Team RWB Triathlon Camp–The bike

This was simultaneously my most and least favorite part of the camp.  I have to mention the lows, as without them the highs wouldn’t be nearly as high.

As I mentioned previously, Team RWB provided bikes for 8-10 of the veterans.  Of the early arrivers, only Adam and Yogi needed bikes.  Fortunately they were the first to be fit with their bikes, giving them some extra time to tool around the parking lot.

My ears perked up a bit during their fitting when I heard them discussing the process of getting in and out of their cleats.  I figured it would be an interesting couple of days with people getting the hang of that and a few wrecks were in store.  I think just about everyone who dons them has taken a spill or two.

Yogi was first to be fit, and when he was done he started doing laps around the parking lot.  That’s when I got really nervous as he didn’t have very good control of his bike.  It looked like he knew how to ride, but hadn’t done so in many, many years.  Even more concerning was his apparent lack of what was going on around him.  The parking lot borders a fairly busy street in Austin, and he was riding right by the entrance without even checking for cars.  This was to be his theme for the bike portion of camp.

On Friday they took their bikes to a big field to work on bike skills.  They paired up to work on things like riding touching shoulders, putting a hand on the others back, and actually bumping back wheels.  The final drill was one where they would try to bend down and pick up a water bottle on the ground.  I was surprised that many of them were successful at this drill, but everyone kept trying until it was over.

Satisfied that everyone had some basic handling skills, Saturday morning we headed out for a big group ride.  The volunteers spread themselves out among the group and I positioned myself towards the back.  Right away I spotted Yogi and decided to give him lots of room, as he was all over the road.  We were riding two across and either took an entire lane, or the shoulder was almost that wide, yet Yogi was taking up that much space.  I knew he was going to crash and I didn’t want to get caught up in it, so everyone behind him gave him several bike lengths.

Someone told Yogi that he should try to follow the white line at the edge of the road to try and straighten him out.  While this did help, I was concerned with him riding that close to traffic.  I could also see that he was in too high of a gear, pedaling too hard and the only way to work on that would be to ride beside him.  I pulled up beside him on the traffic side and had him ride near the edge of the road.  We spent most of the day in this position.

I tried several pieces of advice for gearing.  I think it finally clicked when I suggested he try to pedal as fast as the guy in front of him.

Much to Adam’s chagrin, everyone got a chuckle when he was the first to fail to unclip when coming to a stop.  Watching it unfold in front of me I expected a chain reaction.  Either people were spaced far enough apart or moved quickly out of the way because poor Adam was the only one who ended up on the ground.  It didn’t seem to faze him in the least because at the end of the ride he was still smiling.  A bit later Yogi tried the same trick, but the person beside him was solidly on the ground and was able to catch him so they both stayed upright.

After finishing one loop we regrouped into sets of two (with similar strength) to do a second lap.  Yogi and I paired up, and grabbed Chris as our guide as I hadn’t paid attention to the route.  I would have been fine if I’d gotten off  course as I had my phone and throwing in an extra 10 miles wasn’t a big deal.  I didn’t think Yogi would fare as well, hence our guide.

Chris and I took turns riding beside Yogi with the other riding behind.  I don’t spend that much time sitting  up on my bike and my wrists were beginning to get sore.

Adam and Santiago caught up with us and rode for a while as they weren’t sure where to go.  Adam was eager to go and took off, so Chris gave Santiago some quick directions and they were off.  They ended up missing the a turn, twice, and added an extra 30 minutes to the ride.  I felt badly for them, as 30 minutes extra when you haven’t been riding at all, is a long time, especially when you are lost!

At about the midway point we had to do a u-turn on the divided road.  We kept Yogi blocked in until it was save then all three of us crossed to the u-turn lane.  As we came around the corner Chris and I both stopped to watch for traffic.  I’m not sure how it happened, but I looked up and there was Yogi about halfway across the three lanes, with an 18 wheeler coming quickly towards him.  All the yelling and whistling failed to capture his attention and he just kept going.  Those were the most terrifying moments of my recent life.  Maybe it wasn’t that close but it sure scared me!  After we re-grouped, Chris and I kept Yogi very close.

If that was the worst part of the day, the best part was watching his face as we rode.  He was smiling, and happy, and kept thanking me for letting him come to the camp.  This was why I came to the camp:  to make a difference in someone’s life, and I was there to see it happen.

We made it safely back to the finish line.  While I had enjoyed Yogi having so much fun, I think a part of me was glad that we were through riding bikes at camp.

Coming soon – the swim.

Team RWB Triathlon camp Texas 2012

Anyone who’s been following me these past few years (has it really been that long?), knows that my favorite topics are triathlon and, well, me!  Today isn’t all that different.  I want to tell you about my recent experience with Team Red White and Blue.

