go to my town unless you're one of the 25,000 people that live there, or need a Christmas tree or topiary from our huge garden center. You wouldn't even pass through my town if you got lost. Saying the name of my town usually shuts people up, because they've never heard of it and therefore have nothing else to say. "Winchester," I said. There, that should do it! I thought.
"Winchester?! Really?! I grew up in Winchester!"
No you didn't. You're lying to me. There is no reason why anyone from this far away would know Winchester. "Really?" I asked, disinterestedly.
"Yeah. I used to play at the Packer courts all the time." I stopped eating my sandwich and looked at him. The Packer courts are some tennis courts less than a mile from my house. "I used to live over by Lynch Middle School..."
"It's an elementary school now," I said in disbelief. This guy really was from Winchester, and it looked like he hadn't been back in over 40 years, and here he was sitting across from me at a picnic table in Santa Barbara, California. That didn't mean I wanted to talk to him, though.
He kept talking and talking, no matter how little feedback I gave him, until Shane turned up about 10 minutes later. Then he kept talking. Between words I managed to squeeze in a greeting to Shane. "Where've you been?"
"I left in the group behind you. I left Meg and them this morning. They were just going too slow, and my knees were bothering me too much. I just want to get today over with."
Meanwhile, the man from Winchester was still yammering on in the background.
"Well, I was just about to leave once I finished my sandwich," I said to Shane.
He looked at the man from Winchester still telling his life's story. "Hold on, I'll eat quick." In a daring show of gastric acrobatics, Shane gulped down his sandwich in a matter of minutes.
"Well, we'll see you around," I said to the man from Winchester, and we both got up and left him mid-sentence. We'd been around other people too much this past week to bother with manners.

Shane and I were among the first people out of lunch, but not THE first. We got caught in a group that was more competitive than they were good. Every time we would try to get around them, each individual would surge ahead to not let us pass. Plus there were lots of rolling hills and stoplights. The end result was that it was hard to stay together. I would surge on ahead, trying to get around the pack, only to be caught at a stop light or on a hill. Every once in awhile Shane would turn up again after I thought he was gone for good and heckle me as he passed. "You're not SPECIAL!" I would yell as I passed him back. I suppose we could have worked together to get out of the group, but we were both feeling like lone wolves at that moment, and we both wanted to prove that we were top dog. Eventually Shane was gone and I finally lost the pack. Now that I was alone, I missed him.
I asked him that night what had happened, "You guys were all surging all over the place and racing to every stop light. I don't know, it just wasn't fun. I was over it."

I guess I could have gone easier, but Shane and I were getting dangerously close to overdosing on each other. I was goading him too harshly, and he was saying more and more often how mean I was. "You know, I'm the only one of your friends who will put up with your shit," he said.
"No you're not! I have other friends!"
"Well I'm the only one who doesn't talk shit about you behind your back!" I know Shane well, and I know what he meant about people talking shit behind my back. I have a pretty good idea of what people say, and I deserve it. Sometimes I'm a bit caustic. Shane's comment was more meant to cut me down to size than it was true. I think we were jealous of each other. He was jealous because, even though he was doping and he was the one who rode his bike every day, I was still a slightly stronger rider. I was jealous because he wanted to do RAAM, and he was talking about trying to qualify next year. That was MY dream, and I didn't want him getting it first, especially since I'M the planner. He's always got his head in the clouds and coming up with hair-brained schemes: a commune in Costa Rica, a pyramid scheme, writing a book, buying real estate in San Francisco, starting a co-op. RAAM just sounded like another one of his hairbrained schemes, and I didn't want him talking about one of MY dreams like that. It made it sound cheap. It was probably better that we were apart.

The harbor in Santa Barbara. I'm going to live here someday.

