Giving up on Kona, Boston?

In case you hadn't guessed, two of my life goals are to toe the respective starting lines in a couple of hallowed places — Kona, Hawaii, on the first Saturday in October after the full moon; Hopkinton, Massachusetts, on Patriot's Day. Those races would be the Ironman Triathlon World Championship, and the Boston Marathon.

Seriously, I'd put those two ahead of a lot of the "American dream" kind of goals — home ownership, marriage, children, retirement, being my own boss, etc. Yes, I'd rather do an 80-mile bike ride in the rain followed closely by a 10-mile run, than mow the grass, change a diaper, or go over spreadsheets with lots and lots of red numbers. OK, bad examples, but you catch my drift.

Those goals are rooted in my childhood, which obviously was not normal. It became apparent early on that I wasn't going to fill out my frame, that I was going to be lean for much of my life, that I didn't have much in the way of coordination, so I adjusted my sporting goals accordingly. Instead of wanting to throw the winning touchdown pass, I dreamed of a four-minute mile (one more goal that never got reached). Instead of coming to the plate with two outs in the bottom of the ninth blah blah blah, I dreamed of turning the pedals in that lava desert on the Big Island. In junior high, when things got rough on a five-mile training run with my cross country team, I wondered how on earth I'd deal with the far more excruciating pain of mile 18 in the Natural Energy Lab. It started when I saw the Ironman on TV, realized I already did two of the three sports, and set that in my head forever.

So I did it many years later. I slacked off in early adulthood as I got in the groove of my newspaper career, stayed up too late, slept too late, and drank and worked too much. Once I got back into triathlons in 2002, the goal was Ironman. I did five of them over the course of six years (separated by a nice interval, of course), knowing full well most of the time that I'd finish well off where I needed to be. Whether it was crappy training or melting down mentally, every race short-circuited at some point and I'd stumble across the finish line, get my medal and shitty pizza, and go home, IT bands on fire.

Obviously, it's become cost-prohibitive as time has gone on. Ironman Florida cost me $325 in 2003, while Ironman Wisconsin cost me $625 in 2009. That's to say nothing of lodging and travel costs. There are more races, true, but they fill up faster and faster every year. The races themselves get faster, too. To give you an idea of how seriously I take this, I analyzed the finish times for the LAST Kona qualifier in my age group every year at Ironman Coeur d'Alene in Idaho. The average time for the first six years of the race (2003-08) was 10h13m46s. In 2009, the last qualifier went 9:52:41, and in 2010 he went 9:49:13.

I guess it's silly since, according to some of the Internet literati, it's just a race. At the same time, two of the stupidest things I've ever read about Kona came from Slowtwitch. The first: "Kona's really not that big a deal. It's just a race. I've been there six times and it's so stupid how seriously people take it." Then why have you been there six fucking times if it's not that big a deal? The second: "You know, it's actually kind of a boring course. You take away the wind and the heat and it's not that hard." In 30 years on the Big Island (the race started in Oahu at Waikiki), you could "take away the wind and the heat" twice — once for the Iron War between Scott and Allen in '89, once when Luc Van Lierde set the current course record. Maybe there was another one recently, but those are the prime examples. Again, a ludicrous statement, and when I get there, I want the mumuku winds, the 100-degree heat radiating off the asphalt, the 2-3-foot seas, and the flower lei around my neck at the finish.

Or maybe I don't anymore.

This has been a rough month for my goals. First, the 2011 Boston Marathon sold out the day it opened for registration. I find it hard to believe that many people met the standards, but then again the race relaxed their standards in 1996 for the 100th to let more people experience Boston, and they haven't changed them since. When I was young and first learned I had to qualify for Boston, men under 40 pretty much had to break 3 hours. You can see now that's not the case. No word on whether the BAA would revisit its standards, but if I make the 3:15 standard for men my age anyway, the chances of getting in are insanely slim now. Even if the standards tighten up and I have to break 3 hours into my 40s, again, no guarantee I'd get in if I'm not quick enough on the mouse.

For Kona, just when the World Triathlon Corporation seems to have exhausted its store of stupid ideas (i.e., the rule that states pros must finish within 8 percent of the winning time to earn prize money, otherwise you're SOL; later rescinded), they do this:

Today World Triathlon Corporation (WTC) launches an exclusive athlete membership program called Ironman Access. In addition to other member benefits, the program will offer advance registration for Ironman events worldwide before entries open to the general public. Membership into Ironman Access is on a first-come, first-served basis and will close once it reaches capacity.

In addition to exclusive, advance registration, Ironman Access will offer perks including an official membership ID card; a second chance in the Ironman Lottery Program*; two VIP passes per registered event; a one-year subscription to LAVA Magazine; discounts on Ironman partner products at shopironman.com and at Ironman’s on-site event retail stores; and a 2010 Ford Ironman World Championship NBC broadcast DVD. Membership benefits are valid for one year starting from activation date. In order to take advantage of early event registration, membership must be current. The annual membership fee is $1,000 USD.

