UC Green Marketing-- Co-teaching with My Dad-- Cuba and Bicycles

This past Friday and Saturday, my dad and I launched version 1.0 of our Green Marketing class with the MBA students at UC. It was a smashing success! All our coffee/smoothie dates over the past year brought us together in mushy father-son ways and our guest speakers' expertise made us look like we actually knew what the heck we were doing. And guess what-- we kind of did! But we still learned soooo much from our guest speakers and have so much to learn. 

Dr. D and Mr. D.-- whoop there it is, tag team back again. (Dr. D authored the #2 cited marketing paper of the last 100 years. Mr. D authored the blog that's too often about the #2 biological function)

Biggest Takeaways
On day one, students were saying they didn't understand why our bibliography included a video about permaculture. "Don't you think permaculture is a radical hippie lifestyle; no one is going to do that to be green," one woman shared during the opening group discussion. But then guest speaker, Pat Murphy, from Community Solutions (in Yellow Springs, Ohio) rocked our worlds with his award winning documentary The Power of Community-- How Cuba Survived Peak Oil. It looks like we are ALL going to be intimately connected to the permaculture movement. And he gave ample evidence that it has everything to do with measurable quantities like energy (BTU, gallons, KwHr) and very little to do with immeasurable quantities like green-ness.
 
Since Cuba essentially ran out of oil once the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, economic catastrophe forced them to re-design their entire society without oil. Now 25% of all workers are small-scale farmers. And that means without all the oil-born fertilizers. They're organic, baby!

Another cool thing--Cuba imported 1.5 million bicycles and manufactured 0.5 million. Even doctors ride their bikes to work! They have the same infant mortality rate as the US and the same life expectancy.

Cubans and Pat Murphy are what we call the "Plan C" camp-- the 1% of people who believe the response to our energy crisis is a radical shift in lifestyle. How can they do so well with so little? They value development over growth. Cemeteries do an awful lot of growing, but they don't do a lot of developing. So what will we decide for ourselves-- un-economic growth (growth at any cost) or economic de-growth, as advocated by the steady state economists?

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1251126

My dad and I also had a representative from the Plan B camp-- that larger minority of the population who believe the coming energy crisis will be solved by renewable energy. Family friend, Tim Weick, is chief engineer for Amp Motors, an electric car retrofit company based in Cincinnati. They claim "zero emissions" with their electric cars. (Of course, they are only concerned about emissions from the car and not the power plants-- figure that out). But they just sold 1000 cars to a billionaire in Iceland who gets his 100% of his electricity from geothermal sources. So these actually will be zero emission vehicles (ZEVs). They welcome competition, like the Chevy Volt, because to them, it validates the market for plug in cars.

I'm not so sure that's a good thing. According to my homey, John Robbins' source, the Energy Info Agency, "US electricity from non-hydro renewables in 2010 was 15% higher than 2009. But RE electricity was only 1.2% of total generation and total consumption of kilowatt-hours in 2010 was 4% more than in 2009. In other words, growth in use is much faster than growth in renewable energy."

This Chevy Equinox has been retrofitted to be a 100% electric car. The "gas" cap is where you plug in 220V or 120V power that you already have in your house. Amp loses $20,000 on every car they sell. They're biz plan buys them time to do this as they get more efficient with their production process and markets ramp up.

The Plan A camp wasn't represented by our guest speakers. They're are kind of the agnostics, who believe the market and technology will take care of the climate, whether a problem exists or not. Perhaps next year. But, if I had my druthers, I'd skip that token consideration for their viewpoint. There's just too much good data.

In fact, one of our speakers, Dr. Robert Dahlstrom from Miami University, gave an Inconvenient Truth-esque presentation, making the business case to respond to the ecological imperative, quickly. It included no less than five headlines from THAT MORNING'S New York Times referencing revised insurance forecasts due to water shortages, or NOAA adjustments of 30 year average global temperatures, to name a couple. Talk about keeping a presentation fresh!

