Well, the morning started off with me having my transition point ganked by Athlete Number 948 who had apparently failed to realize that while number 948 was relatively close to 958 which was my number, they were not in fact one and the same. Luckily for her, Athlete Number 948 reappeared before I had the opportunity to douse her wetsuit in Tabasco or deflate her bicycle tires.

The incident was quickly forgotten however when, just five minutes later – I was at the inflation station letting the air out of the tires on my coach’s bike. To be fair, I hadn’t intended to let the air out of her tires but it sorta happened because, well, I’m retarded and I don’t know any better.

So it was that during the moments when my coach and I were supposed to be down at the beach enjoying a nice pre-race anxiety attack I was still in the transition area pleading with random strangers to please, please, please help me operate this hand-held device, I believe it is called a bicycle pump? Because I haven’t yet mastered the use of simple tools and I need to un-sabotage my coach’s equipment.

Finally we made it down to the beach in time to see this:

Of course video, photos and words cannot adequately convey the beauty of kelp forests or the thrill of the open water experience either and that kind of made up for the multiple elbows I took in the nose and having my goggles ripped off in the kelp.

In other words: the swim was crazy fun. However, I just have to ask: would it have been terribly unfair to shove the photographers off the cliff and into the sea? So far as I can tell there has never been a flattering photo taken of anyone wearing a wetsuit and I, for one, wouldn’t be heartbroken if I could make a beach exit without these people standing around prepared to create images of me looking like a bloated harbor seal.

Anyway, the rest of the race was pretty much a blur; I did intentionally crash on my way into Transition 2 when I failed to unclip from my bike in time. Basically, it came down to crashing or staying on the bike and being disqualified and I chose to eat asphalt. And if that choice makes no sense to you whatsoever then don’t worry – it just means your normal.

This is the entrance into T2 where every bicyclist except for me dismounted in an orderly  – and vertical – position. I only post this photo to show everyone the big DISMOUNT sign that notified people as far away as Japan that THOU SHALT GET OFF THINE BIKE HERE. And? Just in case athletes missed that message the sign was flanked by a bunch of over-caffeinated race officials shouting “DISMOUNT! DISMOUNT! DISMOUNT!”

Such features are very useful for people who, unlike me, have mastered the art of disengaging themselves from the tiny clips that keep their feet attached to their bike.

So after the swim was the bike and after the bike was the run and when my coach caught up to me during the run we looked at each other and simultaneously mouthed the words, “Dude, seriously… next year we sit on the sidelines and drink beer.”

If I don’t report back by Monday send out a search team.

Luckily for me there were at least a dozen cars waiting at the same light when I came along and gave them a story they’d be telling all night.

I was fairly non-descript at first: just another sasquatch out for an evening ride. Then the light turned red. And I couldn’t get my foot un-clipped. And then I still couldn’t get my foot un-clipped. And after several more seconds? I still couldn’t get my foot un-clipped. I’m sure my expression probably morphed into one of WTF?!?! as I reached the crosswalk, stopped, wobbled, pinwheeled my arms into empty air, and then tipped over onto the pavement.

Several cars honked as I lay there staring at the sky and thinking nasty thoughts about Lance Armstrong and Greg LeMond who, I’d be willing to bet, never endured the applause of four teenage boys in a Honda Civic after smashing themselves flat.

Then I thought that it was a pity that I was the one to fall because I’m sure it was a magnificent sight that I would have enjoyed thoroughly had I been watching and the subject of the falling not been myself.

Ok. For the last week.

Oh who am I kidding? I’ve been asking myself that question since a month ago when my quasi she’s-kind-of-my-coach divulged to me that, you know, that whole ocean swim thing? In water that’s only a few degrees shy of freezing and filled with jellyfish and kelp and great white sharks that are capable of killing you so dead you won’t move? She’s totally not done that like, ever. Not even so much as dipped a toe in the ocean. She just figured she’d prance down to the beach all La!La!La! this Saturday and just dive in.

Side note: that’s how I know that she’s a REAL Californian. Because most Californians are smart enough to know that dude! That water’s freezing. And they don’t go in. Our beaches are populated solely by out-of-state tourists who’ve seen too much Baywatch.

Side-side note: I’m so fucked.

Anyway, this here is probably a post that will come as close to honesty as you’ll ever get out of me and you can thank my profound fear of water for that. Or anxiety. Or the bottle of tequila that’s sitting on my desk mocking me with its emptiness because I finished it before it finished my anxiety about this Saturday.

And since alcohol is supposed to remove inhibitions can I just say one thing before I go on?

I love you guys. Like, love. No really. LOVE. My readers are the BEST. I LOVE YOU GUYS.