Basically, for a grand, you get to cut the line and register for as many events as you want. You already saw what one of these M-dot branded events costs, so consider that the $1K fee is on top of whatever entry fees you pay. Since most of these events sell out a year in advance, that $1K would save you the trouble of traveling to the race site and signing up there the next day. Not a bad deal if you can afford it, though it is only a yearly thing; you'd have to renew your membership every year at that cost, likely more given the state of things.

The topic has been beaten to death elsewhere. Simply, it's a money grab. The WTC sold out to a private equity firm in 2008. That firm is beholden to no one but shareholders — not customers (like us racers), not the hundreds of thousands of volunteers who make the events work, not the towns where the races take place, not even their employees. The shareholders demand more returns, product be damned, and they come up with shit like this. For once, the company saw the error of its ways, and rescinded the program within 24 hours. CEO Ben Fertic issued this mealy mouthed statement ("If you say we're wrong, we're wrong." Suuuure.), and like a good, chastened company, wiped the original release off the site.

This is where my social conscience wakes from its slumber. I try to do right by the world — buy organic, shop local, hug trees, save endangered species, support causes I believe in. That said, Ironman is my id taking over, my selfish nature manifesting itself in exercises in masochism (as if rooting for the Cubs wasn't enough). Truthfully, I enjoy running, swimming, and cycling (in order of favorites), and this is a way to test myself on a measured, catered course. But I don't feel like I can support this company (and it is a company, make no mistake) any more when they're trying to make their races a survival of the richest. I've thrown some serious coin at this silly dream, and the odds seem to get longer by the year. As of yesterday the plan was to give it one more shot in Coeur d'Alene in 2012, then abandon if I didn't make it. Now? I don't know. I just don't know.

So my options now are the stellar Rev3 series, or the Challenge series overseas. But those don't carry the carrot of Kona spots. Ironman star Luke McKenzie wondered on twitter if anyone would do M-dot races if there weren't Kona spots attached. I'd have to say no, no matter how far off I am from qualifying.

As for my goals of 50 states in both triathlon and marathon? The plan was only one marathon in Hawaii and Massachusetts, one triathlon in Hawaii; the 50 States Marathon Club will take Ironman marathons. Now? Looks like the Maui Marathon, the Cape Cod Marathon, and whatever triathlons I can find in those places. Sometimes it sucks to have a conscience, but at least I sleep well — most of the time.

Portland Marathon, brought to you by the number 10

As I said before, I wanted to do something monumental on Oct. 10, 2010. The Portland Marathon fit the bill, especially considering the original plan for the race — helping someone qualify for the Boston Marathon. See, my personal best is 3:44:34, set at Atlanta in 2006, which would get her to Boston. That went belly-up, however, and I was left to my own devices to not train and wallow in whatever it was I wallowed in. In fact, had I not bought my plane ticket in July and prepaid for the hotel room shortly thereafter, I would have bailed on the trip altogether.

The trip got off to an inauspicious beginning Friday when I left 40 minutes late. My friends Matt and Bryan, the members of Seattle band Bekker, were crashing at my place for a few days while playing shows in Laramie, and we had a fascinating discussion about writing music. However, it meant I got a late start and was rushed in getting to Denver International Airport 130 miles away. I made my flight in plenty of time, but I cut it much closer than what I feel comfortable and I breathed a hell of a lot easier when I was on the plane.

My Aunt Sara and Uncle John, in Portland for their grandson Trey's 5th birthday, picked me up at the airport, drove me to my hotel, and then took me out to a lovely prerace dinner at Sideline's Sports Bar and Grill (no relation to Sideline's Sports Bar/Meat Market in Casper). After some salmon, rice, sweet potatoes, veggies, and two pints of Alaskan Amber, I headed back to the hotel and got some sleep.

Saturday morning I was supposed to be looking at provided photos for a story for the magazine, but instead watched ESPN's Gameday and the Hawaii Ironman on the computer. As I mentioned before, this is the race I would rather have done, but at this point it's going to take a miracle for me to get there; frankly, it'll take a miracle for me to land on the start line in Hopkinton on Patriots' Day. It was supposedly all part of my motivation. At least that's what I kept telling myself.

Later Saturday, my friend Mindi came down from Seattle to take me downtown for lunch and packet pickup. We ate at a New York-style kosher deli called Kenny and Zuke's, not that a six-inch-high club sandwich and fries is the best prerace meal. Then we hit Safeway and picked up a couple friends of hers who were attending a dinner at the Hilton where we had to pick up our packets. Let me just say that with 13,000 runners spread between a 10K, half-marathon and full marathon, the Portland Marathon has a monumental task to get all these people in and out of a prerace expo in reasonable order. That said, while they did a good job of herding us through (literally, if you saw the labyrinthine pattern of hallways, escalators, and warehouses saved for the expo) I determined that I'm not doing any more big-city marathons. I can achieve my goal of 50 states while avoiding the big ones, really.

