Rocketman Race Report

This was my first attempt at a half-ironman distance triathlon. Holly made me promise to do one with her since she had run Comrades back to back with me. I thought that was a fair trade, and we started looking around for a race to do together. I looked at a few in the Philippines figuring that would be a nice place for a destination race, but most of them were either sold out or had rather hilly bike courses. For the most part, I've got nothing against hills but they're really tough to train for on a turbo trainer in my living room. Unless I upgrade my trainer. The fancier ones have an electronic mechanism that apparently will adjust the resistance of the trainer to simulate climbing hills. Food for thought if I continue this triathlon adventure beyond the end of next year and am assigned to another garden spot. Anyway, back to the search for races...Holly found one in Croatia with no date attached other than TBD 2016. Finally, at some point after Comrades this summer, while going up and down various Internet rabbit holes, I stumbled across a race called Rocketman. After a quick read of their web site, I knew this was our race. It's small, flat, and only 25 minutes from Heather's house in Florida at a time when I already had tickets to go visit. Plus it's held at the freaking Kennedy Space Center and has rockets for medals! What's not to like?

With the entry fee paid, it was time to get started on the training. With recovery from Comrades plus my general post-major-event-laziness coupled with a dive trip to Indonesia in July, it was probably early August before I began training again. Thanks to an email or two from Mary expressing her concern for my ability to finish, I got my ass in gear and got serious. Erbil was a pretty crappy place to train for Comrades because all of my runs were on a treadmill, but it's not quite as bad for tri training. The pool is designed for splashing around, but it's 20m long and not bad for lap swimming early in the morning. As mentioned above, my bike is on a trainer in the living room, so while I don't improve my bike handling skills any, I also don't fall off and get to watch lots of movies and TV shows. The treadmill is still the treadmill, but I can handle a two hours on one much better than the three or three-plus hours that Comrades required.

Over the next few months, I realized why people (usually spouses, I think) complain how expensive this sport is. Not that I spent a ton of money, but a little bit here on a front-mounted water bottle (the best purchase I made since I have minimal control of the bike on the road when I try to pull a bottle out of a cage), a little bit there for a set of Flo wheels, and a new top and shorts all made it look like Christmas when I arrived in Florida 10 days before the race. Side note: on the subject of traveling home, Emirates now has a flight direct to Orlando from Dubai, making life so much easier. Too bad they didn't start that flight four years ago when we first moved to the Gulf.

One of the race sponsors is Bob's Bicycle Shop in Indian Harbor, about 20 minutes south of Heather. I brought my bike in the day after I arrived so they could install my new wheels and race tires, give it a tune-up, and have it ready for the race. Really nice little shop with great service. They had the bike ready the next day, giving me over a week to practice out on the road.

Doesn't it look nice all cleaned up with new race kit?

I got in a 50-mile ride the weekend before the race and a couple of shorter rides during the week, enough time to make me not confident in my biking skills - that's a long way off - but at least semi-comfortable that I could make it through the race without hurting myself or anyone else. I also learned that cranking up your heart rate the last 20-30 minutes before getting off the bike and going for a run does not lead to a very successful or enjoyable run. In my defense, I was trying to hit 50 miles in the time Mary gave me for my workout because I'd never gone that far in one ride before.

Holly flew in on Friday from Houston, and after she put her bike together that night, we dug into our favorite end-of-the-week meal: pizza and champagne. It's a tradition that began when Heather and I would go visit her in Dubai. We'd stop in duty free on the way out of the airport to buy wine and champagne for her (it's the cheapest place in Dubai to get it) and always end up having a bottle or two with a pizza for dinner that night. We've been doing ever since. It might not be the most nutritious meal, but it works.

Saturday, we went out for a quick ride and run before heading up to the race site to pick up our packets and check in our bikes. All the lines were short except for the one to purchase a one-day membership for the national triathlon organization. People had been waiting in that one for ages because the race organizers couldn't find the forms. I gave up after 15 minutes, whipped out my phone, and paid for the full year membership online. Score one for modern technology, although it still irks me that I had to pay anything at all. One more reason to prefer running: there's no individual fee to a nebulous national body. The rest of the day was spent having a beer or two while watching college football, checking lists and packing everything into a bag for the race, and having a light pasta, pesto, and garlic bread dinner. I'm sure there was a salad in there too. Unlike me, Holly has a salad with dinner almost every night. I get mine at lunch at the restaurant at work.

