The forecast for the morning was cloudy with a chance of rain. I even contemplated wearing a vest on race morning… That would have been perhaps the biggest mistake in a day filled with small miscalculations and uncontrollable turns of events.

Firstly, I have to thank a runner whom we had never met before Saturday. Due to some rather misguided planning on my part, our hotel was far out of walking distance from the start line, though I had (up until Saturday) believed it to be much closer. So, I called the hotel to see if there was a shuttle, or something that could get us to the train station, which was very close to the start line. Just as I called, another runner was checking-in. Overhearing the conversation the desk attendant was having with me, he offered to give Lucy and I a ride to the start line.

So then, we were off at 6:30am for the race’s extremely late 9:00am… a start time that I seriously hope the directors will reconsider for next year. With temperatures in the high 80’s on the beach at 9:00am, it’s no wonder that over 30 people had to be treated for het exhaustion along the race course.

We started off the race with an aggressive, but easily attainable (based on recent half-marathon and training times) goal of 4:15. In the first mile, we tucked into the 4:15 pace group and settled down through mile 5 or 6. Finally around mile 6 traffic was getting much better, and the group was really running easy. At the same time, we were running farther from the beach, and with pretty much no breeze. Since the sun was high in the sky by this time, there was almost NO shade except for at the very edges of the street. I don’t know what the actual Mercury was, but I can tell you that it was very hot. High 80’s for sure. Maybe low 90’s.

Around mile 9 we found some porta potties that were completely free, and off the path a bit. We decided that if we didn’t use those, we would probably never find any without a line, so we stopped and fell off the back of the 4:15 group. We were okay with that, and thought we would either make up the time or finish somewhere in-between 4:15 and 4:20. We resumed a good pace, and kept at it through the halfway point. Our Half-Marathon split was 2:14, and our 15 mile split was 2:34, so we were still on-track to be around 4:30. Somewhere between mile 16 and 18, however, we drastically changed our race plan. I realize that saying, “somewhere between mile 16 and 18,” is not extremely accurate, however, it should also give you some idea of how that day was going. Though there were markers at every mile, my recollection of the latter half of the race is fuzzy at best. Heat exhaustion tends to do that…

We picked up one of the stragglers from the 4:15 group, a Belgian guy around mile 13.5, and he quickly fell behind. Needless to say, he was not doing well. We had also seen another member of the 4:15 group who was talking to his family just after the half-marathon point. His name was Dave. Dave caught-up to us somewhere around mile 14, and ran with us for a couple of miles. We walked with him through the water stop at mile 16, or so and we got the hint that he was trying to drop behind…. he was not looking so great, so we kept shuffling along without him.

For some reason, I am always able to keep count of the number of runners I have seen “down” throughout the race. At this point, I had seen no fewer than 13 down and, as I said before, we would later find out that over 30 were treated for heat exhaustion. By mile 18, we knew we were simply not capable of safely reaching any of our time goals for the day. So, slightly disheartened by the inevitable, we plodded onward, and started taking walk breaks at the water stations. Before long, however, we would only be able to run in 5 minute stretches without overheating. Just after the halfway point, we were pretty much taking in any hydration we could find, as well as utilizing as much ice as we could get our hands on. We ran with baggies of ice we were able to commandeer from First Aid, and cups of ice we got from a few water stops, and pilfered from frond-yard coolers. Whenever we could, we replenished our ice supplies so that we always had something to cool down our water, and drip over our heads. (though the latter did little good)

For the final 6 miles of the race, we were really hoping to find some reprieve from the sun, and feel the sea breeze we knew we would find at mile 25. That was a long ways away, however. Even with that glorious promise, and the promise of simply being DONE, we could simply not run for very long without getting severely overheated. It went like that for a long while run for as long as we could stand, and walk for about as long. Douse w/ice water, repeat. This was extremely frustrating because the fact of the matter is that we were not out of fuel. Our legs were not tired. Our minds were strong. But our bodies simply couldn’t deal with the heat.

Around mile 24.5 the final water stop, Lucy ran into Beverly, a friend from NikeRunning who was coaching some of her runners. Lucy was unable to speak really, being so overcome with the emotion of being so helpless against the heat, yet having so much left in terms of legs and fuel. At this point, we knew we were done… we would finish. It would not be what we had hoped and trained for, but it would be a victory, and the suffering would soon come to an end.