At Safeway I got a frozen meal to stoke the stove for Sunday's race, and called it dinner — that and 22 ounces of flat Pepsi left from an earlier 32-ouncer. I also had the bananas and Clif bars for dessert, as well as for my prerace breakfast. Sleep never comes easily the night before a race, so there's no point in talking about it. Part of it is being keyed up for the race, but the other part is the fear that I oversleep and miss the race; every Ironman competitor has that dream during the training cycle. In fact, I opened my eyes for some reason, and no more than two minutes later my alarm went off.

I had the breakfast of champions, fouled up my bathroom, and then headed downstairs to catch the shuttle to the airport, where I caught the Max/train downtown for the race. It started raining sometime Friday night and certainly hadn't stopped by race morning, so I steeled my resolve to get soaked — and stood under an overhang near where my wave would push off. I listened to my loud, angry music and eavesdropped on various conversations before dropping off my dry clothes bag. So intent on avoiding the rain was I that I waited until the gun went off before leaving the entryway to a building.

The plan was to be very conservative throughout the race, because my training would not allow for me to push myself. Indeed, a big-city marathon forces no other strategy, because even though 90 percent of the people were in the proper waves, somehow a few joggers and walkers snuck into the first two waves and the rest of us had to dodge them, or get slowed down. Fine with me, since I knew anything less than 4 hours (around 9:10 per mile) was a pipe dream.

The 3:50 pace group passed me early on, and then the 4-hour pace group passed at about mile 4. The rain stopped briefly, then resumed at that point. That's also when my cool technical t-shirt started chafing some sensitive protuberances on my chest, necessitating a vaseline stop at the 4.5-mile aid station. Don't mind me, I thought, I'm just reaching under my shirt and groping myself with vaseline, saving me some major pain later on (that was a lie, because I knew the postrace shower was going to hurt in a major way regardless of how well-lubricated I was). I had to reapply every half-hour at the nearest aid station, and I ended up with two gooey blobs on my shirt.

Lots of people passed me and that bothered me for about those first four miles, but then I realized for once in my life that I was running my own race. The course took us through the industrial part of Portland — not what you think of when you think "Portland." Seriously, we passed loading docks, warehouses, train yards, and more warehouses. Surely the course could have taken us to Forest Park or through the Rose District rather than the train yards north of downtown. The only cool thing was seeing the fast people running in the other direction, and in my case wishing I could click off 6-minute miles for one-tenth the distance.

My iliotibial bands are a well-documented bane of my existence in this space. Sunday was no exception. It was worthy of note that the halfway point for the marathon was front of an all-nude revue place, located conveniently across the street from some shipping warehouse along the Willamette River, and that kept my mind occupied until mile 14, when my IT bands completely tied up. That makes sense, since I figure my longest run this year was in that range. I was sort of prepared for it, and I ran through it anyway. I was one of the few people plodding out 9:30 miles on average to run all the way up the one hill, from mile 16 across a bridge to mile 17 at the middle of the bridge over the Willamette. Holy Christ, the downhill was brutal. But I kept running.

In fact, I think I ran more in this marathon than I ever have, and that includes my PR in Atlanta four years ago, when I walked much of the last five miles. Well, I jogged, anyway. My refueling plan of 24 ounces of grape Gatorade worked like a charm, so my only folly was my shredded IT bands. I ran next to a woman who said she trained for the marathon with Crossfit, meaning her longest run was 3 miles; they believe anaerobic power in short bursts builds aerobic fitness, and that elite endurance athletes train incorrectly, because Crossfit is The Way, The Truth, and The Light. I held my tongue and left her behind at 22.

There was another long downhill before mile 24, and then a brief uphill to another bridge over the Willamette, and then back downtown for another downhill off the bridge. With my IT bands screaming for mercy — actually, no, that was me screaming for mercy because of those damned things — I mercifully made a series of turns through the tall buildings and finished the damned race, as raindrops exploded all around me.

I got through the food line, put on my dry finisher's shirt, wrapped myself tightly in my space blanket, and stood in line for a half-hour for my dry clothes bag (another reason to never do another big-city marathon). There was no place to stand, and I beat bricks to the Max station and the ride back to my hotel.

That night I had dinner with my cousin and her family, as well as my aunt and uncle. It was great to see them, and to see Mindi the day before, so I guess I can take that away from my lost weekend in Portland. The time wasn't important (4:11:55); I knew that about a month-and-a-half back. It was time to see that part of the family and to run my tenth marathon (five standalones and five Ironmans) on 10-10-10.

Guess I'll have to come up with something big and legitimate for 11-11-11.

Three days out

Marathon No. 5 takes place Sunday, 10-10-10. I liked the idea of doing something semi-monumental on a numerologically significant day, so I decided on the Portland Marathon. I was supposed to have some company but, alas, it was not to be.