Of course, as is common before a big race, I had a hard time getting to sleep. I wasn't nervous like I was before Comrades, but I did wonder in the back of my mind how I was going to do. I knew I'd be able to finish one way to another, and felt fairly sure I'd be under the stated time limit of seven hours. I think I was mostly questioning my ability to swim the 1.2 miles. I've swum that distance or more in the pool quite often, but in open water during an event? Never.

Hanging out in transition before the start

Like with most races, Dublin and Stockholm excepted, the alarm went off way too early. I straggled out of bed and wandered into the kitchen to eat a Clif bar. Mary wants me to eat something three hours before a big race, but a Clif bar when I wake up is about all I can handle. I have a hard time eating first thing in the morning. I did manage to follow my liquid fueling plan and sipped on a bottle of Powerade Zero while driving to the race. We arrived at 535 and found a parking spot with no trouble at all. We seemed to have arrived right after the early birds and right before the masses because there was no line at body marking or chip pick-up either. With both of those activities out of the way, I set about pumping my tires and setting up my gear. I hit the porta potty, talked with my parents, and stalled as long as I could before stuffing myself into my wetsuit. Wetsuits are never flattering in the base case, ones designed for tri swims even less so, and the extra pounds I was carrying didn't help matters either. Good thing Holly and my dad were there to help with the zipper. Before too long, we heard the call for the half distance people to line up for the swim, and off we went.

The entrance to the swim was down a narrow set of stairs to the water. There were only three waves for the half (men under 45, men over 45, and all women), less than 250 people in total, starting four minutes apart. In order to alleviate crowding on the stairs, they sent the first wave into the water, kept us on the stairs, and had the women wait at the top until we went into the water.

One of those green caps is me

Finally, the first wave started and they let us into the water. I began the walk out to the start buoy with the water barely getting over my knees. The river was much shallower than I expected. We could walk for a good portion of the swim (and had to in several areas where you'd touch bottom with your hand while swimming) and touch our feet down to catch our breath if we needed to. Which I did once or twice. The swim was missing the argy bargy kicking and hitting that are common in larger races. We were able to spread out easily, and I had no real issues with being kicked or hit by other people. With 15-20 knot winds, the chop was pretty stiff and not something I was prepared for. I swallowed a lot of water heading out to the first buoy. The second leg was better as we were a a less severe angle to the waves, and third leg was a fast combination of swimming and body surfing back to shore. Glancing at my watch as I reached the shallows and could walk faster than swim, the numbers looking back at me were 19:xx. I'm a decent swimmer, but I am nowhere near that fast. I chalked it up to good fortune and went on my way up the stairs to the wetsuit strippers and T1.

When I reached my bike, I took my time to make sure I went through things calmly and carefully. I washed the dirt off my feet to make sure there was nothing under my sock that would cause blisters later, put on some sunscreen (missed more than a few places I found out later in the shower), and prepared to head out. I kept checking to see if Holly was close behind so we could bike together. With the course being shorter than expected and the four minute gap between our starts, it would've been hard for her to catch up, so off I went.

Heading out of T1

The bike course was in the Merritt Island Nature Preserve and on the ground of the Kennedy Space Center. Aside from a small drawbridge and a few on and off ramps, it was about as flat as you can get. I really, really liked the bike leg. I know, I know, I'm not a cyclist and never will be, but it really was a blast. Not a huge fan of the wind, though. Zooming along at 25-30 mph in the tailwind was great fun. Crawling along at 14 in the headwind? Not so much. I especially enjoyed the benefits of an aerodynamic tri bike. Blowing past people upwind and downwind sure kept me motivated the whole way around.

Right after leaving transition. Not entirely comfortable on the road.

The guy I enjoyed passing the most was on a bike with 90mm rims in front and a disc wheel in the back. I'm sure he would've dusted me in calm weather, but in the wind, he didn't stand a chance of keeping his bike under control. I wonder why he didn't change to rims with less windage. It's not like the breeze was a surprise. It was blowing all day on Friday and Saturday, and the forecast wasn't any better for Sunday. Anyway, we had a good chat as we approached one of the u-turns together, and then I was gone.

Taken about 6 miles after the first one.
I almost look like I know what I'm doing.

