Annual Phish-ing Trip

Thanks to my mom and dad, I have a great, great appreciation for music. They met in the marching band at college, thus my sisters and I all played instruments (I played the trumpet from fifth grade through college). 

"Polishing the horn" is not a metaphor. 

That's the 19-year-old me, chillin' in Brewster Hall

 Room 706 at Syracuse.

My earliest memories of music involve my dad practicing various instruments (he played reeds, which you know what I mean if you dig jazz) and leading the local community band while my mom played organ in church. 

Not surprisingly, I don't always see eye-to-eye with my parents regarding matters of music, though my dad and I can talk Dave Brubeck, Stan Kenton, Miles Davis and Bill Evans all day. In particular, my dad bags on jam bands something fierce. "Their songs don't go anywhere, there's no complexity, it's boring" — those are his chief gripes. No, no, I say, if you have those beefs with bands like Widespread Panic, the Grateful Dead, Phish, Leftover Salmon, then you have to say the same things about John Coltrane and Miles Davis; you know they only used a couple of chords in each song on "Kind of Blue" or "Love Supreme."

A guitar player like Trey Anastasio tries to examine every single possibility of a chord; thus he takes 10- and 15-minute solos. A lot can happen in that time. He can take a crowd from strolling over to the beer stand to bouncing up and down with joy. And his vocabulary spans seemingly multiple languages let alone hundreds of thousands of words in one language. A jam-band player has to go around the world with each chord before moving on, unlike how most humans stay in one place without exploring every nook and cranny of the places we truly love. Trey knows how to play — and live.

Don't forget the repertoire — these bands play multiple shows in the same venue and won't repeat a single song over the course of nine-plus hours of performing. How many bands in the rock genre could do that? How many of them just set a playlist for a tour and do it over and over again? (Excuse me, how many of their handlers/A&R reps/record company marketers/tone-deaf suit-wearing wannabes thusly set the playlists to drive record sales while boring the paying customers to tears?)

For the second consecutive year I ventured to a nondescript soccer stadium in suburban Denver on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend for Phish's annual unofficial end-of-summer throwdown. Last year it was my 40th birthday present to myself and I loved every minute of it. When I got the email touting the 2014 shows I made the easy decision to get the ticket.

In the five months since I bought the ticket:

• Was threatened with foreclosure (thanks to a payroll issue with my employer last October) before I got my mortgage up to date again;

• Repeatedly spent every paycheck within hours of the money hitting my account, leaving me on $0 for 14 straight days with whatever groceries I managed to buy;

• Hiked two state high points and one more 14er, the peak (pun intended) of my physical accomplishments for a second straight lost year on the road to lava;

• Acquired a significant other on terms I agreed with before she changed the terms and lit me up for my lack of communication (As if you needed me to clarify, it's over);

• Told several wonderful stories in our pages to great critical acclaim before spending two of the three months of summer back on the desk and NOT writing while we searched for a new copy editor;

• Grew the greatest beard of my life in honor of the previous development;

Just came down from the mountain.

What'd I miss?

• Oddly, I bought my Phish ticket around the time of my last haircut, too. Had to match the beard.

So I was ready for a little trip and some live music, and to take another run at my goals from the previous year while escaping reality

With jam bands you have to consider the "scene." By the time Phish arrives in Denver, they've assembled a mini-city of the faithful who have followed them across the country and seen and heard everything. Notwithstanding the pavement, the parking lot resembles a Woodstock and the practice soccer fields have become lounges. I park in a neighborhood nearby in part to not pay the $15 for parking, but also to take a stroll around the grounds and take in the scene. By the end of this lost summer I was so broke and pissed off I must have given a pretty anti-social vibe because no one said hi or offered a beer or toke. Or maybe this was the show that attracted all the assholes. I'd say it's the former.

I had a beer in my little bag that contained some food, my journal and my camera. I sat on a berm overlooking the practice soccer fields and drank it while the faithful filed toward the stadium. Did I mention I got there about an hour and a half before the gates opened? No? Well, good. I like to get there early to stake out a good spot close to the stage, usually on "Page Side/Rage Side" — the crowd's left, in front of keyboardist Page McConnell. He plays five different keyboards, sometimes within the same song, a true artist. Page Side is the place to be.

