Big Kahuna Race Report

Before we jump into the race report, a few follow-up notes from the previous introductory post …

* First, on the “sunrise over the ocean” thing: Yes, I’m aware that the sun travels from east to west. But remember, the Monterey Bay is kidney-shaped, which – in addition to making it a pain in the butt to drive around – also screws up your sense of orientation if you’re not paying attention.

Santa Cruz sits at the northernmost point of the bay (click map at right to enlarge), and the beaches have a somewhat southeastern exposure; so while the sun doesn’t ascend directly over the water, the angle of those first rays of daybreak often paint a stunning palette of color – at least on the infrequent mornings that aren’t foggy, such as the day of the race. Consider this your Geography Channel tip of the day.

* Second, Girl 1 from that crazy porta-potty exchange reads my blog! Either that, or she got sent here by her friend who was a race spectator. In any case, how cool is that? And if you were wanting verification that I’m not just making this stuff up, go back and look at that comment box. She thought the whole thing was just as insane as I did.

Now, what would be really interesting is if Girl #2 is out there reading. Not necessarily in a “Hey, this might be cool” way - but more like a “I hope she doesn’t try something scary” way. On second thought … maybe we’re all better off not knowing.

* Lastly, and most disturbingly, is this: I feel like I should apologize for having toenail fungus ads on my sidebar yesterday. I guess that’s what you get when you let a Googlebot scroll your page content looking for keywords. I haven’t quite got the hang of this Google Ads deal – so if anyone knows how I can filter those types of things out, I’d love to hear it. And if you were inadvertently grossed out … hopefully you’ll never come across my little snot rocket tutorial from a few months ago.

So, where were we again? … Oh, that’s right – the race report!

**

“Fortune, fame, mirror vain – gone insane –
But the memory remains … “
- Metallica, “The Memory Remains”


Part 1: The Swim

No matter how many triathlons I do, the swim segment always seems like a huge wildcard in relation to the overall race. More specifically, I’ve never found a strong correlation between how much I’ve trained and the split time I post. Sometimes I’ll bust a fast split with minimal training, and other times I’ll do a high volume of training only to come out of the water unusually slow on race day.

This year was a good example, as I had more confidence in my swim than in any other segment, and felt very relaxed and strong in the water. I didn’t swerve too wildly, I drafted for long segments behind the folks who gradually passed me, and I overtook swimmers from previous wave starts in droves during the last half-mile or so. Then I got out of the water and saw that my split was almost three minutes slower than I thought it would be.

(For the record, this was a common topic of discussion after the race, as almost everybody complained that their times were slower than expected. The consensus at the race - and afterwards, in some blogs I’ve read - is that the course was probably too long. But as I was sprinting up the beach and peeling off my wetsuit, there was obviously no way for me to know that.)

The other illogical aspect of the triathlon swim is that even though it’s the segment of the shortest duration, it often sets the tone for the rest of the race. When I exit the water quicker or feeling stronger than anticipated, there’s definitely an adrenaline surge that carries over to the other two disciplines. In this case, when I knew I needed to gain a few minutes of cushion to make up for my lack of bike training, and then realized I was actually three minutes slower than usual … let’s just say I wasn’t whistling a happy tune on the run into T1.

Swim stats: 1.2 (?) miles in 32:39. Rank 22nd of 127 in age group.

Part 2: The Bike

Despite what I just wrote about the swim segment setting the tone, make no mistake – the bike segment is the defining portion of any triathlon. It’s also the portion I was least prepared for, which made me more than a little apprehensive as I clipped into the pedals and headed north on Highway 1.

I hadn’t taken very many pedal strokes before recalling a conversation with our running group on the Friday morning before the race:

Friend 1: Good luck this weekend! Do you feel ready for the triathlon?

Me: We’ll see. I’m not very confident about the bike segment – I don’t think my legs remember how to hammer like that.

Friend 2: I would think it’s like riding a bike …

(note: Friend 2 is extremely funny, and he's a good writer as well. I keep telling him to start a blog someday – if he ever does, I’ll let you know).

Me: That’s all the ride’s going to be: pure muscle memory.

Granted, that’s not much to depend on, but within a few miles of the bike course, I was delighted to find that the memory of hammering those pedals was still in my legs. Coincidentally, it was also around this time that the intro Metallica song started thumping through my head and stuck with me for most of the day. Before I knew it, I was cruising along at close to 20mph like I had been doing this kind of thing all summer long.

However, while I was happy that the muscle memory remained, I realized that it would only carry me so far before the reality of my limited training crashed down upon me. It was time to get strategic.