I started in with fluids at 15 min as per Mary's plan. My bike was loaded with three bottles filled with a mix of Powerade and Powerade Zero, and I emptied all of them by the time I was done. I grabbed a bottle of Gatorade at mile 48 and drank maybe 1/4 of it too. There was supposed to be an initial bottle exchange at mile 14, but I never saw it. I did see the guys from Bob's out there helping people fix flats and deal with other mechanical issues. Really nice of them to spend the day riding around to make sure we all made it back in one piece.

I ate 1/4 of a Clif bar (thanks to Holly for the great idea to cut them into little pieces the night before) at each of my feeding times. About 20 minutes before I got off the bike, I had two Clif bloks to get ready for the run since I was tired of the bars. I also swallowed a salt tab every hour. I probably should have had more had I bothered to look at how much salt was accumulating on my shorts and sleeves. The temperature was not all that hot, thankfully, or things could have been a lot worse.

I only nearly killed myself once or twice during the 56 miles, usually when I was trying to wipe the sweat off my face or grab one of the bottles out of its cage. Damn twitchy tri bikes. Otherwise, my bike handling was decent. I stayed in aero the whole time except for when I sat up to open the bag and get something to eat. Parts of the course were so extremely rough, I felt like my fillings were going to fall out. The out and back to the north gate of the KSC was the worst. Carbon bikes with race tires do not seem to be very forgiving. My wrists, neck, and shoulders really got sore from being so tense on that stretch of road. Biking through the rest of the Space Center was really fun, though. I loved seeing the assembly building, the Space-X building, and all the other NASA stuff they have on site there. I even managed to look at the camera for the iconic race picture.

Smiling for the camera while plodding upwind.
Small improvement in bike handling skills.

The last few hundred meters of the bike got a little interesting. We had to make a sharp lefthand turn across the road where the runners were heading out for their last leg. I wanted to keep a decent speed so they could get back to running (they were held up while we crossed), but I also wanted to slow down enough to be able to dismount without falling over or crossing the dismount line on my bike. Fortunately, I survived and had no issues, but I bet there's a huge spike on my HR monitor at that point in time.

Once in T2, I was a man possessed. I racked my bike, changed my shoes, grabbed my number belt, put on my visor, and left as fast as I could. No, this wasn't because I was racing. I had to pee. Bad. Those three bottles of fluid and the brackish swim water went right through me. I really really had to go while on the bike but wasn't going to stop. Thankfully, there was a bank of porta potties right before the timing mat that starts the run with no line. Two minutes and half my transition time later, I was on my way.

The first mile or two of the run were good. My legs felt like jelly but were turning over a good quick pace. I ate a gel after 20 minutes or so, and that's when my day started going downhill. My stomach wasn't thrilled with that, and I didn't have anything else except fluids the rest of the run. I ran between the water stops, and walked for a bit after each one. I hoped by doing this that I would a) start feeling better, and b) let Holly catch up so we could run together. I began to feel better once I stopped drinking Gatorade and used just ice water. Thankfully, the aid stations between miles 5 and 9 had Coke so I drank a cup at each one. That really made me feel better. The pain of chafing in places that should never chafe prompted me to take two salt tabs at the mile 7 water stop. Apparently the water I'd been pouring over my head coupled with the ice melting down my shirt mixed with the large amount of salt dried on my shorts to create a really uncomfortable mess.

Holly caught up at mile 10 and we ran the rest of the way together. She knew my first half was rough when we saw each other on the out & back and ran faster so she'd reach me. She's a great running spouse.

Overall, I had a great time. I still can't believe how much I enjoyed the bike. Maybe that's because I loved passing people. Tri bikes sure do make a difference. I am sure I could've gone faster on the bike and pushed more during the run, but my main goal was to finish upright and happy. Mission accomplished.

The medal is a miniature Saturn V rocket!

Results:
Swim:  19:23
T1:  4:10
Bike:  3:10
T2:  5:19
Run:  2:25
Total:  6:04



Postscript: Thanks to my parents for some of these pictures and for volunteering during the event. It was pretty funny to hear the race announcer say "John Senger, hurry up and finish. Your mother is looking for you." as I approached the line. Turns out they had missed seeing me come in on the bike and weren't sure where I was. Mom was the person holding back the runners as we crossed in front of them and Dad stood at the dismount line so we knew where to stop. How all three of us missed seeing each other is beyond me.

