Into the Wild

On February 15, 2013 I am leaving my dream job. It's been a decision I've mulled over for at least a couple of years now and I could see that it was never going to be an easy choice but I am finally convinved it is the right choice for me. I don't have another job ligned up and I don't even know what I really want to do for a job, but almost like a chapter out of The Alchemist, I can feel the universe moving me in this direction, as if to fulfill my personal legend.

The excitement is already building. My exit date is just on the heels of my second IronMan race, New Zealand. I'll be flying out only a few days after, and will return with no job to go back to, but a mission to have fun, play hard, spend a whole lot of time outdoors, and complete a 100 mile run. I hope to run out of money, get lost and find myself again.

The excitement I once had for my day job has long since faded away. For a long time now, I've drove, biked or ran to work on so many days when I would gaze off toward Mt Wilson and wish I were heading there instead. I've spent too many days in a dark building with my attention on a screen, slaving away towards a purpose that is not my own, making people richer than I even richer and not seeing the worth in it. I once imagined settling down here, falling in love and starting a family, but that hasn't happened and I'm done waiting around for it. I am off to make it a life worth living while I can still do it my way.

Years from now I'll look back and see that this was one of the best choices I ever made. I know it's one of the hardest. It's scarry because I am leaving behind a (false) sense of security and a network of friends and the familiar atmosphere. I am comfortable here and it is not to escape problems that I am leaving. I have to believe that something out there holds greater promise for me even though I don't know what it is. I feel a great sense of freedom, having the power to make this choice. And I know that I am going to discover something about myself I never would have if I hadn't chosen to do this.

2013 has the following in store for me, just to start. IronMan New Zealand and vacation in New Zealand and Fiji, touring up the U.S. West coast to visit friends and train along the way, Wildflower long course for the third time, a 100 mile run, hiking the John Muir trail, travel to Tanzania, climb Mt Kilimanjaro and visit Egypt, another 100 mile run. Ever wanted to live out your bucket list? What the hell are you waiting for?

The mountain are calling, and I must go. -John Muir

IronMan, Ultra and Beyond

It's been almost 3 months since my first ironman and I've progressed through the whole gamut of post race psychology, from thrill, to regret over not going faster, to depression, to not caring to ever do that again, to being very interested in doing that again.

My earliest memory of IronMan was as an 11 year old kid, driving with my family through the lavafields while on summer vacation on the big island of Hawaii. My parents talked about how the bike course went through where we were driving. I remember thinking how utterly terrible it sounded to swim miles through the rough ocean, bike over 100 miles through the heat, and run a marathon. What kind of tough, mean person would do such a thing. To me it was akin to walking on the moon, something mortal men never do in their entire lives. I had not even a hint in my mind that I would ever attempt it.

Alas, 14 years go by. A classic triathlon gave way to a half marathon, gave way to olympic triathlon, marathon, half ironman then what's next. The body gets stronger and the mind more curious about what it might be like to go farther.

So it came to this. It was a nerve racking time, preparing over the course of 6 months, over-training and getting sick and injured and getting discouraged. The mental game is relentless. Right down to the wire. Even the journey, driving the 1200 miles from soCal to CDA, trying to get there in time for the 4:00 pm packet pickup cutoff time on Friday, after only leaving on Thursday morning. I didn't plan that so well.

Heading out to my first ironman was the most exciting thing since waking up on Christmas mornings when I was younger than 10. I very much looked forward to spending all the daylight hours moving across the surface of the earth.
I was too restless to sleep much the night before the race and around 3:00 am it was raining and thundering, with only 4 hours until race start! Memories surfaced of how awful the LA marathon was during the storm in 2011. An ironman would be a bigger mess still. By the time I left the house it was no longer raining, and by the time I was on my bike, the roads were dry. That's how the weather is in the Pacific Northwest.


The memories are vivid all the way from driving to the starting line in the morning wth my parents, listening to The Killers' "All These Things" on my ipod, powering through the swim feeling way better than expected, pushing through the bike ride - never been so happy to get off the bike and run, to wanting oh so much just to walk or lay down in the shade for a spell (and I did lay down in someone's shady lawn once until the lady who lived there asked her husband to ask me if I wanted the hose), but  pushing on for the goal of the finish time and from the spirit of the race, the other racers and the crowd to push cheering me on. Go Spartacus! The sandal runner.

The most depressing moment was when another racer passed me while I was walking and asked me how badly did I want it? And I realized that in spite of wanting so much to finish under a certain time, at that moment I didn't really want it all that much. I was beat in that sense, but really my spirits were high and I was certain I would finish. There was never any doubt of that. It was just a matter of walking vs. running. So I walked quite a bit. I alternated between barefoot and huaraches. My throat became parched from the breathing and the electrolyte drink. My leg muscles began to fail. I was undernurished. Learning.

