This swim felt a bit...odd. I did a decent job sighting, but I couldn't stay quite on course like I had hoped. Maybe there was a current, but I don't remember one last year and I didn't *feel* like there was one this year. I'm not sure what the problem was. It wasn't a major deal, the swim was still pretty good on all fronts. I didn't get beaten up much & I didn't get pulled under(despite the hydrilla's best efforts).

2009: 40:20
2008: 36:45
Difference: + 3:35

Not much, maybe push a little harder.

Coming out of the water, there was a *very* muddy bank to work through. It wouldn't be much normally, but coming out of the water after a ~40 minute swim made it a bit tricky. I worked past that while getting my sleeveless off my shoulders, then headed for the wetsuit strippers. As I was running up, I looked for which one to use, and I'll admit it...I looked for the butchest, buffest chick there. I found a woman that was out of a Lillith Faire concert DVD with guns for arms and made a beeline to her. She commanded me - not said, commanded - to "just lay down", and it wasn't 2 seconds after my butt hit the ground that she had yanked the wetsuit completely off me. She was good.

The run to T1 is long & uphill, so I took it slow & made my way to the bike. I'm only 1.2 miles into a 70.3 mile race, why blow it out early? I got my stuff on, crammed the remainder into the transition bag, & headed out on the bike.

2009: 5:59
2008: 7:19
Difference: -1:20

Dry off better; I don't think the sunscreen sunk in & that's why my back is sunburned now.

The first 15-20 miles of the bike were pretty uneventful; the wind was light, the hills were manageable, and the riders weren't a pain to deal with. Somewhere around 15-20 miles in, the wind became noticeably stronger and stayed that way for the rest of the race. The only reason this didn't bother me is because it was from a consistent direction, unlike last year where it kept swirling. Anyway, I buckled down & kept to my plan. I tried to keep my HR in the 140s unless I was going up a hill, and for the first 2+ hours I did a solid job of that. My bike average was hovering in the high 17s until some of the bigger hills & headwinds made any dreams of 18+ mph go out the window. Some parts of the course had some nasty cracks & potholes, one pothole snuck up on me despite being approximately as large as a sperm whale & if I hadn't been going 19+ at the time my front wheel probably would have gone down in and pitched me off the bike. There were obvious attempts to patch the road, but they didn't get them all. I passed one rider being put on a bodyboard by EMTs near one of the humps in the road, it was a good reminder to keep my head on a swivel.

I kept playing leapfrog with a couple people, most notably a large guy w/ a disc wheel. When I say large, I just mean he was a big guy, not that he was fat. He's probably 6'4" and at least 210 lb., and he's into triathlons so maybe he's reading this right now, in which case I should mention that I hope he's a pacifist who enjoys a good roast. To that end, he needs to work on some f*cking hills already. He'd pass me on flats, then when a hill showed up I'd crank right on by him again. This must have happened on every hill for 10+ miles. Spend a little less cash on the wheels and a little more time on Satan's Buttcrack. And yea, I'm a hypocrite, but that's the beauty of hypocrisy, I don't have to care. :)

Around mile 29, I found out the side effect of wearing my HRM on my wrist upside-down(i.e. on the inside of my wrist so I can see it in aero); grabbing water bottles located in your crackI MEAN YOUR TRI-SUIT'S REAR MIDDLE POCKET tends to hit buttons on the HRM...like, say, the lap button that makes your Garmin go from 'bike' to 'transition'. It's even better when you go through the steps to start a new multisport activity while pedaling, then make the same godd@mn mistake all over again. At that point, it became a bit of a guessing game as to what my real time was & how much distance I had left to go. It involved math, and math 3+ hours into a workout doesn't come as easily as it would otherwise. This is also why I didn't upload my HRM stats from Sunday. There should be some sort of "user is a dumb@ss" error code on the BT Garmin uploader. So because of that, I was guessing about how far I had to go. I had it within about a mile or so, but I didn't know that until the end. With the problems I've been having with my bike computer over the last few weeks, I wasn't 100% sure about the data I was getting there. Plus, I stopped for a quick - as they love to say in the Tour de France - natural break partway through the bike, maybe 32 miles in. That threw my time off some too.