Our final speaker was Larry Falkin from Cincinnati's Office of Environmental Quality. He excited the class with an overview of the progress Cincinnati has made on it's Climate Protection Action Plan. This plan was essentially drafted by a bunch of dudes (yours truly included), experts, wanna-be's, and straight-up slimy sales people on weekday evenings (volunteer time), with not a whole lot of marketing muscle power behind them. Sure the city did an noteworthy $15M worth of energy retrofits for 69 buildings using those genius cash-positive energy loans, but the real exciting success has been 1) the curbside recycling program and 2) the "Complete Streets Policy".

The recycling program will save the city $1.5M this year and has made 40% of Cincinnatians active participants. How did they do it? Wheels on green carts rather than clunky, heavy bins. Simple and genius! Get a new pic

Recycling was in full effect at the Hyde Park Blast this year.

I ripped the image from the web after googling Mayor Mallory recycling cart. I think it's just a black guy recycling and not really the mayor. But since the bins have an radio frequency ID chip inside them, the city knows who is NOT recycling. If you are not recycling, you get a call from ROBO-Mayor-Mallory encouraging you to recycle. How neat is that!

And the City's "Complete Streets Policy" is a worthy topic for its own blog on another day. Sorry. Too much to get ready for this weekend-- visiting my brother on a bio-dynamic farm and pacing my friend on her 100 mile trail run. I commited officiallyto do 20, but I've been craving 30 since turning 30. We shall see!

Raw Vacation- Triple X Too Fast Too Furious Tokyo Drift REMIX

How does a long distance relationship work? If it's a good relationship, it shouldn't be "work" at all.  Being high carb raw vegan on vacation has some challenges, sure, but it made the vacation that much more vacationy. Here's a little recap of the Dwyer Bivouac Bootcamp with the fam to Elk Rapids, Michigan 2011.

Mike and Caro are famous for their Triple X Too Fast Too Furious Tokyo Drift (glorified stir fry), so I had to be on my A-game to keep up with their culinary skillz in the kitchen/bathroom.

The hotel had 120V AC electric current ready tap into for breakfast-- 12 bananas + 1/2 avo + 3 mango + Ninja blender = The Tropical Orgasmatron. FYI-- I'm looking for an off-the-grid blender. We shouldn't need to depend on Comfort Suites for our frappe.

4 generations of Dwyer men have now climbed this tree in my grandmother's front yard. Dad and nephew Ignacio are busy getting sappy in the pine, which offers a great view of Detroit, Michigan from the top. But that's as close as we get to the motor city, because we're headed 4 hours north to Elk Rapids.

What a wonderful family! Not nearly everyone was there. That just would have been too dangerous to have such a high concentration of cuteness in one place.

McD's...the world's #1 purchaser of meat and contributor to factor farming cruelty and injustice...their only meaningful contribution is clean bathrooms and their parking lots are open for romantic melon eating at sunset.

Ann Arbor, Michigan is a funky little melon-lovin' town open to passers-by and thru-drivers and random acts of compost.

Susie, the renowned cherry hunter, arrives at the cottage ready to machete her way through the northern wilderness.

The nature preserve across the street has a beach on Lake Michigan where hump back whales are known to make appearances. Sorry, they were too fast for photographers this year.

AAGH! While beautiful, my wife is a magnet for head-sized mosquitoes, which Lake Michigan has plenty of.

Wakey wakey. 7am start pounding a 4th of July red white and blue smoothie. Who says these colors don't run? Cherries weren't quite ready, but berries are being harvested all over the place in Elk Rapids.

Moisture is the essence of wetness and wetness is the essence of beauty-- stayin' hydrated every time!

I had my toughest workout of the year this day: Susie and I ran only seven miles, but I'd let Susie get 100-200 yards ahead of me and then I'd sprint max effort to catch her. Repeat 10x and you are spent and sore for a week! Takes me back to the soccer days, conditioning with legendary Charlie Cooke.

Life is good

Brother Mike teaching me how to get an open water swim done since my goggles broke the first day.

A little cross-training Frisbee with the bros. "Great Friss, Dan!"

Until next time, we love you Michigan and Fam.

Best Training Day of the Year-- Failures Included

Today's brick was the BEST training day of the year-- 90 mile ride + 4 mile trail run with Amanda and Pater, some of the most beautiful scenery in the Midwest, and some hard-core education that will be useful come race day.

