Ironman World Championships 2011 October 24, 2011 at 4:52pm For those of you peeking in to see what the hell this is, a brief explanation follows: the triathlon "race report" is merely a blog to note how a significant race went so you can 1) learn from your mistakes and 2) tell everyone about your gastrointestinal issues on mile 12 of the run. #2 isn't so much my style. I prefer to pontificate about my proverbial "gastrointestinal issues", the ones in life that make or break the race and not the actual ones that occur. As in, "man I really pissed this racing season away" or, "damn, that was a shitty life decision". Everyone writes just a little bit differently but the end result is the overdue catharsis that one needs after investing thousands of dollars in cash, hundreds of hours in time spent training and dozens of relationships that are affected with no promise of survival of said relationships after it's all over. And that may or may not be because of the training or because you become some self-absorbed ass along the way. In any case, here's my race report for the Ironman World Championships, 2011. Just in the way of disclaimer, this one is heavy on the chick-ness so if that grosses you out, click back to your home page and read other face book posts. You won't hurt my feelings. I wasn't going to write a race report this year. Didn't need one. The race went well. However, events over this past weekend in my personal life made it suddenly necessary for me to recap the trip to Hawaii in order to convey some gratitude. In the way of background for those not necessarily consumed by the sport of triathlon, Kona is THE SUPER BOWL of triathlon. We've built it up into this enormous beast of an event and rightfully so as it's the culmination of a very long season for those who participate on a professional basis to pay the electric bill. It requires (mostly) another race of equally grueling preparation to qualify and that's if you're good enough to get the top 1 or two slots in your qualifier. Once there, you are now competing with the best of the best (strains of the Top Gun theme are now playing softly in the back ground). There's pretty sizeable pressure to train, prepare and race well. Enter 2011 for Rosie. As one of my good friends called it, 2011 is TYIDSUF - The Year I Didn't Sign Up For. Everything that could go wrong probably did. It was the year that everything was FINALLY supposed to go right, the year I was going to race like a champion, the year that would exorcise all the demons of the last two years and make it all ok. For those not read in on some of my personal details, just know that my life has dramatically changed and apparently that change is still not over. Bottom line, it was hard and I was hoping for redemption in 2011. Unfortunately I blew my proverbial wad early. The season started on a very high note with an Olympic distance where I had a very good run resulting in a pretty durn good race. One month later, the spiral in TYIDSUF began. Ironman Utah. This is one of my biggest ever "WTH was I thinking" moments. Ever. And not because the race was difficult, although it was. More so because it seriously didn't mesh with my life at the time and was designed as a check in the block to put on my triathlete resume. Never do this. Learn from my pain. This is dumb. But damn, now I know. Then, three weeks later (and this is shared not for sympathy but to indicate mindset and once again hopefully have my nieces learn from my pain) through some rather interesting circumstance that I didn't see coming, I find myself dumped at the Colorado Springs airport...via text message. Never make Ironman decisions after being dumped from a relationship particularly if it comes in through text message. Wayne Dyer (among many others) says we manifest what comes to us. Awesome. Mind chatter: "I've manifested a crappy race and just invested four months of my life with someone who ditches me 10 minutes after leaving me on the curb at the airport. In a text. Wow, 1) I'm apparently an ass and 2) I was really on the fence but now I need to do another Ironman...this year!" *sigh* No. No. No. Bad Rosie. I entered my application to Navy sports and they picked me up to represent Navy for the third time. (Dispensing with the sarcasm for a moment, this is really big and I'm terrifically grateful that the Navy Sports office still facilitates our competing in this race particularly in a time where funds are incredibly tight. I can't thank them enough for allowing me to compete for a total of 6 times on Navy sports teams and it's been a blessing and a highlight in my career.) So enter Hawaii Ironman at a time where my life already couldn't get any fuller and getting ready for retirement to boot. Lots going on personally and professionally. Training begins and my life becomes one long workout morph into dog walk morph into staff meeting and power point presentations morph into workout. I can hardly remember the last four months except to say I remember they were tiring, I drove with road rage every day, overindulged in coffee