The sea breeze we had hoped for at mile 25 did not materialized. The cool air had all but faded, which also doused our hopes of trotting home the last mile to just get the dang thing over with. We had the finish line in sight, and we still had to take a walk break, lacking any wind to help cool our ailing bodies.

When it was all said and done, we finished with a chip time of 4:59:50. This IS a PR for me, since I ran SanDiego a few years ago in 5:06.

Post-race, there was also no shade, and very little provisions to be had. We took shelter in a random cool-spot we found before going to the race hotel to get our stuff from bag check. We still had about a mile to walk to the train station to get back to Manhattan, so we rested for a minute, and hiked it out, now more weighed down than before toward the train.

Two days later, we both feel mostly normal. Legs are almost completely fine… Lucy suffered some fairly severe heat exhaustion/dehydration. I was fairly dehydrated, and am just now starting to feel like my fluids/electrolytes are in-line.

Next race? San Francisco 26.2 in July! We runners really are gluttons for punishment….

We have our plan in order, and the training schedule is starting to fall into place! Thanks to my wonderfully sporadic work schedule, it is a bit complicated to plan more than a couple of weeks in advance, but I am taking it one day at a time.

I will post some details from the plan as soon as I get a chance, and hope to have details on more musings on life as a running lighting tech, and some other exciting plans as well!

These are all important questions.  Questions which should be answered before leaving the house in the morning.  However, since this is a very difficult task to accomplish (I know… It’s EARLY!)  I will help by providing the answers myself.

So although all these things are awesome in their own way, you should not:

Wear sunglasses in the Airport Terminal.

Sit down in-between a conversation in-progress.

Tuck your shirt into your high-rise thong.

Board the plane when the plane is boarding rows 20-25, and you are seated in row 8 so you can be sure to claim a spot for your Luis Vuitton carry-on bag. Which is too big for the overhead compartment.

Wear sunglasses on the plane.

Get on the flight to Long Beach when you are flying to Burbank.  This is what the mirror’s answer would be to the question: “Should I be allowed out of the house by myself, without my helmet?”

Wear pajamas to the airport.

Wear pajamas and a trucker hat, ever.

Watch a DVD while you are on the Security Checkpoint line.

Occupy three rows of the plane during boarding so you can get all of your stuff ready for the flight.

Pack bags that are clearly too large for the overhead bin.

Wear anything made of something resembling crushed velvet.

Place a Luis Vuitton purse(s?) inside of (a?) Prada Handbag(s?).  Creating sort of an expensive bag Nesting-Doll scenario.  Actualy, I think there’s another purse inside of the Prada bag too… maybe the guy in Times Square accidentally gave her an extra.  Okay, update.  There is another Prada bag within the Luis Vuitton purse.  There may be another bag within that one.  For now, I can only guess… But I am sure that the tertiary bag would feel lonely without another equally unnecessary bag within its ample, emblazoned lining.

Shoes which appear to be made of cork.

Scurrying up the aisle to retrieve your entire carry-on bag.  With what I would describe as Hobbit feet.  Please, sir… at least wear socks.

I hope that all of us can learn an important lesson, here.  I would also like to note that if the lady with the purses shifts position one more time in the next thirty seconds I swear upon all that is precious in this world I am going to scream, “PLEASE.  We are not looking at your butt crack.  BUT, you must know by now that we all know what you are doing. You’re not fooling anyone.”  But that’s exactly what you think you are doing, isn’t it?  Fooling us.  Fooling us into thinking that you are more glamorous than you actually are. Fooling us with the excessive purses, and the eye makeup at 7am, and your carefully “curated” nonchalance.  Listen… I know where you get it from.  You get if from that weekly magazine you are reading.  All the stars do it.  It’s the track-suit look… the “suede”.  And, while I understand that you think it’s cool, let’s get something straight here.  Jennifer Aniston can go out looking like this.  Why?  Because we’ve seen her in a lot of movies and it is generally established that she is “attractive.”  She is a professional “attractive” person.  It’s what she does for a living.  So, I guess it’s fair that she should be granted a day off and allowed the luxury of a dumpy “suede” track suit.   You, on the other hand, miss in 20C (now she’s sleeping in the empty row, so it’s Miss in 20A-C), are going to have to try a bit harder.

That is all.

:::

“Work harder,” he would say.  “You’ve got to let everyone see how hard you are working.  Never let anyone see you sitting down or wasting time… keep it up.”