For most of the first half, I rode with a group of 5 or 6 other riders who were constantly passing and being re-passed, staying in close proximity but always swerving and staggering our positions relative to one another to avoid drafting (at least, that’s what I was doing – but I definitely saw some wheel-on-wheel situations at times. It's pretty hard not to when a group of six riders tries to share the same road shoulder.). They were riding at a faster pace than I could generate by myself, but I felt like I could maintain contact by working somewhat above my comfort zone. I think of it as “mental drafting” – the ability to ride faster just by seeing someone alongside you going equally fast - and for 20 miles or so, this plan worked great.

The Kahuna bike course is an out and back route along Highway 1 without significant elevation change from one end to the other, but the ocean winds tend to blow in your face on the way out, and behind you on the return. It was during the final eight miles to the turnaround point that I really started to feel the strain of an effort I wasn’t accustomed to, but I was doggedly determined to maintain contact with the group.

This was the decision point. The aggressive choice was to overexert myself and stay close until the turnaround, when the tailwind on the trip home would allow me to maintain my average speed - but my legs would probably be fried by the time I reached T2. If I stayed conservative and abandoned the group, I might lose more time struggling along by myself than I’d be able to make up with a stronger run.

You can guess which option I picked - and for the remainder of the bike segment, the strategy paid off pretty well. I maintained my cruising speed on the way back, even improving my average MPH over the final 20 miles after the group had essentially dissolved.

I realized, however, that the launch sequence for my legs to blow up had been activated several miles back … so it was only a matter of time before they exploded.

Bike stats: 56 miles in 2:39 – 21.0 mph average. Rank 31 in AG.

Part 3: The Run

I never told anyone, but my pre-race goal for this year was to try and sneak in under 5 hours. I knew I wouldn’t be able to PR, but going sub-5 would be pretty impressive under the circumstances. So when I rolled out of T2 with the race clock showing 3:20, a couple of thoughts crossed my mind:

1) If I run a 1:40 half-marathon, I can make it! And …
2) Why do these things always have to be so close?

Before the race, I had factored a realistic half-marathon time of 1:45, with an optimistic goal of 1:40 if I was feeling good. When I looked at my watch after T2, part of me was hoping to see an overall time that was either low enough to give a nice cushion, or high enough to give me no chance at breaking 5 hours. In either of those cases, I could have just cruised the run course without worrying about every mile split.

But since this is me we’re talking about ... there’s always reason for worry.

Since I was teetering along the line between “highest sustainable intensity” and breaking down like the Bluesmobile (it’s a long clip, but scroll forward to the 8:30 mark), I decided to take things mile by mile and reassess the situation along the way. My first two splits were in the 7:40ish range, which kept me close, but didn’t exactly build a huge sense of optimism about getting in under 5 hours.

I kept going along like this until mile 9, when I did some math, figured I had about 26 minutes to run 4.1 miles, and immediately thought … that’s just not gonna happen. It was a mild disappointment to realize the goal time was lost, but all things considered, I still felt happy with putting up one heck of a fight (especially for a guy with only eight toenails – that has to count for something, right?).

I downshifted into a more casual pace (probably 8:30s or so) to enjoy the last few miles of my last race of the year. To my surprise, I was still passing a lot of people in this stretch. I didn’t let it get to my head, though – in fact, it reminded me of the old joke where a snail gets mugged by two turtles; when the police come to interview the snail and ask him what happened, he says “Gosh, it’s hard to remember … everything happened so fast!”

In other words, everything’s relative. I was passing people, but it was only because I was further behind in the pack than I usually am, and there are a lot of slower runners back there. I was merely the turtle overtaking a lot of snails in the last 5K.

Ultimately I reached the pier and descended to the sand for the final third of a mile along the beach. It was one of those beautifully warm, unbelievably perfect late summer beach days, which drew a huge crowd of sunbathers and spectators and families (and, judging by the occasional smell of things, more than a few pot smokers – this is Santa Cruz, after all), who lined the course in growing numbers to cheer the weary runners home. I crossed the finish line, got my medal and my lei, and sat down in the shade of the Boardwalk to let the whole day soak in for a while.

Run stats: 13.1 miles in 1:45 – 8:04 average. Rank 35 in AG.

Overall stats: Finish time 5:04:46 – 96th of 850 overall, 28th of 127 in AG.


