SILVERMAN RACE REPORT: 70.3 Act II, or the Finish that Wasn't

The "Finisher" Medal

I had no desire to race in Henderson, Nevada, which is basically a suburb of Las Vegas without the glamor. The town looked like any recently built, sterile suburb in the western U.S.  The inhabitants of the smoke-filled, noisy casinos weren’t high rollers, but middle-class older people desperately seeking to fill a void in their lives with promise of easy money. I live in a desert environment, so why go 280 miles to race in the same type of place, only bleaker and drier? Since Tahoe had been cancelled and I wanted to do a 70.3 before Ironman Arizona, the choices were limited.

Silverman had 4,200 feet of climbing on the bike, so maybe all the hill training that I had suffered through during the summer could be put to use. The weather of course would be hot, so the run would be awful. The swim was questionable for being wetsuit legal, since the water temperature had to be under 76 degrees. I swim very slowly without a wetsuit, when I am not having a panic attack. Drowning is not appealing to me.

Still, I got in for $50 instead of the usual $300 plus and could drive there with a friend. Right from the time we got near town, the venture turned into a giant pain. We were stuck in traffic for an hour due to an accident; a harbinger of things to come.

We rushed over to registration an hour before it closed. Registration involved standing in various lines. They gave us a timing chip, a shirt and of course assorted plastic bags to put morning clothes, bike gear and run gear in.

Damn Bags

I was thoroughly sick of the whole bag thing, having done it two weeks before. Planning what to put in the bag required organization and a lot of thought about what would be needed for the race, which was too much effort. The bags had to be dropped off in two locations the day before the race. Hopefully, the items in it wouldn’t disappear, leak nor melt from the heat.

Bikes also had to be dropped off the day before the race. On the drive to the site, somehow a giant traffic jam suddenly materialized before the Lake Mead transition area. The park demanded $10 to be there for half an hour. We dropped off the bikes and I hoped my tires wouldn’t explode from sitting in the sun.

Swim course the day before

I was stressed about this race since it would be difficult. I had already decided I would wear a wetsuit even if it wasn’t wetsuit legal, since I couldn’t make the swim cut off without it. The uncertainty was nerve wracking. The forecast high was ninety degrees, so heat would be a factor. Mere survival was all that could be hoped for.

Race day dawned cool, but quickly warmed up. The swim was announced as being wetsuit legal, which cheered me up.

The swim start chute was horrible, with 1500 bodies crammed tightly into a small area. I felt claustrophobic and anxious. I had my wetsuit partially on and the sun was up, baking me. I oozed towards the fence to get some air. No space to crawl under it to escape. Some people couldn’t take it and jumped over it. This much body contact with strangers was unpleasant.

Finally, my age group of 50+ females got in the water. I swam off to the side because I knew the twenty-somethings behind would swim over me. This was not a good arrangement. Even worse is when they invaded my space. Get the hell away from me.

I always hated the swim. This one was no exception. The water was smooth, but too many bodies passed by me, churning up the water. I didn’t like the insecurity of being far away from the shore. Sometimes, weeds would drape themselves over my arms and I had to remove them. Time went slowly and the wetsuit was a little too warm. 

I got to shore, peeled off my wetsuit and put on my bike shoes and helmet in the empty transition area. I had no idea what awaited me, not knowing the course, but it would undoubtedly be an adventure. The sky was cloudless and the sun was hot on my skin.

The bike course had many hills to climb. Trucks passed me hauling massive boats. The scenery looked like a cross of the Arizona Painted Desert and a moonscape, with a touch of Death Valley desolation. The rock were sometimes splashed with red minerals. The vegetation was sparse with stunted creosote being the main plant that could survive the harsh climate. Crossing a bridge, a wetlands greenery contrasted with the bone-dry setting. This road was fun to ride, but I would have preferred cooler weather.

The heat was bearable, but felt like it could easily slip into heat exhaustion. Riders walked the hills and others were on the side of the road, perhaps contemplating their fate. About mile thirty, I realized that I had to hustle to make 1:30 bike cut off. Stops at the aid stations were still necessary to get water and ice, but I couldn’t linger. 

T1. It looks like a lot of Porta-potties, but it wasn't enough

Picking up speed, I passed more people, who didn’t seem in a hurry. Fear was a good motivation to go faster. My heart rate kept rising. Heat and a high heart are not a good combination and I would pay for this later.