I was passed at my run mile 6 point by Jason Lomheim who told me he didn't want to see me walking except at aid stations. Well, he was at his mile 20. Gerardo Barrios asked me if I wanted some shoes, Cynthie Cuno said hi and Ray Barios gave me a hug. I passed by Jon Nathan who was my carrot on the bike, but he kept coming back and passed my 20 feet from the finish line. It was a great day.
Coming in just under 13 hours, I was kind of surprised at how quickly I had finished. Though my original goal was 12:30, my diminished spirits during the run, and the fact that I was walking so much made me expect a 13:15 - 13:30 finish time. It kind of made me wonder if I had pushed a little more, maybe I would have met my 12:30 goal. On the other hand, I don't regret not pushing because I had fun doing this, and pushing it would have only shaved at the very most an hour from my run time, and made me suffer. I wanted to savor taking it kind of easy, because I knew I had not trained properly for this distance, and I knew I have another IronMan race in New Zealand next year, and for that one, and all that come after it, I will not walk.

Part of me felt depressed after the completion of my first ironman. It's like a mixture of feelings about having worked so hard and focused so much and not having that anymore. It's missing how great it felt to be a rock star on race day. It's not being able to do my workouts because I have to recover. It's people doubting, and especially my own self doubting that I can ever qualify for Kona. It's like an identity crisis. Part of me wants to stop trying. But that's what this is really about, isn't it? This is the struggle of the ironman. This is where the real pain is endured. And I love it. Never give up.

Still, it's utterly bewildering how much faster I need to be to qualify for Kona.

I do believe that completing an ironman triathlon is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. It is gratifying for me to look back on the photos and know that I did this, and to remember thinking how scarry it was when I first made that commitment, and that I stuck to it over the long haul and made it all the way to the finish line, in good time, and in good form. Then you can watch videos of ironman races and be able to relate to what you are watching. You know what is involved because you went through every mile.

As challenging as the ironman is, it somehow is not enough. I am convinced that a 24 hour run, or a double-ironman is the real test of not only the body, but the mind. I look forward to experiencing this for myself. The most satisfying thing in all of this has been that the more I do the more I want to do. I biked through the Pyrenees in France just 3 weks after my ironman. 7 days, 350 miles, and 45,000 feet of steep climbing on the bike at a pace faster than I had ever done before. I came back and did  a 16 mile run through 100 degree heat, a 5 mile ocean swim, and a 31 mile run in 5:19 running in a combination of sandals and barefoot 1 weeks later, again with tons of climbing, my first ultra. I'm more in tune with myself and more confident. This sport is my yellow brick road, and I'm off to see the wizard.

LA Marathon, Oceanside Ironman and California Triathlon

The LA Marathon went great on March 19. It was a dry, cool and beautiful day and I ran in about 4:16 chip time, and that was my first full marathon in huaraches. No problem with the sandals, but my training volume wasn't enough for me to hold a consistent pace throughout the marathon. I walked 3 or 4 aid stations and maybe an 8th of a mile around mile 23. Definitely felt tired for the last 6 miles.

I attended the official Ford half IronMan at Oceanside last weekend not to race but as a volunteer. I was there very specifically for the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF) and mostly to help a friend named Karen Adalot who is a single amputee. It was very impressive to see her and the other challenged athletes compete in this race. They have so much more logistics to deal with, and pain! I think they are greater endurance athletes than the pros. Karen finished in about 7:30.

I took a plunge in the ocean with my new DeSoto T1 wetsuit, which I hadn't used yet. The water was cold but I was burning up in this thick wetsuit. It's the right one for Alcatraz in May and Coer d'Alene in June.

I've recently joined a community service triathlon group California Triathlon, and am very impressed with their approach to team training and multisport. It is a free group that seems to do way more than any pay-for triathlon club. You can join too:
California Triathlon

Nautica Malibu Triathlon

The annual Nautica Malibu Triathlon was the first triathlon I ever did, in 2009. In 2011 I came in 5th in my age group, and this year I'm aiming for 1st. It's my favorite little triathlon. I love waking up early on Saturdays and Sundays all summer long to drive down to Zuma, meet up with friends and train on the beach. We swim with dolphins, exchange stories, talk about goals, and just have a generally great time. It builds inspiration and before you know it you're training for a full ironman.

I race with the DreamWorks animation team, and it is our goal to be number one in raising money for the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles. If you are so moved, please make a tax deductible donation and support the hospital, and me, in reaching our goals. You can do so by credit card on here. I am very selective myself about organizations I donate to, but I have met and talked with the nurses from CHLA and I believe this to be a worthy one.