P.P.S. I'm really glad I have this picture of Holly and me at the finish. It came in handy on my way back to Iraq. Due to a flight cancellation by Emirates, I had to fly from Dubai to Amman to get a Royal Jordanian flight to Erbil. While going through transit security, my medal was confiscated by one of the officers. He tried to tell me it was forbidden because it looked like a weapon. I think he just wanted to take it home for himself or his kids. I protested and argued and pleaded my case with him and four other people, using up over twenty minutes of my one hour connection time. Finally, when talking to the head guy who came out from the central office at the other side of the airport, I explained again what the medal was from and showed him this picture of us at the end of the race. He relented, handed me the ribbon, and I was on my way straight to the gate. The race sent out an email the other day offering to let finishers buy one of the leftover medals. If I knew how to reach the guy who first grabbed my medal, I'd forward him the email and offer to bring one back for him.

Comrades Pictures

Some pictures from during the race

Coming down into the halfway point

Just passing the halfway cutoff point

Running the start of the hill

Not running the top of the hill

Coming into the stadium

Just a few steps to go

Done!

Comrades 2015 Race Report

Ange, one of my coaches, asked me to write a race report again this year. This one won't be as involved or as long as last year's, but I'll provide as much detail and color commentary as I can. First, before we get to race day, let's have a look at what was in store for us.

That's pretty much a marathon straight uphill followed by a marathon on seriously rolling hills followed by a few kilometers of down and up to the finish. And of course, the cartoon profile provided by Comrades doesn't really show you how steep and nasty all those climbs really are. Here's the chart from my Garmin for comparison. 

But that's getting ahead of ourselves. Let's turn back time to the day after last year's race. There we were, hanging out at Joe Cool's in Durban, having a few beers (okay, more than a few) to celebrate having conquered Comrades. Everything was all fun and games until our South African friends heard us expressing our relief at being able to cross the race off the bucket list. "Not so fast," they said. "You haven't really done Comrades until you've done it back to back in both directions. It really is a different race going down vs up." And with that, the seed was planted. By the time registration opened a few months later, there was no real question about if we were going to run again or not. Erin was certainly going to be back so she could get revenge on the course after finishing but not making the cutoff in 2014. Holly and I knew that since she was going, we were too, and Holly even managed to talk Desiree, one of her friends in Houston, into coming along as well. I was the last one to sign up, I think, mostly because I had some reservations about being able to train properly while living in Erbil. I hate treadmills in the base case and was not at all looking forward to having to do all my training indoors.

Fast forward a few months, and training wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, mostly because I got to spend time in Dubai instead of Erbil. I did have a few months of hours-long runs on a treadmill on both weekend days, though, and that certainly wasn't any fun. I only made it through by watching episodes of Game of Thrones. I'd watch one, stop to change my shirt and refuel, watch another, etc., etc. Thankfully, I managed to schedule a business trip to Houston at the end of April that allowed me to get my last three weekends of back-to-back long runs done outside and with other people. The peak weekend of 24 and 16 would've been really tough to do in the gym at the Divan.

About three weeks before the race, the race organizers (the Comrades Marathon Association) announced that due to road construction in Pinetown, the course would be 877 meters longer than the usual up-run course. Personally, I don't see much difference in running 86.9 km and 87.7 km, but I was clearly in the minority. The online moaning and wailing and gnashing of teeth was astounding. People were panicking about not being able to pace properly, how the extra distance would impact their strategy, and even going to far as to ask the CMA to extend the time limit for the race beyond 12 hours. All that fussing over an extra 8 seconds per mile. That's nothing more than a few minutes more running and less walking over the course of a 12-hour day. Nothing for us mere mortals to worry about, though it did cost the female winner a few hundred thousand dollars. She missed the course record by three minutes. 

As race day approached, I was much more scared and nervous than I was last year. I knew what was coming (see those lovely course maps above) and also knew I wasn't as well prepared as last year. I had done all my workouts, but my overall mileage was down and I didn't have Heather's yoga classes to build my core and leg strength, two things absolutely critical for running uphill. Holly hadn't trained too well either thanks to a stress fracture in her foot that kept her from running most of the spring, though she got plenty of swimming and biking in to make up for it. Sitting on the plane from Dubai to Durban, I had some doubts as I whether I'd make it the whole way or not. I was most worried about getting to the top of Field's Hill and then to the halfway point. Three out of the five big and named hills are in the first half of the race, and I was afraid they'd suck so much energy out of me that I wouldn't have anything left for the rest. Thankfully, copious amounts of champagne banished those thoughts to another day.