The route turned off of the park roads and proceeded back to Henderson. The hills weren’t done and an evil big one smacked me at the end. I neared transition and of course most of the racers were way ahead of me and already out on the course.  

I fumbled through transition and started on the hilly run, which was three loops. The first part of the loop was shaded, but the last one mile uphill section wasn’t. The run had to be finished in three hours. This time limit would have been doable normally, but in ninety degrees was very difficult. 

Luckily, the aid stations had lots of water and ice. I constantly sucked on the ice cubes from a cup and held them in my hands. I ran under some sprinklers. My speed wasn’t fast enough, but I kept moving with the hope of finishing. The end got farther away.

By mile eleven, I gave up finishing under the cut off. My energy was gone and nausea and weakness had crept in. No one pulled me off the course, so I continued. 

Other people were struggling as well. I saw one person sitting on the curb, holding his head in his hands. A symbol of this run. The sun burned my skin, so I splashed water on it. The turn-around was in the far distance. I couldn’t run anymore, so I walked. Maybe on the downhill, I could run. 

A volunteer asked how I was doing. I said “marginal.” She asked if I wanted a ride, but I didn’t have that far to go, if I could hang on. Two more miles. 

Finally, the turn-around. I attempted to run, but cramps seized my calves, so I walked.  After repeated attempts, I ran about a quarter mile to the finish line. The announcer had to mention how old I was. People think that athletes my age are an oddity, though it was nice to be cheered. I go from fifty-nine to sixty and suddenly my competitors disappear and I am “geriatric”. I don’t like being old.

Not feeling that great, I was escorted to the med tent to get an I.V., to treat dehydration. That was a first, but probably not a last. 

I was okay with the race, until I saw later in the results that I got a big, fat DNF(Did Not Finish) for almost nine hours of racing, since I didn’t make the cutoff. No points, no age group awards, no credit for racing. That was a mood deflator. The people in the 35-39 age group with the same time were considered finishers, since they started earlier and had more time. That was unfair and  hard to accept, but it made my DNF more arbitrary.

They gave me a medal anyway. Maybe they didn’t want to mess with a cranky old person. No one else in my age group finished. Perhaps I was a freak. 

I have mixed feelings about the race being a failure or a success. The total time was one of the worst ever for me, but it was also one of the hardest half irons I have done. The med tent sucked me in. The bike and the swim were decent, but dehydration set in before I even ran, despite my attempts to avoid it. 

I may not have “finished,” but I did finish.

 

Ironman Lake Tahoe--the Race that Wasn't

Squaw Valley

Last year, I met my match with Ironman Lake Tahoe. The hills, the altitude and weather all conspired to make it too difficult. The race day dawned with snow-capped mountain at twenty-nine degrees. After two hours of swimming in the cold lake water, hypothermia made it too difficult to dress myself, let alone have much speed on the bike course. I shivered for twenty miles, got as far as sixty-two miles, and then was pulled off the bike course by officials, along with a group of other forlorn racers. I had given up on ever finishing this race in the future.

Still, the Lake Tahoe area was beautiful, if temperamental. The weather changed almost from hour to hour. The sapphire blue lake, and the deep, dark green pine trees that dropped giant pine cones enticed me. I was obsessed with the guava-sized things. They were the king of pine cones and much larger than any I have ever seen.

Lake Tahoe Pine Cone next to a normal one

 

When they added a half ironman distance in April of this year, I jumped at the chance because it was doable. One of the big hills had been taken out, which made it a faster course. Maybe the weather gods would co-operate and I wouldn’t be frozen.  I wanted another crack at the monster bike climbs. To actually finish this race would be an accomplishment.

I trained on hills in Arizona in intense heat all summer, which was so miserable, that I took to counting dead snakes in the road to distract myself. Ice was my friend. I despaired at my slow speed, because ninety degree heat was not motivation to pedal faster. To find enough bike climbing elevation required strategic planning. Phoenix has big hills in the outskirts of town, but they are nothing like the Sierras in California. I couldn’t ride enough last year to get in a necessary eight thousand feet of climbing in one session, but four thousand was doable. I thought I was ready to tackle the race.

For months I worried about the swim at altitude, the weather in Tahoe, what to wear and how to train. I reserved a hotel room, bike transportation, a rental car and made flight plans, being too lazy to drive. The challenge of riding up the evil Brockway road at a glacial four miles per hour awaited.

