Sickly thoughts...

I have tendency to get ill after big races or races that just take a lot out of me (due to the fact that they are so damn fun, HOLLA NEWS TEAM!). It used to be reach the beach, but I've mastered my ability to sleep, wake up, run, take a shot and go back to bed.

Then it was ironmans, luckily for me I was on cloud 9 and in great weather. I was weary about coming home to the cold, but the first few days were not bad at all. Until Tuesday morning. A 15 year old patient of mine came in looking sick as a dog. She told me she had a sinus infection. Uh oh, I had one of those last year and it took 3 months to go away. Well, needless to say I was sick Wednesday, Thursday I called in sick, Friday I struggled to get to work. I rallied for the weekend (typical right?) but Monday I had to call out sick again. Well, since I was out of sick time I was wasting precious vacation time. Finally got to the doctor today and he hooked me up with antibiotics that appeared as if they were for elephants. I mean, these pills were HUGE. Whatevs, I take musinex foo, I got this.

Being sick usually means sitting at home, reading the interwebs while blowing through boxes upon boxes of tissue paper (pun intended) with a side dish of video games. It's been a while since I've been so sick where I needed to take more than 1 day off from work. It's just not my nature, I prefer to just suck it up. I guess it's appropriate that I do stay home. I'm a health care practitioner, no one wants their therapist coughing on them.

This time, for better or for worse I noticed myself in a way that I may not have noticed (or have noticed but not cared). Over the past 7 months I've been constantly busy. Whether it be training, social obligations, personal developments (oh, lets be real. it was probably spent at the rock gym or training) I haven't really had a lot of "free" time. Here I am ripping through the box of tissues, sitting on my chair with a hot cup of tea and reading random what nots on the internet and playing e-mail tag with my friends at work.

Is this what I do with my free time when I'm not preoccupied with goals (and not sick as well). Gosh, I sure hope not. It seemed rather sad, wasteful almost that a perfectly good book sits right in front of my keyboard (one that I have enjoyed greatly thus far I may add) and about 30 unread books sit on my bookshelf (no, I'm not a hoarder, one of my ex's was quite the reader and left me a bunch of books that she thought I would enjoy. I'm sad to admit that I've only gotten through 2-3 of them fully). So there I was, a personal moment. I would love to see a pie graph of my chart and see what it is composed of. Take away sleep, education, eating, work and see what you have left. It's like saying bloody mary as a child. You want to do it because you're curious, but you're afraid of what you may see, even though you know it's probably not true. In my case, I'm worried that a majority of my time is wasted, though it's probably not true. Better be sure, time to stop blogging and read a book.

Of course sushi is a perfect acceptable meal when you are extremely ill.

Repeat performance?

Since I made my breakfast post the other day I've been asked whether or not I get sick of eating the same thing everyday. Well, there are a few things I want to address: 1) I don't eat the same thing every day. 2) If I liked it and it was good for me why would I get sick of it? 3) Maybe I do eat the "same" thing everyday. You decide! I've been feeling under the past few days, perhaps sinusitis (sinus infection for all you non medical people). Coming back from a warm, humid environment to sub freezing temperatures and dry heat probably did me in. Been pretty congested but I'm finally starting to feel a better. Normally, when not feeling great I prefer a warm breakfast. A liquid based one with some hearty veggies, think crock pot with a meatball or two. But today I decided to go cold, it's quite gloomy out with the impending storm tonight so I wanted to brighten up my morning.

It looks similar to the last one but it's a bit different. 3 large tablespoons of full fat greek yogurt smorgasbord of fruit (this time with more berries and kiwi) - it's quite amazing what a few changes in fruit does to the whole meal 1 pinch of chia seeds 1 pinch of flax seeds 2 teaspoons of savanah honey Is it the same? Yes and No. But the important question is whether it was delicious and that comes with an astounding YES!