Friday morning, we all met up for our traditional 5k run along the water in Durban followed by breakfast at Circus Circus. While taking pictures after we ate, we were approached by a team from the local paper asking us if we were running on Sunday and if they could ask us a few questions and take some pictures. The next day, we woke up to our smiling faces on the front page of the paper!

After breakfast, the expo beckoned. We grabbed our packets, did some shopping, found our names on the wall of entrants, and hung out for a little while in the International area. I felt bad for the poor security volunteers who had to keep kicking one of the local running clubs out of the area. They certainly knew better but kept coming back in over and over again. I'm sure all they wanted was a place to sit down and to have some coffee, coke, or water. Lots of the people running Comrades can barely afford the entry fee and a place to stay the nights before the race, so we left most of the stuff from our goodie bags on the table for them. They need the granola bars and energy drink powders and other stuff much more than we do.

Hanging out with Holly, Erin, and Desiree at the apartment after the expo made me feel much better about the race. None of us felt completely confident, but as a group, we were all certain we'd get to the starting line and find a way to finish. Nerves and anxiety were giving way to the normal pre-race excitement and anticipation. We talked about our plan for the hills (run/walk at 3 minute/1 minute intervals), our fueling (bring on the salted potatoes!), and our bio breaks (when one stops, we all stop). There wasn't much talk about the weather because we knew it was going to be warm and sunny. We didn't do much on Saturday either - pancake breakfast at Circus Circus (along with dozens of other runners), lounging around the apartment, and one last dinner of pizza and pasta before heading to our room in Durban for the night. Staying in Durban the night before the race was one of Holly's more brilliant decisions this year. Being able to sleep in a few extra minutes and simply walk to the start sure beats having to drive in and deal with traffic.

I woke up Sunday morning not feeling very rested. Desiree says I slept pretty well, but it sure didn't seem that way to me. After a Clif bar for a snack, some Powerade to wash it down, and half a dozen trips to the bathroom, it was time to get moving. I put on my racing outfit, threw a Qatar Airways PJ top over my head to keep warm on the walk to the start, grabbed my fuel belt and drop bag, and away we went. Ten minutes later, we arrived at bag drop just outside the corrals. Holly and I had the purple numbers signifying that we were international runners (foreign runners get their own tent and bag check area at the finish), but somehow Kim, Erin, and Desiree never got them at the expo. The guys at the truck handed them yellow numbers, and no matter how much he claimed otherwise, we knew their bags were going to end up in the general tent and not the international one. Not much we could do about it at that point, so we handed over the bags and entered our corral.

Kim and I opted for the first visit to the porta-potty while the others stayed behind and watched our stuff. When we got back, the other three left while we kept an eye on everything and kept people from crowding into our spot. With a strict 12-hour gun-to-gun cutoff time, there's a strong desire to get as close to the front of your corral as possible, and people will squeeze into whatever space is available. Somehow through the noise of the crowd, I heard Holly yelling for me from outside the fence. Kim and I grabbed all of our belts and belongings and ran over to see what the problem was. "They won't let us in the gate! Security won't let us in!" Holly was a little panicked, as were the rest of us, and it didn't help that right at the moment, they dropped the ropes between the corrals and thousands of people surged forward like at a general admission rock concert. Fortunately, she was able to pry apart two sections of the fence, and they all squeezed in next to us. Some calming breaths later, we shuffled forward with the crowd and began to look forward to the pomp and circumstance of the start. Even after experiencing it last year, the singing of the national anthem and Shosholoza, the playing of Chariots of Fire, and the recording of the cock crows still gave me goosebumps. By far the best atmosphere at the start of any race I've ever done. You can see for yourself in this video starting around the 30:00 mark.

Bang! And we were off. Okay, not exactly off because we still had to make our way to the line, but our watches were running. Four minutes later, we were running! Another four minutes later, we were not running, as the 12,000 people in front of us ground to a halt. The roads in Durban are much wider than those in PMB, but we sure seemed to do a lot more stopping and starting this year. In order to keep an eye on each other, we quickly fell into a system where you'd raise your hand over your head if you wanted to find out where everyone else was. Empty hands while dodging around people or spreading out on the hills, full hands with water sachets to pass back and forth - this worked really well all day. 

The first few miles were really crowded. The hills were just steep enough to keep people from running too fast but not steep enough yet to separate the runners from the run/walkers from the walkers. We held ourselves in check (not much choice, really) and ran along mostly in silence. We'd laugh at something here and there, but most of what we said was "are we all together?" and "do we have everyone?" I felt okay, not a really good sign this early in such a long race. By the time we passed over the top of Cowie's Hill, the first of the big five, I could already tell that the hills were going to wear me out. Thankfully, one of us needed a nature break heading through Pinetown shortly thereafter and I was able to catch my breath for a few minutes.