What I didn’t count on was the California propensity for disaster. It was always burning, flooding, having rock slides or earthquakes. Forest fire smoke from last year was an concern, but it went away. This year it didn’t. A nutcase set a fire just west the lake. 

I arrived on the Wednesday before the race and at the hotel, and immediately picked up some pine cones. The hotel was older and was unoccupied except for some service vehicles. One driver had unwound the reels of cable from his truck and had spread it across the parking lot. Maybe this wasn’t the classiest of hotels.

My room had a heart-shaped Jacuzzi with a shower in the middle of the room. Guests who shared the room would have had to be really friendly and be prepared to see each other naked. The romance was wasted on me.

The hint of something wrong was the Thursday before the race. At registration, at the politically incorrectly named  Squaw Valley ski resort, a murky haze covered the ski mountains. Surely this smoke would go away. The air was thick, hard to breath and stunk of burned wood. Occasionally, I thought I could see floating ash.

30,000 foot smoke plume

The vivid Lake Tahoe blue and greens had turned into a faded gray in the polluted air. Still, the weather wonks had predicted the wind would shift the smoke away and the race would go on.

Race morning, I headed to Squaw Valley to take the shuttle buses to King’s Beach, which was the start. Tahoe is a point to point race, which added to the hassle. I noticed the haze in the headlights as I was driving in the dark. Maybe it would blow away or be better at King’s Beach. 

The air was better there, but the distant mountains were still shrouded in haze as the horizon grew lighter at 6:30. I got ready and had time to kill. In contrast to last year, it was fifty-five degrees out. How strange this place was. 

King's Beach

Then it happened. Or didn’t happen. I wasn’t on the beach to hear the announcement that the race was cancelled, due to unhealthy air. Some people were already in the water. An ironman race was a big deal to not go on. I couldn’t remember one that didn’t continue in some form. Organizers took days to set up, and months of planning was involved.  Registration was a year in advance. Training took almost as much time. Plus racers incurred airfare, hotel, equipment, bike transport, nutrition, car rental and other expenses. Some competitors travel from other countries.

I can’t remember who told me the race was cancelled, but I refused to believe it until confirmation from an official. I was stunned and felt lost. The news was a shock even though the air had been bad all week. The race went on last year, despite snow the day before, so surely it wouldn’t be cancelled because of smoke. What would I do now? It was only early morning and the only thing to do was to gather my stuff and my bike.

Truckee River Bike Path and run course for the 140.6

An event that I had anticipated for months had suddenly vanished. All the hours grinding 

up steep hills in ninety degree heat, all the planning, the travel expense, the worry about not measuring up, the possibility of redemption for not finishing last year. Then nothing, but an empty feeling. No chance to triumph nor fail.

My first thought was I would ride the course anyway until I saw how bad the thick air was by Truckee, where the hard climbing would begin. I didn’t want to be out in it, let alone do strenuous exercise. Particulates were way over unhealthy levels. It couldn’t be good to breathe. So, no big hill for me to climb this year. They gave us our finisher’s shirts, hats and medals, but the gear was meaningless without an actual finish.

Commons Beach in Tahoe City 

Life has really unexpected turns. Tahoe tempted me, but I am done with it for now. I don’t have the energy to deal with the weather, altitude, fire and whatever other obstacles California has in store. The finish of this race will have to wait for another day. I am still keeping the giant pine cones that I picked up, though.

 Weird slightly phallic stature to honor an old tree
in Tahoe City

Summer Training in Phoenix Sucks

 Sometimes even Saguaros die

Long course summer training in a desert sucks. The heat is unbearable by ten a.m. on good days; by dawn on bad days. A five to six hour bike ride is a testament to fortitude even if I start in the dark. I start to flirt with heat exhaustion after four hours. In honor of this misery, I have written a poem:

I emerge reluctantly from my cool, dark lair.

Eye-searing white light.
Mountains shrouded in gray sludge haze.
Plants sadly droop in the weight of living
in the sodden air, evil sun screaming air
that wants to bury me alive.

I groan and reel from the physical assault.
Mouth dry, dripping sweat, I ride my bike; eddies of
heat scraping my skin.