For some strange reason these are the enduring words of my Grandfather.  Maybe it’s because of the timeless wisdom, the straightforward, tough-love encouragement.  Or maybe it’s because when he told me this I was ten years old.  Digging trenches to put a sprinkler system in somebody’s front yard.  In the summer.  Ten years old.

Some of you may know him as Shig, John, maybe even Juan.  But to me, he was “Gichan.”  Gichan wouldn’t want me to make this sappy, or dreary, and if my father has shown me anything by example, he certainly wouldn’t have wanted it to be lengthy.  Tears and sad words are outright.

Allow me then to speak for a minute about what Gichan taught me.  He taught me many lessons, though like all good lessons, I would have no idea at the time what he was talking about.  Only recently have I been able to realize what he was telling me, or rather the example that he set for me.

I’ll never know exactly what happened up at the base of Mt. Whitney over sixty years ago.  I was never able to truly gain a vivid picture of what life was like there, of what they went through, or what was going through his mind those years.  The stories I heard were mostly of the years after the camps… of the successes and struggles of making a new life, and climbing back to the top. Starting from scratch.

Perhaps because of this, Gichan was and always had been a hard worker.  I don’t think that he was ever trained in anything he did, yet he was a welder, a carpenter, a plumber, a painter, a mechanic, a gardener, and a proficient master of the ancient Japanese art of KA-RA-O-KE.  The latter, perhaps we could have done without, though the karaoke machines and video cameras did have an important place in my formative years as a wee-young-sound technician.   What I am trying to say is that my Grandfather taught me how to hustle.  If anyone ever asked him, “Do you know how to…” the answer was always a reassuring, “YES.”  He would figure out how to ACTUALLY do it as he went.

Whether I was mowing a lawn, sweeping, or operating a leaf blower (again, I was probably much too young to be doing any of these things…) he made sure I was always working hard.  Back then I didn’t really care… I just wanted to make him happy.  But today, I know that he was teaching me to be proud of myself.  To take pride in what I do.  He was teaching me that life is more than just a set of tasks.  Life is NOT a bitch.  Or maybe for some it is, because LIFE IS WHAT WE MAKE OF IT.  That is what Gichan would have wanted you to hear today.  YOU ARE NOT A PASSENGER.  It is not enough to stop and smell the roses.  Turn the earth, plant a seed, water it, watch it grow, and THEN, when you have done the work, you can of your labor.  THAT is what he taught me.

“Scotty the great,” he would call me.  As if I was some kind of child-superhero.  “Boy, you’re the greatest…” he would tell me.  I didn’t believe him at the time… but I know what he was trying to tell me.  He was telling me this:

Never TRY to be your best.  He would never have said that.  BE the best. And if you believe that you are the greatest, and that you are all you can be, then you are.  Period.

Gichan…. thank you.

For those of you that don’t know, a CSA is Community Supported Agriculture. Basically, for a nominal fee we get a share of whatever the farm harvests each week.

Anyway, this is pretty cool, and I plan on putting up another post when we get our first load of food in a couple weeks!

After a long hiatus of not writing any blogs, I think that it’s safe to say that I may actually be able to get back to doing some with some regularity. There are lots of things to share, and a TON of pictures.

Also, for those of you that were concerned, I was able to fix the hacked page with relative ease, and it appears that everything is back to normal.

Thanks for looking, and I’ll be back with updates soon!

In any case, we finally arrived at the race site which was a bit of a drive from home. It had already started to get quite warm, and was sure to be a very hot race.
We gathered for a quick picture. You will notice that in this picture I am wearing swim jammers beneath the tri-shorts which was intended to prevent my tri shorts from getting
into the chlorine water. However, it was so hot, that I decided any extra clothes would
be a bad idea.

Lucy was very excited that she got her sister to do the race with her, and Paola looks pretty excited too.

This is a rare picture of me working on my own bike, even though it’s just inflating a tire.
Those of you that are regular viewers of the pictures may be more accustomed to seeing me
try to Mickey-Mouse some kind of elaborate mish-mash of parts onto a mountain bike… this is rare.

Paola was lucky to have Brian at the race to provide moral support and (sort-of) take pictures.
Though, when I found him, he was doing more “seeking shelter” than taking pictures.

The girls forced me to participate in their who can look stupidest in a pose contest. The good/bad news is that I think I won.

Brian did manage to get a good picture of Paola running off the start. I think at this
point, she was behind Lucy and I, but we waited for her around mile 1 and ran her in the
rest of the way. By that time, temps were approaching the 100’s, and we were happy to be
ready for the bike.