This is my second season racing with them.  I’ve tried to represent as best as I could, and I’ve told people about the team and our mission whenever I’ve had the chance.  Honestly though, there was something missing.  I didn’t really feel like I had any skin in the game.

I got a chance to change all of that last week, when I signed up to volunteer at their triathlon camp for wounded veterans.  If, after reading this, you don’t feel differently (maybe a lump in your throat, or a call to help) then either I’m a lousy writer or you’re a heartless and selfish bastard.  Sorry if I offended you, but that’s how I feel!

I had no idea what to expect, so I signed up for everything I could.  My first step was to pickup a retired Vet (Jamie) at the airport.  We chatted for a while driving around looking for a place to eat and I discovered that he was not only more experienced than I, but significantly faster.  I thought to myself that this was the caliber of vets I was going to be working with, and they certainly wouldn’t be needing my help.

One thing I should add before I go too far is that Team RWB provided a complete beginner’s triathlon kit to every veteran that needed it, including bike, helmet, wetsuit, shoes and uniform.  All they really needed were running shoes and swim goggles.  Not a bad was to get into the sport!

It wasn’t long before we were at the meeting place, and other vets and volunteers started showing up.  I sat down to install water bottle cages, put cleats on their shoes, and quickly fell into the old military banter.  I was sitting around with two Army/Airborne guys and one Marine.  Guess who we ganged up on!  After that day I didn’t pick on him again until the last day when we were fast friends.

Some of the vets brought their own bikes, and some of them were VERY nice.  A couple of the other guys looked like they hadn’t ridden a bike since childhood and certainly had never used clip in shoes.  Watching them ride in the parking lot made me nervous for their safety and vowed to keep a special eye on them.  Note to self, it takes more than just an eye!

I have to tell you something that struck me deeply.  We’ve all seen the news about the wounded soldiers, the amputations, PTSD, etc..  That doesn’t prepare you for the impact of meeting with these guys face to face.  Suddenly the news reports take on a whole new meaning.

From what I can remember there were 13 wounded veterans there.  I spent more time with the guys I met early that day, so let me tell you a bit about them.  One thing I didn’t do was ask them about any injuries or how they got hurt.  I felt if they wanted to talk about it they would.  Some did, some didn’t.  But this is what I got:

• Yogi – I didn’t discover until I got home that this wasn’t his real name.  Hopefully he was ok with the nickname people gave him.  He is a younger guy, one wife and two children (I still chuckle when I think of him saying this), and was a member of the 82d Airborne.  He was injured, spent 1+ months in a coma and came out with a rod in his leg and some brain damage.  He was the nicest guy, so thankful and appreciative, yet constantly apologizing for the most trivial of things.
• Serge – a retired Marine and the guy I was picking on at first.  He was either a combat medic and/or a door gunner.  Either way he was struggling with thoughts of suicide (one of his friends was successful) and some doctor suggested physical activity might help.  One day, he was out on a long group ride of 70+ miles when he was pulled from the course by medical personnel.  Subsequently he went into convulsions, fell, and broke his back and damaged his shoulder.  This camp was his first time back on the bike!
• Adam – An Airborne soldier with the 173rd in Italy.  He was on patrol when his buddy tripped an IED, which blew off his legs and severely injured Adam.  It was hot outside, so I ripped off my shirt, and several others, including Adam, followed suit.  I saw a scar that made me think of what they must do to perform an autopsy.  I’ve since seen pictures of his scar and it is nothing like I remember, yet it still gives me pause.  He has a matching scar on the back of his neck and several near his eye, which I didn’t notice until he mentioned his lack of peripheral vision on that side.  Most of these guys suffer from insomnia, including Adam.  He casually mentioned one afternoon that he hadn’t really slept in over a year.  Despite all of this, he is eager to get back to his unit.
• Doc – a Navy Corpsman.  He’d brought his own bike so I didn’t pay much attention to him at first.  When I started to say something about him being a squid Adam shut me up by saying that a corpsman had saved his life and he loved them all.  Doc was a pretty solid triathlete already, and I didn’t think he needed any help from me.  I later read an article about how he is doing some 100K mountain bike ride on GW’s ranch next week.  In the story it said how he had worked on over 1200 wounded before being diagnosed with PTSD himself and sent home.
• Jamie – my airport pickup, a retired Army guy who spent most of his time in the 82d or in Iraq/Afghanistan.  He kept being passed over for promotion until it was time for him to get out.  They offered him an E-7 slot on the front line, which he passed  up.  He’s about 10 years younger than I and is shooting for a 5 hour half Ironman in Florida in a few weeks.
• Larry – I didn’t get to spend that much time with Larry and still haven’t figured him out.  He was very nice, yet quiet.  He had his own bike that had an interesting aero setup.  It turns out he doesn’t have an elbow in his left arm, which allows him to, among other things, swing his arm backwards and hit himself in the back of the shoulder.
• Dan – didn’t even make it on my radar until the next to last workout.  I watched him swim, and it was the most amazing thing ever!  He was barely working, yet was leading the pack.  Long story short, he is an active duty Navy Seal who spends about 35 hours a week training.  Had I known that up front I would have spent much more attention to his swimming!