I wish not to exist in the hell of such a place
where tall sentinel Saguaro witness the dust of earth bones
blowing in empty space.
Puffs of fat gray clouds overhead promise
a cool breath of rain
that never comes.

My head spins. I ride on.

Doves stand dazed in the street.
Lizards scurry for shade.
A panting coyote hangs his head.
Green skeleton trees claw the air.
Menace rises from the pavement.

Vultures circle overhead.
Do they wait for me?
Or that snake smashed in the road?

My legs ache, my feet hurt. I ride on.

Baked, black asphalt; a rolling ribbon. A conga line of
bobbing quail family cross; little legs rapidly run to avoid motorized death.

I climb an endless hill. Heat presses harder. No mercy. Salt crusts my face.

Downhill again, into false cool breeze I grimly ride on until
finally done; dash into air-conditioned bliss.

Deuces Olympic Race Report

This year's "metals." This picture doesn't show it, but, I have a
giant blister on my third toe for my race effort.

I had done so many triathlons that I assumed that they would all be predictable. This turned out not to be the case with Deuces, except for the weather, which was always hot. The unexpected was not always good.

Deuces had evolved over the years, but not always for the better. It had a half iron, Olympic, Xterra and sometimes a sprint. A huge raffle used to occur on Saturday evening along with a dinner. The raffle and dinner disappeared. The Xterra this year was cancelled due to forest fire danger. I never wanted to stay late anyway, so it didn’t matter to me. The less time in Show Low the better. I couldn’t really explain why the town makes me want to leave as fast as possible.

Last year's metal.

I was nervous before the race because high altitude makes breathing difficult. The swim had  the danger of panic attacks. I usually felt alone on the bike course because it’s remote and everyone was ahead of me. The run, which was half trail was an ordeal.

The temperature was warmer than I expected at dawn. This did not bode well. I struggled into my wetsuit and tested the water. It felt chilly at first, but tolerable. The lake level was down nine feet, due to the water being used for fire-fighting. The channel out to the start was much narrower than usual.

The swim start was the typical struggle due to the lack of oxygen at altitude. My chest felt tight. I couldn’t see the far buoy because it was partially deflated. I had to ask the kayakers where it was. I turned the corner, went across to the next one, then started down the lake. I aimed toward the next yellow buoy, but the kayaker said I had to go around the orange ball buoy. 

This confused me. The race organizers had said all we had to do was right turns, but nothing about navigating randomly placed balls. At times, I actually saw the bottom of the lake through the murk. Time dragged on and I contemplated my inadequacy in this event. At least the water was smooth and I could breath. As I was going back past the start, I heard the announcer say “three minutes” for the sprint race. Great. I was taking forever and was soon going to be run over by sprint swimmers.

 I rounded the last far buoy, then the final one to come in and hit a thick jungle of weeds. The patch was enormous, the largest I had ever seen, and it extended all the way to the shore. The long plant tendrils clung to me, trying to drape themselves over my arms. I panicked, flailing my arms to escape their grasp and groaned. The only way I was going to get away was to keep moving. The swim exit was beckoning. The sprint racers had caught up, but passed by without slamming into me.  

I staggered out of the water through six inch deep muck and walked up to steep hill to be stripped of my wetsuit. I ran into transition, which of course was empty. I was last or near last out of the water, which was depressing. At least my bike was easy to find.

On the bike, it was hot already. Tall pines trees that lined the road did not provide much shade. The white sun seared my skin and sucked the moisture out of my body. Sweat salt crusted my face. Once off the main highway, Lone Pine Dam Road was empty past the sprint course racers. An out and back had been on the route last year, but none was marked this time. I worried that I had missed it, but all I could do was go on. No volunteers were out in the remote area to guide us. The sign I had gone past said “Olympic straight”, but I still felt lost on the lonely route that stretched on and on and seemed to go nowhere.  

The run was a reminder of race misery past; almost ironman level of deep despair. I knew it would be problematic since my hamstring was injured, but to run through soft sand resulted in sharp hip pain with every step. It eased off  to a bearable stabbing when I got to firmer ground. The path wound through the campground, then entered an out and back road. The slight uphill made it mentally a dark place. My legs were dead and merely plodded through the uneven ground. An unwelcome hill marked the turn around. I grabbed some gummy bears for quick energy. The sticky layer adhered to my teeth.  