After turning the corner to begin the long climb up Field's Hill, Desiree and Kim steadily moved ahead of us. They were off to a great start so we wished them well and sent them on their way. Their training had obviously been better than ours, and it wouldn't be fair to hold them back. Erin, Holly, and I kept on plugging away and eventually reached the top. This was one of the big milestones I had in my mind since it's the longest climb in the race, but the mental boost I expected never materialized. Just the opposite happened. I began to lose confidence and get depressed thinking about how much farther we had to go and how much energy I'd already felt drain away. I was exhausted and still had 40 miles to go. Seeing Erin and Holly out in front of me didn't help any either. Not that I wanted to beat them. I'm as competitive as they come, but I do have my limits. No, this was more of a realization that I was struggling and they weren't, and that just made me feel worse. A few more miles of this seemed to take forever. I knew I had to do something or else I wasn't going to make it to the end. I grabbed Holly and told her that she absolutely had to stay with me, right on my shoulder, until I came out of my funk. She agreed without hesitation and reminded me that we were in this together no matter what. I'd like to say that hearing this from my running spouse was all it took to snap me back to normal, but that'd be a lie. Another hour or so passed before I was happy and cheerful once again.

The three of us soldiered on up Botha's Hill (one of the steepest climbs of the day) and down into the halfway point at Drummond. We managed to pick up our pace pretty well on the first real downhill stretch of the race thus far. Once again, it was a huge success that we crossed halfway (5:29) before the winner finished the race (5:38).  Our excitement and enjoyment of the easy running was short-lived, though. Inchanga starts not even half a mile later and is a bitch of a climb (2 miles at 6%) even when you don't already have a marathon on your legs. By this point, we'd given up on our strict run/walk intervals and had moved to "run when we can and walk when we must," as Holly put it. For Inchanga, that meant mostly walking with some slow running (me) and power walking (Holly). Finally, with 30 miles behind us, we reached the top, and I knew I was going to finish. I'd told myself before we started that if we could get to the top of Inchanga in under 6:30, we'd have 5:30 to make it through the last 25 miles with nearly all of the climbing behind us. We crested in 5:56.

We cruised down the back and made our way to Harrison Flats. Don't let the name fool you. Harrison Flats is not flat. It's rolling hills that felt as much uphill this year as they did last year. About this point in the race, we got passed by a huge 11:30 bus (they call the pace groups over here "buses") and fell in behind them for a little while. They had a nice routine of running a few minutes followed by a short walk break, but they were going way too fast for their expected finish time. We fell back and let them go, as did a lot of other people around us. Either our math was wrong (after last year's debacle that wasn't entirely out of the question) or theirs was, and it wasn't worth the risk to find out. [side note: they were way off and finished in 11:12. I'm sure a lot of people blew up and had trouble even coming in under 12 because of that.]

Running along towards Cato Ridge, Erin began drifting back slightly and then catching up to us as we slowed down to wait for her. Like last year, she was having a hard time getting a full deep breath. Holly and I started to have the conversation that no one running with their friends likes to have - how long do we stay back with Erin before leaving her and running our own race? Knowing how she didn't make the cutoff time last year and not wanting to see her miss out again made our decision all that more difficult, but in the end, we knew we had to move on. To her credit, Erin knew what we were thinking and asked us if we wanted to keep going before we could bring it up. I gave her a huge hug, cried a little, and told her we'd see her at the finish. 

Holly and I settled into an easy pace as the miles ticked by. By the time we hit the Lion Park timing mat, we knew we weren't going to be sub-11 but were certainly going to be sub-12. We crossed in 9:03, leaving us just under three hours to travel the last 11 miles. Not wanting to cut it quite that close, we decided to try to keep ourselves under 14 min/mile so we had plenty of time to spare if the wheels completely fell off down the road. No problems with math this year.