Every training day is a dress rehearsal for a race day nutrition plan. Since one third of all Ironman athletes suffer nutritional breakdown on race day, getting things right is worth a couple thousand miles of getting things wrong. The athletes who don't finish are rarely under-trained...expect in nutrition.

Mid-Ohio River on the Augusta Ferry 43 miles East of Cincinnati-- breathtaking!

The ferry is free for patriotic cyclists!

My day's nutrion plan failed me in two ways:
1) I didn't have enough dates-- my supplier is out for the season. So, I had to use gas station "food". By trial and error I've discovered my rule of thumb is one date per mile of riding.
2) For about a half hour, I didn't take in enough calories, PERIOD. Regardless of the "purity" of my nutrition source, starvation is the worst poison. My legs lacked punch from about mile 60-70. After two candy bars and a Sprite, I was feeling back to life. They had no real food to speak of. WTF?! Some people believe the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. But if you want to be a good cyclist, you almost have to treat your body like a Mr. Fusion from Back to the Future.

Garbage "food" from gas stations is a delicacy for a starving bonking endurance athlete. You can't be a purist, man. It's a dangerous raw food religion.  1.21 Jiggawatts!!!!

Here's what I had for breakfast, on the ride, and for my recovery drink-- (prior to lunch and dinner).

"You're a vegan-- how do you get your protein?" By paying attention to nutrition and not paying attention to the meat and dairy industry. Cronometer is a FREE download-able program that helps me keep track of my nutrition from day to day.

There's nothing more rapturous after a workout than a creamy glass of summery cantaloupe frappe. Oo DAG!

One cantaloupe yields about one liter of Nati Nectar

Dude! What happened to my organic peaches? They went from rock hard to black plague. Lunch is a bust. Back to bananas and spinach.

BEWARE: TMI (Too much information)
After today's workout I had about 4 BM's over the course of the evening. This was annoying, but nothing abnormal when I'm eating as many calories and as much soluble fiber as I am. Come race day, I'm not afraid of soluble (soft) fiber. Still, with a better date supply and some fresh coconuts and time to juice oranges, I will be eating and drinking considerably much less fiber with my calories when given more time for preparation.

Paula Radcliffe pooped en-route to setting her world record marathon, you poop haters!! I would like to believe that in this case, correlation IS causation. Some people believe anal retention is the root of global violence. I for one will go as far on that band waggon as agreeing that getting folks anally resolved wouldn't hurt with world peace.

Here's Pater working on world peace. The fairy's port-side port-o-john saved Pater from the ill-timed effects of his team's big 3 week colon cleanse. Sounds like just another day in the life of Chris Dwyer, whose entire life has become a colon cleanse.

Quote of the day from Pater: "You know it's bad when you're pissin' dust."

Cleves Time Trial Results

On Tuesday, I participated in my first Cleves Time Trial 16.4 km (10.2 mi) of the year--I set a PR! My old best time was taken during May 2009 (Ironman Lou' training season), where I clocked 25:43. Tuesday, I went 24:52-- 3.3% faster.

Elevation of the Cleves course

The top performance of the year belongs to a genuine stud, John Murdock, who went 10.9% faster still at a time of 22:09, averaging 27.6 mph, whereas I averaged 24.6 mph.

Below is a summary of all the times posted this year. This includes all times by all riders, and therefore includes repeat performances of some riders, (usually the faster guys). See if you can spot the oddity with the data.

The orange line represents my performance Tuesday compared to all times of all riders this year.

The oddity here is that there are a couple of plateaus near the faster times and these plateaus are broken at integer minutes-- that is, at the 23:00 mark, the 24:00 mark, the 25:00 mark, etc. So, my performance Tuesday crossed a critical barrier of the 25:00 mark. If you had to guess, based on human psychology, you would expect times to cluster around the upper limit of each plateau-- that is, you'd find many more performances in the territory of 24:57, 24:58, 24:59 than you would near 24:02, 24:03. Because, if you can ride as fast as 24:02, than surely you'd have the mental motivation to cross into the 23:00 zone. BUT...as it turns out, this intuition doesn't hold up for the very fastest times. Not only is the 24:00 plateau crossed, but it's smashed with a time of 23:59. Similarly, the 23:00 barrier is smashed with a time of 22:59. Perhaps these dudes are stuck in their own personal plateaus or represent the owners of an important technology gap.