All this said, I'm not about the scene. I want to hear music, and if it involves some patchouli oil and recreational narcotics, so much the better. But I'm there for the tunes. I got in about seven minutes after the gates opened and I waited with everyone else. The false floor over the soccer surface was stickier than what I remembered but I sat down anyway; I won't stand for two hours on top of the running show time. I chatted with the free-spirited girl next to me, enjoyed the Talking Heads as warmup music, attempted to write in the journal and eyed suspiciously the dark skies to the northwest of the stadium.

Phish came out promptly at 8 p.m. and played a two-song opener that took 15 minutes. They made a few abrupt switches rather than the flowing, fluid jams we've come to expect, but they kept it upbeat and rocking. 

Then they rolled into a series of ballads that sent the faithful scrambling for the johns and beer stands. At this point I actually looked at my watch. If I do that or start jacking with my phone, I know the show's getting away from the band. Believe me, I know Phish came out with a setlist in mind, but I doubt they anticipated the crowd would check out during a batch of four or five slow numbers. I felt like they were losing the crowd.

They trotted out a staple called "Funky Bitch." That's all it took for the crowd to get back into it, to rejoin them in the unofficial end of summer celebration. They played two more after that before a 30-minute break. I stopped looking at my watch or my phone and just basked in how a band seemed to know the show was going downhill and saved it. Say that for jam bands — they have a connection with their fans that few other musical artists do, enough to know when the crowd's losing interest.

Before the second set a chill set in over the stadium. Nothing huge, like a front rolling through, but the universe gently reminding us that summer had a shelf life. Then Phish came out with a funky, groovy second set that gave me neck pain from constantly nodding my head to their driving beat. Even during their grooviest parts a lighting effect superimposed points of white light on a moving black screen — like snow. I felt a chill again and moved a little more. 

The ending of Lee Dorsey's "Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley" and "Weekapaug Groove" followed by the encore of the Rolling Stones' "Loving Cup" and Phish's own "Tweezer Reprise" just destroyed everything that came before it, a fitting climax to the summer, leaving everyone wanting more. Phish ended it perfectly, and when the house lights came on, someone near me fired up their phone and it said "12:00 a.m." Those guys played for three and a half hours. What an early birthday gift.

The house music as I walked toward the exit was "Lush Life," Billy Strayhorn's sad ballad performed by John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman. When it ended I hustled up the stairs and out of the stadium in time to hear an RV blasting Stevie Wonder's "I Wish." Between the appropriate non-Phish tracks afterward and my inability to get my phone to work during the show, the universe wanted me to focus on the music. It wanted me to leave all the bullshit bullets above behind and just lose myself in music and happy smog before heading back to reality. I can see this becoming an annual pilgrimage, and who am I to defy the universe — and my true nature as a music-liver? (Yes, I live in music, I don't merely love it. The verbiage is intentional)

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/phish/2014/dicks-sporting-goods-park-commerce-city-co-1bce652c.html

XL

That really is Phish and I do really suck as a photog.

The plan was to mark my 40th birthday a day in advance with Phish at Dick's Sporting Goods Park. Further, the plan involved:

1. Destroying my hearing with loud rock 'n' roll music;

2. Engaging in physical activity bearing mere passing resemblance to what humans consider "dancing";

3. Ingesting no small quantity of recreational narcotics;

4. Making questionable decisions regarding free-spirited, tie-dyed hippie women.

Three out of four ain't bad.

***

I felt every bit of 40 a few weeks back with an immobile upper body and a potential new, sedentary reality involving constant pain setting in. Obviously, that wasn't the case but in those days before I went to the osteopath and the PT I feared the worst. So I guess my birthday present to myself (other than the Phish show and its resulting effects) was the appointment with the OD and subsequent referral to PT. Peace of mind is the gift that keeps giving, especially if it saves you from a life you don't want and allows you to keep doing what you love.

Otherwise, no. I don't notice any change from 39.