Sedona Marathon 2012

I just finished driving over 1,000 miles round trip for the Sedona marathon. I learned about this race over a year ago and was struck by its beautiful setting; I had to run it. With a course that is partially on pavement and partially dirt trail, at an altitude of over 4000 feet, and with clean air and great scenery it seemed like the best marathon in the country, and I still think it may be. I went to a lot of trouble and spent a good deal of time and money registering and getting out there, but ultimately I did not run it. What did I learn? If you aren't going out there to have fun, then you shouldn't be out at all.

See, I've been suffering from overtraining over the past several weeks. I cringe to say that because I don't want to believe it, but the fact is I've developed a chronic injury in my right leg and I am unable (unwilling) to remain sedantary long enough to allow it to fully recover. It is frustrating because I should be running for at least 4 hours on average each week, and I have really only been doing 3 at most, which is almost entirely condensed in half marathons that I have been running each weekend, but perhaps I got here too fast, with imperfect form, and combined with too much cycling and cross fit in my first 6 weeks of ironman training, and I have been on edge to the point that I have gotten sick and injured.

I was not thinking clearly when I committed to running the Sedona marathon, knowing full well that I was not recovered, and had not done the proper training. I was even more woefully unprepared than I was aware, as I planned to arrive in Sedona fewer than 15 hours ahead of the marathon start. This, going from sea level to 5,000 feet, which is where I camped. It was a quest of a trip. As planned, I rose 5:30 am Friday morning on February 3 to get a 6:00 am start on the road to Sedona, taking the highways via Palm Springs and through Phoenix. It was a grueling 7 hour drive when I arrived at a visitor center next to the marathon packet pickup location in Sedona. I was already mentally exhausted and dehydrated and suffering from the altitude adjustment since Sedona is at about 4500 feet. It was about 3:00 pm local time since Arizona does not practice daylight savings time. I had lost an hour I hadn't accounted for. I stopped in at the tourist info center to ask where I could find a campground and was directed to the only one the guy was aware of, but this hyper enthusiastic guy didn't let me leave without also hooking me to attend a time share infosession the day of the marathon, with a promise of a free helicopter ride over Sedona.

I picked up my race packet and located the campgrounds some 6 miles out of town along canyon road. After driving into what were very narrow campground roads lined with boulders, I managed to scratch up my car a bit and park in an empty site and quickly decided I really didn't like the place. For one, I had gone to lots of trouble to haul my 150+ pound telescope gear out with me to try to conduct some astronomical observing and perhaps photography during two nights of camping. These campgrounds were in a canyon and covered with trees; not at all conducive to star gazing. I struggled for 2-3 hours driving all around Sedona to find a better campsite before deciding to cut my time losses and return to car-scratch-ville to try to make a fire, eat dinner and get some sleep.

I remember I was already getting cold feet about the marathon. I had a headache from the altitude change and I was tired and on edge from the drive and trying to find a good camp site. I had never made a camp fire before so I struggled with that too, dertermined to use the food I had brought and not wuss out and use a restaurant. Eventually I did make a fire and felt like Tom Hanks in Castaway. The thrill of getting my camp fire burning and cooking eggs, beans, and potatoes over the coals, squatting there next to the fire and devouring the food with my hands. It reinvigorated me and made me feel like I could run the marathon again.

The temperature descended into the low 30s and I pitched a tent and was lying down by 10 pm. I didn't feel sleepy so I lay awake and new campers drove into camp, making noise. A group came in next to me and talked and listened to music through the night, finally dozing off at around 4:00 am, which is when I finally started to sleep.

I struggled throughout the night with the thought of abandoning the marathon altogether, running half of it, or just the 10k. I tested my right leg at rest stops on the drive up and my right heel was still feeling tight, and had been for weeks. This mental battle is perhaps the toughest part of training for an ironman. The question of whether you are doing too little or too much. Should I push on through the whole marathon and expect to be made stronger from it? Or will that destroy me for the next several days or even weeks and prevent training and ultimately sell me short of the level of endurance I may have attained.

Knowing that I have the LA marathon in March, the Wildflower half ironman in April, and full in June, and wanting to not debilitate myself, I decided after waking up at 5:30 that I was going to run the half marathon instead of the full. I could sleep 'til 7:00, then quickly pack up my tent and drive into town, get on the shuttle and be at the half marathon start at 8:15, instead of the marathon which started at 8:00. So that's what I did. Oddly enough I felt great and started to regret abandoning the marathon. When I got to the half turnaround, I briefly looked on and considered going the full course, as I watched two ladies beside me do, but I knew that could be the path to debilitating injury. Instead, I peeled off my running sandals and finished the half marathon barefoot. Something fun to give me consolation for not running the whole thing. I really enjoyed running those miles barefoot. Tons of other runners called out in shock seeing me run barefoot. A man running the race with his dogs joked with me that the dogs and I were the only barefoot runners out that day.