The very fastest riders (in the first and second plateau zones) have several tech features in common --1) time trial bikes (aerobars), 2) aero helmets, 3) disc wheel(s), and 4) shoe covers. Of course, they deserve credit for stellar athletic performance.

LESSONS LEARNED
I'm going to ride that course a couple more times to gather more data. Undoubtedly, some of my performance gains came strictly from my new time trial bike-- better positioning, better knee pinching, more aero. What I find interesting (and daunting) is that in order for me to double my speed from cruising around 12.3 mph to hauling ass at 24.6 mph, I have to quadruple the work to overcome the frictional forces of air. The force of air drag is proportional the square of the velocity. So, if I triple my speed from 10 mph to 30 mph, I have to do 9 times the work! This is a good reason to find a way for me and/or my bike to become more aerodynamic.

There is also room for plenty of fitness improvements, as well as tech improvements, but just as importantly, strategy improvements. I tried to catch my :30 man from the get-go. I almost had him about 3/4 in, but he pulled away on the last long flat, where I started petering out. I ended up only gaining 2 seconds on him. Next time, I will wear a heart rate monitor and race my own race and I'll use an odometer and try to leave some gas in the tank for the final long flat stretch and the uphill finish.

I did happen to wear my shoe covers and removed my water bottle from the aerobars, but I should have removed the water bottle from my down-tube since I didn't drink the whole ride. I'll also remove the gear bag from my seat post since there's no time to change a flat, but I figured I would want to leave some sort of room for improvement for the next race where I feel a little more optimized inside and out.

OTHER GOOD NEWS
After my tune up last week, my car's fuel efficiency went from 19mpg to 32.2mpg! This is terribly important when business trips have me routinely going to Toledo, Columbus, Dayton, hauling a car full of equipment for me energy audit work. I've already racked up 20,000 miles this year. Yuck!

I haven't unplugged from this grid, but it's a start.

Back In Cincy, State of Planet Address

NYC and Miami, FL are but happy memories. Now...back to realty, back in Cincy, back to training and back to work, with nearly every project's construction calendar synchronizing like a menstruating convent. AGGHH!!!!

What did we learn from all these world travels?

*NYC will chew you up and spit you out hourly. If you stop walking, the pedestrians will run you over. Goldang, it's a tough city to relax in. Luckily, Sis-in-law Molly branded her urban machete and was an ever-gracious host. We even found a raw restaurant where we ordered a raw cake for my birthday-- only $55!

My family OWNS the subway once we board. But the noise at terminals fries our brains.  We ain't really city folk.

 

Watch out, here we come.

*Miami is an inappropriately sexy city.

The women are sexy. The beach is sexy. Even the buildings are sexy. 

 

Manatee expert/adventurer and future free range vodka farmer?

Manatee in the harbor drinking fresh water from the hose

*The second green LEED building you build may be the worst building ever built.

Crappy technique. C'mon guys, do it like you did the first time. 

On your first building, you have the fear of God in you because you don't understand the LEED rating system and the owner is breathing down your neck so they can claim government incentives. But then, on your second building, you consider yourself a green expert and you come up with cute ways to cut costs, i.e. don't put insulation in wall cavities.

*Shaving your legs brings ZERO improvment to your triahtlon's aerodynamics, but does NOT hurt your marriage, and CAN lead to easier road rash cleaning. 

I took a turn too fast on a the greasy wet pavement and slid across the entire intersection in front of about a billion on-lookers. "I meant to do that."

It takes too much time that could be spent training or resting. It wastes fresh water and energy. It requires costly shaving lubricants. It demands dangerous bodily contortions in the shower. It burns too many calories. It is never 100% finished. Despite all these wonderful benefits, it will NOT make you any faster in wetsuit, on a bike, or running. Nevertheless, the wifey likes it and it makes your legs look fast which are both just the kind of ego-stroking perks that every triathlete needs.