***

Most people get philosophical or indifferent about birthdays later on in life, as the burned-out, frosting-caked candles mount. I got an early start. School started on my birthday at least twice growing up, and I didn't care much for school, especially after I figured out around age 14 what I wanted to do in life.

Then I joined the Fourth Estate. Sept. 2 is nothing but another paper to get off the floor by deadline. One year I asked for the day off (a Thursday) months in advance only to be denied to accompany my boss to cover a college football game — while a similarly responsible co-worker got that night off. The Quad-City Times' parent company gives the birthday as a paid holiday, but doesn't give time-and-a-half for working it. And because my birthday falls during football/other fall sports, and because company policy required the day to be made up within a month of the actual day — and did I mention I was born during football season in the first place? — my birthday is a colossal pain in the ass.

Ironically, I come from a family that makes a big deal out of birthdays and holidays. That has its positives (cards and an occasional present) and negatives (lots of butt-hurt when such things go unacknowledged). Dec. 25 is no different than Sept. 2, which is no different than June 6 or Nov. 18 — I have a job to do. Not my fault people want their paper on Dec. 26, Sept. 3, June 7 or Nov. 19.

All the more reason to let it pass unacknowledged.

In the Shop

For the first time in 10 years, I saw a doctor. I went to the Orthopedic and Spine Center of the Rockies on the recommendation of a couple of active people and saw Dr. Anderson, an osteopathic physician, my first time seeing someone other than an M.D.

To catch you up, I've become a bit cynical about the medical profession. It seems most doctors are hell-bent on moving pharmaceuticals and dealing with the symptoms rather than the disease. As I evaluated my situation and the various courses of action, I decided I would not submit to a regimen of medication. O.D.s figure out what's wrong with the body and how to fix it rather than defaulting to medication like so many physicians.

Also, what will an M.D. tell an active person? "Stop the activity AND take two of these every 12 hours." Not acceptable. Years ago, my friend Kim told me her philosophy regarding medicine is thus: "I do stuff. Your job is to help me get back to doing stuff." Couldn't have said it better myself. I was told the aforementioned course is standard among physicians in Cheyenne, and, point blank, that I would have to drive to Colorado to find a medical professional on board with what I want to accomplish. So when I saw an osteopath working at a sports medicine clinic, I was on board.

After meeting with his assistant, I had some x-rays taken of my neck. They appeared on a  computer screen in the examination room, a massive technological step from the last time I saw a doctor. I had about 20 minutes to check them out and make some observations (I'm not a doctor myself, by the way). Based on the view from behind, I saw a very unsettling curvature in my cervical spine and I planned to ask the doc about that. The view from the side showed me nothing.

When the doc came in we chatted a bit about my problems, and then he checked mobility through my shoulders, arms, neck and spine. He noted some tightness at the base of the cervical spine (nothing new there), and then got into the x-rays. I made my observation, which he explained away by noting that the camera could have been off to the side somehow. Fair enough. He pointed at the side view, noting that my cervical spine was perfectly straight — it should be curved, but with the muscles in spasm to keep my head up, the spine sat rigid rather than a relaxed curve. Huh.

So he prescribed a couple bouts of physical therapy at Smart Sports (buggy and poorly edited website, but I had to do something for the lack of pics; consider yourself warned) in Cheyenne, and actually got after me a bit for my self-imposed exile from the land of the active. "You should've kept at it," he said. "You need to maintain a routine and keep those muscles engaged." Um, doc, I thought, let me tell you about the last time I ran. Reckon you'll understand why I sat out.

With the diagnosis of a compressed cervical vertebrae and resulting muscle spasms (hell, I coulda told you the latter), as well as the aforementioned bouts of PT, scheduled for the end of the week. I went home relieved beyond the telling, and actually went running the next — 17 minutes, 30 seconds plodding through my neighborhood. Not even my first marathon or any PR was as symbolic as the sweaty and breathy jog around my sketchy 'hood. I even went out the next day and the day after that.