I ended up finishing the race feeling great with a barefoot sprint and a 2:03 finishing time, which is good consdereing the elevation and climbing involved in the course. My right leg never bothered me during the run, but paradoxiacally, my left did. As I wrtie this 4 days later, my left is fine, but my right is problematic again.

On the shuttle ride back from the race to the parking lot, I sat next to John from Texas and we talked about running, among other things. He said the last time he ran a marathon this guy passed him who was carrying a guitar and playing a song. There were live music bands along this marathon and up ahead was Elvis on stage, so this guy ran up on stage with Elvis and got his picture taken next to Elvis, then ran off. John never caught up to guitar playing runner again. John said to me, this guy must be doing something right. If you aren't out there to have fun then what the heck are you doing?

Driving back across that endless expanse of gorgeous desert and snow covered hills, I also remembered the big picture. I was so caught up in my narrow view of daily life I forgot how big it is out there. I think we all get caught up in so many trivialities day to day, we all could use a fresh perspective from time to time.

Training days

Today was a good day. Warm, sunny an dry. Lots of people out enjoying it, running at the Rose Bowl, swimming at the pool, and putting around Santa Monica getting in my way :)

The day started with a late wake up and breakfast, then some swimming. I swung by an endurance store in Santa Monica where Catra Corbett was sharing her stories about running. There was a man there who is running this nonprofit that takes veterans up the worlds 7 tallest peaks, including Everest. So the guy had been to the top of Everest. This was a coincidince because I had just finished reading "Into Thin Air" the previous night. Is life trying to tell me I should climb Everest?

Have been struggling recently with a running injury and soar throat that is lasting unusually long. I'm all angry about it because I can't run enough to train properly for the Sedona marathon, which is next week. Nobody ever said ironman training would be easy. After brunch with Catra, I wanted to see if I could do a long ride without any food, since this German guy named Jon who I run with sometimes boasted of riding 92 miles without food. After 75 miles today along PCH, I only have 17 to go, granted his may have had much more climbing, but I did battle fierce winds and rolling hills. I wondered how I'd feel after over five hours of no food and almost nonstop riding. The answer, pretty hungry, but I did feel pretty good and could have kept going, but it was about 6:00 pm when I finished, and dark, me riding without a light.

Tomorrow want to do a long trail run in the hills above JPL, at least 13 miles. Please right foot don't throw a fit at me.

Training for my first full Ironman

Ironman Coeur d'Alene is 22 weeks out (June 24, 2012) and I am 2 weeks through specific training. I made a new pair of running sandals and I like them, but dry winter weather combined with my huarache running and callouses that have formed on my feet have led to a split callous on the base of one of my toes, so I am running with toe sox in vibram fivefingers again, and thinking about super glueing this split skin back together. I ran the LA 13.1 half marathon yesterday at Venice beach. Woke up feeling very overtrained, which I was, having increased my training volume by more than 20% in the preceding week, so I almost climbed back into bed before heading out but something made me walk out that door. That's good because I don't run 13 miles often enough, and I actually felt pretty good - just 1:51 of steady pace at about 171 heart rate and a sprint finish the last half mile. It was the least fatigued I ever felt in a half marathon, so it's good to know my endurance is increasing.

I'm still working on my running form. A critique by my crossfit coach brought to my attention that even though I thought I was running with good form, my right foot has been pronating more than the left and I've not been lifting my knees. With that in mind I had a couple runs that felt really good in a way I hadn't felt before, with high knees and fast turnover, but I could tell from that half marathon that I still have work to do, since my right leg felt noticeably overworked compared to my left. That's a strange thing since I am sure it used to be my left leg that was getting overworked, as recently as two months ago.

Today I was custom fitted to my bike at Velo Studio in Burbank. They put my bike on a stationary trainer and attached motion capture markers to my joints and used cameras and a computer program to analyze my mechanics. We learned that I am right-side dominant, meaning I pedal more efficiently on my right, my bike seat was too low and my handlebars too high. A raise of the seat, bringing it forward a bit, and dropping and rotating the handlebars down, and some instruction on balanced pedaling with three pedaling styles: clawing, ankling and flat shuffling, and I rode home feeling about 15% more efficient on the bike. It turns out I have been riding with a cadence of about 60-65 which is too low, and I've been using too big a gear most of the time, so my focus for ironman is to use a lower gear and attain an average cadence of about 80.

My post ironman vacation was approved at work so I am going to start booking things for my summer trip to Europe. Going to ride ahead of the Tour de France again this year in the Pyrenees as part of an 8 person group of strong riders, including Tim Mitchell who I rode with last year and is a Kona Ironman finisher, then explore the Netherlands and get over to England and London for the opening of the 2012 summer olympics.

And from the literary realm, here is what has grabbed my attention recently.
"I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within than a secure future." - Chris McCandless aka Alexander Supertramp, from Jon Krakauer's book Into the Wild