Part 4: Postmortem

As I’ve explained (too many times) before, usually when I come up just short of a time goal, I’ll mope and brood and second-guess my motivation and toughness during difficult stretches of the day. This time, to my delight, none of that really happened – primarily for a couple of reasons:

First - and most importantly – is that I really had a blast doing this race. Sometimes I forget just how fun triathlons can be. In the last post, I compared triathlon unfavorably to ultrarunning, but when it comes to adrenaline-pumping excitement, triathlons definitely rank higher than trail running. It’s like having that “descending the first major drop of a roller coaster” feeling in your chest and throat, only it lasts for (in this case) over five hours. This was really the first time all year I had felt that kind of rush, so a slower than usual performance certainly wasn’t going to dampen that feeling in any way.

(On a related note, since a few people have asked: yes, I'm going to write a post comparing ultrarunning and ironman training and racing. I hope to get to it in the next few weeks - but you know better than to expect a due date from me.)

Secondly, I know this sounds bizarre, but I was kind of glad that I wasn’t able to break five hours – because it might have diminished the accomplishment somewhat.

Think of it this way: If I had broken 5 hours here less than a month after running a 100-miler, with a grand total of three bike rides and zero speed training in the preceding six months – not to mention doing it all with just eight toenails – that wouldn’t say much for the 4:51 I did here two years ago, would it? Goals that come too easy don’t mean nearly as much as those you work your butt off to reach.

In that regard, triathlon - with the possible exception of a mismeasured swim segment here or there - is very much an honest sport: the results you reap are only those that you’ve spent the time to properly sow. The bottom line is that I didn’t deserve to go as fast as I wanted to – and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Because on another day, things will be different – and I know from experience just how awesome that day will feel. In the meantime, this one felt pretty darn good as well.

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The Memory Remains

Admin note: this started out as an introduction to my Big Kahuna triathlon report, but things got a little carried away, and before I knew it, nearly 1000 words had gone by. As it developed, this segment seemed to tell a story of its own, so that’s what I’m doing for today. Look for the race report in the next couple of days – and by way of a theme preview, there’s a classic (potentially somewhat vertigo-inducing) rock video after the post.

**
If you detected a sense of ambivalence in my pre-race posts, that wasn’t exactly an accident.

Truth be told, I spent much of race morning questioning just what the heck I was doing at this race anyway. I hadn’t done any training (aside from developing an enormous slow-twitch aerobic base – but that’s not entirely effective for high-intensity activity), I wasn’t particularly excited about participating, and I had pulled myself away from two other weekend family activities at home to take part in it.

Furthermore, these several months of ultra training had led me to feel like I didn’t really fit in with this tri-crowd all that much. More specifically – and I’ll try to phrase this as politely as possible – a large percentage of the tri crowd seems to take this athletic stuff way too seriously. It’s a direct contrast to the laid-back, whatever-gets-you-to-the-finish mentality of most ultrarunners I met this year.

The feeling started at the expo, in brief exchanges and conversations overheard while I picked up my race number: Your clothes are last year’s models? You’re totally behind the times. Your bike still has factory wheels and components, without high-end aerodynamic upgrades? You’re giving away speed, dude. Your sports drink is from Costco, and not a scientific $5-per-bottle superpotion? You’re cheating yourself, bro.

Finally, there was this conversation I overheard in the porta-potty line on race morning, between two women immediately in front of me, after each had asked the other where they were from:

Girl 1: So have you done this race before?

Girl 2: Yeah. I’m only doing it again because I didn’t qualify for Kona this year. I took second in my age group at Ironman France, and they only gave one slot for Kona. I should have won, but some other girl beat me by a few minutes. I’ve done Kona three times, so this is my easy consolation race for the year.

I mean … are you kidding me? Who talks like this? From all appearances, this was the first time these two had ever met. And they were in the porta-potty line, for goodness sake - it’s not like there might have been Zoot or Cervelo scouts combing the area looking for athletes to sponsor. It’s hard for me to fathom just how much some people are into themselves. All of a sudden, I was feeling very out of place.

So when the Kona woman turned to make sure I was listening, I said, “Guess what? I only have eight toenails!”* - and that was enough for them to leave me out of the conversation.

(*My other big toenail fell off the night before the race, as I was getting ready for bed. My daughter was already asleep, I wouldn’t see her until the following evening, and I didn’t want to carry a toenail around with me while racing 70.3 miles. So the OFFICIAL story is that the toenail fell off in the ocean during the race – are we all clear on this? Yes, I’ll probably go back and delete this paragraph once she starts reading my blog someday. Let’s move on.)

Needless to say, I wasn’t in the greatest mood while walking from T1 to the start area, but as soon as I hit the beach, everything changed.