40 miles in, things started getting crazy. We started seeing ambulances(plural) coming down the road every few minutes, even a couple fire trucks too. One of the fire trucks was coming the same direction as all the riders and trying to pass us on a 2 lane road as best they could, the way traffic worked out, they came up behind me and chased me for a good 1/4 mile. They weren't blaring their horn at me or yelling at me to indicate I needed to get over, it seemed like they were going to try to pass instead. I kept thinking they were going to pass, but I hammered for that 1/4 - 1/3 mile just in case. They ended up turning not long afterwards, but I probably averaged 20+ for that stretch. A few miles later, we saw at least 4 cop/sheriffs hauling by w/ lights blazing for something behind us. None of us knew what was going on, just that it must have been serious. Somebody else saw a helicopter, if true that makes me think something really bad happened out there. I don't think it was related to the ride, I think it had to do w/ that fire truck that turned away from the route when it was behind me. I'd be curious to see if anyone knows anything about that.

I was getting into the last hour of the ride & started pushing a little bit, maybe a little more than I should given how last year worked out. I was getting bored on the bike though, which was about to not be a problem anymore. The last ~10 miles were spent on much busier roads, roads where my expectations & the SUV owners' expectations were in direct opposition. I got honked at by a guy who thought I should be on the shoulder, to which i immediately replied "F*********CK YOU" with my middle finger lifted high in the air...right in front of a 'Tri 4 Him' guy. I guess that kind of language isn't approved of in their circles, being that they're a church organization & all. Oh well, since when have I ever moderated my tone around people?
With 3 miles left, we turned onto Decker & it looked like a straight shot back to the Arena. Little did we know that Keith is a sadist that likes to torture us, licking up our tears like they were streams of gold. The *instant* the Arena was in sight, the course veered right onto a side road...and into an uphill. Looks like we figured out how Keith was making this ride 56 miles.

2009: 3:11:53
2008: 3:31:33
Difference: -19:40

Maybe hold back a bit more in that last hour, plus grab the bottles w/ my non-HRM hand. I need to get my shifting issues sorted, I think it may have something to do with the sprockets on the back but that's just a guess.

I come running up to T2 and a pro is walking out with his bike where he said "good job guy, keep it up", to which I wanted to respond "how about you go run my run, you genetically superior freak of nature?". That of course came out as "thanks" and I kept trotting all the way to my rack. I dumped out my bag, took off my helmet & shoes, and switched into the run gear. I hit myself with more sunscreen just in case, and headed out through the arena - which is an aspect of the event I really can't rate highly enough - into the sun & the run.

2009: 6:29
2008: 6:11
Difference: +:18

I'm sure I could change a little quicker, but at that point it doesn't really matter.

The run started off very well, the first 2-3 miles were blowing by pretty quickly. My HR was a little high, but manageable. I planned to ride the speed - and I'm speaking relatively, we're talking 9:30-10 minute miles - as long as it wanted to go without forcing it. Somewhere late in the first lap, I noticed I was having a hard time breathing on uphills. So I used those chances to walk and catch my breath before continuing, thinking maybe it would get better. It didn't. It got worse on each consecutive uphill and nothing would help, not even slapping Sabrina's sweet, sweet....I should back up for a second. Sabrina & Tim are a couple Karen & I know that do triathlons & were in town to spectate. They had a tent setup in the main crowd & Sabrina was making jokes about shaking her sweater meat at me as motivation to run harder. So here I come laboring around the curve and she runs out, shaking her butt at me and yelling "COOOOME GEEEET IIIIIT"...to which I respond by taking a few solid steps in her direction to work up the necessary force to SLAP. THAT. @SS. I hit it so hard her Mama felt it. I hit it so hard a psychic could tell me my future by looking at her shorts. I hit it so hard....that it elicited cheers from the crowd(not kidding). Sabrina: mission accomplished. I'm properly amped. (It also bears mentioning that my Mom was not 100 yards away when this happened and didn't see it(though she might have heard The Pop Heard Round The World, so everybody be cool, ok?) ;)