For the last 30 miles I rode by myself. For the first ten miles after lunch we were riding through Santa Barbara, which is where I'm going to live when I'm a millionaire. They had us riding on a bike path, which was a pain in the ass because there were menacing signs everywhere that said not to go over 10 mph. I even managed to lose the trail once... okay, twice. Then, I came through a gauntlet of UCSB coeds handing out Red Vines and came upon a clearing with tables: they were giving away free ice cream and strawberries! I had a small cone of the most delicious ice cream I've ever tasted and stood at the strawberry table for about 10 minutes eating berry after berry. I couldn't believe Shane wasn't here by now (when he did arrive, he washed his hands for several minutes with real running water, not the hand sanitizer stuff that just spreads the dirt around!). I stood watching the cyclists come in across the street, and the only other person standing there was: Mdot girl! We were standing not 2 feet apart. We clearly knew each other, and we clearly weren't speaking to each other. Finally I said, "Have you seen Shane?"
"Is he the dude that rides with you guys?" she asked.
Duh! "Yeah."
"Nope. Have you seen Kim?"
"Nope." End of conversation. I stuck around for a few more minutes, and when he didn't come, I went on by myself.

Me looking fat and eating ice cream. This is Ginger. She came out every day to cheer us on somewhere along the course, wearing a different outfit every day. Shortly after this picture was taken someone asked, "Will Ginger be at the closing ceremonies tomorrow?" "No honey, Ginger is just for fun. Closing ceremonies are just to thank the riders. Ginger has no business stealing the show there." It was one of the most gracious things I heard all week.

The final 10 miles was a nerve-racking stretch on the shoulder of 101 along the beach. My ass was sore and the pavement was rough. The paint that they'd used to paint the bike lane logo on the ground must have been a half inch thick, because it rattled my teeth every time I rode over one. Every time a truck went by the wind would blast you off course. The headwind was strong, and I was lonely out there. Almost no one was ahead of me or behind me. For the first time I hit a low. I just wanted this to be over. I wanted to get off my bike and rest. I was checking my mileage every couple of seconds and it didn't seem to be budging. I started feeling sorry for myself.

Finally we got to the town of Ventura, where camp was. "Just 1.5 more miles!" a volunteer at an intersection told me. He lied. It was easily another 3.
Just then, a couple of guys rode up behind me. "Hey! Joseph, right? I remember you!" I remembered him because he'd asked me to this morning.
He didn't seem to care, he was talking to someone much more interesting: an attractive man. We were riding on a boardwalk again and there were pedestrians and more stationary obstacles everywhere. "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!" Joseph screamed like a little girl. "Don't run over the cute ones!" There were a couple of 17-year-old jock-looking guys walking in front of me. I was not about to hit them. "I saw you, girl. You almost ran over those cute guys..." Joseph said, swiveling around in his saddle to check them out over his shoulder.
"Did not!"
We were only riding at about 15 mph, Joseph and his crush du jour about 5 feet in front of me, when a long-haired, bearded man busted out from behind a planter brandishing a cane. "SLOW THE FUCK DOWN, MAN!" he yelled, trying to smack Joseph with the cane. Joseph screamed again. The guy's face looked funny and he slurred his speech like he'd had a stroke, but he couldn't have been more than 40 years old. The lights were on, but no one was home. We sprinted away from him the final half mile in to camp.

The first thing I did when I got to camp was schedule my free massage. Every rider got only one free massage, and most people had the same idea that I did: to save it until the last day. Since I was among the first people in camp (except the sagged riders), there were still slots when I got there. When I got on the table my masseur asked, "So what hurts?"
I tried to think of something to complain about. "Actually, nothing," I said. "I just didn't want to pass up a free massage..."
"Nothing is bothering you?!" he asked. "Are you a rider or a roadie?"
"I'm riding. Well, I guess my shoulders are usually pretty tight. I mean, not right now, but most of the time," I offered.
"Alright..." he said, and had me lie down. He massaged my whole body. He did this thing where he put my knee in my armpit and my whole back cracked, but that was the most dramatic thing about the massage. When I was finished he said, "Wow, you really didn't have ANY tight spots or knots. You were right!" We were both surprised. It just didn't make sense. I hadn't even been stretching.
"Thanks!" I said, and hopped off the table.