On the back half of the run, the aid stations were out of water. I had my own bottle, but it was low and lukewarm. The threat of heat exhaustion worried me with three aid stations in a row lacking water and cups. I grabbed some vile-tasting Heed-laced ice, which made my water foamy, but cooler. The run ended up being 6.78 miles instead of 6.2.  

They managed to even run out of water at the finish line. I lurked around the water containers and poured some in my bottle whenever they re-filled it. Some athletes, unhappy with the situation, berated the volunteers, but they had no control over the ineptitude of the race organization. 

 I was hot and considered the kiddie pools that they had set up, but the water was dubiously cloudy. God knows what was floating around in that water with the many sweaty butts that had sat in it. I saw surprised to see some one actually wash her face with it. She might regret that later. I  jumped in the lake instead, and pushed aside the weeds. At least the bacteria would be diluted. The coolness of the water refreshed me, despite the hot furnace air.

I chose this race, not because I liked it, but mostly because it was good training for a half iron at altitude that I was doing later in the fall. I didn't  expect to do well, so I didn’t worry about it.  I had merely survived the lack of oxygen and water, the weeds, the running injury and the desolate bike course. 

People don't understand why I put myself through this kind of ordeal  Sometimes, I don't know, either. Maybe, the discomfort makes me tough. A little less pain, however, would have been appreciated.

Phoenix Comicon

I had no interest in anime, Steampunk, Legos, comics, superheros, wearing costumes nor Cosplay. I liked science fiction, Star Trek, Star Wars and zombies. But my daughter was doing an In Character Cosplay Challenge panel and I wanted to watch her with her friends. This was my year to try new things, so I bought a membership.

I hesitated to make the plunge. Phoenix Comicon was not cheap; plus I had to drive downtown, which I hate, and pay for parking, which I despise more. Even less incentive was that the weather this time of year was a million degrees. I didn’t even want to leave the house because it took too much energy.

My daughter has been doing Cosplay and going to these types of conventions for years. I was curious to see what she spends so much time on. The creativity of her costumes that she sewed always impressed me. I had been around when she and her friends discussed characters and I had no idea what she was talking about. It was a foreign language and an unknown world.

Adults dressed as make-believe characters was something that I didn’t understand, but accepted as “normal,” since my daughter did it. To wear costumes and pretend to be someone that they were not, must have been fun for them. I think that this behavior was weird because I hate to draw attention to myself. I would rather slink around in a crowd unnoticed.

Would I be bored to death? Could I find things to do? Would I have enough energy to endure the hordes of people?

The first hint of chaos was when I was driving down the street nervously looking for parking. The website said parking was generally $12, but the price was understated by half. The first garage was $25. Traffic was stopped at the crosswalk between the Convention buildings.  A river of people flowed in the street. The amount of humanity provoked anxiety. Panicked, I parked at the next garage that didn’t display an outrageous price. My head spun.

I walked outside into the sun-blasted air. Mermaids hung around in display outside. I wondered what genius set it up without much shade. The line to get a badge in the South Building was short. The fifteen minute, or more, wait to get into the North Building exhibit hall was not so short.  I joined the sweating masses. I pondered the fate all the unfortunates that wore heavy costumes in ninety degrees.

Inside, was all the vast space and intimacy of an airport. I forgot to get a map, so I had no clue where to go. Moving anywhere was a slow process with all the bodies in the way. The goal was to find a booth of a writer friend, but all I had was the number and a vague idea where it might be.

 I wandered into a hall, but it wasn’t the right one. I went into another. The sounds, lights of countless jewelry, anime art, comics and costume accessories displays assaulted me. Star Wars Stormtroopers, Star Trekkies and Zombies passed by. Halloween had run amuck. Long lines of people were waiting to get photographs or autographs of celebrities. The friend that I was looking for happened to run into me. I was dazed. We made our way to his booth and we chatted for a while. I was relieved to find a friendly face that grounded me in reality.

I went off to look at the Star Wars exhibit nearby. People dressed as characters were waiting around for photographs. There was R2D2. I also looked at an elaborate multi-building Lego city with a train running through it. I wandered through the booths and saw a masked guy with nicely defined abs and a tattooed arm dancing to some horrible Karaoke sung by another. I took a picture of a cool fake zombie soldier, after which my camera promptly died. This convention was actually amusing. Too bad I could no longer record it.