(photo from pbase.com)

There’s a reason that I live in California. OK, there are several reasons - but one of them is this: there’s something absolutely magical about watching the sunrise over the ocean. And as I walked towards the start line and saw the sun coming up over the pier, with the silhouettes of hundreds of athletes standing on the shore and swimming in the water, on an unseasonably warm September morning, all the things I appreciate came back to me.

I waded into the ocean and took a short warm-up swim, then stayed about 100 yards offshore, floating in the water, looking back towards the beach. In all of my athletic experiences, it was one of the most inspiring scenes I’ve ever observed: masses of triathletes and spectators gathered on the shore, with the Santa Cruz Boardwalk in the background, and a red-orange sunrise heralding the promise of the coming day.

In that moment, there was no place else I wanted to be.

It didn’t matter that I hadn’t trained very much. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t identify with a lot of the competitors sharing the day with me. It didn’t even matter that I only had eight toenails. All that mattered was that I had a race to enjoy.

I took a few more warmup strokes towards the shore, and drifted on the waves until my knees skimmed the sand. I stood up, exited the water, and took my place in the throng of age-group men anxiously awaiting their charge into the ocean.

A few seconds later, the horn sounded, and our race was on.

**

Metallica, "The Memory Remains" (click to play):

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Pillars of Sand (Kahuna Update)

“I used to rule the world - seas would rise when I gave the word -
Now in the morning I sleep alone - sweep the streets I used to own …

One minute I held the key- next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand - upon pillars of salt, and pillars of sand.”
- Coldplay, "Viva La Vida" (on sidebar – click to play)


Driving home from this race in 2006, after beating my best-case scenario time by nearly 10 minutes to finish in 4:51, I felt like the king of the world: there was no obstacle I couldn’t overcome; no limit to the possibilities that lay before me.

This year, the walls closed on me. I finished in 5:04, which isn’t nearly as bad as it could have been - but not as well as I was optimistically hoping, either. Although the outcome was fairly well expected, the feeling driving home this year was still a bit of a bummer.

So apparently all that training stuff makes a difference. More specifically – all of that NOT training makes a very noticeable difference. When it comes to tackling challenging races on minimal training, I’m obviously not Superman - and I definitely don’t rule the world.

Despite the outcome, I actually had a pretty enjoyable day at the race. I’ll have a full report posted here later this week; in the meantime, enjoy the Coldplay video and don’t feel at all badly for me. I'm living the life.

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Returning to the Mistress*

*If you haven’t been a subscriber long enough to understand the reference, this should bring you up to speed.

**And I’m REALLY curious to see what kind of promotions the above title triggers on my Google Ads sidebar.


So … remember when I used to call myself a triathlete? It seems like a long time ago – but trust me, that guy hasn’t gone away. He just got a little preoccupied with wanting to run 100 miles.

Despite my recent ultrarunning pursuits, I always intended to come back to triathlon for one final race of the year – which is now just a few days away. Unfortunately, due to the Western States cancellation, my summer training schedule didn’t go quite the way I had scripted it.

My original plan was to do States in June, take a week or two off, then start hitting the tri-training hard, with high bike mileage and a lot of track workouts to recapture some of the running speed I’d lost during countless multi-hour trail runs. Then I threw the Headlands 100 onto the calendar, leaving me one week to rest, and only three weeks to shift into tri-mode. I was cutting things close, to say the least.

One more factor about my recent training regimen is worth noting: namely, since the 100-miler, I’ve been an absolute lazy slob. I’ve routinely blown off scheduled workouts in favor of sleeping in, and turned my car towards home instead of the pool even on the most beautiful sunny days. Each workout I’ve managed to show up for has been a “going through the motions” exercise, instead of pushing my body towards any increased level of fitness.

Needless to say, I don’t have soaring expectations for this weekend’s half-Ironman race. I’ve already told myself that I’ll just do the race for fun, and go as fast as I feel like. You know ... have a good time, enjoy the day, yada yada yada. Over the past two weeks, I’ve repeated these thoughts to myself so often that I almost started to believe them.

There’s only one problem: I’ve done this race before. There’s a finish time out there to measure myself against. And if I don’t beat it - or come darn close - I’ll probably brood over it for most of the fall.

(On a related note … sometimes it sucks to be as inherently competitive as I am. Yes, it helps with motivation for difficult training or racing situations, but the flip side is that you can’t let anything go. I swear, a sports psychologist would make a killing on me – it’s a good thing I don’t know any.)

Predictably, I’ve analyzed each of the three disciplines to figure out how I can squeeze a few extra minutes out of my performance, which I’ve distilled into the following race preview:

Swim (1.2 miles - 2006 split 29:40): This is the only segment where I actually feel somewhat confident. I’ve mentioned several times here that I maintained regular swim workouts throughout all of my ultrarunning exploits this year – so I’m hoping that what my swim training lacks in volume will be made up in consistency. Plus, I’ve got that sexy new wetZoot now – so even if I swim slowly, at least I’ll feel good doing it.