Thanks in part to that issue, plus a few other things bringing me down, I've done three 2-hour runs in the past three months, and that stands as my distance training. It's been all I can do to do something every day, much less get in the running I need for a good marathon. Sunday, I'll settle for a shitty marathon. Seriously, it'll be a death march. In fact, had I not purchased my plane ticket four months ago, or secured a prepaid hotel room, I'd probably bail on it and focus on swimming.

This might be one of the stupidest things I've done, but at least I'll see a new part of one of my favorite cities — the industrial waterfront. Goody. I'll see my aunt, uncle, and cousin and her family while I'm there, too, as well as a dear friend who's running the half. I'll bring my computer so I can veg out and watch the Ironman coverage from Hawai'i (aka the race I really want to do this weekend). So the weekend won't be a total waste.

And I'll still shave my legs.

Did I shave my legs for this?

With respect to Deana Carter, I have been shaving my legs on a monthly basis. Like football players taping their ankles over their shoes — provides no real stability, but it's force of habit and part of gearing up for competition — I invested in discount girl razors, no doubt to the amusement of the clerks at Safeway. I've either got a deep, dark secret (which I don't, other than... the incident) or I drew the short straw from a significant other (which I didn't). It makes me feel faster, especially lying in bed the night before the race and sliding around like an Olympic luger. And with my season in a tailspin, I'll continue the habit in hopes of at least feeling fast if I can't actually be fast.

On July 8, I found a sock I'd been missing for more than a year-and-a-half. It was the other race sock from a set I bought at the Austin Tri-Cyclist in 2002, and I designated as my race socks — black with orange stripes and yellow smiley faces. Maybe, if I get it together and figure out this digital camera thingie, I'll take a picture of them and post them here. Anyway, I pulled a t-shirt off the massive stack and out rolled this sock, presumed missing at a Davenport, Iowa, laundromat in late 2008. I thought that would be the break I was looking for, since shit's been kind of stinky in 2010.

Alas, I rode the wave for a few days. On July 11, I won my age group at the Cheyenne Sprint Triathlon, with the same time as in 2009 on about half the training. I had a brief upturn in mood, since it felt like the $3K I spent on a bike was worth it. For a while, anyway. I bagged the Headwaters Triathlon in Montana because it would have put me on the road for a long time right before I went on vacation with my parents, so the next race would be the Rattlesnake Triathlons in Aurora, Colorado. That was to be a back-to-back weekend, with an international distance race on Saturday and a sprint on Sunday. I did Saturday's swim in a decent 26:16, then hopped on my bike, grooving along the shittiest roads in Colorado — rural Arapahoe County, in case you're wondering. I stayed on the white line because the roads were open to traffic when I looked up in time to see the white line disappear into gravel.

I successfully kept the bike upright but the loud pop told me there was more to worry about. Not one, but two flat tires. I changed them in about 20 minutes, but my mental state went south with every passing minute. There goes the 1-hour, 10-minute goal for the bike, the 1:15 goal, the 1:20 goal, the 2:30 overall goal. After a while I just stopped and reset my watch, figuring on being a tourist. Once I got the tubes changed (tossing the spent tubes in the ditch with the beer cans and cigarette butts), I went for the CO2 dispenser and learned the hard way that if you put a CO2 cartridge in there, it slow-leaks. I was deflated as those tires, and started walking with my bike toward the turnaround for the bike. I was done, even if somebody — like the official in the red pickup who ultimately gave me a ride back to the transition area — had a pump. My mental state was shot and I'd already checked out.

In fact, I bailed on the sprint the next day, choosing instead to run for an hour in hopes of boosting my ego, followed by retial therapy, Dave-style — the clearance racks at Sports Authority, Big 5, Dick's, Running Wild, and Performance Bike, because you can't have too many pairs of running or cycling shorts, or CO2s, or tubes, or pullovers, or synthetic, wicking shirts.

So that was the last time I rode my bike, choosing instead to get into a groove with my master's swimming group, and shore up the run miles in advance of the Portland Marathon. Meanwhile, we got another issue of the magazine to the mailboxes of our alumni, donors, and friends, and the come-to-Jesus meeting with my boss was tolerable, resulting in weekly progress reports, instead of the bi-weekly ones previously assigned.

The latest setback is health. I've been lucky so far, not being sick since last December's bout with vertigo, but over the Labor Day weekend I picked up a head cold (Warning: graphic description). For about 24 hours, there was this baseball-sized piece of phlegm stuck to the back of my throat, too far back to force up, and my throat felt like it had been sandpapered. I worked through it for a while, but ultimately got tired of walking down the hall to the bathroom repeatedly, so I called it a day at noon today. My cold solution is to drown it in fluids, hoping the liquid loosens things up. Pepsi, Gatorade, water, V8, apple juice, soup. Then pee, rinse, repeat.

The Harvest Moon Triathlon is Sunday, and I have a prepaid hotel room and everything, but between the lack of bike miles over the past month and this week's illness, there's no way I can fake a half-Ironman. A shorter race, certainly, but a half-Ironman would be the most excruciating six hours of 2010, this side of a stint in the doctor's office. In case you've lost track, I signed up for eight triathlons, DNSed four of them, DNFed one, and finished three, winning my age group twice. The offseason can't get here fast enough.