Now, here’s the part that there aren’t many pictures for.

After the run, things started to fall apart for us, and the entire rest of the field, actually.
I dumped some of our extra water (I always have a spare bottle in the transition) over my
head to cool off. It was seriously hot at this point, and I wish we had just come out
of the water so that we’d get a nice cooling effect on the bike. No such luck, however.
In any case, the water felt good, and kept me cool long enough for me to get enough sweat to
make up the difference. At this point, we had agreed to go our own pace, and I wanted to really push things on the bike.
Especially since I knew that I didn’t really have to save anything for only a 100yd. swim.

The girls set off at their own steady pace. I can’t really say what kind of pace they were
doing, but Lucy says that she was keeping things pretty fast. After a wind through the
parking area, and couple of miles we hit THE. HILL. This was, however, no ordinary hill.
It’s not the kind of hill that goes straight up, or really crests… just the kind that grinds out for a couple of miles and makes you wish you were dead.
The number I heard was 8% grade… I’m not really sure if that’s true. If it is, well, then
this would be considered a Cat. 1 climb. Whether Cat. 1 or 2, it was definitely tough and took
its share of victims. I passed one rider who was passed out and being helped by another
racer. I thought to stop and help, but there was really nothing that I could have done.
One advantage of doing the run slower is that I got to pass a lot of MTBers and weaker climbers.
Eventually I caught a pretty decent climber, and we talked a bit and worked together to get up the hill.
At the top of the hill there was a single man with a few cups of water. Luckily I brought
a bottle with me, and didn’t have to stop for that. It was pretty pathetic, actually, and I
feel bad for anyone who would have been relying on this support.

Of course, what goes up must come down, and descending is my favorite part of hills. None
of us really appreciated this climb until we realized how long and steep the descent was.
I have a simple math equation for you… 53×11. And it feels glorious. On the way down, I saw Paola heading up the hill. I now know that Lucy was somewhere near her, but I didn’t see her. Shortly after, I had to slow down to avoid the fire truck coming up the hill to help the wounded.

After the truck passed, I came across a very pesky man with a flat-bar roadie. This man had
determined that he was definitely faster than anything else on the road, and he was ready to
prove it. By this time, I had gotten back up to an nice downhill speed around 35mph, and thought it would be safe to pass him.
As I started to pass, he randomly decided to challenge. Simultaneously, we hit a hill.
Now, I don’t mind climbing, but I wouldn’t consider myself a particularly strong climber…
So, this was trouble. Seeing as he wasn’t in my AG, and I wasn’t anywhere close to being in
in contention for overall place, it didn’t really matter… But that doesn’t mean that I was
going to let this “flatbar” beat me. So, out of the saddle we came. We hit the top of the
hill pretty much together, but I was able to push over the top, and dropped him shortly
after. At this point, we hit the parking lot section again and had to weave around speed
bumps, and curbs and such. I thought I had seen the last of this guy, as I started to pass
some more riders in the insanity of the parking lot. It was definitely fun/annoying slipping
over curbs, and around all kinds of obstacles. I felt like I was in a messenger race.

Just as I was coming out of the parking lot, this guy came up and passed me on the right.
Now, I can take being passed, but not on the right! Right after his pass was a sweeping
left out of the parking lot. Now, if you know anything about bikes, you may know that Speedplay
likes to talk about how their pedals offer superior cornering performance. I thought to
test that out, as I noticed that he had regular BMX-style pedals. Consequently, he took the
corner quite wide. I was able to pedal through the corner and make a nice exit all on the
inside of him, and I finally dropped him once and for all.

There were a few rollers on the last section of the course, but nothing that really caused me to shift down too low.
I had some problems with cramping of my calves, and hamstrings. I’m pretty sure it’s
because I was only drinking water, and not enough. It was a very hot day, and I thought
that one bottle would be adequate. It wasn’t. I was riding past a nice older lady, and she
spun up a little bit… seemed like she wanted someone to talk to, so I slowed a bit, and
chatted with her about the miserable climb early in the ride, and how it had set us up
for a very tired last half. We also talked about how good the pool was going to feel in a
couple of miles. THE POOL!!! I had almost forgotten. With that, I said goodbye, and really
hammered it home, looking forward to that swim.