After a long walk and seeing a fraction of what was there, I got out of the giant hall.  The expensive food was tempting, but the lines were long, and Melissa’s panel was in thirty minutes. Luckily, I had brought along snacks or I would have been really hungry. 

I stepped into the crowded room and Melissa said, “Hi.” She looked pretty in a long purple silk dress trimmed with gold leaf with a blue chiffon overlay. The costume had elaborately beaded armbands. Her hair was in long smooth tendrils with a head ornament. Very princessy. I was not sure what character she was.  

Lego Town

Her and friends proceeded to pick people out to play skits. Somehow they knew who the audience was dressed as. One guy had a giant pie thing on his head with a bloodied shirt. He was actually Pyramid Man, but I didn’t know that. My favorite was an evil horned alien as a presidential candidate. “I will eat your children,” she proclaimed. Everyone seemed eager to act.  

When her panel was over, I had only been there for three hours and I was utterly drained. After spending forty dollars to get in and whatever parking was, I felt like I should see something else. The South building had the Haunted House. The strobe lights, corpses, and evil clowns weren’t all that scary. Maybe the Zombie Bootcamp would have been better.

Karaoke Dancer

I could see why people got hotel rooms. I wanted to take a nap. How people could do this for hours on end for three days? Of course I wasn’t passionate about it, so that made a difference.

Back in the heat again, I plodded back to the parking garage. The parking prices had soared in a few hours. Now they were $25-30. I nervously hoped that mine wasn’t that bad.

I felt faint walking inside the parking area. The air was stifling and I couldn’t breath. I wanted out. Luckily, it was only $15 to escape. In ordinary circumstances, this amount would have been outrageous, but now I didn’t care. My lair and a nap awaited.

The world I had entered as an outsider was strange. I didn’t speak their language and I didn’t dress like they did. I don’t know if I will ever develop an affinity for their ways, but the  culture was interesting.

 Not sure what the hell this is

Esprit de She Race Report

I had no expectation of doing well at this race. Recent life events had left me reeling. I had moved two weeks earlier, leaving me feeling disoriented. Where the hell was I and where was I going? My life had been packing, then unpacking. Then I crashed on my bike, which had removed large areas of skin from my leg. The painful wounds had mostly healed, but not entirely. I also had minor surgery scheduled for the next day. I was dazed.

As usual, the thought of swimming 1500 meters in Tempe Town Lake made me nervous. Despite  thirty-two previous immersions in the murky pea soup water, I always dreaded it. The water was warm, which helped hold the thought of drowning at bay. Warm temperatures made me happy.The possibility of dying was more likely in cold water to me, since the misery factor was so much higher. Cold water sapped my energy and will to live. Cold was bad.

They herded us into the water. The start line was fifty yards out. This event was open to women only. The unspoken assumption was that women appreciated the absence of aggressive men swimming over them and crowding the bike course. They would be right. Men don’t always behave themselves and I got in their way, especially in the water. The trade off was it attracted a lot of beginners who didn’t know what they were doing.

Every morning swim in this lake went directly into the sun. I had a vague idea where I was going because I knew to sight off of a high-rise in the distance. Others around me were puzzled as to how to navigate. The water surface shimmered with the guide buoys lost in the glare.

Time dragged and I was not enjoying myself. I swam slow, which made the ordeal longer. I tried to relax and succeeded for the most part. Finally, I turned and could see the line of orange buoys in a line under the bridges. I wondered what the bubbles on the surface were–nothing or something more toxic? People had been reporting a fish die off earlier in the season.

Most people had finished the swim by the time I got out after forty-six minutes. I ran to my lonely bike on the rack.

The bike course was definitely NOT empty and was littered with all the people doing the shorter version of the race. The hordes of riders were in my way. Passing them was an unusual activity for me, being almost as slow on the bike as I was on the swim. The ones who didn’t follow the rules about spacing and not blocking the passing lane, tested my patience.

The roads around Tempe Town Lake either had a flat option with lots of turn arounds or hills. The organizers picked hills, which was more interesting, except they had to be ridden multiple times. They had freeway overpasses, flats and climbs through Papago Park with its sandstone rock formations. I didn’t find it too taxing.

The second bike lap lost the newbies. I almost missed the incentive to go faster to get around them. I briefly thought about stopping at a port-a-potty, but didn’t want to waste the energy or time. This was always an issue at longer races, but miraculously, I had managed to avoid the smelly little huts.

