The Feather in my Whiskers/Final Thoughts pre-Placid

William Nack wrote the definitive eulogy for the legendary thoroughbred Secretariat for Sports Illustrated in a story called Pure Heart. Aside from being a phenomenal piece of writing, the headline came from the fact that, upon the autopsy, we learned that Secretariat had a much larger heart than the average racehorse, which the doctor figured enabled the horse to do what he did.

That's not why I bring it up, though that massive heart holds scores of parables for endurance athletes. I bring it up for an anecdote mentioned in the story, buried on the seventh page.

One afternoon I was folded in a chair outside the colt's stall when Secretariat came to the door shaking his head and stretching his neck, curling his upper lip like a camel does. "What's botherin' you, Red?" Sweat asked. The groom stepped forward, plucked something off the colt's whiskers and blew it in the air. "Just a pigeon feather itchin' him," said Sweat. 

I have a feather in my whiskers as well, and equally insignificant if I can think of it that way. It's a pin, millimeters wide and less than an inch long. It holds a watch band to the watch, and apparently Timex no longer makes them up to standard. After my second Ironman watch gave up the ghost last week after seven years, three Ironmans, three marathons and more miles than I can count, I bought a new one at REI in Fort Collins, thanks in part to my dividend. I got it home and put it on; this was last Thursday. On Friday, I took it off to hit the shower and the band popped out. I don't feel I put any more torque than normal on the band but that pin just popped. I spent most of the afternoon trying to put it back together and I just didn't have a tool fine enough to get it there. Saturday, I took it to a jeweler, who kindly put the band back in place for no charge. However, he handed me the watch and threw his hands up a little.

"It's plastic so I can't promise the band will stay on," he said. "I heard the pin snap in there but it's really flimsy."

Indeed, as I write this I wear the one I got during my senior year in high school. The labels have faded from the buttons on the face and the beep no longer works, but it keeps time and counts down. So if any 38-year-old was ever in a position to say "they don't make 'em like the used to," it's me.

That pin is the only thing keeping me from totally dialing in mentally. The main function of a timepiece in Ironman is to count down the 10 minutes between blasts of fluids and protect the pale racing stripe around my wrist. Otherwise, I can ballpark my elapsed time. And didn't I note a couple weeks ago the liberation of racing without a chronograph ticking away the minutes?

It's frustrating because I feel better about this training process than for any of the previous five Ironmans I've done. I've fueled myself well, I'll get to the line healthy and rested (notwithstanding the time of this post) and I'm excited to skip away from work at a crucial time to test myself against the day. And this little pin threatens to take down everything I've built.

But I won't let it. I'm bringing all three watches with me, and after I give the guy at the Timex booth an earful about his shoddy product, I'll decide which one gets the nod on Sunday. After all, it would be a training process without a a feather in my whiskers that I have to brush out of there myself.

Oh yeah, the real first race, or Turning Off Your Head

Maybe I left the eight of you hanging on what happened at the race that ended up being my first of 2012 after two false starts. Or maybe you were looking for beer recipes and stumbled in here thanks to my four-year-old photo. In any event, I apologize, something I've done quite a bit lately.

I've done the Loveland Lake-to-Lake Triathlon five times now, more than any other race. It's a 1.5K (.93 miles) swim, a 30-mile bike and a 10K run that starts in a lake near Loveland High School. The bike course is the highlight of the day, and normally it takes racers along some foothills between Loveland and Fort Collins, complete with a massive climb and a screaming descent around Horsetooth Reservoir before a long, flat hammer back to Loveland. The run is just a lap around Loveland Lake.

This year, because of the High Park Fire the course was modified and shortened so that it stayed down in the Loveland area, a flatter course with a couple of shorter climbs than the original. The run was changed because of construction around the lake, so no one could really compare past results to their performance on that day.

Which I welcomed, at least in the final analysis. I didn't start my watch because ... I don't know, it just didn't seem like the thing to do. My wave went last so I made a note of the time of day when each wave left, with it in mind to take a guess at the end of the race; we have timing chips, which get a more accurate time than any wristwatch, anyway.

The swim was the same 1500 meters and my time of 23 minutes and something stacked up with my previous performances. The chip time, however, is taken at the entrance to transition, a nice 400-yard run from the water's edge, which adds a couple minutes to everyone's swim time. Before the ride I set the watch's countdown timer to beep every 10 minutes so I knew when to drink electrolytes. Which I did. I passed a lot of people on the bike but dialed it back a little when I made the turn for the lake.

Only when I got my running shoes on did I start my watch — and it ran for about 30 seconds before it completely blanked and emitted this high-pitched beep for the remainder of the race. Even though I couldn't turn off the watch I turned off my head and monitored my pace by feel. I wanted to ditch the watch in the bushes or maybe toss it in the lake but at this point I'm protecting the 20-plus-year strip of white around my wrist from having worn a watch forever. Guess I'm more vain than I thought.

Anyway, at some point on the as-yet-undetermined-distance run, my legs took on some lactic acid, my turnover decreased and I just got my ass across the line. The run turned out to be 5.1 miles, and I averaged 7:46 per. The watch stopped beeping and completely reset after a while.

Nevertheless, I don't know if I'll ever start a watch with the gun again. I needed a race to get my head and my body on the same page and this might have been it. So we'll see what the blank-faced watch has in store going forward.

About that first race...

It wasn't to be. Hours after the last post, I got through almost an entire shift at work before I started shivering, sweating and hacking up pieces of lung tissue — actually it was self-created bright yellow stuff that doesn't biodegrade when expectorated on one's patio and dried out in the sun (I know, gross as hell but that's your fault for reading). I woke up Wednesday morning feeling worse and facing one more night of work, though I felt slightly better before I headed to work.

As the night went on I felt slightly better by the hour... but not well enough to take on a half-Ironman in less than 72 hours. Wednesday at work, after consulting via electronic communications with a couple of trusted peers, I decided to pull the plug. There was no way I could get through a five-hour race at no more than 50 percent, let alone one in the projected weather for race day — 50, rainy and windy. That would have put Ironman Lake Placid in jeopardy because of the whole compounding illness thing. You know what I mean, right?

So I ended up with a spare weekend on my hand, the last free weekend in Cheyenne for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, not only did the weather pan out as expected but they shortened the cycling leg without shortening the other two. It turned out to be a 1.2-mile swim, a 12-mile bike and a 13.1-mile run! The ride was so short that a couple of the pros wore their wetsuits on the ride to the bike-to-run transition area. If a race ever fit my skillset, this was it. I was pissed the hell off, for sure, but rebooted with a nice weekend of social activity —which I might have needed more than a race.

Thursday was low-country boil, poker and NBA conference finals. Friday was a World Cup qualifier with friends and dog at home, beer and music on the plaza, dinner and a drinkie downtown and "Prometheus." Saturday was more beer and music on the plaza, a cold foo-foo coffee drink and a birthday barbecue.

I don't remember what Sunday was but none of those days involved working out or working. It pointed out the importance of recovery, of letting the illness run its course while bombing it with a couple kinds of juice, electrolytes, vitamins and water — OK, there was some beer involved, too. The virus didn't know what hit it. And on Monday, life returned to normal with a swim in my Petri dish. I was rested and stoked, all I really needed.