Friday that week I rode my bike to PT. The therapist asked me a shitload of questions, which I suppose I answered well, did some mobility tests but sent me forth with no exercises to do, which I found a little puzzling. Like the doc, she ordered (!!!) me to get back to work. "I want you to come back next week," she said. "But in the meantime I want you to exercise as normal."

Well, who am I to ignore medical professionals?

Not normal

For three weeks I did nothing. 

OK, that's not entirely true. I cleaned about 90 percent of my house, getting down on my hands and knees to scrub spots on my kitchen floor or dust off the crown molding in my living room, getting up on a stool to clean nearly two years of dust off the ceiling fans, moving furniture around to vacuum, discovering cat hair seven months after Lucy left this mortal coil. I'd call that something.

I wrote places other than here, filling an old college notebook while revisiting my 2011 job search that landed me back where I belong (mom said I should keep a job search journal, but she never said when precisely to write in it). I wrote in another notebook, musing on my failures at love and pondering in my training journal what was next physically after figuring out what was wrong with me physically.

I didn't shower very much because I had no reason to, not when I felt paralyzed by my own body. In three weeks I showered maybe three times (and can document each one); my co-workers never complained, not to my face anyway. I didn't shave, either, but that's not news because I constantly work on about two weeks' worth of scruff.

I read a few issues of five years of Sports Illustrated and three years of Esquire magazines, but back issues of Inside Triathlon and Lava remain unread; in my state I couldn't bear to read about those pursuits on hold.

I ate like shit, when I bothered to eat. After checking out the Monsanto shit list I decided to make some changes, though I'll finish off the GMO-laden crap I already bought. The changes went out the window that day in July. Breakfast was no more than one bowl of cereal and a couple swigs of apple juice to wash down my multivitamin and my ecinacea. A Starbuck's foo-foo drink often constituted lunch or dinner, and when it didn't I ate the minimum. What was the point, I figured, when I wasn't burning calories anyway?

One night, in a span of three hours I talked myself into and out of climbing Mount Evans. I decided I would make the hike, started assembling the minuscule supplies required for one of the easiest of Colorado's 14ers, but then assessed my mental state and figured I'd fuck it up somehow, ending up a cautionary tale meriting a brief in the print media and 20 seconds on the evening news.

Just for the record, I decided on my own to take time off. Fresh in my mind, that feeling of an ice pick jabbing my back kept me from running, my travails with the bike — which include a wreck — kept me away from my two-wheeled implement (though I did my share of around-town work on my mountain bike, which affords a relatively comfortable upright position), and the prospect of rotating and lifting my head kept me out of the water. So mere fear kept me away from those things I loved.

Now I have an idea of what junkies on the nod feel like, walls closing in, heightened senses,  muscles twitching involuntarily. It was some of the worst sleep I've ever had, and I can't remember a single dream in that time. I laid my head on the pillow, feeling some electric jolts through the jumbled and frayed nerves in my neck, and woke up to some of the same sensations. I felt like my heart and lungs had been amputated. I never cried and I never thought about hurting myself, but I found myself with even less patience than normal and in the kind of funk that scares the crap out of a truly mindful person. 

The few things I did remotely construed as social meant nothing. I was a zombie, sitting there on the patio at the brewery and trying to crack wise with my friends. I didn't talk to my parents for about three weeks, and I normally call once a week. I didn't really go out, except to fill one of my two beer growlers. Twice I drank 64 ounces of beer in one sitting (good microbrew, lest you think I go for the cheap stuff in times of trouble. I just didn't feel like talking to anyone. I felt as vacant inside as I-80 across Nebraska. Yet I just had to deal with this on my own, without my normal coping mechanisms and with a lot of thoughts swirling around in the vast recesses of my mind.

The light at the end of the tunnel was the green scrawl on my refrigerator greaseboard: a doctor's appointment at 11:30 a.m. Monday, August 19. 

Under construction

Appropriately enough, orange cones, barrels and temporary traffic signs surround my city. As I turn the corner from Third Street on to Parsley Boulevard, orange and white fencing blocks the bridge over I-80. Turns out a truck hit the bridge at speed in April, prompting the appearance of cones and barrels the past four months. Now a crane towers over the bridge; I assume WYDOT wants to finish it before snow flies next month.