So the plan is to go down, stay the night on an unfamiliar bed, collect the Marriott points, and help out at the race.

And I'll still shave my legs.

Crisis of motivation, crisis of confidence

These days I spend much of my time staring at a blank page on a computer screen, waiting for inspiration to strike. After a while I realize the pointlessness of that exercise, so I transcribe some minutes of the hours upon hours of interviews I have in my recorder. Between sentences, I idly surf the internet, and wonder what would happen if the university knew it was paying me a handsome sum of money to spend my days this way.

Outside of work it's not much different. I idly surf the internet, wondering if I should go back in to work or if I should get out on the bike, or if I should have a beer and make dinner. I also wonder if I should email the girl who's not interested in a long-distance relationship to let her know I understand and hope we can remain friends — or whatever line of bullshit people in that situation feed each other. When I wake up in the morning, the guilty feeling that I should be at my desk by 6:30 overrides the necessity of training, so straight to the kitchen for breakfast, then off to work after the morning ritual.

Let's go back to June 12 and the Boise half-Ironman. I was as undertrained for a race of that magnitude as ever, and one guy I talked to at the hotel said, "That's great. You don't have any expectations." Indeed. Still, my personal best of 5:09:13 from my first half-Ironman has been on the books for too long, and every time I toe the line in a race of that distance I hope for a PR. Boise was no exception. Still, the race started at 2 p.m. and because of the limited access to the swim venue we had to be there two hours before the race. There was no shade and as the sun beat down on us, the energy seemed to evaporate in the 80-degree warmth, about 10 degrees warmer than anything I'd trained in.

My swim was four minutes slower than it needed to be, despite feeling as good as I could have hoped in my restrictive neoprene sausage casing while cutting through the chop. The bike was where the wheels came off (no pun intended) as a 30 mph wind made it feel like I was wearing a parachute. Everybody had to deal with it, though, so aside from wasting mental and physical energy fighting the wind I had no excuse. The first few miles of the run went well, until I depleted my salt stores and felt heavier and heavier. I walked much of the last two miles and jogged across the line in 5:46.

I spent not only much of the 10-hour drive home pondering my future in the sport, I've done that for much of the past month. I want to qualify for Kona, which was the reason for starting this shitty blog in the first place, and I want to qualify for Boston. But 22 years since my first triathlon, however, there's far too much I'm still figuring out — nutrition, how to get out of my wetsuit with numb hands, how to adjust my effort when it's hotter and windier than I'd anticipated, nutrition, how is far is too far to drive for a race, how to best execute flying mounts and dismounts from the bike, and nutrition.

So I wonder how much effort I'm willing to put in for a lost cause. From my best Ironman time of 11:42 on a dead-flat course in ideal weather, I need to drop about two hours to qualify definitively, and an hour-and-a-half to have a reason to show up for the Kona spot rolldown the day after. I was told months ago that, in the words of a certain Nike commercial, everything [I] have is inside. If that's the case than I'm missing some parts. The girl said it's time for me to hire a coach, because I've been doing things my way for this long and it's obviously not working. If I could retain a nutritionist and a psychologist for the same monthly price as a coach, I'd be fucking golden. But I'm still looking up a mountain at a lofty goal, and all I see is the storm building over the peak. The space between my ears might as well be a thousand miles wide.

If my hobby is in that bad of a state, my work is even worse, and more urgent because it is my livelihood. A couple weeks ago our designer was laid off and for that two weeks we were a ship without a sail. Thankfully, he's back in a freelance capacity, but it created some drama and uncertainty we didn't need.

Personally, I feel completely bereft of creativity. The interviews, for the most part, are done but I can't write. I feel like warning my boss to expect straight AP shit on the cover story. Thankfully, a freelancer has stepped in to take one of the 1,000-word features off my hands. The last issue came out and has gotten positive reviews. A couple of my friends told me they loved the cover story. That praise does me good.

But now? I don't know. In addition to the aforementioned time-wasting (add to the list strolling all the way across campus to get coffee, and strolling across campus for no reason at all) I spent time wishing for a job at a widget factory, something that requires no brainpower and still provides a steady check. I lived on shit wages in newspapers, so no salary is too small. I just want to do my job and go home, and I don't want to end up tearing my hair out or going insane over the accomplishment of those duties. That's not the case here. I'm worried about my ability to get my stories done, edited, and laid out in a timely manner. I'm worried about my boss discovering just how far behind I am. I'm worried about which steps in getting the magazine to the printer I'll forget. I'm worried about one of the four remaining delinquent computer scientists not returning my email before I need to write the cover story. And I'm worried about a dry creative faucet when it comes time to write.

So I haven't been motivated to work, and I haven't been motivated to train. For the first time in years, all I've been motivated to do is love, and that didn't work out. It's affecting me more than I thought it would, but I can't use that as an excuse. I guess I have to press on, no matter what.