"Vacation, part 2"

Once I crossed the finish line, celebrated with my friends via high five's I moved onwards to get my medal. It was a pretty one, different than the standard medals they gave out this year. I'm glad they did, it's an ironman, you shouldn't have cookie cutter medals. I was pretty grateful to receive a medal. It's not the reason I race, but it's a nice reminder of the sacrifices I made and commitment I made to myself and living a healthier lifestyle as it hangs on my wall. I do feel for those folks that finished IMFL this year and the race ran out of medals. tsk tsk WTC, tsk tsk. I saw my friends again, we took some photos (mike just recently setup an FTP server for us to share all the pics/vids, so I'll have to edit the photo in later).

I headed to the athlete tent and found my way to some food. Dominos pizza and cup O noodles. Not the best stuff for ya but let me tell you this. There is nothing better than calorie dense junk food/crap food post race. I'm pretty sure by the time I had eaten the slice of pizza and started the noodles that my body had already digested the pizza. I literally ate like 600 calories right then and there and felt hungrier than when I had started. I walked around for a bit in search of a space blanket, from there I made my way to the massage tent. I had skipped the massage tent at IMWI because my friend Erin was there to cheer and help me bring my stuff back, she was studying for med school exams and I was feeling pretty good so I just walked back to the hotel and what not. This time around the villa was about 9 miles away, so why not. I got in, barely had to wait 2 minutes and was called over by a very nice lady, Ruby. Ruby congratulated me helped me take my shoes and socks off (which was really weird, I was totally fine) and asked me what was hurting. For me, it's always my shoulder and neck after a long bike ride and marathon, my legs were not terrible at all. She went to town and beat the daylights out of me, it was incredible. While getting worked on I decided that it would be nice to return the favor and get a real massage from her later in the week. I asked her where she worked and told her I would be there. Low and behold, this resulting in bonus massage time. Saweet! I finished the massage, found my friends and got my bike. I headed into the mega pelican grocery store to change into street clothes, dropped my bike off to TBT (TBT is in the garage of the mega store for those racing next year) and headed out to find the gang.

I had decided that I wanted to stay out and wait for TM to finish. It was her first IM and I wanted to be there to support her. I missed out on Konstantin at IMWI because I drank milk and became violently ill (I'm intolerant to milk, oops). I knew she wasn't far behind me, but I also knew It would be about a 2-2.5 hour wait. It was fine, I hung for a bit and after an hour or so I started feeling weak. I ended up grabbing some food, which helped but another 30 mins went by and I was starting to have cold sweats. I decided that I needed to walk around, try to use the porta john and see where I went from there. No use, I told the folks that I was heading home. But right as I was about to leave something clicked and I felt a little better. I got back to the finish line JUST in time to see TM cross. She was so excited she ran right by all of us screaming at her.

We got our hugs and what not and waited for her to come out of the athlete area. I'll never forget the look on her face. Relief, satisfaction, happiness, you name it and it was there. I ran up, gave her a huge hug and we shared a word or two about how glad we were to have shared such an awesome experience together. Honestly, seeing her cross the finish line was way more exciting than crossing the finish line myself.

We gathered her things and headed back to the house, where surprisingly we didn't all just crash. We stayed up, shared stories of our day (some of the best stories were from the spectators. mexican superman anyone?). We laughed, bitched, moaned, laughed some more and eventually all made our ways into a restful night. 

Monday came around and we decided to rent a van and show everyone the course. We headed into town, had burritos (of course we had burritos) and rented a van. Manny was kind enough to chauffeur us around, which was great considering 1 rita and I'm almost under the table, 2 ritas and I think I'm speaking fluent spanish and 3 ritas and I'm on the fast track to sleeping at the front doorsteps. We drove around the island, stopped to take some photos and to pick up some gifts. It was really nice to see the eastern side of the island on two feet. It was much calmer on Monday. Made me wish that the race was on Monday instead of Sunday, I'm confident I would have been 20-30 mins faster on the bike had it not been the wind. 

We drove up the whole eastern side of the island and right before it takes a left to head into the city (crossing the island) is a nice place called Mescalitos. Here we stopped for dinner. I must say, this is a must go to spot at cozumel. Hammocks for you to nap on the beach after eating, great drinks (small drinks, but great; both ritas and mojitos) and pretty darn good food. I ordered two dishes, because I hate passing up more good food. One caveat is that the place closes when the sun sets, there is NO lighting. but i think it came out to like 200 bucks american for 6 people to eat and have drinks. It was quite a good bargain. 

