Everyday is a snow day

He sat underneath the awning in the park rotunda. The opportunity to move had passed him by. So he sat, waiting for the next moment to move along. Snow was coming down pretty fiercely, and coming in a lot of different directions. He wandered out here to to watch the storm come in. To feel the nostalgia of a morning off. Instead of the radio he checked a website. To check and see if things were closed. Things were closed. City wide, in fact.

Its a little bit different now than it was then. Probably a lot different, actually. He gets mornings off when ever he likes. Not by choice. There wasn’t any one moment that said, “Things will be different now.” They just are. He just is.

But there he was, still sitting in the rotunda. He wandered out of an apartment that was both getting smaller and bigger. The burden was bigger. More to clean, more to to do, more to keep-up. More to pay for. Yet, smaller because there were now days on end when he didn’t leave. Funny, he didn’t feel like a hermit or some sort of social recluse. But, technically he had become one. There wasn’t any one moment that said, “You will be a hermit now.”

He started to draw some figures in the snow. Tracing tracks like a bird. He then imagined a fox chasing that bird. It was a hot pursuit of squiggles and lines in an imaginary game of cat and mouse. The bird won this one. But for how much longer?

There was lot of snow. It was coming faster now, and from every direction.

It had been seven months since she out out grew him. This was an instance when -- like on snow days -- the apartment seemed smaller. It would be another five months before she knew she had out grown him. Outgrown their love. It would be another eight months before he realized she was gone. It would be about another three on the eight on top of the five that she would actually get up and leave. There was nothing that said, “Time to leave now.” She just did.

Suddenly, the urge to stand had grown. A moment to move was fast approaching. He didn’t want to miss this one. In this moment he could go anywhere. Do anything. He’d start with a cup of coffee and a joke with a barista. Who knows what would happen after that? A new lead? A big adventure? This was a big city. The big city! Opportunity was in and around every corner. Just look at him. Outside. On a snow day!

Of course, they were all snow days. Now.

Bike

Bike
8:00 am - Transition is long by most standards. But not nearly long enough for me. The crowd, 10 deep at spots, was roaring. You still feel good at this point in the day and the smile won’t fade. I have complained at length to friends and family about the cost of this event. Suffice to say I won’t be demanding a refund. This is as close as you will ever come to being a celebrity athlete.

At the end of transition you grab your swim to bike bag. You dump it out on the ground of the tent and assemble yourself into a cyclist. I asked the guy next to me if this was his first event. He replied, “Coming out of the water is pretty crazy, huh?” It was his third. He knew exactly what I was feeling right then.

We just leave our belongings on our bags and the volunteers take them away wet suits and all. We run to our bikes. They are fetched for us. Valet for bikes, valet for wet suits. Such is the life of a celebrity athlete.

8:10 am - And now I am on a bike. We go through town. People are yelling. For me. For Brooklyn, which is on my jersey. For the sake of yelling, perhaps. Again, it is 8:10 AM! The energy is unreal. These people are well caffeinated or really inspired.

I have a race plan and it is to enjoy myself. Thoroughly. The hard work is behind me, race day was for the sheer enjoyment of being fit and being alive, and not falling apart. Part of executing on that plan is to allow all manner of folks to pass me on the first loop of the bike. This ended up being easier than I thought.

I am a man of incredible ego. I have always believed I could do just about anything, and believed that I would be the best in the room at it. The problem is persistence and follow through. This is how my wife has changed my life. She has taught me an incredible amount about marking a goal and meeting it. She has also tempered my ego -- it is far more likely that she is going to end up as the best in the room.

The bike is a particular week spot for my ego mania. I have been put in my place on hills many times. And I have always signed up for more. Lake Placid is proof positive of this, as it is well known as one of the hilliest ironman courses in the country and the world. I also have a hard time letting anyone pass me on the bike. So, letting people pass me on hills ... tough. But I try and hang back because, as Robert Frost said, “The woods of Placid are dark and deep, and I have a marathon to go before I sleep. A marathon to go before I sleep”. I may be misquoting, though. It was a long day.

9:00 am - I am through the first bit of hill. It has been all spin and all smiles. I have run into my friends Jonathan and Greg. Jonathan sang, “LIGHTNING MAN!” to me as he passed. It is an homage to a ridiculous bike I own. It has been a long and fun training period with these friends. Inside jokes have grown. We tease and support each other.

I am through the last bit of the hills and before the decent I see my sister-in-law and her fiancée. They are on their bikes in the middle of nowhere. It is amazing to see them. They shouldn’t have come this far for this boring race. But they did.

9:15 am - Descending for 10 miles. I would hit 48 mph on the way down. There is a little rain the first loop but it is mostly dry by the time I get there. I try not to let the inner 10 year old who is shouting, “FASTER, FASTER, FASTER” completely take over.