OT: Nothing in particular

Once again, I've gone quite some time between entries. One reason/excuse is my frustration with my triathlon-ing. I can't seem to motivate myself to get out there every day, so I'm wondering if I should make my goals a little more realistic, i.e. give up on Kona and Boston and just do a few races for the sake of finishing. Or just try to do a triathlon and marathon in each of the 50 states without regard for performance.

The other reason/excuse is my love/hate relationship with writing, and I've been leaning toward the latter lately. The last magazine hit the streets a month late, and I did every bit of writing except for two of the 20 or so stories, so I was about sick of it. And then another magazine has come up, and again, I have no help with the writing. Guess $200 a story isn't acceptable, even in this buyers' market of an economy. So I really don't care much for writing professionally, let alone as a hobby, and I daydream of finding a nice widget factory in need of an overeducated widget maker for $10 an hour.

It looks like I'm back on the market again, if I was off the market in the first place. Second straight relationship where it seems I was taking it more seriously than she was. Live and learn, eh? Long-distance isn't for everyone, no doubt about that, and apparently it wasn't for her. I was willing to give it a shot but I respect her feelings and won't press the issue.

Finally, I offer my thesis on a mid-30s man dating in a college town. Basically, it's impossible, and here's why:

• First, let's rule out the coeds. They're batshit crazy, and I'd seriously question the psychological makeup of an 18-22-year-old woman who wants to get down with a 36-year-old man. There's no amount of agreement about the, uh, nature of the relationship that would clear things up, so there's no point in even trying. I'm sure Steve McNair would confirm my theory but he's not around anymore, thanks to... a 20-year-old woman who offed herself after sending him to the great gig in the sky.

• The next group of women to rule out is the post-grads (post-docs, grad students, professors). But first, an anecdote. A friend of mine living in Lawrence, Kan., was dating this guy she'd met at the campus there, and after five months together he got in to law school at the University of Michigan. She told me, in so few words, that she was not moving from her home state unless there was a ring. I told her to be careful what she wished for, because she might get it. Sure enough, she got her ring, they went to A-squared, and lived happily ever after.

The point here is that no one comes to Laramie for post-graduate studies without a significant other because everyone knows what I know — it's a dating wasteland, unless you swim in the university pool, which might or might not be the best idea. Men can't bring their significant others without a permanent arrangement, and women won't come here without a dude in tow, whether permanently arranged or not; a smart guy will follow a smart girl anywhere, regardless of his own prospects for employment.

• So that leaves the townies. Like most small, rural, college towns in red states, there's a bit of resentment toward the campus among the townies, never mind what the campus means to the town in terms of culture, population, and economy. So even if I did chat up a townie woman in some situation, she'd probably bolt upon finding out I work at the university.

Further, at my age single women tend to have kids, and I'm not raising someone else's kid. In small towns like this one, there's something wrong with you if you haven't married by 25 (maybe younger here in sort-of Mormon country) and procreated by 30, so the woman do those before realizing the lack of wisdom in that course of action. Anyway, in my experience the "real" dad is not too far off, and I want nothing to do with that drama. Single moms are tough, admirable, courageous people, and I have nothing but respect for that path, but I wouldn't go that way myself.

So there you have it. I've pondered this quite a bit on many a run and ride (or walk home from work in the dark), and this is the first chance I've taken to put it on a screen. Really, it doesn't concern me that I've iced my love life in the name of a (sigh) decent job, but if I had any desire for a love life I wouldn't have moved here because I knew what I was getting in to, notwithstanding my friends' imagery of "all that young college-girl [action]." Half-Acre Gym is indeed like a museum — nice to look at what's there, but touch at your own risk."

Not as long in coming

Oddly, days after I updated you on my swim season and marital status, I did my first triathlon of the season, the Razor City Splash and Dash. Nervously, I watched the weather forecast throughout the week for lovely Gillette, Wyoming, about four-and-a-half hours north and east of here. A guy on the Facebook triathlon group said it snowed for last year's race, and it did snow in the days preceding. By the time I showed up at the Campbell County Aquatic Center it was in the 30s and sunny, and the only snow was in the shadows of the trees.

At any rate, I ended up wearing more clothes for this race than I ever have. We swam in the nice, warm aquatic center, where I covered two Wyoming girls' state swim meets a few years back. It was cool to swim in this pool where I'd seen one of the most exciting sporting events of my 12 years in newspapers. For some reason, the pool was like bath water, not at all conducive to swimming competitively, only recreationally. Yuck.

The pool is Olympic-sized, 50 meters by 25 yards. Though the high school short-course (25-yard) season ended a while back, the pool still was configured for 21 25-yard lanes; the summer club season uses "long course," or the 50-meter configuration. If they'd taken the bulkhead out (a narrow plank, about 18 inches wide and 4 feet deep, separates the eight main competition lanes from the rest of the pool), they'd have had another one. So there was plenty of room for all 70 of us. I swam circles in a lane with two other guys, and they were kind enough to let me go first after watching me turn a couple of warmup laps. I must look intimidating.