I take a different way, then, to get west of town; Parsley Boulevard to College Drive to Southwest Drive spares me Lincolnway, the main east-west drag through town, and without that option I now have to go north out of my subdivision with a left on Lincolnway. Most of the time that route occurs without incident, though I know the punk in the dually next to me would love to flatten me. Once I get under I-80 and I-25 on Lincolnway, it becomes Otto Road, a nice out-and-back that terminates under I-80 again. But now the road is covered with gravel; it was chip-sealed a couple of weeks ago and gravel does not hold up 7/8-inch-wide tires cranked to 115 psi.

That leaves east of town, the perils of which I documented here, and north of town, which is all right when traveling perpendicular to the wind. Otherwise, another nearby road under construction hems in my little neighborhood as well, making south of town nearly impossible (packed with traffic past the Safeway plaza).

So it seems as good a time as any to pull the plug on my season. Come on, right? A little construction shouldn't stop a determined enough athlete. No, not until the athlete is under construction.



For the fourth consecutive year I had to bail on my final race of the season. Last year I strained the soleus muscle in my left calf one week after finishing Ironman Lake Placid. In 2011 a job change and general malaise forced me out of the Harvest Moon Half-Ironman. In 2010, I got sick four days before that same race, sick enough that a Half-Ironman in my weakened condition would have led to some bad shit down the road.

This time, I thought I had things turned around through July. I had solid if unspectacular workouts that would have gotten me to the start line unscathed and fairly psyched. On Friday, July 26, I did a short run followed by a 1h15 ride, during which I noticed a little pain in my neck. For months since my bike wreck I figured a couple bolts got loosened and something got out of adjustment, which affects the fit of my bike by even a minuscule amount. No problem, I thought, I can get through the Boulder Half-Ironman on this fit, then I won't ride my bike the rest of the year. On Saturday, July 27, I woke up and headed out for a 1-hour run. I lasted three minutes before a point just right of my left shoulder blade tightened up, feeling like a stab from an ice pick every stride. Within hours, the pain in that spot radiated across my entire upper back, and within hours after that immobilized my neck as well. I dealt with this through the end of Saturday and all of Sunday before the pain subsided a bit early on in the week, but not enough to allow me to race. I figured the worst thing I could do would involve folding myself into a praying mantis position for three hours followed by two hours (or more) of ground-pounding on an unshaded course.

I've spent much of the past couple of weeks in consultation and research for the next step. It's clear I've done little enough maintenance on my body over nearly 40 years that it's time to prepare for the next 40 years. Do I want to spend that time in traction or in action? I've chosen the latter, because I hear what others my age complain about — my back, my sciatica, my this, my that — and I don't want that quality of life. So I'm surrounded by cones and barrels. I have an appointment with an osteopath in a week-and-a-half, partially to pinpoint (ouch) the root of my neck spasms but mostly to establish some kind of routine maintenance for my body as I continue to challenge it to do more and be better.

The sign above describes the next several months. Once I get myself to where I can get out on the roads again (that's a "when," not an "if," I don't care how many medical professionals I have to see), it'll be time to get to work. For now it's a different kind of work, this business of saving my career as an athlete. It's also a matter of saving my sanity; I haven't done anything in nine days, and while I've taken time off before this limbo is particularly maddening. I don't know precisely what's wrong with me, so I have to abstain to save any further damage. And I will take as much time off as I need for the short term to preserve my chances in the long term.

Physically, it sometimes hurts when I train. Mentally and spiritually, it ALWAYS hurts when I don't train. Right now I can't do anything but stew over stuff I need to really think through — stuff I think about on the roads.

All of which are now under construction.

"Runners run. It's how we deal with stress. It's where we talk with God. Whenever something goes wrong, runners run."

Chris Jons, former University of Wyoming runner.

The Mountains Win Again

In line with my previous hand-wringing over my future as an endurance athlete, I jumped into another pursuit with both feet. Well, hell, hiking mountains requires two feet (or a combination of feet and crutches, or something) so the metaphor makes more sense than you think.