to the point where I might have an ulcer (ok, not really but it really was a lot) and my dog is never allowed to go swimming in Seashore State park again lest he pick up more digestive critters (I promise that is the ONLY reference to actual G.I. issues) and damn, do my carpets need to be steam cleaned. Racing from May until Sept 10th was pretty bad. Results just weren't there at all and seemed to solidify my distaste for this silly YIDSUF. Just as tired as last year, same injuries as last year yet was finishing 30 minutes slower in some races. It just wasn't gelling and "man this shit just aint fun anymore". Remember all that hype I mentioned with regards to the World Championships? Now we're feeling it. Nothing like some self-induced pressure to rock you to sleep (again to my nieces, don't do this...it simply isn't necessary, please worry about things like walking gracefully in high heels, not race results). Why the eff am I doing this? And alone no less? I need sherpa crew for my life! Again... *sigh* Learning stinks sometimes. Particularly when it's actually "re"learn. Why all the whining Rosie? Just need to set the stage folks. There's a happy ending coming. I have a drawing in my cubicle that shows a graph of the daily caffeine curve: wake up with severe depression, 7 am - 1st cup (curve moves up the y-axis scale), 8 am - 2nd cup, 9 am - 3rd cup and heading towards "normalcy" on the graph depiction, 4th and 5th cups towards noon and we're approaching "incredible elation" on the y-axis with "God Sighted" by 1 pm on the x-axis. Then the curves goes south towards "feelings of worthlessness" by 4 pm and "triple shotgun murder" by 5 as the caffeine slowly dissipates at the end of the day. In life, I was on the "feelings of worthlessness" at 4 pm desperately needing a caffeine boost on this YIDSUF. This blog is dedicated my caffeine boost to let them know how important they were in getting me across the finish line in a manner where the time totally didn't matter and the journey (race week journey) was everything. I wrote off the cuff in my 2008 Kona race report that "There's nothing lonelier than a finish line without friends" and for a tag line that was completely out of the blue and without much thought at the time, this has run true over and over and over again for the last three years. It resonated in a way that I didn't anticipate but am humbled and grateful to manifest (with help of course) some good vibes to make the last 9 months feel like a mark in the "W" column. Where to begin... Gratitude. Just a ton of it. First, thanks to my good friend Charity for watching the Big Lebowski for two entire weeks. Your pictures sent of Dude to those of us in Hawaii were priceless but not as priceless as the video of his summer vacation to West Virginia to the soundtrack of a little dueling banjos. Ensuring the Dude was well cared for made a huge difference in letting me concentrate on the race and some desperately needed down time on the back end of the race. His new toy box is awesome by the way! To Angel and Jill who lived with me at various points throughout the summer and fall, thanks for putting up with some rather interesting (and admittedly bizarre) behavior while I vented my way through crap on the carpet (I lied, this is another reference to G.I. issues....sorry), my onerous work schedule during the end of fiscal year contract season, my overly ambitious training schedule and puppy training. I'm still convinced that Big likes Angel better than me to this day but then she was the one who finally got him to eat out of a dog bowl. Jill, your cooking rocks. Kobe beef and sangiovese....bring it! To the Team Big Entourage: Little did I know that when I rolled up to that first DC ride, I'd meet people who would be willing to fly 6,000 miles at great personal expense to support me. Not only that but they arranged the transportation, housing and "social schedule" which made the week unreal fun. To my sistas Julie and Jen, I owe you a debt of gratitude that may be hard to pay back. Thanks for your support in the months leading up to the race, thanks for the emails keeping me going, thanks for the phone calls to the office to check in (Julie!!) and thanks for handling all the logistics so all I had to do was show up wit' my (sarcastic, poopy pants, bad attitude) bad self. Thanks for the t-shirts, the photos, and some really crazy memories of a week that totally erased the previous 4 months. As I was spread eagle on the pavement of the Seaside hotel, there were few people on earth I would have rather seen. Jesus maybe. Elvis definitely but only because Haysoos would want an autograph. To my real sister Libby...wish I had words. You and the Herman clan have supported me through about 24 years of personal crises, drama, racing, multiple dogs, deployments, everything Navy, or whatever it was I was doing at the time. I've eaten your food, drank your beer and broke just about all the appliances in your home at least twice. How do I pay this back? Unable. Can't tell you what it means to have shared this great experience