When I got out, Shane had finally come back into camp. We'd both had low points today and we blamed it on the pizza the night before. We walked to the beach that was RIGHT next to camp. Shane's afraid of water (he discovered a dead body at the beach when he was 10), so he didn't go in past his ankles, but I waded in up to my waist. I had my cap and goggles with me, but the water wasn't all that warm. "How about I just dive under?" I said. "Just to say I did it."
"You're crazy," Shane said.
"It's been suggested." The next wave that came along I dove under it and ran back up the beach screaming like a little kid. "NOT THAT WARM! NOT THAT WARM!" I squealed. Once I got to our stuff I admitted. "It wasn't that cold either."

We weren't the only ones who had had bad days. Narine had gotten lost thanks to this one roadie who dressed up as a giant purple pill that said "YOU ARE MY VIAGRA!" and he would yell, "Keep it up! Keep it up!" to all the riders who went past his post. Today, it had been his job to wave us off the road and onto a bike path. "But when I rode by, I was so busy staring at this fool screaming in his stupid costume that I didn't pay any attention to what he was saying. I followed the road up that gigantic hill. Do you guys remember that? So I went up that big hill and down the other side, and eventually a sweep van comes up next to me and the driver says, 'Blazing your own trail?' I hate that stupid viagra guy." Apparently the rest of the old ladies had passed her in a pace line. "They come up to me like a freight train and Kim yells, 'Get on the back!' I wasn't getting on that thing! I'm here to enjoy myself and see the scenery, not blow through here like a tank engine!"

Meg had an even better story. She had been one of the last ones to come out of Rest Stop 2, and, as a slower rider, she got to lunch shortly before they were closing. They threatened to sag her if she didn't get out soon, so she wolfed down her lunch too quickly and rode away. Then, on the road after lunch her helmet strap was rubbing against her throat in a funny way that made her nauseous (I don't get it either). Suddenly, right as she was riding down a hill, she turned her head and puked... Only, since she was riding down hill, it splattered all over her. When the sweep car saw her, they were afraid that she might be dehydrated and wouldn't let her keep going.

In Lompoc I'd visited the Dedication Tent. The Dedication Tent was a closed tent where they played soft music and people could post pictures and messages for friends and loved ones who had died of AIDS. I went into that tent and read many of the messages. I stared at the pictures. There were people who had written lists of names a dozen names long. There were messages to brothers, fathers, sons, boyfriends, daughters, and friends. I came out of that tent crying and went straight to my tent.

In Ventura, the last night of the ride, we held a candlelight vigil. They gave out candles in clear, plastic cups and 3,000 riders and roadies went down to the beach and stood in a circle. The circle was about 4 people deep and roughly the length of a football field. The guys who dressed in drag in earnest (not the showy Liza Manelli types) wore their best skirts and wigs and stuffed bras. Everyone was quiet, looking at their candles. Even if you weren't into symbolic things like this, it was dark and quiet and there was nothing to do BUT look at your candles.

Then, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence came out. I don't quite know what the whole story is, but they are a whole group of gay men who dress up in nun costumes and kabuki-type make-up and do charity work at gay-centered events. I don't know if it's a San Francisco thing or if there are chapters in other cities. Apparently it's a really involved organization with a hierarchy and a whole system of moving up from a novice to a mont to Mother Superior. Anyway, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence came out with big candles and some sort of red banner and walked a lap around the ring of candles.
(Right: A Sister of Perpetual Indulgence on Red Dress Day)

Then, people started walking up to the waves and putting their candles out in the water. Only most people were wearing pants and shoes, and with the waves, it was hard to be in just the right place at the right time to put your candle out without getting your shoes wet. It was taking awhile for everyone to get to the waves at just the right moment. "Can't I just blow my candle out?" asked Shane.
"No, Shane! This is important."
"Oh, come on, half those people aren't even putting their candles in the water. They're just putting it out in the wet sand like a cigarette."
"Shane, if this were a memorial service for you, would you like to be put in the waves, or would you like to be blown out like a birthday candle? We're waiting for the waves!"
So we waited for the waves, then went back to our tent and went to sleep.

Day's miles: 87.68
Total saddle time: 4:54:07
Average speed: 17.9 mph
Total elevation gain/loss: roughly 2,000'