On the drive home the sun totally set and while driving I noticed a lot of little flashes outside. It reminded me of the time in PA while cycling cross country in 2009. LIGHTING BUGS/ FIREFLIES! They were out by the millions. We pulled over to observe/enjoy the site. It was quite marvelous. On one side you hand the island that was glowing the the bugs, on the other side you had the sound of the ocean and glowing of more bugs. It was quite surreal. We arrived home and finished our night strong with some pool activities and conversation with the Guatemalans who also stayed at the villa and raced.

My favorite "shot" of Manny

Start your day light!

Ahh, the dilemma of breakfast. It's 6:20am, your alarm just rang and you realize you have 25 minutes to get up, brush, dress, take the dog out and pray that it's not sub 40 so you don't freeze for the first 10 minutes of the drive to work. Then it hits you, BREAKFAST. Well, your options are limited. Grab whatever there is in the fridge, go to dunkins or starbucks or just grab a bar to go.

If you think about it, it takes an average of 5-10 minutes to get through dunkins or starbucks, at least at the ones I frequent. It takes less than 3 minutes to whip up a healthy breakfast and even less if you prep it the night before. I guess healthy is subjective. I consider yogurt, flax, honey and fruit to be a healthier alternative to starbucks and dunkins, though some could argue that the sugars and fats are not "good" for me. That's another story for another day.

I believe in starting my day out light. Who died and made eggs, sausage, toast and hash a breakfast food? Personally, I prefer something like that at dinner. Something heavy to put me right to sleep. Start my day like that? Sure, I'll do it because I am accustomed to it but I really don't feel great afterwards. Life is short. Or as Gretchen Rubin would say "the days are long, but the years are short". Well, if the days are indeed long, I want to start off right. I also don't drink coffee (when I do have coffee, it's because I like the taste). My good friend Alden once pointed out that he ate a fruit whenever he felt sleepy, the natural sugars gave him a boost. I thought he was full of it but here I am, eating fruit for breakfast to feel more awake.

                                       

Breakfast:
Full fat greek yogurt: I just got into the greek yogurt "craze". I like it because for its consistency.
Raw honey (teaspoon)
2 teaspoon of raw organic flaxseed (crushed/shaved/whatever)
Smorgasbord of fruit: today it's kiwi, cantaloupe, strawberry, blueberry, grapes and pineapple.
- I buy the fruit spread at wholefoods for 20 bucks and it lasts about 10 days. Yes, I know this is expensive but you know what? The fruit is always sweet, never sour, it's always fresh and I am much more likely to eat it if I don't have to wash/cut/peel and pack it.

And so it begins! (ironman cozumel race report as well)

For those who know me this blog has been in the works for almost a year now. By "in the works" what I really mean is that I have been sitting around waiting for something to write about. In fact, I'm not much of a writer. I'm a talker. I avoid writing because my spelling can be atrocious, my grammar is pretty bad and I absolutely hate capitalizing letters when typing. Perhaps it's because I've been spoiled by Microsoft Word, perhaps I'm just lazy. But honestly, I've just been pretty busy over the past year. Most of my time has been taken up with Ironman training, attempting to keep a social and balanced lifestyle. I've learned a lot over the past year, here is my first attempt at possibly helping you, my viewer improve yours. 

Slight disclaimer: I am NOT an organize writer, I do not edit my posts, I don't reread them, I don't proofread them, I don't really care if it helps you or not, I just hope it does. So please, if you don't like it, you're one left click away from never coming back, no need to let me know how much I suck at blogging ;-).