About half an hour later, approaching the chicken farms, we ran into James's friend Carl. He was struggling a bit running by himself and was more than happy to join us for the last bit to PMB. With the pressure of chasing sub-11 long gone, we ran and walked and talked and enjoyed ourselves as best we could. Finally, we hit Little Polly's. It's not one of the big five named hills, but rather gets its name from the fact that people often mistake it for the real Polly Shortts. Polly's is steeper, longer, and closer to the end, making Little Polly's just a teaser for what's left to come. There were some terrific spectators along this stretch. Not that the ones we saw during the previous 50 miles weren't good too, but one group here really was wonderful. I stopped to ask them if they had any sunblock I could use, and instead of having me stand there and wait while they found it, they told me to keep going and they'd bring it to me. "You need to keep moving. No wasting time!" they said. Sure enough, about 20 seconds later, one of the women came running up to me with a bottle and sprayed some in my hands and on my face. Now that's the spirit of Comrades that people always talk about.

At last it was time to tackle Polly's. It's not the biggest hill in the race, but it sure is the most difficult. Climbing 400 feet in barely more than a mile when you've already run 50 miles is just awful. Holly was the only one of the three of us to be thankful to be going uphill. She developed a huge blister on her toe coming down Little Polly's and going up took the pressure off of it for a little while. Coming down the other side wasn't too enjoyable for her, requiring her to tread gently and take it easy. We had plenty of time to spare, so going slowly wasn't a concern. We had to, really, since the last five miles have a lot more up and down in them than we thought. At the top of one little bump, we could see big banks of lights up ahead and started looking forward to seeing the stadium. How wrong we were. Those lights were for the rugby field about two miles out of town. 

Finally, we made the last big right turn into Pietermaritzburg and knew we were almost there. A quick left brought us right to the stadium with cheering fans lining the road the whole way. This was a much more enjoyable finishing stretch than coming into Durban on the highway and running through the commercial center. That was pretty empty, but the people in PMB turned out in force. We stopped walking and started running as soon as we approached the stadium. I have a personal rule to always run the last mile of a race, or in the case of this Comrades, the last half mile. Coming through the tunnel and onto the grass wasn't as emotional a moment for me as it was last year. I was just happy to have beaten the damn course and made it to the end. It was Holly's turn to tear up a bit as she waved to her parents and we made the final turn to the line. Fists pumping and arms raised in celebration, we crossed the line in 11:21. You can see the video here.  

We hobbled over to the international tent, got our bags, and collapsed on the ground. I was absolutely freezing, shaking so hard I threw up a few times. Lovely, I know. I'm really glad Holly's parents were there to help us with food and drinks because I wasn't going anywhere for a while.

I stopped feeling sick and cold once I saw Erin come "walking" up. She made it! One of her friends from Doha grabbed her along the way and wouldn't let her not finish. She was as happy as I've ever seen someone at the end of a race, tears of joy running down her face. She also had really bad leg cramps and had to be taken to the medical tent, but let's focus on the positive, shall we? 

Getting the medal for finishing was great, of course, but getting that extra medal for going back to back is what made it all worthwhile. Now I've done it both ways and never have to do it again. I'll certainly never do it again while I'm living in Erbil. There's no way to get the proper training in when  I'm not allowed outside. 

A few quick words on fueling and hydration because I know Mary and Ange want to hear about it. I used much the same approach as last year - fuel every hour, salt tab every hour, and water as often as I felt I needed it. I started out with gels and bloks for the first few hours until salted potatoes started being handed out by the race or by the spectators. I only had to take one or two more gels the rest of the way because there were enough potato stops to get me through. I drank a lot of water this year, much more than last year. Even drinking two or three sachets at each water stop, I could feel myself getting dehydrated around mile 25 and was thankful to get back to a better level a few hours later. It's never good to feel goosebumps on your legs when you're running in warm sunny weather. I didn't have any of the Energade sports drink available at the aid stations. To me, the stuff tastes foul, so I got my electrolytes from the salt tabs. I also drank a lot of Coke. Holly made me start drinking it when I was feeling nauseous and didn't want to eat anything. It might be horrible for you, but it sure is great ultra fuel, even if it wasn't flat like I've had in the past.

Brave New World

After years of poking, prodding, and not-so-subtle pressure from my wife, my coach, and my running spouse, I finally dipped a toe into the world of triathlon. I have no one to really blame for this except me. I set out to buy a bike and a trainer to bring with me to Erbil so I'd have a way to workout for Comrades that didn't involve sessions of 4+ hours on a treadmill. I figured sitting on a bike and watching a movie for a few hours would be more tolerable. While we were home in Florida over the holidays, I picked up this beauty, got a professional fit from one of the top fitters in the country, and left the store with all the gear and crap I'll need to ride it. Side note: Adam, the guy who did the fit, was eternally patient with me. He knew I was a new biker and took his time to help me get my cleats into the pedals (apparently Speedplay are great once you're using them; they're not so good for novices like me to learn to clip in and out of), explain all of the measurements he was taking, and talk me through the whole process. As a former engineer, I was fascinated by watching all the sensors hooked up to me show their data as a little cartoon stick figure pedaling away on the screen.

