I’m finally getting around to writing my race recap of Ironman Boise 70.3. In a nutshell, it didn’t go great. In fact, everything that could go wrong pretty much did go wrong, except for the fact that I didn’t have any mechanical problems on the bike or any flat tires. Other than that, Boise was a bust but I still managed to PR by 20 minutes. Prologue The half Ironman was on a Saturday and boasted a point-to-point bike course (meaning two transition areas instead of one) and a 2 pm start. On paper that sounded awesome — you got to sleep in instead of getting up at butt crack of dawn o’clock, and you could get a proper meal instead of choking down oatmeal. Huzzah! I put off signing up until the week of the race because I had been having knee problems lately and wanted to make sure my body felt healthy before shelling out a couple hundred dollars for the race. Unfortunately for me, they closed online registration the week of the race so I had to sign up in person. Traveling to the Race Jason and I loaded up the Subee, strapped our bikes onto the hitch and drove the 8 excruciatingly boring hour drive through eastern Washington, most of Oregon and into Boise. The drive pretty much consisted of the following: brown nothingness brown nothingness brown nothingness ridiculous thunderstorm brown nothingness Pre-Race Preparations We finally got to Boise, and the next day Jason and I headed to the Expo Center to pick up our registration packet. I had to sign up in person and was forced to bequeath my unborn child over to the Ironman brand (Jesus Christ, race-day sign up is so freakin’ expensive). I also decided to rent race day wheels to see what they were like. They were kind of pricey but still tons cheaper than buying a set of race wheels (which can cost $2,000 and up). After Jason and I finished up at the Expo Hall, we drove over to the swim start so we could drop off our bikes at T1. After a test bike ride, we got in the water for a 10 minute swim, and holy hell was that water cold. I flailed around for a couple meters before running into a group of idiot kids who thought it was a good idea to take a dip in the sub-60 degree water in bikinis and swim trunks. I had the following conversation with one of them: Him: “Are you still cold even in your scuba suit?” Me: “Yeah, this water is pretty cold.” Him: “I’m freezing! How much did your scuba suit cost?” Me: “It’s not a scuba suit, it’s a wetsuit.” Him: “Oh…how much did your wetsuit cost?” Me: “$650.” Him: “Really? I only have $5…how much does it cost to rent a wetsuit?” At that point I was thinking, “Screw you, junior, I’m not lending you my suit,” so I swam off and finished my miserable workout. Race Day The next morning we woke up and went downstairs to eat breakfast in the hotel’s dining area. I grabbed a bowl of cereal but upon looking down at it, I felt a sudden wave of nausea overtake me so I only managed to poke at it with my spoon and not eat anything. When we got back to our room I promptly threw up. Twenty minutes later I yakked again, barfing up water and foamy stomachy goodness. Jason looked at me with a mixture of empathy and disgust, asking if I was feeling okay and if I should race. I called Teresa for advice. Teresa:...

Recently I wrote about how Jason ate pavement at the Vancouver half marathon last year and signed up for the 2009 race for redemption (aka Operation De-Bruise the Ego). His goal was to run the half in 1:40 to 1:45 and spare himself a trip to the medical tent this year, whereas my goal was to do between 1:50 and 1:55. How’d we do? Well, we headed up to Vancouver on Saturday, stuffed our faces at Cioppino’s, and got to bed at a reasonable time so we’d get a little shuteye before our 5:45 wake up time. When I got up I was sportin’ a lovely headache and did my usual morning-of-the-race grumbling. I sucked down some Advil and geared up for the run. We ducked out the door and jogged to the start of the race for an early morning warm up, then shoved our way as close to the starting point as possible. When the race officially began, Jason and I both spent the first two miles dodging people and trying to run at a decent pace. Much to Jason’s annoyance, he had to pass a ton of people who had no business being at the start of a half marathon (like people with walking sticks who had positioned themselves among the 6 minute mile runners). I, meanwhile, got freakishly overheated in the balmy 60 degree weather despite my attire of shorts and a sleeveless shirt. I attributed my Hot Head Syndrome to the visor I was wearing, so I stripped it off and ran while holding it for a bit before getting tired of carrying it and chucking it into a bin. With my head blissfully naked, I was able to concentrate on running. Or so I thought. Even though I did the customary pre-race Glide application and despite the fact that I had worn these shorts on plenty of runs in the past, for some reason during the race my shorts kept riding up on me and I had to do an awkward shimmy shake every few hundred feet to try and yank the fabric back down. I can only imagine what it was like to run behind me the entire race. I waged this battle for the entire 13.1 miles, cursing my thighs and these godforsaken shorts. The run itself went pretty well. I had the usual ups and downs and would suck down Gu and water whenever I felt an energy lull. At mile 10 I was running hard and had a Jason moment where my vision temporarily tunneled and I felt light-headed for a few seconds. I wondered if it was my turn to pass out, but thankfully the feeling subsided and I was able to resume running. Hooray for staying upright! I approached the finish line and saw Jason at the sidelines wrapped in a space blanket, so we went 2/2 on the “no passing out” goal. I finished the race in 1:52 and some change, which is a 4 minute PR from last year’s time and a 12 minute improvement from my first ever half marathon. Yeah, beeyotch! Jason also achieved his goal, having finished in 1:41 and sparing his veins from invasive IV needles. I celebrated my achievement with an ice bath, a Wendy’s bacon and cheese baked potato, a dim sum lunch and the coveted post-race nap. Later that evening we caught a movie and ate gigantic steaks at Gotham. (Post-race gorging is easily the best part of training and competing.) All in all, the race went well for both of us this year (aside from excruciating chafing). Huzzah for improved times, healthy bodies and great food. We’ve...