For those who don't know me. My name is John and I work as a physical therapist in a small private practice. My patients are generally curious as to where I am going when I say that I am going on vacation, my first "vacation" after securing a job in the real world was a 7 day expedition in northern Maine to climb Mt. Katahdin, after that I spent a week in Lake Placid and Montreal for Ironman Lake Placid. With the exception for a stop in Vegas/San Fran for a wedding I've never traveled for the sake of traveling according to my patients. They think that I'm always doing something crazy. Such as climbing Mt. Rainier, running ultra relays, marathons or ironmans. I guess the allure of sitting on a beach with a mojito and a book for 7 days just doesn't get me all giddy. I've been reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. Her blog can be found by clicking the link I provided. In her book one line stood out "the days are long, but the years are short", I couldn't agree more. Life is short, why not live the most awesome life possible. Awesome can mean a lot of things. Awesome for me means a life full of all the good emotions and ones that make you a better person or ones that make you appreciate what you have versus what you want/don't have. The same can be said for vacations. Some people go on vacation to get away from the real world, to take a break from the mundane actions of the 9-5. I go on vacations to experience more, to see the "9-5" of other cultures. With that, I'll segue into my "vacation" to Cozumel, Mexico.

My vacation started early, 4:30am early I believe. For some reason I thought it was a good idea to schedule at 6:30am flight out of Logan International Airport. Whatever, it'll get us to Cancun by 12:30 and we'll get to Cozumel by 3pm. Well, I forgot that I was going to Mexico and Mexico time is US time + 30 mins per hour. Obviously we miss the ferry we wanted to take, but things worked out in Playa. We ate and chilled till the next ferry and watched the sun set as we made our way across the channel to Cozumel. I find it interesting that people set schedules on vacations, yes it's great to have order, but because our schedule fell apart we had some killer margaritas, good food (we were all pretty hangry by that point anyways) and we even saw our first rainbow of the trip. Nothing more manly than 3 men eating tex mex (I had the fried red snapper btw) drinking fruity drinks and admiring a rainbow. 

We arrived to Cozumel and was expecting our house manager to pick us up/meet us but he was nowhere to be found. We didn't have an exact address and the cabbies had no idea where our house was. All we knew was that it was on the weastern side of the island, south of the city. Apparently in Mexico, that's good enough and off we went. A few dirt roads ending in dead ends with our cabby saying (insert Mexican accent) "don't worry, I'm not going to kill you, hahahaha" and we made it to our Villa. We later found out that there is quite the taxi Mafia, people are not allowed to pick people up, forcing everyone to take a cab. Makes sense. We meet Rodrigo, our house manager and he lets us in. The place is pretty awesome, 3 bedroom, 3.5 bath with an upstairs deck off the master bedroom. Needless to say we were pretty pooped, we didn't bother eating and went straight to bed. Lesson of the day, when traveling make enough time for meal breaks. I'm more happy when I'm fed and according to studies, when you are more happy those around you are more happy.

FYI: Tony doesn't really make tortas, he's more of a burrito guy, but I went down the street to get bread, so he made me a torta :-D

Thurdsay: TM and Katie arrive today, but we figured they would have the same issues we had and not get in until 7-8pm. We had a full day and Chad and I were up by 6:30. by 7:30 we decided we were starving and headed into the city without Mike. We asked the cabby for a good recommendation for a place to eat, STUPID. He took us to a tex mex place on the main strip and literally walked us to the restaurant. Glad we helped him make a commission. To his credit, the smoothies there were really good. We finish eating, walk around a bit and meet with Mike at the ferry. Of course he's hungry so we just start walking around. We find this little hole in the wall burrito joint called Burritos Gorditos. I'm not going to say much about this place, other than it was absolutely amazing. If you go to Cozumel and you don't visit Eusebio aka "Tony" you did not experience all of Cozumel. The man is just an awesome guy, I've never met someone with such a genuine outlook on life. He always had a smile. You leave happier, not just because the food is great (it's also 65 pesos for a large burrito, that's INSANE) but because his personality is awesome.