I got back into transition, racked my bike and rushed out to the run. I had not been running much because of a hamstring injury. The back of my leg hurt sharply with each step. I had done a strenuous trail race in February and had paid for it ever since. I hoped not to suck too much.

By now it was fairly hot. Tempe Town Lake was always a heat bowl. It collected the sun and beat a runner senseless with the inferno. It forced me to slow down. The defense to this was pouring ice and water on myself at the aid stations. I wanted to go faster, but couldn’t and just kept moving. At least I wasn’t walking, and felt relatively good.  Usually, the run was the best part, but today it was a matter of survival.

I finally finished, and the mental daze was back, this time from the blood rushing from my brain to my legs. Fatigue had set in, but physical tiredness was better than reality tiredness. Unpacking could wait. A meh race was still better than being with my population of boxes.

Mountain to Fountain 15k Race Report

Great Horned Owl

My day started with a Great Horned Owl hooting from the top of a palm tree in Fountain Hills. Owls were always a thrill to see and hear. These creatures were otherworldly to me with their big eyes and haunting calls at night. Plus, they eat live, bloody prey. I peered into the tree to try to see him, until the husky bird flew away. Hopefully, he was a good omen for the day.

Fountain Hills was one of those planned communities on the edge of suburbia that was a little tattered around the edges. In the center of town was a giant fountain that spewed a large volume of water in the air. It can be seen from miles away. When it was not being a fountain, the structure was unsightly, like rusty remains of a ship wreck sitting in the lake. The charm was lost on me.

The race was point to point from McDowell Mountain Park, so runners had to take buses to the starting line. I was silent during the ride and ignored the conversations, since I had no urge to be social at this early hour. The last time I did this event, I didn’t get to Fountain Hills early enough and the bus took fifty minutes. I didn’t remember why it took so long to ride nine miles. Buses can get swept into a time warp and reappear at their destination much later than should be possible.

This bus got to the park in plenty of time, so that I had an hour to sit around and get really bored. This was a pretty area with lush Sonoran desert with Saguaros and Palo Verde trees. Silver  Brittle Bushes  bloomed  yellow daisies. The sun hadn’t yet warmed the air and I marveled at the stupidity of the runners who had taken  their warm clothes off well before the start.

This race had prize money, so it attracted a lot of elite runners far superior to lowly me. The route was basically downhill, with some nasty climbs. I had no illusions of a fast race and I lined up behind the faster people to stay out their way.

The first mile was an ascent, but I was in a good mood from seeing my owl friend. The next two miles were even better. Flying downhill on the scenic road was effortless and fun and my speed was what was fast for me.

Then the cramps hit, the lovely warning that my bowels were angry and wanted to empty themselves. For all the money the race organizers spend on beer and prize money, they use nothing for porta-potty rental on the route. The 9.5 miles was barren of anywhere to relieve oneself except for trees and bushes. I couldn’t hold it that long. Desert plants were not great cover with their tiny leaves.

Pretty, but not a good place to hide your business.

I briefly considered going off road to a side section with  real rest rooms, but that would waste a lot of time. I studied the configuration of trees and bushes on the side of the road as possibilities. Lots of people were streaming by and the thought of exposing myself to this crowd was not pleasant.

I found a likely spot, and hoped that it wasn’t someone’s private land that I had soiled. I felt better for a while, but I still had problems. I ran hard, then had to slow down repeatedly when the cramps hit. My expectations dived and I tried not to get depressed. No personal record for this race, just the attempt not to be totally terrible. To get to the finish line clean was now my ultimate goal.

The road has a steep, long climb a few miles from the end, but I was too consumed with controlling bodily functions to even notice or be tired. Cramps hit again partly up the hill and forced a rest .

The desert gave way to Fountain Hills suburbia and I could keep going without slowing down. My hip and glut pain from another event flared up, but it was bearable. I had done a tough eight mile off road trail race two weeks ago, under the delusion that my body would not have any lasting pain. That assumption was false. Everything was under control for now.

I reached the finish line in under ninety-two minutes. The time was nothing to get excited about, but at least my underwear was clean. Sometimes, the conditions had to be dealt with as they were and I could only do my best, which may not be much to others. The high had eluded me once again. No prizes, nor P.R.s, but at least I got a free beer.

The owl was just an owl, not an omen.