So on my de-facto weekend (Monday and Tuesday) at the beginning of the month, I drove up to the Black Hills of South Dakota to catch up with a literarily-inclined buddy and climb Harney Peak, the highest point in South Dakota.

I'm not sure what prompted me to point my car northward, what with five weeks to go before my "A" race. If a DNF in what I considered ideal conditions and a bike wreck plus some minor physical injuries plus major psychological injuries doesn't say "You might try something else," I don't know what does. I hadn't been impulsive for quite some time (if ever, really), and this trip took shape in, maybe, two or three days before I left. A little bit impulsive, at least for me.

I drove up 85 through Torrington, Lusk, Lingle — places that get called in to the sports desk, but exist in a somewhat mythical plain. I met up with my buddy at a brewery in downtown Rapid City — a much cooler place than I thought it would be. After finagling some Marriott points for the LAST room at the Rapid City Fairfield, I took what amounted to a nap. Eventually I set off for Harney Peak.

Now, I'd heard about the Sylvan Lake Trail. I'd heard that the trail is a short-ish, solid line of people up to the top, so I found an alternative — Harney Peak Trail No. 9. It's a 2,200-foot gain for about a 10-mile round trip. The toughest part — well, two things gave me a little trouble. One, for some reason I thought 24 ounces of water, a gel packet, a banana and a Clif bar were enough to get me up and down the hill on an 85-degree day (trust me, it was no cooler on the summit than at the trailhead). I got up and down, but I was ready to siphon the gas out of my car, I was so thirsty when I got done. Two, beetle-killed aspens made the trail a little sportier than I'd anticipated. Crawled over most of those trunks, acquired some nice scratches, scrambled up some rocks and took selfies from the fire tower atop.

For the next week I piddled away my online time plotting the other 49 high points in the U.S. Nebraska's Panorama Point is about an hour from here. Wyoming's Gannett Peak is regarded as one of the toughest of the 50 high-point climbs because it's a 40-50-mile roundtrip hike from anything resembling a road. A bunch of those high points sit on private property and require at least a phone call to the owners to let them know what you want to do.

Then I remembered Colorado's 14ers, a few of which sit just a couple hours away. Last year, my friends Josh and Bree climbed Mount Bierstadt, and Josh said I'd probably crush it. Well, why not prove him right? I picked Grays and Torreys Peaks and left Cheyenne around 3:20 a.m. on July 17. I got to Exit 221 off I-70 at 5:40, parked in the paved lot and headed up the hill (this time with a Camelbak full of water). I summited Grays in around three hours, and then strolled over to Torreys in another 45 minutes. I had whatever meal you have at 10 a.m. when you've been awake since 3, and then headed back down. 

 The trail up Grays, which I almost had to myself.

Snow! On July 18!

Dani and Robert from Cañon City, Colo., had that banner made, and were kind enough to take my picture up top.

The Grays Peak summit — with about 20 other people.

Six days later I headed up to the aforementioned Mount Bierstadt. The plan was to do Bierstadt and Evans via the Sawtooth Ridge, until I saw a YouTube video that sufficiently freaked me out. I found an alternate route to do them both, which became the plan. Then I lost the trail to Evans from the Guanella Pass trailhead, headed back to the Bierstadt trail and did Bierstadt in about 1h45. Got up and down in around 3h.

 Driving up Guanella Pass at daybreak.

 The summit, a couple hours later.

 Hey, I was over there just last week!

Mountain goats — my inspiration. They're not impressed with me, obviously.

Evans is next. Maybe I'll climb Longs next year when I acquire some technical expertise. Pikes, for sure. Maybe camping out in the Elbert Wilderness to get Elbert and Massive. Or the Sangre de Cristos for assaults on Ellingwood, Blanca and Lindsey.

In any event, I found something else.

DNF and DNS: The year that isn't

Maybe next winter I'll jack around, get fat(ter), drink lots, read and write more. Then maybe I'll have the 2014 tri season of my dreams. Because after a winter in which I laid down more meters, minutes and miles than in any previous winter in memory, I can only determine that I angered the cosmos and derailed my 2013 season before it even started.