I got into T2 without incident, and even did a flying dismount, which I have been working on
for a while. (Though Lucy loves to give me crap about it.) I paused for a minute in T2, to
make sure that the cramping had calmed down before I jumped into the pool, since I knew
that wouldn’t really be much help to avoid the cramping. As I was running up to the pool, I
ran into my buddy Jason Lomheim. He was nice enough to cheer me on. With that, I jumped
in, and went for a nice relaxing swim. It really wasn’t long enough, and I wish I could
have stayed in the water longer. When I got out, I found Brian, and took the camera from
him.

Camera in-hand, I was now the official photographer. I managed to get a few pictures of Lucy riding in, but they weren’t very good.
The better pictures were of Lucy getting back into T2. Her story seemed to be pretty
similar to mine with respect to the monster-hill.

With that, she was off to the pool, and I was back to the course to try and get a picture of
Paola coming in on the bike. I got back to the Transition entrance just in time, and got
a nice picture…

After the race, I met up with Jason again, and he told me that he had won second place overall. That’s pretty amazing! Overall, it was a great race, and we definitely had fun.
All that was left was to pack the car, and be on our merry way.

Next up is the Camp Pendleton Sprint and our Century ride to San Diego!

The official race start time was 6am. Swims started in waves of 100 athletes, spaced 3 minutes apart. With over 1,000 entrants, you can imagine how long this took. There were actually about 16 waves, although I don’t think that they all had 100 swimmers in them. There were still swimmers waiting to start when Lucy finished the swim at about 6:20. Lucy says that the water was not too warm, but also not “take your breath away cold.” She had originally planned on wearing a wetsuit, but a conversation with a woman at the start line made her think twice, and (with the help of an army of anonymous women) ditched the wetsuit just before her wave started.

Here’s a picture of Lucy’s wave lined up for the swim start. This was actually a boat ramp that is used to launch service boats into the lagoon. Lucy said the surface was pretty slimy and gross. The blue railing in the back is the launch area to the California Screamin’ roller coaster.

Chaos ensues as the wave gets started. There is a slight drop-off at the end of the boat ramp, so there were a lot of people pushing forward pretty hard to get a start. In actuality, the water was shallow enough to stand in. The lagoon drops off at some point further along to an eventual depth of 12′.

Lucy has found a nice place very early, and is making some space for herself. Nothing ever lasts for long in the water though…

Though the water was quite dirty, it really was quite a nice place for a swim. Water temp. at race time was reported to be 78ºF, and there’s a beautiful background of California Adventure.

I was very lucky to catch some pictures of Lucy actually in the water. She’s in the very center of this picture (click the image for a larger version). This is also the point at which a spectator said: “It’s like Titanic out there.” That’s my quote of the year.

It’s easy to get caught in traffic going around the buoys, but Lucy takes this turn nice and wide, and clears very nicely. She seems to have been in a good place in her wave, as there was not much traffic in front or behind her.

After rounding the buoy, Lucy seems to be settling back in, and showing some nice breathing, clearing the water quite nicely.

Lucy said to me after the race, “I didn’t know my shoes were going to get so wet.” I guess I never thought about it, because my bike shoes usually get the worst of this, but I can see now how that would be a problem. Note the balance and skill required for this type of sock application.

Helmet buckled and ready to head out of T1.

Coming in to T2 from the bike. This was a very confusing area for some ladies. Not sure why really. Lucy says there were volunteers sorting out those coming in to finish from those going for a second lap long before this area, but for some reason, this was a point of mass chaos. I should add that this area was VERY well marked with cones. Lucy didn’t seem to have any problems.

Lucy is all smiles as she turns the final corner into the finisher’s chute. She ran this race at a blazing 8:08/mi pace. That’s pretty fast after coming off of a bike. She said, “I felt like jelly.”

Still smiling, and having a great time as she strides in to the finish.

Lucy’s Mom was there with Ejiro to help cheer her on! Mom and Ejiro came with us at 5am to the race site. Considering it’s wasn’t even 8am when Lucy finished the race, I’d have to say that these are some dedicated fans! Thanks for coming, guys!

I had to get a picture with her, and her giant bottle of water. I’m very proud that Lucy posted such a great time, and showed so much more confidence this time out. As she said, she’s come such a long way. From not knowing how to swim, and being deathly afraid of the water to swimming in open water with a bunch of crazy old ladies… It’s really saying something. I’m proud to have her call me “coach”!

Lucy wanted to take one final picture with her prized water-bottle-trophy. They only gave these extra big ones out to the cute finishers!

I just finished processing pics from the first day, so those should go-up tonight if I get home at a decent hour.