Mike and Chad were kind enough to accompany me to register, get my bags and buy my obligatory IMCoz pint glass, poster and t-shirt. I saw along line and figured I had to get into it, people were saying that was the line to register. After about 10 minutes I realized that it might have been the line to pay for the 10 dollar Mexican Triathlon one day pass. I skipped to the front, asked and yeap, that's what it was for. I then walked over, grabbed my bags and was on my way. Funny thing is I didn't have to show any proof that I did pay for the 10 dollar day pass (I did, though). As I made my way through the Expo (it wasn't as bad as people said it was) the line came to a stop, everyone stood still for a good 15-20 minutes. Apparently the computers went down and no sales could be made. Pretty frustrating, not because I had to wait, but I felt bad my 2 friends were waiting for me. Everything worked itself out, I spent too much money and we headed to the grocery store and shopped for a Mexican Thanksgiving. The result was chicken and chorizo tacos. Which was spectacular. So good TM decided to play rhino. Once we finished grocery shopping I went to pick up my bike from TBT. Watching so many people lug their bikes from the ferry made me wonder if TBT was worth the money. But in the end, 400 bucks to not have to worry if your bike will get to the race was really not that bad. I had more freedom and relaxation during the trip because of it. That alone was worth 400 bucks. The best part was watching the faces of other athletes as I grabbed my bike. Everyone laughed at how much crap I had attached to my bike. Jokes on them I guess, TBT brought my stuff for me, they lugged it all the way from their homes. I didn't do much, just a 20 mile brick. Went to Punta sur and came back. Kept my HR low (first time riding outdoors with HR monitor), averaged 20mph feeling extremely easy, which made my really happy since TBT took my bike 3 weeks early. Ran 2.5 miles pretty easy. My leg pain (which I think is early onset stress fracture) hurt for the first 10 mins then felt better as a I ran. Nothing I can do now, I rested as much as I could, perhaps the Ultra Relay in San Diego 2 weeks ago wasn't that great of an idea, ha ha.

 

Thursday night was pretty quite otherwise, for a normal IM I would have had all my stuff packed and ready to rock and roll but this was a slightly different atmosphere, much less serious. After dinner we were all pretty pooped and called it a night by 10:30-11ish.

Friday morning and I'm up at 7am. We decided that the girls had to eat at Burritos Gorditos, so of course, that's where we head. After breakfast we get TM her stuff go grocery shopping again explore the town a bit and head back. I did a short brick with TM. We rode to punta sure again, met some folks from Denver who were doing their first IM and took some pics (they still owe us a photo!), got back and did a short 15 minute run. After showering I realized that the bike dropoff was tomorrow! I started stressing a bit and packing all my gear and prepping the bike. We have dinner on the roof deck and I finish the rest by the end of the night.

Saturday and I'm up early again. I had been setting the alarm to progressively wake me up earlier each day since race day I had to be up at 3:30 for my first meal. Luckily I had been going to bed pretty early and waking up before my alarm each of the days. It was quite the breath of fresh air to wake up on your own, refreshed. Perhaps this is what vacation really is about. Saturday was pretty uneventful, we took it easy, I had some guilt that my friends were wasting a vacation day, but everyone seemed pretty content to just chill at the villa. We ended up going out to dinner in town at a little place called Kinta, with the exception of the house cat, the place was pretty cool. We ate outdoors in the back patio (bug spray required). The food was pretty good and pretty nicely priced. I normally don't go out to eat and drink anything other than wine before an ironman, but what the hell. When in Cozumel right? Had myself a margarita, it was well worth it.