with you and hope that it was worth the time and energy you spent in making it happen. It has been very cool to share this weird piece of my life with someone in my family so you know (oh wait... you already knew) how crazy I am but also why and what fuels me. And hopefully despite my debacle of a personal life that in some way I've given your awesome daughters something to reach for, although hopefully in a much less painful manner! Maybe I've manifested something pretty good! I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Haysoos. For those who haven't already met Haysoos, he's my stuffed turtle side kick. Long story and if you want to check him out, he's on Face Book as well under Haysoos Honu. More an idea than a stuffy, Haysoos embodies living life to it's fullest and is my constant companion while on travel to continually remind me both of this concept and of our home away from home, Hawaii. Haysoos has lived more life in three years than most people live in a life time. Born on the Pali Highway in Hawaii on a cold, rainy December day of 2008, he's been to Alaska (numerous times), Seattle, St. Louis, Detroit, Rhode Island, Arizona, Utah, Vermont, Ohio, Missouri, Tennessee (wanted to see Elvis but no joy), Colorado, Kansas (he didn't want to go there though...Dorothy had left the building), North Carolina, California, Kuwait, an aircraft carrier and flown over Afghanistan and Pakistan. Hell, I've barely done all these things. Haysoos is the guy who lives life in a gold Elvis costume with joy to its fullest and sits on my counter as a reminder that we carry all the protection we need in our shell so what's stopping you from getting out there and taking a chance. Well, the good news is that just before we hit the ground in Hawaii, Haysoos got his book deal. Fer real. While it added a big chunk of "OMFG" to life (I now have a lawyer on retainer...for normal people this isn't a big deal, for me, OMFG!), and required significant time at a time when I didn't have time, it's now in the hands of a publisher. The Biography of Haysoos in the form of a children's book will be out hopefully before Christmas. So Haysoos tagged along to Hawaii also much in need of siesta from the writer's grind, the paparazzi, the lawyers and the biz in general. Oh and a break from that dog! He kept the Team Big entourage company while I was working and is the glue that keeps us all together. Not bad for a $10.99 stuffed turtle from Ward Center. Good work Lil' Man and mahalo for keepin' it real. As for the race? Didn't matter so don't need to discuss it. It merely provided me with an opportunity to relearn what I've forgotten (again!) about the necessity to grow tight relationships, understand those that are not, ask for help when you need it and be able to accept help in no matter what form is arrives. I was looking in the wrong places, didn't realize that until yesterday and therefore focused my angst in the entirely wrong place. So to the dude that's really pissed at me right now, you're entirely entitled. Acknowledged offering sincere apologies and hopefully you will not be pissed at me for long. To my kokua crew mentioned above, thank you and accept my most sincere gratitude in proverbially getting me up, pushing me out the door and carting my carcass home after every bad race, every step of the last four months and after the race on October 8th. In closing my only catchy tags lines are, "if you give up too much, you'll have nothing left" because I am now there, and "Go Big or Go Home". Aloha, rosie

The Calm Amidst the Storm

This blog was originally written on Sept 9, 2011. Fast forward two years (which frankly feels like two decades) and I'm actually publishing on Sept 24th, 2013. What a difference two years make. Not only has life changed, but what I'll share has changed. Simple and to the point, it is what it is. Blogs are all about logging on the web so here's the log from that day two years ago. I had this wild dream last night. Set the scene: running around in a warehouse desperately looking for cover from this massive tornado heading my way. All I can find are these cinder block walls that aren't more than eye level tall and no ceiling. The tornado is roaring my way so as it is almost on top of me, I drop to the cement floor and basically say a few words of surrender and wait for the tornado to do what it will. Then the most amazing thing happened. As the twister was directly over top of me, I experienced this wonderful sense of peace, calm, release, lightness and complete surrender to the force of the storm. It was amazing. Just total surrender. As the storm moved on, the roaring began again and I was left untouched. What an amazing feeling to know that in the midst of the most tumultuous times, that we can actually experience true comfort and be perfectly protected despite circumstances that look beyond dire. It is moments like that that enable me to keep going through the drama of my life. Keep going knowing that regardless of what seems insurmountable, there is still peace if I just totally surrender.

