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.