Bike (56 miles - 2006 split 2:35): This is where I’ll probably fall hopelessly behind my previous pace. I don’t think there’s any way on Earth that I can average 21mph again – especially since I can count on one hand the number of training rides I’ve done this summer.

My only saving grace might be this: the 2006 split was accomplished on my old-school green machine bike, and this year I’m riding my vroomin' Cervelo. It’s an age-old question among cyclists: just how much can a sweet bike make up for a lack of fitness? In that regard, Sunday’s race might be an interesting experiment.

Run (13.1 miles - 2006 split 1:35): Ironically, given my running background, the run portion of the race may be where I fare the worst. Ultrarunning has a lot of positive aspects, but one major downside (for me, anyway) is the way it slowly bleeds away your leg speed after a prolonged period of time.

Think of it this way: in my most recent race, in 95 minutes I would have covered somewhere between 7 and 8 miles. And while that doesn’t represent my top speed, it’s a reflection of what gear my legs typically settle into when they’re fatigued – in conditions, for instance, such as the end of a half-Ironman. In light of this, I have to think there’s simply no possibility that I’ll throw down anything close to a 1:35 half-marathon this time around.

Of course, I’ve already touched upon one x-factor that might carry me through, which is this: I’m an idiot. I get crazy when it comes to these race situations – and if I see a steady parade of people flying past me on the bike or overtaking me on the run, I’ll be borderline psychotic. And since it’s my last race of the year, I’ll be more willing to keep the needle in the red zone if I’ve got a realistic shot at the time I’m hoping to run.

The race could be intense; it could be painful; it could be fun. More likely, it will be all three of those things – in which case it will be awesome. It also seems like a perfect way to end the season.

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Not Your Father's Power Bar

Lady Astor: “How dare you, sir! What kind of woman do you think I am?”

Winston Churchill: “Madam, we have already established that. Now we are merely haggling over the price.”

(I’m aware that the above exchange may very well be an urban legend … but that doesn’t make it any less funny. Or any less appropriate for this post.)


Hopefully, if there’s one thing I’ve made perfectly clear over the past several months, it’s this: I’m always available for the right price.

The cost doesn’t even have to be remarkably high; in most cases, all it takes is a few samples of something for me to try out a product, and post a review here for all the blogosphere to see. Unfortunately, when my ultra season was unexpectedly extended an additional six weeks, I fell a bit behind with the most recent review, which I’ll rectify with today’s post.

By the end of this month, I hope to have four product reviews online, which seems like enough to justify a separate heading on my sidebar at right. If I were really talented, I’d figure out a way to make the links into little picture icons – but at this point, that seems entirely too time consuming for me to bother with.

Also, if you scroll down slightly further on the same sidebar, you’ll see my recent flirtation with the devil: a sampling of Google Ads. If you happen to be feeling bored and generous, feel free to send a few clicks my way. As I said, I’ll never be one to haggle you over a price.

**

Back in June, I was contacted by a rep from Power Bar, asking if I’d like to review some of their new product line.

Power Bar is to sports nutrition what the Nike waffle iron is to running shoes: a revolutionary product that gave rise to an entire industry. However, if you’re old enough to remember those initial Power Bar products, your memories may be something less than nostalgic – for the concept was far more advanced than the application.

First-generation Power Bars were more of a novelty than a food item: depending on the temperature, they were either hard as a rock or soft as pudding; they often took longer to digest than most folks took to run a marathon; and the taste of any flavor left much to be desired.

And yet, the company clearly tapped into an enormous demand for performance-related nutrition products; within the next several years, countless competitors flooded the market with variations on bars - not to mention gels and blocks and tablets and other concoctions aimed at endurance athletes, or anybody who just wanted to look like one (the vanity factor was a very big one in the late 1980s). All the while, Power Bar continued to tinker with its product line, frequently introducing new goods to keep pace with its competitors.

However, no matter what new formulations they came up with, Power Bar never entirely shook that old school reputation as the bars that don’t taste very good. To steal a phrase from the auto industry: they were your father’s energy bar. And that’s the image the most recent products are attempting to dispel.

You’ve probably seen the ads already; for example, this image took up a full page of my most recent Triathlete magazine:

That guy at the bottom would be Michael Phelps; you may have heard something about him lately. He’s a pretty decent swimmer, and apparently he’s been a Power Bar user since 2000. What he lacks, however, is a blog – and that’s where folks like me come in.