My cat died in January, the office keeps busting out the financial hatchet, and my two triathlons so far have ended in a Did Not Finish and a Did Not Start. First, the DNF, since that actually happened.

It's not my first DNF. I bailed on the Buffalo Springs Lake Triathlon, a half-Ironman in Lubbock, Texas, in June 2004 because I fucked up my nutrition and didn't get enough salt to process my electrolytes on a 90-plus day. I plodded through a mile of the run (the contents of my stomach sloshing like a half-full gas tank), couldn't come up with a compelling enough reason to continue, walked back to the staging area, dropped off my number and my timing chip, got my stuff from transition, loaded up the car and drove back to Wyoming that day.

In 2010, I bailed on the Rattlesnake Olympic Triathlon because I blew both my tires, got them both changed in good order, then discovered an empty CO2 canister in my saddle bag. With two flat tires, no amount of good will from those around (including an attractive pro woman who offered me a wheel) me could motivate me to continue so I caught a ride back to transition, loaded up the car, drove to my hotel room and engaged in retail therapy the rest of the weekend in Denver (i.e. found the cheap racks at what seemed like every Sports Authority, running store and bike shop in the 303). I drank a fair bit, too.

This time, I pulled the plug on the Revolution 3 Half-Iron Triathlon, in Knoxville, Tenn. Ostensibly, I flew down to Atlanta during the next-to-last snowfall of the season in Cheyenne to see my family and — hey, there's a race in Knoxville the same weekend. "Seeing family" even turned out to be a bust for any number of reasons. Theoretically, then, I could just focus on the race. Right.

Borrowing Di's Hyundai Santa Fe, mom, dad and I set off for Knoxville on a rainy Saturday morning. And we arrived on a rainy Saturday afternoon after six hours of transit (including stops for potty and lunch). I picked up my packet in the ghost town of a race village (you'd stay in, too, if it was mid-50s and rainy all day) and we retreated for the hotel, which turned out to be a half-mile from the start. We had dinner that night at the hotel and I attempted to sleep through my parents' snoring — failing miserably.

I must back up a bit. On Tuesday, when I left Cheyenne for DIA, the weather forecast for race day in Knoxville said 75 and fog, so I packed my race stuff with that in mind. By Thursday, the forecast was mid-50s and rain. True, I could have gone on a shopping spree for a jacket, beanie and shoe covers with money I didn't have, but I try to minimize the financial impact of my racing at all costs. Besides, I've thought for years about the fun of racing in imperfect conditions so I impulse-bought a pair of arm warmers and borrowed a pair of my nephew's gloves. In advance, both were absolutely useless.

On race morning the rain had stopped long enough for me to get in the car and let my parents drive down to the parking garage that served as transition. I wandered around and sat on the stairs by myself, tuning out with Pearl Jam's "Vitalogy." When the time came to walk down to the river for the swim, I pulled on my wetsuit and did so, just as it started to rain again. Mind you, I'd heard nothing about water temperature other than a note in the pre-race packet talking about 66-69 degrees on race day. I was glad to have my full suit and an extra cap, though I doubt either did me much good.

The swim was the highlight of the day, bar none. Even though the water felt a damned sight colder than 66-69, I still powered through and passed a lot of people in the wave ahead of me. I wore the arm warmers underneath the wetsuit so I wouldn't struggle with them in transition — so by the time I started peeling off on the half-mile run from the swim exit back to the G10 parking garage in the shadow of Neyland Stadium, they were already wet. I did the 1.2-mile swim in 30:30 or so. At least that's what my watch said.

During the half-mile run my feet went numb thanks to the combination of craggly asphalt underneath them and the cold water (turned out to be 59 degrees, so I heard after the race). I struggled with the gloves, my shoes and my helmet before heading out into the rain. This was not your gentle, Pacific Northwest-style mist. This was setting up my bike trainer in my tub and turning on the cold water. Add to that the half-inch rivers flowing across the pavement at some points on the course, and I had a fairly shitty day on my hands.