Sunday morning comes and I wake up early, we called a cab the night before so we were set. The whole house woke up and came out with us. We stayed just 1.5 miles south of Chankanab Park, so it was a quick ride over. I got an e-mail that they shortened the swim and was busing folks to the presidential hotel for a straight 1.94 mile swim. Part of me said damn, that sucks, but part of my was relieved. The swim has always been my weakest of the 3 sports (granted I don't train much for the swim) and the waters were really rough from wed-sat and I would have been in for a LONG day if that's how the waters were going to be. Fortunately the waters were pretty calm sunday morning, even then the swim didn't go without a hitch. I started off in back, as always. Probably due to my lack in confidence. But that will change at the next race. I easily swam past a few hundred people, I was really surprised to see how many people were breast stroking, doggie paddling and back stroking withing 1/4 mile of the swim. I thought I was bad, sheesh, at least I didn't have to stop and rest on the swim. The swim was nice, we had a mild current which helped, it got slightly choppy at the end but otherwise was nice. The water in Cozumel is extremely salty, so buoyancy wasn't a problem. That, along with my brand new kiwami suit had me feeling good in the water. I tried to relax and enjoy the swim, but at some parts the currents were pushing me into the coral/rocks (I tried to stay left of the pack). I ended up pushing a little to get away from some folks, went in and out of being in the zone and had a decent swim overall. Even if they didn't cut the .46 off the swim I think I would have PR'd my ironman swim. I can't imagine me taking 25 more minutes to swim .46 in that water. It is what it is. Getting out of the water I was surprised as to how many people were walking, I got up to a run grabbed a few water bags and did my best to rinse the salt off. I got into the tent, grabbed what I needed, ate a gu and made my way to the my bike and to the mounting line. In my previous races my swim to bike transitions have always been slow. I really made an effort to speed it up, doing my first flying mount ever. It was a lot easier than I had expected.

So off I go, I immediately start eating, ate a potato and 1/2 of a honey stinger waffle, down some water and start riding. My HR was at 140, which means nothing to me, but I felt good so I used that as a baseline for easy effort. Yes, I know, I should have figured this stuff out pre-race. I know my body and I have been able to do stuff like this in the past. I heard about the notorious drafting at Cozumel and I wanted to make sure I raced my own race. I really do feel that racing honorably and fighting the urge to cheat is an integral part of our sport. Unfortunately a lot of folks think differently. Immediately starting out there were big draft lines, no one was legally riding the 4 bike lengths apart. Granted this was the first 3-5 miles, so you can't really blame anyone, I expected things to break apart by the time we hit punta sur. Unfortunately it didn't. I personally don't care much for folks to draft others, but I care less for those who try and draft me. Don't steal my hard work. I noticed this guy michael from the usa sucking the wheel of this lady from south africa. i pulled up to his side stared at him and shook my head and pulled away, not long after they pulled past me and we yoyo'ed again. My 2nd time passing them I said "you know this is a non draft legal race right?" the lady was surprised, looked back and cut right. She pulled up and thanked me, we shared a word and she moved on wards. At this point mr mike was pretty annoyed at me I think. A clash of the egos came into play for a while. He pulled up by my side and didn't make a pass, perhaps he was trying to get me penalized for not backing off, I thought of that so I backed off.  The problem is that I was faster than he was so I went around him after backing off and realizing he couldn't hold that pace. As I made my pass he sped up and didn't let me pass. This went on for about 1-2 mile and I thought enough was enough. If I put down some watts I would drop him and he wouldn't be able to keep up. I didn't make a hard push, but it was strong enough and sudden enough where he wasn't able to lock my wheel and that was the last I saw of him. Once I turned the Punta Sur corner I felt the force of the island. HOT DAMN it was windy. I kept my own and did my own thing. It was annoying but I passed a few packs and was eaten up by a few packs. The packs of cozumel made riding very difficult/annoying. You try to ride left of the pack on your own but you are concerned you're in the way of the faster cyclist trying to pass, you ride to the right and there is a log jam with slower riders the pack is passing. I spent a lot of energy getting away from the packs and maneuvering around them than I did fighting the damn wind. The first lap goes as planned, I felt great, nutrition was perfect. Did my first piss on the bike, it was gross but I was able to rinse off with water. By the 2nd lap past Punta Sur I had realized that the first lap took more out of me than expected, I was still keeping a good pace, but holding 20mph was more work, HR increased to high 140's low 150's. I made sure to drink more water as it was pretty warm. I pulled in to get my special needs bag, added sunblock and off I went. I caught the pack that was trying to eat me up and left them in the dust. Honestly though, there was a point where I could have let them go but was so annoyed that I pulled passed them, rode about 10 yards in front of them and looked back with my, "ya'll are weak as shit" face. Well, that deemed to be stupid. By the 3rd lap those efforts took their toll. I was still riding ok, but 20mph average came down to 18mph and on the eastern side we're talking 14-16. Again I was fighting the packs and trying to not let them eat me up, I passed a few only to be eaten up. I then committed the cardinal sin. I drafted. I like to ride, I take pride in not drafting, when I'm training I hate being in back, I always get up front and pull until people are annoyed that it's their turn. But after being eaten up by this one pack halfway up the eastern side (right past the coconut cliff bar) I gave in. I spent too much energy and latched into the middle of the pack for about 5 minutes. It was the recovery I needed and I was able to pull off and leave the pack behind me. I guess at that point in time my brain just justified the drafting because I had done so much work to not draft that I deserved to get some of that credit back. Who knows, it is what it is. I'm not proud of it, but I don't necessarily feel like I "cheated" 5 minutes in a 10:54:48 race isn't a big deal. Plus it's not like I'm not working in that 5 minutes, I was rider #2. Anyways, enough with the lame justification. I finish the bike with a 19.2mph. 1-2mph less than I expected but I knew that I still had a marathon to run and I knew that I didn't kill myself on the bike and burn myself for the run. I knew I had a gu in my t2 bag and I was desperately waiting for it. I had about 2k calories on the bike and was left with 1 gu packet for the last 20 miles. I was really really hungry, a gatorade would have helped, but they ran out on lap #3.