(This may be an appropriate time to mention to PR people out there – what’s a more affordable marketing strategy: paying top dollar for Phelps, or spreading the wealth among a handful of overly verbose bloggers who collectively get thousands of page views per month from aspiring athletes? It’s something interesting to think about. Remember, I’m here to help.)

A couple of months ago, I received the following shipment at my house:

Included were samples of three new products: “Energize” Fruit Smoothie Bars, Gel Blasts, and electrolyte packets. According to the website, the bars and gel blasts each feature something called a C2 Max carbohydrate blend, which is supposed to speed more energy to your muscles (and this where I insert my standard disclaimer: I don’t claim to know what the heck these various nutritional concoctions are, let alone vouch for their scientific accuracy). The electrolyte packets are a low calorie way to replenish sodium and potassium (among other things) during exercise. Let’s go through all three:

1. Energize Bars. Before you even open the packet, the first thing you’ll notice about these is their texture. They’re slightly soft to the touch, but still hold their shape well.

Remember when I said that the old Power Bars were always either too hard or too mushy? Well, there was also a very narrow “sweet spot” temperature range where the bars would be the perfect consistency for chewing, but solid enough to not be messy. Whenever you were lucky enough to accidentally discover it, those old bars actually went down pretty well.

I was pleased to find that the new Energize bars broaden that temperature range by a factor of about 100 – in other words, the bar is always at the right consistency for eating. So they’ve clearly made some progress in this regard over the past 20 years.

The bars come in three flavors: Berry Blast, Tangy Tropical, and Creamy Citrus. I sampled all three, and they all tasted great. In fact, since I used them this summer as a post-exercise snack following swim workouts, I found myself having flashbacks to my childhood, where I spent an unthinkable amount of money on Tangy Taffy from the Sugar Shack at our neighborhood pool - the taste and consistency of the Energize bars is (to my grown-up brain, at least) very similar. Anything that triggers memories of long, carefree summer swimming days is always going to earn high marks in my book.

2. Gel Blasts: These are comparable to Clif Blocks, and I used them on a couple of long training runs in place of my customary Sport Beans. They come in lemon or cola flavors, and their texture reminded me of biting into a jumbo marshmallow that had been left on the counter overnight: slightly firm to break through the surface, but chewy on the inside. And they didn’t taste as good as Sport Beans.

These were my least favorite of the three product types - but I suspect some of my dissatisfaction might just be a personal thing. During triathlons, I tend to use gels instead of chewy blocks, and during ultras, I prefer “normal” food like potatoes or PB&J sandwiches to replenish my fuel supply. The block-type products are a middle ground that I’ve never really embraced – that’s why the Sport Beans were such a revelation when I discovered them last year.

3. Electrolyte mix: This isn’t marketed as an energy drink (they have a separate sport drink for that), but a means to help replace fluids and electrolytes during exercise.

They are similar to the Nuun products I reviewed this spring – but with 10 calories per packet, they can add a bit of flavor (berry or lemon) that makes these taste much better (in my opinion) than the Nuun tablets. The taste is really nice – it’s flavorful, without being too sweet. Another huge advantage is that the Power Bar electrolytes are not carbonated, which addresses my biggest pet peeve about Nuun – namely, their tendency to explode out of the bottle after bouncing around in a waist pack for a few miles.

Each packet is intended to be mixed with 17oz of water, but I typically used them in my 20oz bottle, and they still tasted great. The packets are small enough that you can stuff a few in your pocket to use at water fountains later in your run or ride, so you don’t have to worry about carrying bulkier drink mixes if you’re primarily worried about replenishing electrolytes instead of calories – which in my world is any workout less than two hours.

So here’s my quick recap of the new Power Bar products: The Energize bars and electrolyte packets are awesome; the gel blasts, not so much. Of course, your opinion may vary. I’ll definitely continue using the items I enjoyed here, and it’s certainly worth a few of your dollars to do some sampling of your own if you get the opportunity.

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Olympic Depression

Given that the Closing Ceremonies wrapped up almost a week ago, it’s somewhat late to write a postmortem on the Olympic Games – but when you have a newspaper column that only appears only a couple of times per month, occasionally the timing gets screwed up like that.

Additionally, in light of all my 100-mile hysteria, I managed to neglect posting anything about the Olympic track and field events that I so passionately promoted in this space just before the Beijing Games got underway. Make no mistake, I was still watching as many races as possible – but unfortunately, the majority of the coverage left me feeling dissatisfied.