*The worms are getting busier (hubba hubba, bow chicka waow waow)

The worm bin was full of lettuce heads and brown bananas and peels before we left. Now all that's left is the most amazing soil on the planet. I frapped a bunch of spoiling iceberg lettuce for them when we got home since they sounded hungry as they slithered across each other.

*$180 sunglasses are worth their weight in litter but not their weight in urushiol oil (aka poison ivy)

My training partner D-Bo tromping around for his broken sunglasses today that he wishes he didn't throw away in the poison ivy. His last words before tossing his glasses: "I feel bad about littering but F*$% this hill, man. [Toss] Yunno, for $180, I bet there's a warranty. I'm gonna get 'em. Shit! Is this poison ivy?"

*Coffee's a hell of a drug.

Today's training experiment-- what does a single shot of espresso do for a former addict on a 90 mile brick workout?

Since I went off coffee 11 months ago, I've developed better habits of eating, sleeping, working, relaxing, and playing. Best of all, my depression is gone.

I've decided coffee drinkers have implicitly declared dietary bankruptcy. I've come to see coffee as a great confuser-- an addictive drug that enables exactly the kinds of behaviors that we know are destructive-- overworking, undersleeping, eating foods that bog us down. Nevertheless, I wanted to see how my body responded to a shot of espresso today. After I lost D-Bo to the poison ivy fiasco, I still had about 30 mi to ride and 6 mi to run. I knew it could be dangerous flirting with my former addiction, but I decided, what the hell.

It actually felt pretty good. Not like anxious energy. However, when I tried to take a nap after my ride and run...which is normally pretty easy, I couldn't un-tense. I didn't sleep at all...which means I lost out on some dosage of critical recovery.

*A man who "cooks" is as cherished in our house as a woman who "cleans".

I "cooked" and Susie cleaned today for the first time in months! A delicious raw pizza sits in front of our new banana-ripening shelf. I love playing house with my womyn.

Summer is here. Life is good.

Race Report: Lil Smokie 1/2 Ironman (Ohio Triple T)

I have a new-found respect for the grit of Triple T athletes. Even though the venue is beautiful, the three day triathlon festival in Portsmouth, Ohio is nothing short of bestiality.

Here's the pecking order of toughness as I see it:
Putting red hot coals in your underwear > American Triple T Triathlon> All Ironman events (except for St. George allegedly) > Lil Smokie 1/2 Ironman (one day of the Triple T)> All other 1/2 Ironmans > Scrabble with Susie > Marathons in alligator pits

Friday evening starts with a super-sprint "prologue" race (250 m swim, 5 mi bike, 1 mi run). Saturday morning is an olympic distance tri (1500 m swim, 24.8 mi bike, 6.55 mi). Saturday afternoon is another olympic tri but the normal order changed (bike, swim, run). Then Sunday, is a 1/2 Ironman (1.2 mi swim, 56 mi bike, 13.1 mi run). If you just do Sunday's race, you don't get the Triple T jersey or bragging rights.

Due to my ankle injury in March I felt under-trained to participate in the whole Triple T, as I had been training for since October, but I decided on Thursday that my ankle was finally tough enough to be put to the test of Sunday's 1/2. The added perk-- camping with friends! Also, on Saturday (the day before the race) Studio S had a 3 hour fundraiser ride which got to be my *asterisk. That is, if I raced well, I'm a mega-badass, but if I raced poorly, I could always blame it on fundraising do-good-ism. So that certainly helped to take the competitive pressure off and just use the weekend as a fun training opportunity.

THE WEEK BEFORE
Taper time baby! The week leading up to the race, I got some weird sinus infection or allergy-thing and decided to not do any workouts that week except for a couple of lite swims. I ate 99.999% raw fruits and veggies the whole week except for a late night hummus binge. By Friday, I felt like a god! I was so excited for the athletes already racing, that I barely slept. Saturday morning I got to ride in the Studio S Ride for a Rack 3 hour fundraiser ride, which was a ton of fun. I tried to take it easy and just allow it to be a way to level the playing field with all the Triple T athletes already working way harder than me. So by Saturday afternoon, I felt more like about 1.7 million bucks. 