So, that’s some of the gang.  Most of them are on medication of some sort – many for insomnia and/or headaches.  Two are stationed at Walter Reed.  Every one of them was as nice as could be, and none of them displayed the “why me” syndrome.

The camp itself was 3 1/2 days, way too long for me to cover in a single entry.  I’m going to take a few days so I can cover it all.  The last thing I will talk about today is the trip to the shoe store.  Two of the vets, Serge and Yogi, had forgotten running shoes.  Ever the volunteer I went with them to the shoe store and then got them to the welcome dinner.  It was the trip to the shoe store that really touched me and told me I’ve got to do more and get more people involved.

As we were walking to the store, Serge was complaining about his shoulder, and popping it in and out of socket.  It reminded me of that Mel Gibson movie, except that for Serge there was no screaming in pain and it was as easy as cracking my knuckles.  I wasn’t sure how this would hold up for a couple of hours on the bike!

When we sat down at the store, with a wonderful salesman, Yogi told him not to bring out a bunch of shoes.  “Only bring a couple” he said, “any more would be too hard to choose”.  It took me a while for this to register, but I think at times he has the mental capacity of a teen or pre-teen.  I don’t mean this in a mean spirited way, and Yogi if you read this I hope you don’t mind my honesty.  When he put on his first pair he stood up, jumped around, and struck several ninja type poses.  It reminded me of the story my parents tell of how I would run around the house in my new shoes.  He wanted those shoes, and the next pair, and the next.  The salesman was very diligent in making sure they were the right size (we started with the 9 Yogi said and ended with a 10.5), and putting him on the treadmill to watch his gait.  Because of the rod in his leg, and that leg being significantly shorter than the other, he has a funky running style.  I didn’t think he would be able to run 1/2 mile!

As we walked back to my car from the shoe store, they kept thanking me for my patience.  They were so excited about their new shoes, I made it a point to ask them about them after every run workout.

As I sit here, thinking about that first day and how I felt, I have only one life experience that can even closely relate – being a foster parent.  Suddenly I had inherited 13 kids, who through no fault of their own had suffered something no person would ever want to experience, yet all they wanted was to look forward.  These guys are my hero’s, and I think about them every day!

 

Watch for more to come soon:  The Bike!

Galveston–Redemption of sorts

I’ve been meaning to write this since Monday morning, but with packing for the move and trying to recover from Sunday’s race, well I just kept putting it off.  The delay was probably good in that I’m not quite as emotional as I was earlier in the week.

When I scheduled this race I told coach I didn’t want to put any pressure on myself this year with the longer races, I just wanted to enjoy myself.  Then reality set in, and as my training continued to improve I set some lofty expectations.  I’ve had the time of 5:45 stuck on my refrigerator for weeks if not months.  Despite the distractions from home, I thought I could make that time, and had a shot at my coaches prediction which was in the 5:30’s.

Fortunately with all the distractions, I didn’t get as worked up about the race as in the past, not until race morning.  At that point I lost my water bottle in a porta-potty 2 hours before the race, and forgot to grab my pre-race gel.  I entered the water thirsty and one gel behind – not real smart in hindsight.

The swim

My plan, that I formulated upon entering the water, was to start near the back of the pack to avoid the mass of bodies, and then take it easy on the swim.  While I had a time in mind, there is no way to monitor that in the water, so I figured I would take it easy and conserve energy for the rest of the day.

For whatever reason, the first 300 meters were particularly rough.  I don’t know if it was because I was near the back, or there were more people in this wave, but I couldn’t get away from people no matter what I did.  I was punched in the side of the head and had to stop and reseat my goggles.  I bit later I was kicked in the head so hard I actually saw stars.  I always thought that was something only in cartoons, but believe me it really happens!

Regardless, I did my best to stay out of everyone’s way, and just kind of cruised along.  I counted buoys to give me something to do, and focused on my stroke.  Several times I told myself to slow the stroke rate and get a solid catch/pull.  It didn’t work as well as I wanted because of all the bodies, but I tried.  In the end I exited the water 2.5 minutes faster than I’d ever done before.  Maybe the masters swim class is working!