I'm back out on the course for the 2nd loop and my breathing's not getting better. I'm jogging the flats & downhills & walking the uphills at this point. Any time I go uphill, it's like I'm breathing through a straw. When I get back to the park, instead of taking the turn into the park I go straight over to the EMTs and ask for an inhaler. I have a mild case of Exercise Induced Asthma, but it flares up very rarely and nothing like this ever before, so this is new ground for me. They don't have an inhaler but offered an albuterol...well, it looked like an inhaler to me except it didn't give it to you in one pop, you had to breathe it in over time. I sucked on it for 7-8 minutes, after which I put it down & said I was light-headed from all the deep breaths. They took my blood pressure and it read 86/40, which he read out to me in a voice that said "hey @sshole, you might want to take it slow for awhile". They asked me if I was stopping and I said "no force on heaven or earth will keep me from finishing today". They said my pulse was still solid, so he told me 'DRINK SOME FLUIDS' and after giving them some info I headed off to the next aid station. So I had a 22 minute/mile there. Oops. I took in extra fluids at the next couple of stations and started jogging at a pretty good pace. That lasted about 10 minutes until I came up against the next problem: I was exhausted. Breathing wasn't the problem anymore, I just didn't have much juice left in the tank. I ended up doing the 'run flats/downhill, walk uphill & aid stations' tactic for the rest of the run, but I'd try to pick a cone partway up the hill to get to so I wasn't stopping at the bottom of each hill, but at least 1/3 up the hill. When I made it back to the turnaround, Tim & Mom were both wondering wtf took me so long. I told them briefly w/o breaking stride and headed to the special needs bag for my secret weapon: a can of red bull. Sabrina was cheering from the sideline but didn't offer her butt up again; if her behind hurt as much as my hand did after the fact, I can understand why. :) Tim told me I had 1hr 8min to get in under 7 hours, so I just kept to my tactic and tried to see it through. Eventually I caught up to Jen & we walked/ran the last mile or so together while talking. Jen's family made her run some, and when she took off I said something about finally having pace booty. She gave a little shake and her sister said something like "if you have energy to shake your butt, you have energy to run" and I yelled back "SHUT UP & LET HER SHAKE HER @SS, I NEED THIS" and yelled to Jen "Go ahead and shake it baby". Jen is good people, she made that last bit much more bearable.

Turning the corner that headed into the stadium, all the pain melted away as it hit me just what I was finishing. All that training, all those early nights & early mornings...all those hours on the trainer, all those nights at the pool going back & forth, back & forth like a goldfish...that was all for this. I started getting a goofy grin on my face as I jogged into the arena & heard the people starting to cheer; a bounce returned to my step and I picked up the pace as I passed by the crowd. My sub-7 goal was in my pocket & I was soaking in the moment. I put my hands up in the air and was grinning as I crossed the line, hearing my name from the announcer. It was finally, completely, totally......DONE.

Maybe I didn't come back & kill the course with a 6:30 like I initially hoped. Maybe my run wasn't much better than last time. So what? I came out of this race shaving nearly 45 minutes off my time even with a visit to the EMTs. If I hadn't had that asthma issue, I'm sure I would have flirted with 6:30. I took what the day gave me & I made the best of it. It took me two tries, but I finally had a half-ironman I'm proud of.

2009: 2:41:22
2008: 3:07:49
Difference: -26:27

I don't know, maybe not have an asthma attack?

Fooooooooooood, massage, fooooooooooood.


Instead of answering that question, I'm taking this moment to thank everyone that helped me through this whole odyssey. Karen gets first mention because she's been unfailingly supportive of me while I go through the highs & lows. My family has also been supportive & willing to listen to me prattle on about a sport they don't really understand. To the people out there that have been sending me inspires(Gary, Ken, JKron, Craig, Jen, Amy, and everyone else I'm forgetting), they've been read & appreciated. This would have been a lot harder without all of you behind me.

2009: 06:46:05
2008: 07:29:40
Difference: -43:25


Keith's races are the best I've been to, period. Longhorn is an amazing achievement, given the size of their undertaking. Austin has an awesome RD in their town that anybody would love to have working in their neighborhood. Well done, Endorfun.