Can I just say one more thing? 1 mile swim. Through kelp. 25 mile bike ride. 6 mile run.

Reprise of side-side note: I’m so fucked.

So I figured that since my most recent triathlon started off with a swim during which I freaked out in a most royal fashion and nearly had to abort, (I didn’t, I finished the damned thing more out of spite for my fear of water than anything) I would watch videos of last year’s event so that I could get a better idea of what race day will be like and therefore be mentally prepared.

And here’s what I was treated to:

Addendum to the side-side note: I’m so totally fucked.

At least I have the out-and-back bike ride through Pebble Beach to look forward to. And the run is through Monterey’s Cannery Row, which should be a delightful experience if I should make it that far without drowning or being eaten by a shark first.

I’ve never been more frightened in my life.

And I do this for fun?

I always get pretty depressed about the end of my summer. Not so much the weather part of it. That is guaranteed to hang on for another three months in these parts. I’m a little bummed about the end of Official Summer during which there is no school, no PTA and therefore no obligation to set down the tequila or put on clothes. I’m not ashamed to admit it: summers around here are kinda sorta clothing optional. 

Not strictly speaking of course – we don’t run completely naked through the hallways of Matulich Manor – it’s just that short of a presidential visit, I rarely find occasion to dress myself or my offspring up in anything more formal than swimsuits. I even managed to start my own salsa company last July wearing nothing more complex than a stringy tie-dyed number.

Pajamas. Bikini. Pajamas. Bikini. Pajamas. Bikini. Sunrise. Sunset.

Therefore I figured that I’d mark the final morning of Official Summer by jumping into the ocean for a swim over and through the massive kelp forests of Monterey Bay. 

I even wore a bikini for the occasion because I’m sentimental like that.

And I wore a wetsuit over the bikini because dude, that water’s freezing.  

If a better way to spend time has ever been devised I have yet to discover it. There is nothing more enjoyable than treading water offshore in the lift and roll of swells, pulling oneself through kelp beds in a half swim half crawl and watching the tourists watch the sea from the sea. Where else but a kelp bed can you lay around and watch the harbor seals pop their cat-like heads up close enough to cop a whisker feel?

And when it was over I was kinda bummed that this really, truly was IT. The End. Adios. Over. Gone. The period at the end of a well-loved quote.

I tried to be ok with it. And I was for a little bit, until I found myself sitting at the top of the stairs at my in-laws house in Santa Cruz where I could still smell the saltwater and seaweed coming off my sand-covered flip flops.

And that’s when I realized that I need to sell a ton of salsa or begin a life of high-paying white collar crime so I can just hang out at the beach year round.

As if doing something stupid makes it less so when it is diluted and spread out among a greater sampling of humans. Like buying a Humvee. Or wearing crocs.

Anyway, here is a list of the stupid things I’ve done in the past week that no person in their right mind would ever fess up to:

- backed over something, stopped, rolled down my window and put my head outside – and then without confirming that what I had backed over was not, in fact, a dog or small child or some other legally recognized entity whose annhialation would result in me being sued - pulled forward, and then backed over it again.

- fed my kids several metric tons worth of chocolate, marshmallow and soda before allowing them to ride home inside the car instead of putting them in front and yelling Mush!

- Forgot to wear BodyGlide to the gym so that my running skirt wouldn’t ride up (at least the guy on the treadmill behind me didn’t seem to mind)

- answered the door for a Jehovah’s Witness

- locked my keys in the car

- locked my keys in the car with the kids (who were Not At All Helpful in unlocking the doors)

- locked my keys in the car and gained entry by crawling through the rear window when there was a perfectly good spare clicky-thing just ten feet away

- inadvertently introduced flax seed to my daughter’s diet

- plotted a ten mile run for Sunday, answered the phone, became sidetracked during phone conversation, finished plotting run without really looking, fled house, returned twelve-point-two miles later wondering why I felt so beat up.

Please tell me I’m not alone in this. What kind of goofy stuff have you done this week?

It’s Saturday morning. You throw back the sheets, grab a yogurt and juice before pulling on a pair of shorts, applying BodyGlide and filling up your water pack. Tie on your running shoes and hightail it out the door. Today’s a long run. You could gone anywhere between ninety minutes and four hours.

No keys. No ID. No cash. No cell phone.

That’s what this woman did last Saturday.

This is Nancy Cooper of Cary, North Carolina. She is a 34 year old mother of two in training for a half marathon. She went out for a long run last Saturday and hasn’t been seen since.