HERE'S MY GEAR PREP ON FRIDAY

STRATEGY
I had no idea how my ankle would perform coming off such a long and intense ride, so my strategy was just to go slightly harder on the swim and bike portions than I normally would and be content if I couldn't finish the run portion actually running, let alone fast. I wanted to keep my heart rate between 80 and 85% on the bike, knowing full well that I have a bad habit of sprinting my skinny ass up hills trying to maintain speed rather than cruising up hills while maintaining a consistent power/HR output. At Ironman Lou', I witnessed first-hand the effects (and idiocy) of letting my heart rate spike too early in the day. Every HR spike takes a toothy bite out of your legs come the run. Plus, it is a HUGE morale booster running past those same fools who passed me on the bike.

HOW I DIDN'T DIE TWICE
Dinner the night before ~20 bananas + 1 smores (guilty pleasure) and prepping date-o-rade

Pater stetching with his compression socks and Amy and Spike's leg just chillin by the campfire after they've already completed 3 races each that weekend.

Bedtime-- 10pm but I slept with one eye open due to strange Appalachian Deliverance vibe from the camp ground.
Wakeup 4:30am to start drinking water (force the morning poop) and start drinking breakfast in order to digest in time for 7:20 swim start.
Breakfast-- 20 oz of water + 20 oranges (juiced - pulp intact)
Pooped again before we left the campsite. (This sounds like TMI, but it's essential info)
Rode bike from campsite to transition area with all the triathlete campers.
Believe it or not, one more poop. Back to 2 million bucks. 

Calm. Dew. Tranquil. Dark. Cool. Erie. Nervous. Jittery. So excited!

SWIM
The swim was not a mass start, which is to my liking, being released two-by-two and not in a cluster-ckuf. I estimated I'd go a 34 minute swim. Between the 61F water temps, race day nerves, and my tight wetsuit, my heart was pounding out of its chest-- I went way too hard too soon-- HR spike! I had been working so hard on my swim technique for so long and yet, the murky water and nerves blinded me and I lost all sense of orientation and composure. I was practically flailing, finishing lap one of two in 15 minutes flat and then ran about 50' along the beach to begin lap two stunned and stupid. What are you doing!? Calm down, Chris, I said to myself. So for lap two, my usual mantra kicked in, Nice and sleazy. Nice and sleazy. In... And out. In... And out. Lap two felt ridiculously easy...and yet, when I got out of the water, my watch said :29, which means my split was negative! I went way easier but swam slightly faster...or perhaps just not serpentine. It felt cool to have the technique actually work.

The swim course at Triple T/ Lil Smoke consists of two rectangular laps. Water was cold but didn't leave the toes feeling numb.

T1
Getting out of the water and running to the bike corral, I felt like what a newborn Giraffe must feel like when it falls wet out of its mother's vagina from all the way from giraffe-vagina height. And then it's mama is like, "stand up immediately little newborn giraffe baby-- that Lion and Hyena want to chase you down and EAT YOU." It's tough, painful, soggy, confusing, and just a rude way to treat the body.

I quickly put on my heart rate strap and cycling shoes and helmet and was out of transition in under two minutes, which wasn't lighting speed, but I just wanted to make sure that everything was in order nutritionally, which it appeared it was... PSYCHE! Why the heck didn't I realize there would be ZERO water stations available on the bike course?! And why the heck wasn't my HR monitor registering a heart rate other than 42 bpm? Am I just that good of a swimmer that I can race a mile at resting heart rate? No way! Sounds like I'll be writing the president of Nike asking for his resignation. I'll also be writing the president of Emotiv Energy (me) and asking him to do better course recon.

