Fast forward, I find myself as a mild manner product owner for an amazingly awesome social entertainment site by day (http://live.xbox.com/AvatarEditor/ even if I say so myself) and a super hero in training by night. The journey for super powers so far has been unsuccessful. I found it difficult to create a radioactive spider (all squashed by my wife), find a government program for super soldiers, or search Ebay for super hero gear (at least nothing in my price range). So I reflected inwards and meditated on the great teachings of George Lucas -- still nothing.Disheartened, this was the year to admit to the kids I didn’t have super powers. Then there were some glimmers of hope. In April, after a couple of years of no progress, there was a new personal best at 1:36 for the Race of the Roses half-marathon. A glimmer. Stagnant on the bike and not looking to see any improvement on long course triathlon races, I clocked a sub-2:30 for 56 miles (Ocean Shores Half-Iron Triathlon) with pace of near 23 mph (with winds blowing 15+ mph). With a personal best half-iron run, I took the win in my small age group. A glimmer. Then a fateful decision in late July, I will do Grand Columbian Iron-Distance triathlon in September and Ironman Cozumel in November. From zero to two iron distance races in 4 months.
I was discovering my inner force (thanks George). Training was going well, even with only 6 weeks to prepare for the Grand Columbian race. I was knocking out the fastest training runs and rides in two years. Then 4 days before the race, I started to come down with a cold. Things looked hopeless the day before the race with headaches and congestion, making it hard to breathe. The weather too wasn’t going to cooperate with winds constant at 20+ with gust upwards of 40 mph. Even so, I made a go of it. With only 50 people racing at that distance, it was unique to be able to know where you were within the group. It was a fun game of counting. Here’s how my race went: came out of the water in 43rd after a 2.4 mile swim, I had 112 miles of biking and progressed up to 18th, after 10 miles of the run I was 8th overall and tracking all the leaders on the two loops out and back, at mile 12 I was thinking of who ahead would blow up and allow me to continue to progress up the ranks, at mile 15-18 I blew up and was doing the zombie walk from sleepiness (sleeping only 3 hrs the night before), after heavy doses of cola I started running at mile 18 and finish 13th overall after the marathon. In the end, it was one of my most fun races, even if it’s not my fastest.
With less than 8 weeks between races, including recovery and taper, what would Ironman Cozumel look like? Unfortunately, I came out of Grand Columbian with a knee injury and my rush to start training again resulted in an ankle injury as well. Now with two weeks remaining, my knee and ankle are still injured and slowly mending. Of course, I had to significantly reduce my run and bike volume to allow my injuries to recover, which will make doing an Ironman more challenging. At least, I had time to get some swim coaching (from Ben Bigglestone from VO2 Multisport), hoping to offset the reduced run and bike training. With some tweaks to my technique, in training I noted some of the fastest continuous 100 yard times. A glimmer. So with only two weeks left until Ironman Cozumel, will the glimmers of strength within win or will the injuries and race conditions prevail. Oh the drama -- stay tuned.
In the end, I hope I can show my nieces and nephew that everyone has super powers deep inside. So if you wonder where I’ve been, why I’ve not blogged. I’ve been training to be a super hero.
definition: super powers – going beyond what you believe is possible.
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