I get off the bike and I'm getting dragged to the ladies tent. Being a short guy, with helmet on with a long pony tail doesn't bode well. They realized I was a dude and sent me along the right direction. My T2 was slower than I had expected, but I got off ok, I made some adjustments to the timing chip the first 1/4 mile of the run, from there I grabbed whatever water I could and dumped it on myself. I had to pee so at mile 2 so I did, once the first sign of urine hit my shoe I stopped, I hate running in wet sneakers. I pulled over to the side of the road, pissed like a horse and stretched. Looking back, the stopping to pee was perfect, I stretched at each stop and I think the time I lost was gained 2 fold by stretching. The run was uneventful. It was a 3 lap run out and back (8 miles each lap). by lap 2, 13ish miles into the race it started to rain, then it POURED. The streets were flooded with a foot of water, gross. So much for keeping my shoes dry.

If my writing sucks right now it's because I'm running on fumes. Got up at 5am in Cozumel yesterday, landed and home by 7:30pm then went out for a b-day dinner with drinks. Cabbed back home and drove out to my friends holiday/housewarming party. Home and not in bed till 3am.

I had also left my garmin at home UGH! I was looking to do a 3:45 for this race but not having a garmin meant I had to go by feel. My friend TM brought two watches and lent me her timex. I figured that if i kept 34 minutes for 4 mile spits that would be an 8:30 pace. which puts me right around there. Looking at my splits I did a pretty damn good job doing that. It was an interesting way to race. Instead of breaking up the race mile by mile with the garmin I broke it up into 8 4 mile blocks. My usual IM goals are start the run before the winner finishes, be grateful for the ability to race and finish before the sun sets. Well, I didn't reach the 3rd goal. Dec 1st is not the best time to race to try and reach those goals. I needed to be about 30-35 mins faster to finish before the sun set. Oh well. As I got closer to the finish line I really felt a sense of accomplishment. I shaved 54 minutes off my PR (after shaving 60 minutes off the PR 3 months ago) and I wore my custom USA swimskin. I felt good knowing that I represented my country proudly (minus that 5 minute section). I smiled, said hi to almost everyone I passed and cheered on my fellow americans (despite being a little annoyed that I didn't have one usa cheer from an american). My friends were in the VIP section cheering me, captured a video of my crossing and I couldn't have been a happier guy. The PR meant nothing compared to my friends being there, supporting me in my en devour. An ironman race is a long day, spectating an ironman race is an even longer more grueling day if you ask me. 

I'd write more, but this is a lot for my first entry. Plus I don't think I actually wrote anything anyone would want to read. With that said, I suggest reading "How will you measure your life" it's one of the best books I have ever read and gives amazing insight into many things that will make life. The happiness project is also an interesting read, I'm really impressed at how Gretchen was able to self reflect on herself in the way she did.

Goodnight!