Craziness leads to Craziness

I rode the Hotter Than Hell 100 on Saturday. It wasn’t that hot – 97 or so…

Craziness leads to craziness. When was the last time you drank two entire bottles of pickle juice? (They have it at the rest stops to keep your legs from cramping due to loss of sodium while sweating like a pig for 5 hours straight.)

This year the HHH 100 was all good. No flat tires, no crazy man diverting us 13 miles the wrong way like last year, my legs felt fine the entire ride. At about mile 98 there is always a big party going on, and people standing there handing out free beer. I always stop and have a beer with them before finishing the last few miles. Don’t worry, there is no Open Container law concerning driving a bicycle.

I don’t know why I like this ride so much. I suppose part of it is the camaraderie. 10,000 people sharing the same road, wind, blazing hot sun, and pickle juice. At that speed, while one’s legs do get achy, you hardly ever get out of breath, so it’s easy to strike up conversations along the way. And bikers work together, forming little groups which draft on each other, and take turns being the lead biker and fighting the wind.

I also like the Texas prairie. It looks so beautiful. Mile after mile of peaceful, rolling prairie with only the sound of the wind in you face. And then, occasionally a line of riders comes whirring up from behind and blows by. That sound, how can I describe it – like a mini tornado. I love that sound. I don’t know why, but my heart-rate goes up, and I feel like a child at the circus when I hear that whooshing rush of air, stirred up by tires and cranks – legs circling in a flowing combination of power and dance and effort and grace. Like a bug to a lamp I find myself attaching myself to the end of the line, inches away from the next bike, eating up miles of burning pavement like a bird on wheels.

Why do I like this ride so much? I don’t know. I suppose it is a break from the normalcy and regularity of day to day life. It’s a little adventure, during which the unusual is the norm: otherwise normal people dressed in spandex shorts; getting up at dark thirty on SATURDAY morning; staying out in the heat of the day; 100 miles; pickle juice; celebrating with Budwiser and sausage on a stick. Craziness leads to craziness.

This ride also gives me a sense of accomplishment. As I wrote in an earlier entry, the highlights of one’s life are often the big things one attempts - things with the possibility of failure. There are 365 days in a year, most of which pass without notice into oblivion, but the one day each year I ride across 103 miles of North Texas prairie remains fresh and vivid in my mind.

Flat, Flat, FINISH!

I haven’t blogged in two weeks, I’m going to try to catch up.

The Pigman went great. Translated that means I finished, and my time was in my goal range.

There were some challenges. For example, as I said before, any successful 70.3 mile triathlon must include a well-engineered eating plan. The cornerstone for mine was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich right after I got out of the water. I had put the sandwich in a baggie and taped it to the crossbar of my bike. So, as soon as I got out of the transition area and started riding I grabbed my sandwich, and then dropped it. I spent the next 100 yards trying to decide what to do. Visions of me limping through the coming 2 hour run motivated me to pull over and run back to my sandwich.

You can imagine the looks from the crowd and the racers as I ran back up the road. I spotted the PBJ on the road and as I reached down to pick it up I saw it had been run over by a bike: twice.

As I ran back to my bike, carrying the flattened hunk of essential nutrition, I came to the conclusion that I had no choice.

As the race continued I was flying along on my bike, feeling like a million bucks (the swim leg went better than I could have imagined) for a total of 4 minutes and 45 seconds, at which time I had a flat tire. I can usually change a tire in 3 or 4 minutes, but my racing heart and fumbling fingers took over, and it took me almost 15 minutes to change the tire. Meanwhile dozens and dozens of racers zoomed merrily by.

The rest of the bike was great. I was immersed in poetic thought as I rode the rolling, lush hills of the Cedar River valley. Eventually I caught up with some other racers and felt like I was part of the race again. I started to get cramps in my legs at the very end of the ride, but managed to hold things together during the run until the long hill at mile 11. Then I had to walk for a while. From there on in my run/walk was uuuugggglllly (I’m not sure which was worse, the pain or the thought of my legs totally cramping up and having to crawl over the finish line) but I did finish, and with a decent time considering my short training time.