Like the majority of us who run are prone to do, she left her home wearing less than two pounds of clothing and carrying nothing that would help her in the event of an emergency. Her husband was familiar with her favorite trails but confesses he wasn’t informed of her exact route that morning. Now the only thing he can do is cooperate with police, the national guard and post developments on nancycooper.blogspot.com in an effort to find his missing wife.

As always, it takes an unfortunate event like this for us - and I include myself in that statement – to begin discussing safety on the run. If my running readers are anything like me or the people I run with around here then there are a bunch of us whose photo may end up on the front page of our local papers next to the sentence, “Last seen wearing a white T-shirt, black running shorts and grey running shoes.”

So let’s discuss this. I’ll go first with my suggestions since it’s my blog and I hope that my readers who are runners will then chime in with their own suggestions:

#1 – Let people know where you are. Telling someone where you are is a good thing. Showing them where you are is even better. Programs such as Gmap pedometer make it easy to plot a run and leave the window open on the home computer until you return, just in case your whereabouts become an issue.

Also, don’t think that being single and childless means that you have to forego being accounted for. Before I was a married mom my dad would insist that I call him before every run and let him know which route I was taking. Though he was unfamiliar with the city I was living in it always made him feel better knowing that if something happened he had solid locations in the event I didn’t call him back when I returned from my run.

The best part about Gmap? You can e-mail it to the person you’ve entrusted to keep track of you.

#2 – Road ID. Yeah, most of our clothes don’t have pockets and carrying a housekey – much less a license – is a pain in the ass.

Still, it’s hard to argue the importance of identification in the event that something happens to you. I discovered this the hard way when I bonked during a distance event and found myself on all fours vomiting into the grass. (See #3: Self Rescue)

I was disoriented and shaky and only made it to the finish line when a girlfriend of mine – noting my face-downedness – marched my heaving butt to the finish line under her watchful gaze. But what would have happened if someone I knew hadn’t come along?

While most distance events will have roving medics on bikes patrolling the course, the same is not true of our training runs. Also, while we runners often pride ourselves on taking care of each other and being helpful to runners in distress, that offer of assistance isn’t going to be worth a whole lot if you’re a diabetic experiencing insulin shock and your Asics-wearing good Samaritan is trying to force nothing but water down your gullet.

Medic alert bracelets are an excellent start but they don’t do much for those of us without pre-diagnosed medical issues. The bonking incident is what spurred me to purchase a RoadID. Road IDs are simple metal tags that can be worn on your shoes, ankles, or wrists with your name, emergency contact and other pertinent info engraved right into the metal.

* Remember to have someone else’s cell phone engraved into the metal because having your own number isn’t going to do you a hell of a lot of good if you’re the one who is snake-bit, passed out, or otherwise incapacitated.

#3 – Self-Rescue. Self-rescue was a term I heard a lot when I was obtaining my dive certification and means, basically, that when you undertake a certain activity you should be prepared to cope with unforeseen circumstances on your own because help may never come.

I believe that this is an idea applicable to running as well.

How do we participate in self-rescue? By letting people know exactly where we are and when. By wearing identification. But also by taking care of ourselves before an accident even occurs:

- Hydrate. The bonking incident I described above could have been prevented if I had simply worn my CamelBak (which was, incidentally, sitting in the trunk of my car at the finish line.) My decision to leave it behind (to save weight) was a stupid and irresponsible rookie move that cost my friend the new PR she was seeking.

Runners tackling distances greater than a few miles should always take water/Gatorade and Gu with them every single time. For me, anything over ten miles puts me into an effort level that requires readily available hydration. Plus, as mileage increases so does your distance from home-base and the potential for serious trouble. Prepare accordingly.

- Know your limits. Don’t head out for a ten mile run in the midday heat if your previous running experience consists of half hour stints on the treadmill at the gym. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen someone hauled off a course by medics because they had not properly trained and had no business being there in the first place.

- Buddy up. When possible, run with someone else. If you can’t find a reliable training partner then at least run in well-populated areas where help will be immediately available should something happen.

- Sunscreen, hat, sunglasses. You’ll be surprised at how easy it is to stave off heat exhaustion with a few simple precautions.

#4 - You’ll never, no matter how fast you are, be able to outrun a mountain lion. There were a couple years back in the nineties when it seemed like you couldn’t turn the television on without hearing about some yuppie asshole who got himself eaten while running. Here’s a tip: if your favorite running spot is shaping up to be an all-you-can-eat buffet for the local fauna then it’s time to pick a new running spot.

In other words, maintain a reasonable awareness of the inherent risks of your fave runs. Mountain lions can pick you off in El Dorado Hills, sleeper waves can get you at Ocean Beach, and the heat will follow you just about everywhere else. Consider the conditions in which you are running and plan accordingly.

Now I’ve had my say, what say you?