10:00am - This is the golden part of the bike. It is flat and it is fast. But even if you feel like you are getting speed without much effort, it is best to proceed with caution. The way I see it is thus: speed and time, these things can be made up. Effort once expended cannot. Not without a good night’s sleep anyway. And so, even though this is where ego man wants to say, “I could kill all of you right here”. Reality man says, “But I won’t.”

At this point I have seen just about all my training partners and everyone looks really great.

10:45am - I have been taking on food at regular intervals and doing a good job of hydrating. A. Really. Good. Job. No sir. Hydration, not a problem. So ... where to pee? Starting to become a problem. Peeing on the bike is an art I would say I have not yet quite mastered. It is hard to master, frankly. There is a lot of pressure that develops while sitting for 6+ hours in a bike saddle. And that makes relief a tricky thing. Oh. Yeah. And going 20+ mph on a bike with people behind you and having warm urine spray everywhere, that also makes it pretty tricky, too.

I did it. I did not poop on myself, though. And I did not wear diapers. And this officially concludes the poo-poo and pee-pee conversation. I had to get it out of the way. Immediately after: would you do it again? The most asked question is: did you pee on yourself/poop on yourself/wear diapers?

11:00am - The first real test of the day. We are beginning the climb back to town and if my legs have turned to cinder blocks things will not be looking good. I don’t just climb with ease, I ALSO still have the smile. I am spinning free, easy and clear.

And there is reason to smile. There are some very large dogs laying in some hay with a family ... wait, no ... those are billy goats. This is absurd. Thousands of dollars of bikes, ridden by lycra clad biker gangs and there are billy goats. This a David Lynch film. This is weird. But this is also a lot of fun.

We are approaching town and the final big climb, called Papa Bear, is packed. It is very much like the tour de france. Watching the tour I always think, “I would hate to have all those people in my way.” I was wrong. it. is. awesome. They make way for you and are cheering in your ear. They yell for Brooklyn. I fist pump. They yell for Shaun. I smile.

Just up and over the hill and around the bend is my family. Big colorful signs that say Go Uncle Shaun! and Run Chappy! T-Shirts. I want to put on a good show so I floor it through town. For the first time letting myself really work. I bank through town, the crowds still two or three deep. All yelling. My face is still bent in a smile, on a quick decent through town I even hit a few bumps that turn into “jumps”. I decide that this is probably not the best thing to do in the middle of an ironman. But the ten year old, he’s taken over for now.

I am off to the second loop of the bike.

11:30am - I have been doing a back and forth with my buddy Chipp on the bike. It is great to be out here with a friend. Chipp’s wife is extremely pregnant. I have heard people say that pregnancy is binary, not something that can happen in degrees. Whatever, she is due, like ... today. And her husband is 6 hrs by car away and doing an ironman. That makes her more pregnant. There is a very good chance that she is having a baby right ... freaking ... now. (Spoiler: The baby doesn’t arrive for four more days). Chipp tells me that he is starting to have a little bit of IT Band trouble. I tell him to hang in there. I mean it. I want him to hang in there, it is nice having him ride with me.

2:30pm - The rest of the ride goes shockingly well. There was something to all this prep-work. I am having an insane amount of fun. That is a theme for the whole darn day. I manage to negative split the bike. My first loop was faster than my second loop.

But the moment I am really nervous for is coming. I am about to get off the bike for the first time in over 6 hrs. This is when things tend to go wrong. You feel cramps and pinches in places you aren't expecting. What will happen for me?

I slip out of my shoes and a I feel ... nothing. No pinches. No cramps. No nothing. Not true, I feel something. Relief. I hand my very expensive (to me) and prized (to me) bike to a stranger I have never met who I trust will rack it as if it where his own. It's that kind of day.

And now to turn myself into a marathoner.

Swim

6:45 am - Floating in the water having a pee in the wet suit. There is a crowd of 3000 swimmers around me and another 6,000 plus on the beach. This officially makes it the most public act of urination for me by about 9,000 plus.

In spite of the peeing, and the guy with the bullhorn, and the forced adrenaline from the repeat plays of “Ironman” by Sabbath this moment is full of calm. It has been at least a year building til this point and for quite a few of us a great deal longer.

In 2000 I spent my summer working 50 - 60 hours weeks in food service. I smoked a pack a day (Camel Lights) and weighed 235 lbs. I spent my evenings with some fellas who cycled through jobs like this all the time. They killed them selves for middling pay, made car payments and rent (mostly), drank cheap beer. Repeat. This freaked me out. There was no way I was going to drink cheap beer for the next 40 to 60 years. At 20 years old I was having something that looked too much like a midlife crisis, complete with hacking cough, paunchy gut and a can of warm Miller Lite. What the hell was I doing with myself?