Yesterday Jason and I ran the Vancouver half marathon. Jason dubbed it his “vindication race,” and before I talk about how we did, I feel I have to explain why he nicknamed it that. Time to flashback to last year’s half marathon. Cue the wavy lines… Okay, pretend it’s 2008. Jason and I are driving up to Canada to do the Vancouver half marathon. This will be my 2nd half marathon, and my goal is to finish in under two hours (my first half marathon was in Port Angeles a couple years before, and I finished at around 2:04). Jason had actually never run a half marathon before — he had done 3 marathons, so he figured the half would be a piece of cake and set a goal time of 1:45. On our way up to Vancouver, Jason starts noticing that he’s feeling a bit “under the weather.” It’s no big deal — just a little stuffiness and a bit of a headache. We get through the border, check into our hotel, walk to the Expo Hall to pick up our packets, have dinner, and go back to our room to relax and prep for tomorrow’s race. This is where things start to get a bit icky. Jason’s symptoms start to worsen and he begins feeling downright miserable. I’m not sure exactly what’s wrong with him, but I figure that once someone starts excreting goop out of his eyes, he’s probably not in the healthiest state to run 13.1 miles the next morning. Jason’s laying on the bed sounding congested and miserable with a warm washcloth draped over his gunky eyes, and I think, “There is no way he’s running tomorrow.” He’s sick and seems like he has a sinus infection, so the last thing on his mind should be hitting a PR for a half marathon…right? Oh, how I underestimate the competitive nature of men. The next morning, Jason rolls out of bed jacked up on adrenaline and race jitters. He pops a bunch of cold medicine like they’re Tic Tacs and suits up for the race. I keep asking him if he’s feeling well enough to race and he assures me with his husky, congested voice that he feels a lot better and will be fine. We meet our racing buddies in the hotel lobby and head to the start of the race. Since the finish dumps into a large stadium and there are thousands of people racing, we set up a meeting landmark for after the race: a giant inflated Ronald McDonald. It’s easy to spot the frighteningly huge clown, so we figured it would make for an idiot-proof meeting spot. We all wish each other good luck and I kiss my sicky boyfriend before the gun goes off and we all begin the race. I don’t feel great on the run — my main mistake is that I’m wearing pants instead of shorts because I mistakenly thought that race day would be colder than it actually was. I immediately get too warm and feel kind of miserable as I plod along, one foot in front of the other. Despite the wardrobe misstep, however, I finish the race in about 1:56 and feel pleased that I beat my previous half marathon time by 8 minutes. Wahoo! I run into two of my racing buddies who finished less than a minute ahead of me and we make our way to Ronald McDonald to meet Jason, who should have finished about ten minutes before we did. We get to Ronald and Jason’s nowhere in sight. I think that maybe he’s using the bathroom or grabbing food, so...