Those issues are the topic of this week’s Monterey Herald column, in which my friend Mike and I were more specifically focused on our perspectives as fans of distance running (and then, as is our custom, we got a little bit silly towards the end). Actually, the running contingent wasn’t even the most afflicted fan base at these Games; God help you if you tried (like me) to watch any of the triathlon or open-water swimming events.

Anyway, the column is below – which all likelihood will represent my first and last words on the Beijing Olympics for the foreseeable future.

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Running Life 8/28/08 “Olympic Depression”


Runners are used to being misfits — so it will be no surprise to us if we're in the minority with the opinion we're about to offer: namely, that we didn't enjoy watching the Beijing Olympic Games very much. Instead of being impressed by all of that "faster, higher, stronger" stuff, we found ourselves depressed about the competitions that interested us the most.

See, here's the thing about being a distance runner: no matter how old you are, or how fast you are, you get extremely little recognition for your accomplishments. Even when you're among the best in the world, you're doomed to an anonymous, impoverished career. You can even be overshadowed under the bright glare of the Olympic flame.

This wasn't always the case. There was a time not too many Olympiads ago where the 1,500m run was the premiere event of the Games, with the 10K and marathon a close second and third. While we understand the interest in the seemingly huge variety of sports that have attained Olympic status recently, we hate seeing our beloved events kicked to the curb. (In a related story, we're puzzled over NBC's determination to make every person in America a platform diving fan.)

We've always known it was tough to be a competitor in distance running events — what we didn't realize was how difficult it would be just to watch these races at home. Most nights, we waited patiently through synchronized diving and trampoline gymnastics and preliminary BMX heats (called "motos" — See, we were actually paying attention) without any idea when our coveted events might appear.

Unfortunately, TV listings weren't much help to us, either — they'd only list "track and field" without mentioning whether it was the 5K final or the prelims of the women's shot put. Our options were to record and wade through 20 hours of coverage each day, or take our chances that some of the high-profile distance races would be shown in prime time. You already know how that one panned out.

Even when we found our races, the coverage was sadly limited. For example, the women's 10K was televised at 2 a.m. — and even at that late hour, NBC only aired the first four minutes and last four minutes of the race. Consequently, most U.S. viewers missed an incredible performance from Shalane Flanagan, who won a bronze medal in an American record time of 30:22.

It's almost certain that nobody at NBC suspected Flanagan was going to medal, which explains how the coverage got buried in the middle of the night. It also illustrates another sad truth of distance running: if there aren't any Americans competing for medals, you have zero chance of seeing the event on TV. During the women's marathon, American cameras didn't even show the finish of Blake Russell, the only U.S. woman to complete the race, who came in less than one minute behind world-record holder Paula Radcliffe.

However, fans of distance running enjoy these races even if U.S. athletes are not involved. It's like being an American soccer fan who enjoys watching David Beckham or Cristiano Ronaldo. We always cheer for American favorites like Kara Goucher, Ryan Hall, and Dathan Ritzenhein, but we also enjoy the brilliance of Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele, Aussie Craig Mottram, Kenyan Catherine Ndereba, and other foreign distance running heroes.

Unfortunately, we realize that these folks will always play second banana to marquee names like Phelps, Nastia, or Walsh and May (all very attractive to look at, by the way — which is no small factor in TV exposure). So it's clear that distance running needs a bit of an image makeover. At the same time, maybe we could infuse a bit of running's old-fashioned sensibility into some of the higher profile sports.

For example, it seems like there's always a controversy about gymnastics scoring. This year, Nastia Liukin lost a gold medal to a competitor with the exact same score. If runners were in charge, we'd alter the events to eliminate any scoring issues. Take the balance beam; instead of 90-second routines that are different for each competitor, we'd set up a row of several parallel beams that are about 50 meters in length, then have the gymnasts race on the beams simultaneously. They'd still be required to do four back flips and two pirouettes and other tricks before they dismount at the other end — but in this case, the fastest gymnast who gets across without falling wins. Controversy solved!

There's no question that swimming is one of the most popular events at the Games, even when Phelps isn't in the pool. Some runners might find it strange that swimming has several races over the same distance using four different strokes. For runners, the object of races is to reward the person who gets from point A to point B the fastest, regardless of what type of stride they use — but maybe this is an area we could tweak to our advantage for next time.

We're thinking that the runners could have competitions at all the standard distances, but include hopping, skipping, and backward running categories in addition to the usual "running forward" technique. They could also have medley events for those who excel in all four disciplines. Throw in a couple of relays (forward-style and medley), and a talented guy like Usain Bolt could definitely win eight or more gold medals.