Or at least I’d offer to wash his or her car.

Normal people stop here. Runners, read on. What I’m about to tell you will make you think Body Glide was a yawn of an invention:

Ladies and gentlemen? I give you the world’s finest running shoe. One that normally retails for $135… and I snagged a pair on E-Bay for $41.

Yes, you really are looking at a pair of brand new Asics Gel Kayanos. In the box. Never worn. 14s even, so you know they’re not a part of somebody’s failed New Year’s resolution from back in 1998.

Fleet Feet had better prepare for layoffs because I’m diverting my rather substantial running shoe fund to E-Bay.

** Addendum for my dearest commenter Alice:

14 is the shoe’s “edition” designation and not my size. Last year the latest Kayano was a 13, this year it’s 14, next year will be 15…. you dig?

In other words: I do NOT have big feet!

For someone who is six feet tall.

Thank You,
Management

This, my friends, is the Nike Running Skort, or – as I like to call it – several yards of fabric that distinguish me from the legions of female runners who look like they entered the world as William or Bill or Mack or Buddy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

As a few of my long-time readers may already know I have spent the last several years rehabbing a hamstring injury and personally? I can’t come up with a better way to celebrate convalescence than to go out and hurt myself again. So I’ve hit the road and in doing so I have re-discovered that the biggest obstacle to my enjoyment of this sport is not the crappy energy bars, race day Port-A-Potty lines, squeezing in two-hour runs, an irrational fear of Gu, or even being run over and bloodied by Kenyans.

My biggest problem is finding running clothes that don’t make me look like a dude.

So you’ll have to excuse me for using this blog entry to lay some love on Nike. It is only because some enterprising capitalistic kind, benevolent soul on their research and development team thought I know! Let’s make women’s apparel look, like, feminine and stuff! that I can now shimmy into a running skort and let the world know I’m proud to be a chick instead of schlepping down the road looking like some pre-op tranny.

…not that there’s anything wrong with that.

So here you go Lori, although I think I’m going to let this post stand alone and outside of the whole BlogHer thing. 

Dear Body,

Hey, how’s it going? Pretty good I hope? Things are going pretty well here too, but I guess you already knew that.

So, um, anyway. I was kind of hoping to tell you thanks. You know, for like, seeing me through the last 34 years. I mean, it would probably have been easier for you when – during that last stint in Mexico – we were faced with a dozen beers and horse-killing amounts of tequila to simply say “forget it” but you didn’t. (Not to say you didn’t exact your revenge the next day as I spent several hours dragging you by your forearms to the bathroom while wishing I was dead, but in the end you decided to keep the lights on and let me live to see another day even though I probably didn’t deserve it. Viva la gringa indeed.)

Uh… yeah. So thanks for not killing me back then. Also, thanks for not quitting on me throughout the many abuses I’ve heaped on you over the years. Like that time in college when I wrecked my motorcyle in the middle of Fair Oaks Boulevard. Yeah, if I were you (which I am, kind of) I’d be pretty pissed about the fact that I managed to pitch you over the handlebars and get you run over by my then-unmanned bike. At least you and I were able to get the number of that nice waiter who ran out of Piatti’s to help you get out of the street.

Thanks too, for putting up with my dumb ass during those college years when I experimented with stuff that – as my friend Denise often said – “was made in people’s bathrooms”. I shudder when think back to all the chemical garbage I subjected you to even as I’m simultaneously relieved to have a justification for having spent those years as a registered Democrat.

You know what I’m most grateful for body? You’re energy levels, your strength, and your ability to endure.

You sustained two pregnancies and let me keep running well into the second trimester both times. You delivered two healthy and happy babies with nary a complaint and then gave me the energy to tend to them. Your ability to replicate yourself within my children is something that gives me pause whenever I see my son’s blue eyes or comb my hands through my daughter’s impossibly thick blond hair.  

You have completed eighteen mile “fun runs” and pushed your way up Hurricane Point. You never seem to mind slopping around in 10 kilometers worth of mud. Sometimes you object when I drag you into a one-hundred-and-five degree room for yoga, but only a little.

Body, you have been patient with me in every endeavor I have undertaken whether it be diving into the ocean, throwing myself out of an airplane or hiking up the back of Half Dome.

I am very lucky to have you. You have not betrayed me by developing cancer, debilitating diseases or other chronic ailments. You have equipped me with the energy to properly care for and enjoy my family. I have eyes that see, ears that hear, and a mind that works tolerably well (depending on which of my family or friends you’re asking.) Sure, there was that time you threw in a hamstring injury for giggles but now that that’s over I think we can be friends again.

I have to say that after 34 years I’ve got no complaints.