At 5 miles, I thought, "This is not pleasant." At 10 miles, my hands were numb and my shorts and singlet had soaked through. At 15 miles, a guy wearing an all-white kit passed me (ew). At 20 miles the race ceased being fun and I figured I'd finish the ride and decide whether to continue in transition. At 30 miles I knew I couldn't run. Between 20-30, I couldn't come up with one compelling reason to spend another two hours out in the rain. Maybe the run would have warmed me up, but I didn't want to find out. I was fucking cold, I couldn't work the shifters because my hands were numb, my shivering made it hard to control the bike (especially on the numerous screaming, semi-flooded descents), and I had stopped drinking because I knew I wouldn't go on.

I came into transition and stumbled on my numb feet immediately. I racked my bike, looked up at my parents (standing in front of the car, parked in view of my spot in transition, small favors and all), made a throat-slash gesture and turned in my chip. After sitting in the car for 45 minutes with the heat on full-blast, I had regained enough feeling to pick up my crap and head back to the hotel.

I refer again to the winter I had. By race day (May 5) I hadn't competed in anything since a swim meet in late February. I'd never trained harder in all three disciplines through a winter and now it was pretty much wasted. Yeah, I still have some of that fitness now and I could apply it to the rest of the season, but I thought I had a nice peak for that day. And then to have it all go by the wayside for something like weather, something out of my control, conditions I'd hoped and prayed for on some of the brutally hot days I've survived? Stuff-breakingly frustrating.

Fast-forward to this past Sunday. My training since sitting out the week after the race (which I'd planned because I needed a break) has been sporadic but I wasn't concerned thanks to the winter I had. One week off, even at my age, won't cost me a winter's worth of a fitness. I'd even started getting back into the disgusting pool while running and biking on alternate days; I don't log my bike rides to work, which resumed once the snow and ice cleared in mid-May (!!!), but I'm told I should. Whatever.

I woke up to a calm, warm day. The minuscule wind came straight out of the north, rather than the 90 degrees between southwest and northwest. Because of those prevailing winds I always head north, south or west. Sunday, I decided for an eastward out-route because I NEVER get to go that way. Fateful choice, as it turned out.

I went down Campstool Road past the refinery and past Sierra Trading Post. The road takes a hard turn to the right and goes underneath I-80. Just beyond the interchange sits a cattle guard. Nothing I haven't seen before. Except that this one had an 8-10 inch gap between the road and the first metal slat. I figured I could jump that gap like a set of railroad tracks (which I do all the time without penalty) and be OK on the guard itself. Wrong.

I pitched myself forward over my handlebars at 16-17 mph. I hit the ground and gashed up my hands and forearms, as well as the left knee I scarred up 10 years ago in my last wreck (believe me, I know I've lived on borrowed time, going 10 years between serious wrecks). I also bit down hard and took a chunk out of the inside of my upper lip, as well as a tiny shard out of the corner of my remaining front tooth. In the moment I figured I'd done way worse to my front tooth, but I hadn't, thankfully. The bike was OK, other than having blown my rear tire and bent my handlebars 45 degrees toward my front wheel. The bike was unrideable so after gathering myself I started the walk back toward town; 22 minutes into the ride I figure I was about 5 miles in. Gack.

A guy picked me up and got me back to town, but I still had more than three miles to walk. I didn't feel like calling anyone because I never know which of my night-owl friends are awake at that hour on a Sunday. During the long walk home I realized I had bruised something in my chest. And during the walk home I gave myself another minor "injury": blisters on the insides of my heels from walking all that way in cycling shoes.

Today, five days later, I still have that bruised feeling on my left pectoral, right above my heart, I suppose. It doesn't hurt to the touch but it hurt today when I raked yard clippings and it hurts when I simulate a running motion or the trunk rotation of swimming — or breathe moderately deep. The gashes have sealed up nicely and the blisters don't hurt as badly, but that bruise or whatever has me pondering a bailout on the Longmont Sprint Triathlon this Sunday. I've said it before, but I finally (after almost 25 years) realize what a big deal it is just to get to the start line healthy and fired up. It only gets tougher as I get older, I suppose, and I wonder if I can even pull together a season after two massive setbacks. 

And I still have a marathon to go in December.