My weekend swim buddy Michael made a funny observation in the car the other day.
He said beware of the siren call of the walkers as always walkers spawn more walkers.
As in you are on the last leg of your race (both literally and figuratively); the run, and you sort of feel like you are about to puke up a Buick and pass a kidney stone at the same time.
Just in front you happen to spot a jovial pack of walkers, so you think to yourself enough is enough already and join the party. Sort of like one of those late night television 1 800 call in numbers when the hawt bored young miss thing wants you to call and join the party.
So you do and your race is done.
Here are just a few other random observation that have struck me on my recent long runs and rides:
You can never do the business on race day morning.
And by business I do mean shidoobeedoobee. There is definitely an inverse relationship between how bad you want to go, and how hard your body clenches up. And by body I do mean butt. I can promise you that on race day it would be easier for me to race backwards than to do the necessary duty before the start of the race.
However, once the gun does signal the start of the race my body is ready and willing to let it flow like cheap Champaign on News Year’s eve.
On race day I always forget at least one thing at home, and I always realize this in the final few minutes before transition closes.
So part of the problem is that I would be hard pressed to find a sport that requires more stuff. Perhaps the modern pentathlon, competitive Domino stacking, hockey, or even scuba diving have as much crap to make it all work. But scuba is really not a sport, and the others don’t go against the clock.
This means that just when I’m about to place my towel on the ground I suddenly remember that I left my air pump, or my body glide, or my sunglasses, or my sun tan lotion, or my water bottles, or my butt butter, or my wetsuit, or my car keys, or my aspirin, or my helmet, or my underwear, or my USAT card, or my freakin’ towel at home.
No matter where I start the swim, somebody will always swim over me, or under me, or kick me, or grab my leg, or punch me, or scratch me, or look at me the wrong way.
I call this swim rage.
Just like car rage, swim rage seems to grab normal mild mattered athletes and turn them into steroid sucking, face kicking, rib punching, Hulk Hoganish water wrestlers.
I really don’t ever envy the pros except for the start of the race. They know that by working together they all win. Age-group athletes seem to think that swimming at the start of a triathlon is a contact sport. Which is pretty funny as the start of any age-group race when observed from a non-watery and safe distance is like a slow motion hippo ballet with all that splashing, kicking, and swimming over each other with so little real forward motion.
I don’t really care what some may consider as professional, fast, or part of the sport, but peeing on the bike into ones shorts and shoes is just gross and disgusting.
I seem to recall that during the first several years of the Ironman, the local Denny’s on the bike journey around the small island was a must stop. Today age-group athletes are pissing in their shorts as if they were trying to qualify for the 2008 Olympics, or racing Mark Allen and Dave Scott for a podium place in Kona.
You know I really understand that it is victimless and sterile crime, and probably none of my business, but boy it just really makes me shutter in disgust to think about hot piss running down my legs and into my bike shoes.
No thank you ladies and gentlemen. I’ll take the extra time and finish only sweaty and hot at the end of my race. And I’ll even risk coming in 1234 instead of 1233.
BTW: As far as peeing in the wetsuit goes…I’m good with that. The fish do it all the time and I have plenty of water to wash it away. In fact, I really like to pee a lot when swimming, especially at the start of a race so you may want to keep this in mind next time you decide to swim over me.
There is no race without the volunteers.
It’s srange, but at many races the racers get technical shirts and the volunteers get cotton shirts. This sort of implies that the volunteers are somehow less important.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Without them, and all of their help, and all their hard work, there would be exactly one triathlon every four years. And that would be the Olympic race. And I’m not sure that they could even put this race on without help from volunteers.
I know for sure that the ITU long course world championships were almost exclusively staffed by volunteers.
So I think that we should make it an unstated, but strictly enforced commandment, that when racing we always smile at volunteers, never-ever yell at them no matter what, and thank them for all of their help. Because without them we’d all just be sitting at home reminiscing about the good old days when an Ironman was just $500.00.
So please consider this my “THANK YOU” to all of you who have volunteered for my races this year. And you can bet that I’ll be handing out cups of warm water next year at a race in or around Boulder.
OK, I’ll try to make it cold water, but you know how that goes.