The race started after about a 20-minute meeting, during which I heard the following: "There's no snow, so we lucked out on that." Now, the swim was 900 yards, which is as close to a half-mile (880 yards) as you can get in a 25-yard pool. Each competitor was responsible for counting his own laps, all 36 of them, or 18 (down and back equals one) if you prefer, which I do, because it's a lower number. Didn't stop me from miscounting. I do it in my workouts, too, and I end up looking at the clock to try and figure out where I am in a long swim. Saturday was no exception, as I hit the wall at an unacceptably fast time for what I thought was 18 laps. I said out loud, "That can't be right," and did another 50 yards. The time was far more realistic.

In the prerace meeting, the race director recommended putting some clothes on before running outside into the 30-degree chill, wet and semi-naked. So I put on tights and an UnderArmour mock turtleneck while frantically drying myself. To put it in perspective, I spent 3.5 percent of my total time of the race in the first transition, trying to put dry clothes on a damp body, before running outside.

At my bike I added socks, gloves, a skullcap, my helmet, shades, and shoes to the ensemble. I mounted up and headed out for my first ride on my new bike. The 15-mile course was an out-and-back into the countryside north of Gillette, not as far as Montana but I felt like I could see it from there; the Montana-Wyoming border is 51 miles north of Gillette. Now, I knew a bunch of people passed me in transition, but I figured I could get them back when it came down to actually competing. The goal was to not let anyone pass me on the ride, though that didn't get to the turnaround, as one guy passed me. Still, the ride went well save for a balky derailleur that will be dealt with before the next race. It was a rare course that took us downhill on the way out and uphill on the way back, as Gillette sits on a plateau. That's fine with me, as I can spin up hills and still have something left for the run.

Which I did, to a point. I ditched the bike and my tights in transition, as the tights would have cooked me on the run. I set my sights on the lead chick and the guy who passed me on the bike, but I got passed one more time on the run. Those three people were in front of me, in view, the entire 5-kilometer run, but I couldn't muster the jump necessary to catch them. So I pushed as best I could, didn't get passed again beyond the first mile, and even had a small kick at the end.

Lo and behold, I won my age group and finished fifth overall. My time was six minutes behind the overall winner, and the three people I mentioned were within a minute of me, so I could have gotten second overall if I had a little more speed. Alas, that's why I do sprints, to enter a different kind of pain and see what kind of speed I have. Furthermore, my placing was the result of a weak field. Had to be. No way I'm at the top of my age group, even in a small state like Wyoming, and I expect to get stomped at the Cheyenne Sprint later this summer.

In the meantime, it's on to the Boise Half-Ironman (I refuse to call it a 70.3 as the World Triathlon Corporation wishes). I'll swim twice a week and skate on the residual fitness from the season, while hitting the bike and run as hard as I can. I neglected them for too long during swimming (a 22:42 5K is good enough to win my age group, ugh), and I'll have to address those issues before heading up to Idaho.

Long time coming

When last you left your protagonist, he was bitching about a coach yelling at him, and bitching about the weather. Not surprisingly, things haven't changed much in more than two months.

Let's see, since the Loveland Sweetheart Invitational, I took a trip to Portland to see a special lady-friend, who remains very special to me. While there I rode my bike with her three times, got in three really strong runs, and three decent swims (the swims were solo, as getting this chick in the water is like pulling teeth). And we had some fun in the city. So I like the woman, I like the city, and I'm starting to see why there's such turnover in this department. Hmm...

I did learn that I could get faster in the water. Six weeks after the Loveland Sweetheart Invitational, I competed in the Colorado state masters meet, my first time competing in a state meet of any kind. That's because I didn't have to qualify; all I had to do was fill out a form and write a check (my kind of championship). So you see my times below from the Loveland meet. Now compare them with the COMSA state results, bearing in mind that I was shaved and tapered. I was not thrilled to have to skip the 1,650-yard freestyle for a work assignment, but I was thrilled to finish the 400-yard individual medley for the first time. Everything after that was easy, though I got smoked in the age-group standings. A loving, dear friend pointed out the difference between swimming in a triathlon with people who dabble in swimming, and swimming in a masters meet with swimmers who dabble in triathlon. Point taken.

The next task was to address my neglected cycling and running, which has happened all too infrequently since the first of the year. And not much has changed in the four weeks since the state meet. I had another couple weeks of swim practices, but told the coaches I'd be in and out because of my newfound desire to run and bike — at least when the weather allowed it. Seriously, my training plan is at the mercy of the dodgy spring weather here on the high plains, meaning if it's not snowing or unmercifully windy I'm out running or cycling. Bad way to do it, but training here is what it is. And I'm still out of shape.

Last weekend I went to St. George, Utah, to watch the inaugural Ironman St. George. Normally, it's mid-80s and windy there this time of year but race day was cold (mid-60s) and calm. My kind of day! Meagen competed and finished with no problems, despite her prophecies of doom and gloom and truncated training process. Long story short, the course is an absolute bear, which guarantees the Ironman masses will stay away and the marketers who run the WTC won't renew past the initial five years. Nonetheless, I was proud of her and her Phoenix crew for getting it done. Tough day all around.

