Good swim. PR for HIM distance. Lost a good set of feet, otherwise I would have been faster. Entering the water after the first lap, I heard Jess and Janelle cheering. Did this big crazy dolphin dive, about 4 feet into the air. Good stuff. A little slower on the second lap, as I was trying to keep my HR in check to prepare for the bike.

Not much. Get on that set of feet. I was in the first wave with the pro/elites, so there were some faster swimmers. Should have gone with them.

Crappy T1. There was a quarter mile run to the bike. Decided to strip my wetsuit off immediately after getting out of the water and then run with it. Good decision. The water between the suit and my legs makes it easy to strip off, and it would have been pretty dry by the time I got to my bike and much mor edifficult to rmove. So that was the good thing. Now the bad: two racks down from my bike, in the same (end) position on the rack, was a nearly identicle-to-mine Felt B2. I saw it and ran to it. Dropped my suit and started putting on my shoes when I realized they weren't mine. Totally confused, I figured out that this actually wasn't my bike. Ran down a couple more racks, but didn't see mine, then ran back and finally found my bike. Momentarily pissed off, but I calmed down and focused on the transition. Put my CO2 cartriges and gels in my tri top, put on helmet and shoes, got bike and I was off. The mistaken bike probably cost me 30 seconds. No big deal.

Um...found the right B@.

Whew. Windy as a mofo. The out stretch and the first loop were great. Not sure about pace, because I decided to go primitive. No bike computer and no Garmin. I find in races that I stress too much about pace, always looking at my watch or the computer and not focusing. So I decided to race by feel this time. I think it was a good decision. My goal for the bike was to never go hard, always to remain comfortable. And I did it. I was feeling amazing, so I really wanted to push it, but I stayed with my plan. SO I would have good legs for the run. I have a few complaints about the bike course, but I'll save them for the wrap up. I finished the first half of the bike on pace for about a 2:38 bike, but the second lap the wind was much stronger and the return leg was mainly directly into the wind. I was glad I didn't have a computer, because "knowing" I was going 14 mph would have bugged the hell out of me. Instead, I focused on remaming comfortable. ANd I did. Rolled into T2 in 2:46, which was about 10 minutes behind my goal pace. Started getting a little down about not being able to hit my sub-5 hour goal. This is where the weirdness began.

Nothing.

Good t2. Calmness ruled. Did everything I needed to. Sat down, took a gel and some water. Put socks and shoes on. Grabbed sun glasses. Started thinking about the day. Because of the wind on the bike and the long T1, I *knew* it would be extremely difficult to break 5 hours. I would have to run about 1:43, which I knew I was capable of, but I also know it would hurt. Here's a secret: I hate, hate, hate hurting on the run. And so I never do. I always run comfortably and within myself. I'm afraid of what will happen if I run hard enough to hurt. Partly because I have a history of running injuries that only occur if I run fast, but partly because I'm afraid of the meltdown. I've never really gone there.

So I knew running to rack my bike that my legs were good. They felt very fresh and snappy. So I had a decision: either run comfortably and finish in 5:10 or so, or bust one out and just see what happens.


Maybe not think so damn much?

I'm going to call this part "Fantasy Island. Or "Therapy at 9mph." Or "The Dark and Scary Place." So you know how on Fantasy Island rich people paid Mr. Rourke to make their fantasies real? And how he always delivered, but how the consequences were never what the clients anticipated, and how inevitably those consequences weren't even good, but then how it *was* good because those people learned something about themselves? That's what my run was. So my fantasy was to run like a real runner, just once. And that's what happened. But the means to that end wasn't pretty. It wasn't nice and truth be told it scared the sh*t out of me. And now, 2 days later, I can safely say that I'll be just happy as a clam to never go to that place again.

In races lately, when I've struggled, I've used my dad's death to draw strength from. Some of you know that he died last year from lung cancer. He was a 30 year smoker that quit 10 years ago. But after having a cold that wouldn't go away for two months, a chezt x-ray revealed a 5cm tumor in his right lung. He was diagnosed with inoperable, stage IV lung cancer, and died 3 months later, a horrible, painful death that I watched. I can safely say that since he died in August of last year, I haven't mourned his death. We had a piss-pour relationship and didn't like each other very much. He was never there for me, missing most of the big events in my life. My first Nationals in college swimming, which coincidently was 20 years ago, also in Miami, as an example. He thought I was cold. I was. I couldn't be close to him because he wasn't there for me. So the older I got, the more I shut him out. When he died, I had a hard, impossible time feeling sorry for his death. And that scared me. I was selfish, cold and uncaring. Why couldn't I be sad? I said it was because I didn't like him. I'm not sure I even loved him. He was shitty to my mom. Not physically abusive but definitely verbally abusive. I never liked him, and I wasn't sad he was gone. That's what I told myself.

So as I ran out of T1, my legs feeling great, but scared to go hard, I thought about my dad, looking for something to draw strength from. I decided to run a fast first mile and see what happens. So I took off when I hit the chip mat. I felt good. It was hard, but I felt good. But the limiting thoughts were creeping in with a vengance. "You can't sustain this pace...you have to back off." To shut it out, I thought about my dad. But it wasn't the usual "do it for him" thing that I usually went to. This time it was more like "do it in spite of him." Ad the more I thought about him, the more I was filled with anger. And rage. And hatred. Why wasn't he there for me? Why did he think work was more important than me? Why couldn't he just be my dad? And the more painful my thoughts became, the more the physical pain left me.

I cruised though the first lap fighting back tears but feeling nothing physically. It was transcendant. It felt like dreams i have where I'm running fast, but with absolutely no effort. I glanced at the clock after that first lap. I took my watch off in T2 so I wouldn't be a slave to it, going with the "race by feel" strategy. So I didn't know just how fast I was really running. I did a quick calculation and figured I ran the first 6.55 miles in something like 42 minutes. I knew that couldn't be right, because that was something like 6:30 pace. And that's insane. I can't run that fast. But I shut it out and returned to the dark place. I wasn't done yet.

So the thoughts about my dad being a bastard, this man I couldn't love because he obviously never loved me suddenly ended when I realized he's gone. When he was alive, he was never there, but now he was gone and I realized, maybe for the first time, that he never would be there for me. And that filled me with sadness. He was gone and we could never fix it. He was gone and he could never be my dad. He was gone.

The second lap is a blur. I remember almost nothing about it. I do remember crying at some point. And a half mile from the finish, there was a bench that I sat down on. I was shutting down, phyisically and emotionally and thought for about 30 seconds that I was done. But I got up and ran across the line.

So in 13.1 miles I did something I've been struggling to do for a year: I mourned my dad. I mourned his death, but more so, I mourned his life. When Nola was born, I swore I'd be different. And my resolve is stonger now than ever. I've never been so sad as in that 86 minutes, but it was good. It was good, but I never want to go there again. If that's what it takes to run like that, then you can have it. I had the race of my life, but now I feel so empty, drained and lonely. So f*ck it. I'll just run comfortably from now on.

Um...

Walked around, trying to compose myself. Trying to figure out what the hell just transpired. It was like a dream.


So there it is. I never want to race like that again.