Ironman Utah, May 24th, 2011 - The Race That Should Have Never Been

Each time I do a race, it’s always the one I won’t write about. “Nothing happened.” Kinda silly because it’s a major event with months of my life planned around it, months of socializing put on hold, thousands of dollars invested in training/travel and leave burned to go do it. The problem is remembering it all effectively enough to portray what the event really was like and meant in the overall scheme of things. For some reason, I decided that going it alone would be a good call. Someone once said that nothing is lonelier than a finish line without friends. Apparently I need to learn this yet again but in reality, going it alone was necessary to know I could do it without help. So yeah, I trained for and participated in an Ironman without any support. It was an amazing challenge but one that forced me to be entirely present, entirely organized and entirely motivated – something you don’t do when you rely on others to take care of your shit. The decision to do Utah was pretty much a coin flip. Since at the time of signing up, there were only two US races not yet sold out, I asked my coach which one. In retrospect, maybe Louisville would have been a better choice in terms of pain mitigation but you who know me know that I’m all in for maximum discomfort in the name of entertainment and “personal growth”. The challenge of doing a dessert Ironman at 2000-5000 feet of altitude was combined with some other “self improvement” projects I have going on in life so was an excellent proof of concept (as we say in the military staff world) that life is expanding in all the right ways. Jonser, you’ll be happy to know that I don’t want to kill you anymore for saying Utah was the race for me. Fast forward to arrival and imagine my dismay (because I didn’t pre-flight plan this…ignernce is bliss!) that the terrain was high, dry and freakin’ hot. Oh well… no backing out now. I arrived through Vegas and made the 2-hour drive up to St. George, UT through some fantastic (although high, dry and freakin’ hot) scenery. Pictures fail to capture the “big sky” of it all. I checked into my hotel and figured I’d deal with the logistics tomorrow. Remember that whole “lack of pre-flight” thingy? Yeah, because I was here alone, I had no earthly idea how I was going to get to the swim start which was 30 miles away from the finish line and how I would get back to my hotel which was 6 miles from the finish line. If I were graded on the final exam at this point, it would be a resounding “F”. Pressing on… Ever been to Utah? It’s a great state with the most incredibly wonderful people ever. All those Mormons have it figured out. They’re so friendly and welcoming saying, “Oh yeah, come and do our cute little triathlon! You’ll love it and we have pizza and soda pop afterwards! And square dancing! YEA!” Then you get there and realize that there’s the distinct possibility that the Mormons are working closely in concert with Satan. They completely suck you in and then give you the Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka from the high rails on you as they pound you into submission with the Ironman from hell. With a square dancing and soda pop chasers of course. Point of digression… Allow me to take a moment to mention just how out-of-place Europeans are in Utah. In Hawaii they just look like tourists but to the conservative Utah crowd, the spandex-wearing, nude-in-the-parking-lot crowd just doesn’t work. It must be me because it seems like every Ironman, I happened to attract the hairy (European) dudes in full frontal out in public. It’s God’s cruel joke that still haunts me to this day. OK, back to the topic. I have a very good friend who recently gave me some excellent advice: simplify and clarify. I’ve taken that onboard in ways you can’t even imagine and it’s filtered over into my racing and training. So much so that it was a bit alarming when I built up my bike (which took all of 5 minutes…very simple) and realized that it was set up with one bottle of nutrition, a couple of gu gels and….yeah, that’s about it. Compare to Arizona in 2008 when I had an entire laundry list to check off when getting my bike and transition bags ready. Packing my transition bags was worse: shoes, helmet/hat… uh, that’s it. I threw a Red Bull into each bag just to make it seem heavier because damn! that’s just not enough, right? My special needs bags, one Red Bull and a chunk of carrot cake that I wouldn’t even use. I mean, crap, I even forgot to bring my heart rate monitor and bike bottles. Who goes to an Ironman without a heart rate monitor and water bottles? Rookie mistakes that we will now conveniently re-characterize as “simplifying” in order to save face. In taking in the entire holistic picture, my grand scheme to simplify appeared it would materialize as either a total success or a total failure. Deep in the back of my mind, there’s the nagging thought that I’m simply not taking this seriously enough. Cleary, there are people here who have an entourage of dozens, packed transition bags full of towels, body glide, Big Macs, small midgets, ponies and unicorns while I’m down to a Red Bull. Hmmm…. Add to that the fact that I simply (there’s that simple thingy again) not nervous. You’re supposed to be nervous before an Ironman right? Truth be told, I get more nervous before my semi-annual PRT than before an IM. I was quickly starting to realize how liberating this whole “simple” thing really is. Because when you skin this cat, the only person I would be failing was me. It dawned on me that this might actually be the first major race I’ve done for just me. Nothing to prove; nothing for which to qualify; no fans present to disappoint. And my traveling buddy, Little Man Haysoos simply doesn’t care about these things. It would be a race to enjoy for the sake of racing. Although from the cheap seats here at my computer, I admit that “enjoy” really would only come long after. Before race day, I spent some time enjoying the local area and made a quick trip up to Zion National Park. Definitely worth