Quiet Dignity and Grace

Quiet Dignity and Grace

Well it wasn't my A day at IMC last week, in fact it was a PW rather than a PB.¹ But I am a scientist, and the scene below describes my feeling succinctly:

(ahhh what a movie huh?)

My race result was not unexpected after losing so much training time in May and June. Never got to race much so I had a decent base but no "pop" (e.g. lots of cake and no icing?). So while I ran the marathon I ran at (for me & most hominoids) a glacial pace. Vignettes:

• picked a good "hole" in the swim pack at the start and had little contact the entire race. Unfortunately swam by the turn buoy by quite a bit which didn't help an already slow swim.
• my transitions where reasonable fast, both < 4 min
• excellent pacing/ride to 160 km. Last 20 km supposed to be recovery (mostly downhill) but the Okanagan Valley had 3 weather surprises Sunday: warmed up 5 deg from the temperatures of the last week (low 30's), a dense layer of forest fire smoke blew in and hung at about 500 m above the surface and a wicked headwind kicked up in the last 20 km of the bike which sucked the life out of me. Lost 10-15 min on this piece.
• held run together for about 6 km or so, then my pace just decayed for the next 30 km or so. I could only run fast enough to sneak by the walkers but the runners would blow by me. Am curious to find out how many places I picked up in run but I think lots, I've never seen so many people walking in a race. Saw a deer hop by on the course. Answered the trivia question at the Peachtree Runners booth at Mile 21 but the guy on the mike took the answer from the crowd, not me :-( (it was the 3 Company's Theme, I said it first damn it!).

Race goals:

• I did manage to find Pat and the kids in the last 300 m and get my cowboy hat to finish in
• I did do a quick peanut butter and jelly time at the finish (AO tell O.F.)
• I didn't beat my 11:37 time from 1990.
• I didn't finish top 20 in my AG.

So thanks to all of you that sent kind words before and condolences after, and have been waiting to hear it I had jumped off the Physics Building or what. I really appreciated it and carried your thoughts with me through the long day. Special thanks go to The Coach, who manages to put up with me and requires I keep it real. AO who gives me full bandwidth to her right ear and "listens" to all my moaning: great training partners are hard to find and I am lucky. CSS and CSS (should have thought about that before we named 'em, huh?) were awesome with race support. CSS is running now and CSS is doing tris and vows to do the entire Subaru series next summer and I hope to join him. Cause, in those now famous words of AO:

I'M NOT DOING IRONMAN THIS (2010) YEAR!

Coach has decided she can make a short courser out of me and I am both skeptical and willing to tri.

And lastly but not leastly 3 cheers for PjS and her high tolerance to living with a triathlete. And defying all the draft people and course cones to get me into the Burger King drive thru line after the race.

Stay tuned here cause I'm doing the Muskoka 70.3 next Sunday, as are many TS people (don't ask why, I believe the argument I got was "Hey, you don't have to train for it and it will be fun.") AO is organizing a pool, you each put in $5 and guess how many km I can run before I blow. Contact her for details, she has seen me post-IMC and has already bought in for 2, 3 and 4 km. She is betting with her head and not her heart, but I'll give you folks a tip. I did a tempo piece on the Port Stanley hills today on the and appear to have a little bit left in my legs. I'll see how my first post-race run goes tomorrow.

PO,

boB

¹ Personal Worst/Best