Brian's Next Blog Attempt

I learned to dive in August of 2000.  I clearly remember the swim test we had to do.  We had to swim some distance (okay--I don't remember clearly enough to remember the distance, but it was several laps--14 maybe?) and then tread water for 5 minutes.  At the time, all I really knew how to do was a back stroke and a side stroke, so that's what I did for the entire time.  I remember swimming over the deep end of the pool and thinking about how much water was below me and how easy it would be for me to drown.  I remember being scared of treading water and how I had to grab onto the side of the pool a couple of times.  (I was also recovering from a cold at the time and was pretty worn out, so I may have been able to last the full 5 minutes if I were at full strength.)  After getting my certification, I'd go diving at shores or the cove and see people out there swimming.  I've told several dive buddies that I'm fine with my 7 mm wetsuit on, but there's no way I'd just go out swimming like these people.

Well today that mental barrier has been broken.  The last few Friday swims, I've been pretty warm in my wetsuit, so today I gave into peer pressure and went without!  I knew I could do it, since I have swum without it before in Hawaii, but it still scared me somewhat.  I was pretty nervous about the hanging around the buoys and chatting since it meant treading water.  But once I got out there, none of that mattered.  The swim was great!  The water was very comfortable.  I had no problems while swimming and surprised myself that I had no problems treading water while hanging out at the buoys.  As we talked at the 1/2 mile buoy, I checked my watch and realized we had been hanging out talking for 5 minutes.  That made me remember my SCUBA swim test and how I couldn't tread water for 5 minutes.  I got a little nervous once I thought of that, but here I was doing it with no problem at all.

I left the swim in a really good mood that I had broken through another mental barrier.  Ellen--thank you very much for making me ditch the wetsuit!

I first watched the Tour de France 2 years ago to see Lance win his seventh and last tour.  I found everything about the tour absolutely fascinating.  I hadn't ridden much then, so I was really curious about what it's like to ride long distances and ride in a paceline.  I also was amazed at all the strategy that went into the race--how each team had their riders work together to try to get their leader a win and how teams and even individuals from different teams would negotiate with each other to help each other out.  Watching this tour was one of the big reasons I got involved in cycling and now triathlons, so it's clearly made a huge difference in my life.

Last year, I was thrilled again to watch another American win, but disappointed with the scandal.  This year since last year's winner wasn't returning, I wasn't all that excited to watch, but it turned out to be a really good race because of all the possible winners.  Even better, I was doing good in one of the Tour de France fundraising pools.

But now, I'm absolutely sickened and disgusted by even more doping scandals even worse than those of last year.  First Vino gets tagged out for cheating and his whole team dropped out.  The very next day, the tour leader Rasmussen got pulled out by his team.  I watched Rasmussen totally fall apart in the 2005 tour and even though I want Levi to win this tour, I thought it would be great for Rasmussen to win.  Now that's no longer a possibility.  Then the Cofidis team dropped entirely today as well. 

I'm just really sick of all this.  All I wanted was to watch a good competition and learn even more about the tactics for cycling races and root for my favorites to win.  Now the whole tour is blotched and no matter who wins, it's a false victory.

It was already looking like the tour won't be broadcast in the US next year since viewership is down and Versus' contract is up this year.  Now it's in the realm of possibility that there won't even be a tour next year.  All the sponsors are sick people who ride for them get found doping, so they're pulling out.  Without the money, there are no teams and no tour.

Or maybe I'm just being dramatic and the tour will continue but shrink to be much smaller and less funded.  Maybe that wouldn't be so bad.  Maybe there would be less incentive for people to cheat then.

Well whatever--right now I'm just totally sick of the whole thing and wish we could just have a good competition without any scandals.

What better way to spend a day off from work than to get up earlier than normal and run a race?  Well, for July 4th, I decided to run the Scripps Ranch Old Pros 10K.  Actually Debbie and I both decided to do it, but she backed out at the last minute when she realized how early we had to get up on a holiday.

I got to the race and quickly found Pat, Jess, and Jason Eng.  We warmed up and stretched together, then got into place.  At the start, I didn't really feel like I was into the race.  I still wanted to beat my PR that I set at March Madness and I figured that wouldn't be a problem since this is a much less hilly course, but I didn't really feel like pushing it.  I got March Madness, I got 55 minutes, so I wanted to go big and get under 50 minutes for this race, but decided I'd be happy with anything under 55.  Jess said she was shooting for 50 - 55, so I thought I'd try to stay with her.

At San Diego International, I held back until the last mile and then started to push it.  I had no problem holding a higher speed for that last mile and ended up disappointed that I didn't pick up the pace sooner.  Based on that experience, my plan for this race was to keep my heartrate around 85% until the last two miles and then drop the hammer.  The group start and trying to keep up with Jess did get the best of me though.  As always, it was difficult to hold back with so many people passing me at first, so I did the first mile in 7:49, which at the time I thought was way faster than I needed to make 50 minutes.  When I saw that, I decided to back off and let more people pass me.  Most of the time I looked at my monitor, my heartrate was at 87% (though my online report shows that my average HR didn't hit 87 until mile 4).  But, I kept running and held pretty constant.

Finally I hit mile 4 and got scared.  I felt like it was too early to kick it up, but then I realized that it was just my fear of total failure talking.  Remembering Marty's blog from the Rock & Roll marathon, I had a talk with my body and made it do what I wanted.  My goal there for this mile to pass people one at a time.  I managed to do that and it felt great to finally stop letting everyone pass me.  It really helped me to have these small achievable goals of just passing the person in front of me rather than worrying about trying to push to some unknown limit.  As I crossed the mile 5 sign, I realized I still felt pretty good and would be able to finish strong.  Unfortunately about 250 meters later, my legs started to hurt and I thought I couldn't keep pushing so hard.  I don't know if it was psychological or if I really had pushed past my limits, but the rest of the race was definitely a struggle.  BUT--I didn't give up.  I kept pushing the whole time and somehow I managed to do that last mile faster than my previous 3.  Then in the last .2 miles, there's a nice long downhill and I passed quite a few people here doing thanks to coach's lessons on running downhill.  I even managed to get my heartrate up to 92% during the downhill portion of the run!

I crossed the finish line at an official time of 51:36 feeling like I really had pushed it.  Overall I was happy with my performace and happy that I set a new PR.  Mostly I was happy just that I had forced myself to get up early and do the race so I had a benchmark to compare against next year. :)

After the race, I talked to Jason (who finished in 46:54!).  He said he was holding his heartrate at 96% and that his max is set to 202 (2 bps higher than mine!).  So maybe a lot of my problems are about fear and I just need to push harder next time and not be worried about the mental limits of how low I think I need to keep my heartrate.  Maybe I should have stuck with Jess (who finished in 48:59!)  I'd like to do some more 10K's to find out, but I think I'm done with that until after El Tour de Tucson.  Fortunately there are some good local races around Thanksgiving and Christmas, so I'll be able to get some more in this year and see how I do.  I just hope I remember the lessons I've learned from my previous races. :)