the time but damn, that’s a lot of traffic. Bumper to bumper going through the park and it was only early May. In any case, I was able to score the best Geedunk of the trip. Normally since these events are so few and far between, we load up on T-shirts and bling to announce in blazing font across our chests that WE ARE IRONMEN!! It’s part of the bizarre Ironman subculture. Anyhoo, the tri-jersey I got was nice but my favorite bling from this year’s race was actually the Harley Davidson t-shirt I picked up from the dealership that was about 30 miles from Zion Park. It’s just cool and says absolutely nothing about triathlon. I walked around the rest of the time in my jeans, shit-kickers and Harley shirt. People were looking at me strange like, “are you really racing or is that number on your arm a stunt?” No doubt after babbling on for two pages, you all want to hear about the race. Sure why not. It was (pardon my French…) fucking hot, windy and I couldn’t get a solid breath of air for 13 hours. That pretty much sums it up. 95 degrees. Bike hills were up to 15% grade and we ran up a hill that was 8%. Tough stuff. Making a good call to drive the course AFTER instead of BEFORE, I got some pictures for posterity. The scenery was killer (along with the hill affectionately dubbed “The Wall”) and provided a few moments of “presentness” and clear focus (i.e. I pulled my head out of my ass momentarily) in the midst of the hardest physical challenge of my life. To draw a picture for you, there was a point at about mile 22 of the run where I was heading up yet another hill, the sun lowering in front of me, wind briskly in our faces blowing dust and sand aggressively. It was so steady a wind that I couldn’t see the feet of those in front of me as the sun shining off the dust and sand blocked out people from the waist down. Tumbleweed blew across our paths (seriously). It’s interesting though, that in the middle of all this, there are moments of clarity that completely stand out: the darkness of the morning wilderness sky painting a beautiful display of stars; the smell of the school bus that transported us to the swim start; the feel of the burning pavement under my rear end when I was putting on my running shoes; the taste of the fries I had after crossing the finish line and the cobweb that some lost spider had built on my bike overnight after I dropped it off in transition. That spider web, BTW, stayed there the entire race which on many levels is depressing since it means I never got fast enough on the bike to blow it off but in many ways cool – that’s one tough web. Simple yet strong. This is where I get philosophical so if that stuff bores you please skip to the end (assuming of course that you made it this far to begin with!). I have a very good friend who is in the process of moving. At the age of 38, she’s accepted a job cross country and is leaving the place where she has spent 5 years (and collected 5 years of stuff presumably). She’s shipping her motorcycle, bicycles and truck, selling the rest and putting only the most essential basics in the back of a rental (along with the dogs of course – can’t mail those) and driving to a new life. This entirely demonstrates someone who fully embraces lack of attachment to stuff. (FYI, I cannot and don’t pretend – still learning. I’d like to state for the record that my new pick up truck which has complicated my life significantly with a car loan is cool enough in my mind to make up for my attachment to “stuff”.) There are very few people like this in the world that understand that simplicity is liberating and we are so much happier as humans when free of self-imposed yokes. We are so attached to our stuff that we forget that it’s really just stuff. We also forget it’s the attachment to people that really is the important thing (like the attachment that means being willing to drop everything on a moment’s notice and hang out with your Grandfather for a week). Riding and driving through the mountains of Utah, Arizona and Nevada reminded me yet again of what it must have been like for those first settlers (and Native Americans of course) to hack out an existence here. Can you imagine what they thought when they saw it? No doubt there wasn’t much of a fight when Brigham Young said, “Yeah, we’ll take it” and walked away with the keys to Utah. Talk about simple – it doesn’t get more basic than finding shelter, water and chow in the middle of the desert wilderness. What’s an Ironman compared to that? The plan to pare down this race to the bare essentials actually could be termed a success. My time was 13h 07m which upon crossing the finish line was really disappointing (normal time is 1h 20m faster) but after reviewing the times online, realized that if there’s a pro that comes in at 12 hours, then 13 ain’t so bad after all. It was a brutal test of both mental and physical endurance and once again, at mile 18 of the run, I swore to high heaven that this would absolutely be my last. I have, however, finally come up with an answer to those who would ask, “are you freakin’ crazy and why the hell do you do this?” There are few things in life that will tell you exactly what you are made of. Since I’ll never see hand-to-hand combat, this is the next best thing. This certainly does not mean I’m made of great stuff. Clearly this race gave me some personal insight to a few things that still need tweaking (not mentioned here to protect my fragile ego…) but at least now there’s clarity. So with a little rudder applied courtesy of Ironman Utah, me ‘n my ego are re-adjusted on the path to expansion and evolution. Post Script: Since you are all fans of Haysoos, being the typing cripple he is, he wanted me to pass on that he had a great time too. We didn’t see Elvis in Vegas but there’s a chance we’ll go to Graceland at the end of May. Little Man spent the race day safely tucked away in the air-conditioned hotel room sucking on a beer but was with me in spirit. He did however join me for race registration and as always, was a big hit with the Ironman crew. Photos posted in the IM Utah folder. Enjoy :)