The day after I attended my second awards luncheon/dinner (the first was Ironman Canada, when I happened to be in town and had nothing to do). First thing I noticed was the number of age-group winners/Kona qualifiers from northern parts of the world — Salt Lake City, Denver, DeForest, Wisconsin; Colchester, Vermont. Either a lot of people have friends in the south for training weekends, or a lot of people are exponentially mentally tougher than I. I'm opting for the latter. I told Meagen that means I have no excuse for not training through the brutal Wyoming winters, and she reminded me of it a few more times before we parted ways.

During the 12-hour drive home (took the scenic route through the Colorado Rockies), I wondered if I really have what it takes to achieve that ludicrous goal of qualifying. I ask this question now as the morning's snow melts and my bike sits on the trainer, waiting for me when I get home. And I'll continue to ask it throughout the year as I come up with more and more excuses not to train.

Oops, I did it again

I swam too fast. Did that last semester and the coach dialed up my intervals. Despite having taken several weeks sort of off, I was faster in Saturday's team time trials than I was in October.

That includes a 2:23 200 freestyle, 2:37 in the 200 IM, 1:03 for the 100 freestyle, and a 27.1 for the 50 freestyle. If you're not familiar with swimming speed, don't worry. I'm not in the same area code as the Olympians, nor am I as fast as I was in high school. I determined I'd have to give up everything else to be that fast again, and that doesn't appeal to me right now. But both coaches said I'll be doing harder workouts from here on out, for better or worse.

It's fun being a competitive swimmer again.

Start the madness

You'll notice the schedule for 2010 has been posted. That's to signal that I start training officially tomorrow. The training program of my own design starts with a swim-heavy period to accommodate the masters swimming group; including Saturday's time trials I'm doing three meets this winter before the Razor City Splash and Dash in Gillette. That includes the Colorado State Masters Championships, where I plan on doing the 200-yard butterfly, the 400 individual medley, and the 1650 freestyle to earn a cool t-shirt. No one said I wasn't motivated, right?

Oh yeah, there's a t-shirt at stake for August's Rattlesnake Triathlon, the "Crazy Back-to-Back Challenge." I've done an Olympic-distance and a sprint in consecutive weeks, but consecutive days is something new. Probably no different than consecutive big training days. We'll see.

There are three half-Ironmans on the docket, the better to gain some speed and strength before going long again next year. The Boise race might prove to be my undoing if the winter persists beyond April, but I'm hoping to have a good swim and ride there, since those two disciplines are least affected by the weather. Believe it or not, it's easy to get on the trainer when my world remains covered in snow, and since I train in the pool anyway I'll be ready for the first half of the race. The second half is mostly to check off the state of Montana, and what better race than a two-year-old half-Ironman with less than 50 entrants? I did Harvest Moon in 2003 and it remains my fastest half-Ironman overall, and though the course has changed since that's one PR I want to wipe off the record books.

Now, you'll notice I'm doing the Portland Marathon four weeks after the Harvest Moon Triathlon. That will be an interesting balancing trick, to mix training for a fast half-Ironman with training for a decent enough marathon. I said I wanted to go for a PR for the half-Ironman distance but I never said at which race I would attempt it. It might be at the Headwaters triathlon, which will be followed by six weeks of run-heavy tri training before four weeks of really heavy run training. The plan is to do a 15-16-mile run up in the mountains every week starting in May, then an 18-miler the week before Harvest Moon, then a 20-miler the week after, followed by a three-week taper. I'll need to rely on muscle memory from previous marathons, as this won't be an ideal training cycle.

Then again, if I PR in Portland, and manage to push myself in the process, I'll throw everything I know about running out the window and train the same way again for the next marathon. And if I end up sustaining debilitating injuries, well, I heard about an opening in the International Couch Potato Union.

Square One, Part 3,620

One of these days I'll learn I can't take months off at my age. Until then, I'll be content to:

• Crap out on the bike after an hour or so, though doing climbing drills and yanking my rear axle out of the trainer doesn't help matters.

• Barely get three miles done on the treadmill at 8:34 per mile, when a year ago I was knocking down 3 miles at 7:27 pace. Granted, last year I had a bit of a head start with marathon training but it's still tough to know how far behind my pace I am.

• Destroy my elbow ligaments in a 1,900-yard swim workout. Serves me right for really neglecting my swimming during a six-week holiday hiatus. I returned to the masters team tonight and it kicked my ass. I'm supposed to ride the bike again tomorrow but I feel like I need to get two swims in this week no matter what. And if I swim I won't get home until nearly 8 and I damn sure won't feel like waiting another hour for dinner to be ready. Decisions, decisions.

The next decision I make will be writing a training plan that involves no time off after my "A" races in the fall. This crap is ridiculous.