BIKE 

I mentally divided the two-lap bike route into fourths. I named them Mountain One, Mountain Two, Mountain Three, and Mountain Four. The first fourth (Mountain One) was devoted to just finding my rhythm "nice and sleazy" and getting calories in my tank. I had this genius idea to make a super date-o-rade minus the fiber. I soaked 40 dates (~1600 calories) in coconut juice and water over night and then I used Susie's panty hose to strain the high octane liquid out of the fiber-y sludge. I had to do it at the campsite the night before in the light of my door's safety light. I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to strain enough liquid out for even one water bottle and that it would be pretty diluted. Then I'd be forced to rely entirely on the race directors' nutrition plan-- green bananas (starchy useless poison), nasty ghettorade, Oreo's, oranges and pretzels. But luckily, I squeezed those panty hose like a mad man and had just enough of what was really quite syrupy. I wish I knew how many calories was in it, though. As awesome a fuel source as it was, I really should have trained with it. It only lasted me one lap of the two lap course--I'm guessing ~600 calories. 

I had warnings from friends about how technical (and scary) the course was, in particular, steep descents with sharp gravelly turns. On the first one of these hairpins, I took the turn too fast and in fact didn't turn at all, but just road straight on to a gravel road off the coarse. I was so scared for my life and for fear of getting a flat. Some explicatives were heard but no damage done and only a few seconds lost. I had no odomoter on my bike and the course wasn't marked, so I had to estimate my distance based on time. By the time I finished my first major descent I felt like I had found my perceived exertion groove and knew I was about half way done with the first half. On to Mountain Two. 

What can I say except there was a lot of saddle time and beautiful scenery that I wasn't able to fully take in. The course was also filled with kamakazi butterflies, which parted before me like the Red Sea for Pharaoh-- as in, they didn't get out of my way too well. I finished lap one of two in 1:33. There was an aid station, thank God, except they didn't have water bottles. WTF! And I couldn't unhook the water bottle mounted to the front of my handle bars so I had to take their cups and fill that bottle little by little with the liquid that looked like water but ended up being some kind of nasty ghettorade crap. My body took and enjoyed the calories, but it continued to ask me for WATER! 

On my second go at the hairpin turn, you would have thought I had learned my lesson from the first accident, but I actually avoided the gravel road, only to land in the bushes. Again, no crash-- just a big scare with a minor detour and a loss of a couple of seconds. 3/4 in the course, my lower back was killing me and my ankle started acting up. I decided to climb all of my hills out of the saddle just to change the position and stretch my legs. 

I had no idea what to expect as the miles acculumated, but I was passed by a three or four people who I knew I wouldn't see again that day and I was passed by another three or four who I knew I would catch on the run. I probably broke a course rule, but I took my first pee of the day, while seated on the bike like a Tour de France-er. Maybe one day I will learn to pee my pants like the real badasses. 

On the final quarter of the course, my ankle was getting awfully chattery and things didn't feel normal, even for it. All of a sudden, on the last monster ascent, I could see that my cleat had broken off from my pedal's spindle!! I was hanging on by a small metallic thread. 

Luckily, I was able to take the hill at a slow and steady pace, keeping my HR low and my body off the pavement. Then, the final descent didn't involve much pedaling at all--yeeHAW! On the final descent into T2, I finished off my celery juice (two hearts of celery juiced for electrolytes). My body wanted water, but celery juice was all I had. I ended up finishing the second loop of the course in about 1:33 again, so my pacing, despite flying without my HR gauges was pretty consistent although I suspect I spiked too much on the ascents.

T2

By the time I cruised into T2, I was stoked to run, not only for the change in muscle groups but to see how the ol' ankle would hold up. When I got off the bike my right cleat unclipped from the pedal, but my left pedal was stuck to my cleats so I ran through transition with an awkward chunk of metal to limp on. It was more weird than it was slow. Definitely a mental hurdle more than anything else. Slipped on the laceless shoes and visor and headed out to the trail in just over a minute. Nice transition!

RUN

My legs felt awesome coming out of T2! Finally water is available coming out of the transition chute! Could it get any better? I knew that if I was going to keep this up that I should take in some calories and...what the heck, grab some of the provided race gels and two salt tablets.  I started passing dudes immediately, including three cyclists who passed me. Again, I mentally divided the run into fourths. It was a two-lap-out-and-back trail run that was uphill on the way out and downhill on the way back. The goal was to take it easy the first three miles. But I felt superhuman.