Then final leg of the day was driving home. I left the race at about 3:00, and pulled into the garage about 4:00. That gave me about 2 hours sleep before I got up for the first day of district inservice meetings.

Walking in circles?

Today I laced up my racing shoes for the first time in over two years. I run the Pigman in seven days. They say you have to practice everything. I have practiced eating (peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the bike, gel packs on the run), transitioning from swim to bike and bike to run (you might be surprised how hard it is to quickly put socks on wet feet after swimming a mile), drinking from a paper cup while running, running after biking and biking after swimming.

Well, now I have to practice running in my racing shoes. It’s funny how things in life tend to run parallel to each other. The last time I did a triathlon was actually at the same place I’m racing on Sunday: Palo, Iowa. They have two triathlons: a short one in June (the Little Pig) and the long one in August (the Big Pig). That year I ran the Dam to Dam 20K on Saturday and the Little Pig on Sunday.

So, now, within the same week I’ll be back in the classroom and the triathlon course for the first time since I left Iowa. I don’t know if I’m moving forward or wandering in circles but I’m going to give both of them my best shot.

Week of Change

This week was sort of eventful. Here’s how it went. Monday evening I got a call asking if I could come for a job interview at Reed Elementary. Tuesday I had the interview. Wednesday they offered me the job. Thursday I accepted. I start on Monday.

That’s right, I am the new music teacher at Reed Elementary School right here in Allen, Texas. It will be great to be a part of a school community again.

It is a very nice building, I have a very nice room, the administrators seem to be top-flight, and it’s only 5 miles from home.

I spent a fair amount of Thursday and Friday trying to figure out what to do with all my private students, and figure out the curriculum, general approach, and practices the general music staff uses here in the Allen school district.

Next week I’ll be in meetings all day, and also getting my room ready, figuring out a private lesson schedule, take Katy back to college in Pella, Iowa, and do the Pigman Triathlon (70.3 mile distance).

Life can change a lot in one week.

Comet

I rode 60 miles today on my bike. That was a long ride.

I was thinking along the way, that people are, in a way, like comets.

Let’s say a person is the comet, and the sun is God.

A comet, way, way out in space is a frozen hunk of stuff. As the comet nears the sun it warms up. The warmth of the sun and the solar wind begin to thaw the comet, and the inner make-up of the comet begins to come to the surface. It transforms from a frozen rock, invisible, to an amazingly beautiful sight in the sky, with a blazing coma (head) and long magnificent tail. The actual rock of a comet is very small and invisible to us, but the coma and tail of a comet are spectacular and visible for millions upon millions of miles. So, proximity to the sun draws out the beauty of the comet, which, in outer space, is just a plain old frozen rock, invisible to the universe.

So it is with a person. As we draw near to God he draws out the beauty within us, and magnifies it for all to see.

The difference is the comet is irresistibly drawn to the sun by gravity, and a person, even though God is drawing him to himself, can choose to stay out in the far reaches of space, a frozen rock, invisible, incomplete, unfulfilled. Like a seed never planted, never becoming what it was intended to be.

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. James 4:8

Pigman hopeful

There are two parts to every race – mental and physical.

I’m training for the Pigman Triathlon. I decided to do the race sort of late and so I’m on a pretty accelerated training schedule. Adding lots of miles every week stresses the body, but necessary to prepare for the race. I have been a little worried I would have injury trouble and have to stop. My calves have been sort of sore the last few days, and I was concerned that they might not be able to hold up for my scheduled 17 mile run.

My 17 miler went like this:

Miles 1-10
Physical – felt fine
Mental - worrying my calves would not last for the entire 17 miles;

Miles 11-13
Physical – hot, completely sweated through, legs like rubber
Mental - worrying that my calves would last and I would have to run the entire 17

Miles 14-15
Physical – everything hurts A LOT
Mental - regretting telling everybody that I was going to run 17 so that I would have to
actually go through with it

Miles 16-17
Physical – ugly, very ugly
Mental – increasingly sunny, so happy to be completing the run

I’m not sure which part got the best work out; mind or body, but I will have a lot of confidence on race day knowing I’m prepared.