It's sad that we may someday need to resort to carnival-style stunts in order to attract viewers to what were once the most prestigious events in the Olympics. What we really need is a stunningly beautiful, overwhelmingly dominant, American-born runner who can enter 10 different events as the odds-on favorite — but sadly, that wish may go ungranted for quite a while.

In the meantime, we'll continue to hunt around the TV dial in the dead of night, resigned to our pitiful fate as frustrated fans of long distance running.

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Fairynomics

*with apologies to Steven Levitt, who probably never envisioned such nonsense …

**and to anyone who doesn't like looking at gross foot pictures. You might want to skip this post.

As soon as I took off my shoes following the Headlands 100, I knew that both of my big toenails were doomed.

They bothered me a bit during the race, but never to the extent that I felt the need to stop and deal with them on the course – so I made an ongoing decision to just power through those issues and deal with the aftermath, um … afterwards. Call it a rookie mistake. In the ensuing weeks, both of the nails started to wither, and they've had that “dead on the vine” look for many days now.

The right one was the first to fail, coming partially detached, and prompting me to finish the job after I came home from work earlier this week. In the midst of my pulling and wrenching, my 7-year-old daughter strolled into our bathroom, which led to the following exchange:

Daughter: What are you doing?

Me: I’m pulling off my dead toenail.

Daughter: Cool!

Me: I know – it’s totally cool. How many of your friends have ever seen the back side of a big toenail?

Daughter: Hey! I’ve got an idea: you should put the toenail under your pillow, and see if you get money for it, like when you lose a tooth.

Me: You know what? … That’s a fantastic idea. How about if I give you the toenail, so you can put it in your tooth blanket tonight? Let’s see if we get some money.

So that’s exactly what she did. And to our shock and delight, the next morning she found a dollar bill wrapped up in her blanket where my toenail had been. My lost toenail became my daughter’s financial gain – and after she explained as much to her 4-year-old sister, the younger sibling now wants to get in on the act once the other toenail falls off.

Luckily, before it disappeared into the fairy ether, I took a picture of my foot sans big toenail (don’t act like you didn’t expect this):

In regards to the photo, allow me to answer a few inevitable questions:

1) Yes, I shaved my toes for the photo. This should shock exactly nobody.

2) It doesn’t hurt nearly as much as you might think. The sensation is more of a mild downward pressure, like if somebody were lightly stepping on your big toe – that’s what it feels like all the time when I’m wearing shoes.

3) So far, it hasn’t prevented me from running or swimming, but my cycling shoes are a bit uncomfortable because of their narrow toes. But that shouldn’t be a problem, since I don’t have any triathlons coming up for … oh, wait. Bugger.

Those questions are the easy ones to answer; more challenging are the ones my two daughters are considering for the potential return of the Tooth and/or Toenail Fairy. This recent development has turned their comprehension of the whole fairy system completely inside out.

Accordingly, my 7-year-old is currently compiling a list of questions to tuck in with the next toenail, chief among them:

Dear Toenail Fairy –

Are you the same as the Tooth Fairy?

It seems like a simple enough question - however, for my daughter and me, it’s only a conversation starter, as these follow-up questions illustrate.

If so: how did that occur? Is it part of your regular job description, or did you improvise when you saw the tooth pocket filled up? Is collecting toenails like cross-training, or simply a moonlighting gig to earn a few extra body parts on the side? Which are more valuable: teeth because they’re cooler looking and last longer, or toenails because they are so rare (albeit somewhat disgusting)? And should we call you by a different name?

If not: that means there are separate Tooth Fairies and Toenail Fairies, right? Who decides what kind of fairy you’ll be? Is there a regular rotation, or are there tryouts and a selection process? Is it more prestigious to be one type of fairy instead of another, or is it a classless society like Fairy socialism? If there’s a hierarchy of positions, does more extensive education and/or training improve your place in the pecking order? Do you have to pay your dues as a Toenail Fairy (assuming those are the lower rungs) and climb the corporate fairy ladder before being promoted to a Tooth Fairy? Is there some kind of Fairy CEO in charge of the whole conglomerate, or is the system completely deregulated? And why don’t you pay as much as the Tooth Fairy?

OK … so I took a bit of literary license with the wording of some of those queries – but trust me, these are the discussions my daughters and I are having lately. To them, it's some sort of fairy riddle, hidden in a fairy puzzle, wrapped in a fairy enigma.

I haven’t the foggiest idea what any of the correct responses are, but I know one thing for certain: time is running out on my other big toenail. And when it finally succumbs to its own mortality, it will be tucked inside a blanket pocket alongside a note demanding some answers.

The clock is ticking.

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