When I hit mile 5, all of a sudden it was like a volcano exploded in my stomach. All I could think of was that scene from Spaceballs where the alien erupts from the guys belly at the diner. I barfed 4 times. Barfolomew! It looked and tasted like an entire water bottle filled with celery juice and cinnamon flavored Hammer gels. Nasty!

After that, my body begged to go into the fetal position. My nausea felt relieved, but my stomach was in knots. I tried to run again. No go. I decided I'd walk the uphills and run the down hills. No go. I ended up walking the next 1.5 miles to the half-way point and then scarfed 10 orange slices and downed several cups of water. I walked the next 1.5 miles uphill. Then, I grabbed a coke from the aid station and lo and behold, I found a new set of wheels. I was able to push ever so slowly up the hills and then dive-bomb down the hills. I know that's a big no-no for injury prevention's sake, but I had it in my head that I would finish in under 6 hours. 

The final 2 miles was down hill and about half pavement, which meant a hard, yet predictable surface-- predictable being the operable word for my poor lil ankle. I'd have to run a ~8 minute miles if I was to meet my goal time of 5:45. If I went to hard, though, I'd be reduced to 15-minute miles (walking) and I wouldn't make my secondary goal of 6:00. I clenched my teeth and bore down as hard as I could flat-footed since my right toes were balling up into a nasty cramp. I may have been foaming at the mouth, so hopefully the pictures never get leaked.

I came out of the woods and could hear the music blasting at the finish line. The street was lined with spectators and my prize was in sight. One last push was all I could muster... and yet still I got chicked in the final 100 meters by none other than Amanda, famous for chicking dudes. Respect! 

5:44:32 was the official time. Good enough for first in my age group. 

= 30:38 Swim + 1:51 T1 + 3:07:53 Bike+ 1:15 T2 + 2:02:53 Run

11th overall among the 1/2 Ironman-only racers. There were 50+ Triple T-ers who went faster than me, even after racing Friday and twice on Saturday. WOW! So, That gives me a really good idea of where the competition is at this stage in their training. 

The coolest part is at the end when the athletes finish, they all jump into the icy water of the creek nearby. What therapy! We all waited for our friends so we could swap stories and high-five each other's amazing accomplishments.

ALTERNATE UNIVERSE-- LESSONS TO BE LEARNED

If I can play Monday morning quarterback for a second, I'd love to play a couple of what-if scenarios to gauge who much better the race could have gone if I would have done a few things differently. If I hadn't had such a devastating race day nutrition plan, I suspect that I could have ran through mile 5 without the blow-up. Instead of ~4-5 miles walked at 15 min/mile pace, those could have been 7-8 min/mile pace miles. Hypothetical time shaved ~ 30 minutes. Additionally, there is some other low hanging fruit for improvement on the next race, such as:

1) I would have loved to have drank water on the bike (~40 oz/hour). 

2) I would have loved to have had a functional HR monitor on the bike and run (to keep me from spiking the uphills)

3) I would have loved to have taken in more date-o-rade and coconut water before running (so I wouldn't have to resort to nutrional x-factors). 

4) I would have loved to have run on a safer course for my ankle so I could have opened it up a bit more down hill.

...Or, I would have loved to have biked my brains out had I known I'd be reduced to walking my run later regardless.

So, it could have been better but as always, it could have been worse. The whole day was just AWESOME. It wasn't quite the existential burning-bush experience of Ironman Lou', but it was a soul-searcher, as always. I was glad to have gone there.

My Convertible Energy

This isn't quite the Dead Sea Scrolls or The Secret, but it might as well be in the way it's helped me recover from the decade (my twenties) that kicked the living crap out of me emotionally and spiritually. Recognizing my Ennegram personality archetype (1) also helped me cope with life's bumps and even discover why I like cycling so much and why I love entrepreneurs.

According to the Ennegram paradigm, Type 1's integrate to 7 and disintegrate to 4.

In this way, my fundamental emotion/bodily reaction (anger) isn't merely one of my "deadly sins", but truly a convertible energy and a source of strength.