I had a conversation with my dad on one of those summers night. My father has never been accused of bending an ear so when he speaks it is to the point. In fact, to make things easier he comes armed with a handful simple choice turns of phrase, reusable for many occasions, “Everything perceived leaves an impression, the question is ‘how much’” or “Any job worth doing, is worth doing right”. At this point I wasn’t sure I was doing a job worth doing. And I certainly wasn’t doing it right. I told him as much.

He said, “The thing I was doing when I was 20, wasn’t what I was doing when I was 25. The thing I was doing when I was 25 wasn’t the thing I was doing when I was 30.” Out of context it doesn’t seem like much. But they were the right words at the right time.

My parents have always given me the freedom to choose my own path. Providing me with just enough opportunity to make things happen, but never so overbearing that I suffocate under the weight of expectation. I took his advice to mean that things could be different, it just had to be my choice. I quit the smokes and rejoined my college swim team. Oh and met met my wife.

The last part. That’s how I ended up in this water at 6:45 am on a Sunday morning in July.

7:00 am - Cannon. Gun. Bazooka. Loud. Not really sure what it was they shot off. It was a bit of a blur. But there was a big bang and then there was white. And fists. And feet.

It would have been easy for me to freak out. But I didn’t. I went with it. I didn’t try to fight anything. It is as close as I will ever come to being David Caradine. I felt like a Tai Chi master. Fist came my way: DODGE! Leg kick to the left: BLOCK! The swim is two loops of what is basically a rectangle. There is a somewhat visible golden line you can follow, but it is difficult with 3,000 other folks looking for the same thing, churning gallons of water as they go. On the way out things were certainly rough, but I never lost control. I held my ground without being so rigid that I bruised and broke in the washing machine that was the once calm Mirror Lake.

7:28 am - Done with a loop and sailing. In the water there is a muffled hum. You know that just beyond the water there is a buzz. You sense that it has rained a bit. You burst free and there is roaring thunder of 6,000+ fans and friends and family. They’ll have to wait another 30 minutes for me. Back to the muddled hum.

On the second loop I hugged the line and just floated as much as one can float in the middle of an extreme athletic event. I was coy about setting any goal times for the day. I knew about where I could be for each leg, and I knew about where I should be. But deep down inside I desperately wanted to break an hour in the swim. Not so much I was going to let it ruin my day. But I wanted to get there. And get there effortlessly.

I popped up at 59:47. 13 seconds to spare. A smile would come across my face. It would pretty much stay there for the next 12 hours.

Prep

Preparation:
The previous year - I started doing marathons in 2005 because I intended to someday do an iron distance triathlon. How I ended up at this iron event, on this day, took a bit of slight of hand.

One friend called another and said, “Everyone one is doing it. We have to. This is our last best chance.” Little did anyone know that the everyone that was doing it was also being told that everyone was doing it. My friend Jonathan said as much to me on the beach at Coney Island. Everyone was on board. It was a done deal.

We would have to go to Lake Placid to sign up. This was to guarantee entry. The week before I had my first and only ‘did not finish’. It was at a half iron distance. My stomach shut down. Two weeks before that my wife and I had had a strained conversation about the demands of training on our social life and marital bliss. For me, this was not quite done deal.

I went to Lake Placid anyway. Ironman weekend in Lake Placid is not a place to go ‘undecided’. There is no chance you make it out of town with your money or your life. By Monday morning it finally was a done deal for me. I would start having anxiety dreams two weeks later.

My official training plan started on December 28th, 2009. At the peak I put about 22 - 25 hrs a week into training. On big days I burned about 9,000 calories. My resting caloric burn rate came to about 2,700 a day. This is how many calories I would burn if I did nothing at all.

There were a few highlights of the preparation period. Strangely, many of the same incidents also sound a bit like lowlights.

There was the iron time trial in New Paltz, New York. This was four loops of a 28 mile course. You had to summit the Mohonk mountians to complete a loop. Twice. After the second loop I crashed my bike twice from fatigue and hunger. The worst of it is you pass by your car, which would gladly take you home or to a cheeseburger. I did not stop.

There was the 1.5+ mile San Francisco Bay swim. The water was 57 degrees. I wore no wet suit. I wore no wet suit. Children may not be in my future. I did not stop.

There was 18.5 miles at race pace (slow) in 95 degrees and 115% humidity (slight, but not unbelievable, exaggeration). This was done the day after I did my longest bike ride of 120 miles. I did not stop.

But mostly, when I think back on the training and the prep, it wasn’t so much a singular big day that proved my mettle. It was linking a lot of smaller events. Being consistent. Getting up, getting the rides in. Watching the food in take. Getting enough sleep so my body didn’t fail. Ignoring the please for social calls, and getting everything done so I didn’t get sick, or injured

By race day I felt fully prepared, even if I still didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t have a single anxiety dream (nightmare) in the final weeks. Done deal, indeed.