On Sunday Jason and I did the Mt. Rainier Duathlon in Enumclaw. A bunch of our TN Multisport buddies had signed up for the race and were urging us to do the same. We had heard daunting things about the mighty duathlon course hill, so last week we decided to ride the bike route and see how formidable the hill would be. Jason, his dad, Beth, Barb and I met in horse loving Enumclaw and rode our bikes to get a feel for the duathlon course. Beth told me that she wanted to make sure she could successfully get up the hill this year since last year she was unable to conquer it. It was a warm, sunny day and most of the roads were flat and fast with a few gradual inclines…and then we got to the hill. Even though I had heard gloriously awful things about it, the beast still caught me by surprise. The first part of the hill is the steepest — it’s mercifully short, but I’m told it’s a shitty 17% incline. When I hit it I was in the completely wrong gearing and frantically downshifted. Although I did make it to the top, I ran out of momentum and ended up keeling over and running into a guardrail (thankfully, much like a Weeble, I wobbled but did not fall down). When Beth caught up to me at the top of the hill, I asked her, “Was that the part you got stuck on last year?” She just laughed and said, “Oh no, it gets worse.” “Worse” is putting it lightly. This mofo is 2 miles long. While the rest of the hill isn’t as superbly steep as the beginning part, it’s a long, winding, never-ending piece of crap. Every time I rounded a corner and expected to be at the end, I’d see more hill to climb. I cursed, sweated, wheezed, dropped my chain, cursed again, stopped to put the chain back on my bike, burned my legs up trying to start climbing again mid-hill, sweated some more, wheezed a few more times, and finally made it to the top. Then we turned around, flew down the hill (well, they flew while I held my brakes in a nervous death grip) and climbed the bastard again. While I was in better gearing the second time around, my legs were tired and hating me for drowning them in lactic acid. Why the hell would I want to pay to bike up this hill? I just climbed it twice for free and hated every sweat-soaked minute of it! Our practice ride was last Sunday, and all week Jason and I contemplated signing up for the duathlon. Teresa initially wanted us to do the long course (which consisted of a 5.1 mile run, a 28.8 mile bike and a 3.7 mile run), meaning we’d have to do the bike loop (and that bullshit hill) twice, and once we rode the course we were like “Yeeeeeah, the short course seems more appropriate.” Several of our training buddies were doing the short course and a couple of folks were doing the long course. Confident that she could conquer the hill this year, Beth egged me on to sign up and race with her. Jason and I dragged our feet up until Saturday, at which point Jason put on his game face, hitched up his britches and decided to do the race. He set out his gear and clothes and I begrudgingly mimicked him like a disgruntled monkey. When the alarm started blaring at 5:15 am on Sunday morning, he bounced out of bed and said in a far-too-chipper...

Like the elite athletes we are, this morning Jason and I slept in until 11:30, stumbled downstairs, watched a movie while eating a scramble full of embarrassingly massive quantities of feta cheese, and then queued up the Ironman 70.3 Championships in Clearwater on NBC. We’ve grown increasingly obsessed with watching triathlons and have caught a crapload of Kona reruns on the Universal Sports channel, so we were pretty stoked to see the 2008 Clearwater race. Unfortunately, it sucked. Well, let me clarify. The race didn’t suck, but the coverage sure did. They really phoned it in this year. I’m surprised it took this long to air the coverage — given how crappily they half-assed it, they could have aired this thing the day after the actual race. First of all, they showed two “check out these athletes who have overcome adversity” profiles, one about a paraplegic motocross (or dirt bike, or something) racer and another about a dude who got in a horrible car accident and got a “second chance at life”/insert-hyperbolic-inspirational-schmaltz-here. I don’t mind athlete profiles, but I do mind when they show the exact same segment they aired for the Kona race. They didn’t even bother shooting anything new — they just queued up the existing footage and re-played it for Clearwater. That’s pretty lazy. Other disappointments: The narrator was underwhelming. He didn’t seem especially stoked to be covering Clearwater, and his lack of enthusiasm was kind of a buzzkill. They didn’t really do any elite athlete profiles other than the requisite 30 second “here’s who won last year” mention. I like how Kona does it — they talk about the elites more and interview them and check in on them more on an individual level. Not much mention of the course. I know that Clearwater is an “easy” course since it’s pretty much flat as a pancake, but how were the conditions (e.g., temperature, humidity)? Is there any elevation gain? They could have even talked about how flat it is and compared it to more challenging race courses, but no go. Not only did they recycle some athlete profiles and barely cover the elites, they did some super half-ass last-minute profiling, like the 5 second mention at the very end of the program of the lady who ran in sandals because of some condition she has (what? who? huh?). I’m sure there are more grievances to air, but the coverage was so unimpressive and disappointing that I’ve already forgotten most of what I saw. The one saving grace was getting to see Team Hoyt and finding out that this year they’ll log their 1,000th race. (I’ll post a separate entry about them this week.) Other than that, though, I must say that the coverage was pretty craptacular. Oh well — at least it motivated me and Jason to get off our unsatisfied asses and do a 10-13 mile...