It took less time than the car ride home for Heather to inform me that after spending thousands of dollars on a bike and gear, I had no choice but to start training for a tri. Within an hour of posting a picture of the bike on Facebook, Mary emailed to tell me she was adding swim and bike workouts into my schedule as soon as I returned to Dubai. I landed in Dubai on 1/19, set the trainer up a few days later, and learned very quickly during my first workout that indoor riding is hot and sweaty. I was far more drenched after an hour than I am running outdoors for the same period at this time of year.

A week later, I found out about a beginner's triathlon training camp that some volunteer coaches from Tri Dubai were offering nearby. Needless to say, I signed up immediately. We spent the weekend at a really eclectic and oddly entertaining resort in Ras Al Khaimah, a few hours north of Dubai. This is the email I sent Mary about what the experience was like.

1. Wet suits are awesome! They keep my legs up.  

2. My stroke is stuck in high school. Not enough glide, hands cross in front, big S curve during my pull, hands enter angled with thumb into water first, all of which combine to make my hips wiggle. And we haven't even watched the video yet. It's clear to the coach that I was trained for racing and not for longer distance endurance swimming. She swims an Ironman in an hour or so, so I'm assuming she knows what she's talking about. :)  

3. Tri bikes are very twitchy and squirrelly. You probably knew that, but it was quite a surprise to me. It was all I could do to keep my balance when moving my hands from the aero bars to the handle bars. Getting my bottle out of the cage was an adventure to say the least. And let's not mention how I kept weaving all over the road every time I turned my head one way or the other.  

4. Speedplay cleats are great when I'm clipped in. They're a complete pain in the ass to get clipped in. I spent the first 3-400 meters of each lap during our transition training just trying to get them in and hear that lovely "click." Speaking of clipping in, I fell over with one foot in and one foot out before we even started our first ride of the weekend. In the parking lot. In front of the whole training group. Sigh.  

It really was a fun and enjoyable weekend. Lots of great swimming and biking drills, coaches who knew a ton about their best discipline, and a helpful and friendly bunch of people there with me.

Thanks to all the support and advice I received from everyone, I decided to go whole hog and enter a sprint tri the following weekend. It helped knowing that I'd be riding up to the race with one of my fellow campers who could show me how to get everything set up in transition. I knew the swim would be fine and the run wouldn't be a problem, but I was just a bit nervous about getting on the bike in a race given my dismal performance with clipping in at the camp. Turns out a generous application of dry lube on the cleats, springs, and pedals can help even a rookie like me get clipped in within a 50-100 feet. Recycling my email to Mary once again, here's how the race went:

I had a great time! Best part was kicking ass and passing people on the run. :)  

Swim - not bad for my first one. Total chaos in the water because they had to swim both the sprint & Olympic on the same short course when the fog rolled in. I never got kicked but gave & got a few elbows along the way. Was breathing very hard by the end. Definitely took some serious effort to get my heart rate down coming out of the water. 

Trying to get my cap off while unzipping the suit. Not smooth.

T1 - slow. Not smooth in running while peeling off my suit. Shoes & socks on pretty fast. Helmet strap came out of the buckle so I had to stop & rethread it before starting my ride. Ate some bloks while leaving to avoid having to try it on the bike.

Bike - clipped in fast for me. Yay lots of dry lube. Managed to keep a decent pace for all three laps. Had to learn to downshift coming into the uturn so as not to struggle coming out. Only made that mistake once. Passed some people and happy about that. Learned that a tri bike & aero bars are really much faster than a road bike when it's windy.

T2 - unclipped okay. Hard to run in bike shoes. Fast shoe change and out on the run. 

Run - Legs just wanted to turn over quickly coming off the bike so I let them. Started around 7:30 and settled in at 8. Total focus on sub-25 time. Made it by 5 seconds. :) Legs felt really strange. Not like jello, more like they were tired but still going fast. Does that make sense? It was like "jeez, I'm barely going" with "wow, how can I be this fast"

Had a blast overall. Tons of work but really fun.