As I got out of the water I saw the strippers (the wetsuit kind!) and headed over.  We struggled a bit to get my feet out, but then I was up and running when I saw my cheering section.  I had to pop over and give them some high fives.  I remember my Mom’s hands were full of cowbells so I missed her.  I don’t think she missed out again!

The bike

I got in a quick transition and headed out with my bike.  I remember David, my brother in law, running alongside me in transition yelling “you’re two minutes ahead of schedule!”  I don’t remember telling anyone what my schedule was, but it was a nice confirmation of what I thought – so far so good!

As I expected there was a headwind on the way out.  It didn’t matter, I just started going and watching the miles count down to the turn around, all the while keeping my foot on the gas.  My back was getting tight and I wanted to stretch, but I figured it would be better to wait on that until I had the tail wind.  For the record, my bike computer said the turnaround was .8 miles too far out.  That wouldn’t matter since everyone was doing the same distance, except I was racing the clock and that meant extra time

I expected to really pick up the speed on the way back with the wind at my back, and while I was faster it wasn’t nearly as much as I thought it would be.  I was starting to tire, my back and neck hurt, I was getting saddle sores and I needed to pee.  While all of this conspired to slow me down, and I was generating much less power, I managed a negative split.  By my calculations I was about 5 minutes ahead of schedule!  I didn’t get an update from David, but that’s what I thought.

The run

Another quick transition and I headed out for the last leg.  I took the long way out of transition so I could say hey to my family.  I was feeling pretty good at this point.  I kept a pretty close eye on my pace as I know I tend to come off the bike too fast.

The course was three loops with a lot of turns.  I didn’t pay enough attention to my pace as the first loop was much faster than I wanted or planned.  Fortunately I didn’t realize this until reviewing my splits the next day.  I passed my family feeling pretty good and was surprised that somehow I’d missed the loop through the airport and expected to start the next loop right around the corner.  Then we veered off to the right and headed out onto the tarmac.  That was absolutely the worst part of the course.  The heat coming off the tarmac was brutal, there was no shade, no spectators to cheer us on, nothing but sun and lots of wind.

By the second lap I was walking through the aid stations so I could dump water over my head, ice down my shorts and grab a swallow of water.  I was carrying water with electrolytes, but somehow that wasn’t what I wanted.  By the time I started the final lap I was really hurting.  Aaron from Team RWB walked with me a bit to see if I needed anything.  A lot of things went through my head but we agreed that all I really needed was for the race to be over.

The walks at the aid station grew longer.  I tried some coke figuring it couldn’t make things any worse and it didn’t, though I’m not sure it got any better.  I took a gel, which almost came right back up.  I pulled over to get sick when some spectator told me to keep going, one step at a time.  Ok, I thought, I’ll get sick somewhere else.  That didn’t happen, but I also didn’t take in any more gels.

When I saw my family near the end of the last loop my tank was empty.  I stopped and talked.  Someone poured water over my head and I just stood there with my hands on my knees.  A check of the total elapsed time compared to the remaining distance told me I couldn’t reach my goal unless I ran 8 minute miles, which I knew was impossible.  In hindsight I think my math was off, and if I could have just sucked it up and run from there on out, at any pace, I might have made it.  I didn’t though.

The last trip through the tarmac was brutal.  It was really hot by now.  The few volunteers were also tired and sitting down eating/drinking.  I talked to a couple of people who felt like I did.  I offered them encouragement as they walked and tried to no avail to get them to speed  up and walk with me.  One of them caught up to me, running, tapped me on the back and said “let’s go”.  I fired up the engines and ran with him, then he fell off the pace.  I could tell where the finish was and just kept running, and finally crossed the finish line.  I was pretty out of it.  I had no idea of my time, let alone what the people were doing as they tried to hand me water, a medal and remove my timing chip.  The people who fussed at Lance for ignoring his daughter have no  idea how muddled your mind can get out there.

I remember

There are things that I remember, but aren’t really sure where/when they happened.  Like the swimmer who swam over top of me, or the cyclist who refused to drop back when I passed him.  More importantly I remember lots of support on the run.  Once I spotted my family I kind of knew where to expect them, but several of them appeared out on the course at different locations.  Natasha was there, cheering me on and encouraging me to run, as were several of my RWB team mates.

In the end I finished with 5:47 and change.  Two and a half minutes slower than I wanted, and slower than the qualification time for Nationals.  I was devastated, and sat down to allow myself a few tears and a brief pity party.  While I’m still disappointed I am now able to look back and see where I need work, congratulate myself on a 21 minute improvement on my previous best time.

The best news is that my run was a total disaster.  If I can put in a run like I should be able to, I will knock another large chunk of time off my PR.  I need to update the time posted on the refrigerator!