Meandering Starre

After being a fan for more than a year, I’ve now read a story for Escape Pod. well, not a whole story, just part of one. I’m the interviewer in “How I Mounted Goldie, Saved My Partner Lori, and Sniffed Out The People’s Justice.” Stephen, of Escape Pod, was the dog. My throat hurt for him while we were reading it. While I’ve not listened to it yet, the story is a good one, so I recommend going right to the site and giving it a listen (and then subscribing to Escape Pod if you have not already).

Last Sunday I completed my first duathlon. I decided to try a duathlon on Bill’s suggestion. Duathlon are run-bike-run events, instead of the swim-bike-run of a triathlon. Since the swim is the hard part for me in the triathlon, the duathlon sounded like a good option.

I found one in Callaway Gardens that looked good—a 5k run-30k bike-5k run. I trained for this events since the half marathon (which I have yet to blog about and probably will not really blog) I ran in late March and a bit before too. This was one of my most important races of the year (which given the number I have or plan to run this year is actually saying a lot). In addition, I had never been to Callaway Gardens and it looked like a very nice place to visit.

On to the race: We got really bad storms from about 3:15 am - 6:30 am and they delayed the 8 am start an hour. The roads were really wet–puddles, mud in places, and very slick. The bike course had some really sharp downhill turns, which under those conditions were pretty deadly. I had gotten little sleep the night before, and also missed lunch, had managed to get myself rather dehydrated, and sun burnt in places (chest and feet) the day before, so I was not really in any condition to do the race. I was quite nauseous, shaking, dizzy, and the whole bit. But I did it anyway. It was probably the second worse race I have ever done–with that disastrous water problem in my first triathlon the worse. I felt sick the whole time, came close to puking several times, and almost fell off my bike (on straight stretches) because I was dizzy. But I did it, and even finished under my “slowest” time goal. I had three goals: 2 hours (my fast goal), under 2:30 (my slow goal—actually my “just finish” easy time goal—I knew I could do that no problem), and that I didn’t finish last in my age group. Sadly I both did and didn’t make that last goal. I was third in my age group, and also last. Under better conditions, I could have easily been second, and possibly first, which make me pretty sad.

Bill, who was doing an Olympic distance triathlon the next week, did the duathlon as his long workout for this week and took it light and slow as part of his pre-race taper. So he stayed with me, which was really wonderful. We actually expected that we’d run the 1st 5 k together and then I’d kick his ass on the bike portion (since I would be going all out and he would be taking it easy) and then he might catch up with me on the run. We were quite curious to see if he would catch me or not. But I was in such bad condition for the bike that I took it much slower then even I have during previous rides on the Silver Comet–not a “race pace”. The conditions did not help, but mostly it was just my psychical condition. Bill and I stayed pretty even, with me beating him on the flat stretches and him beating me on the hills (both up and down, since I was being wimpy).

Oddly, although I felt awful and walked more than normal, the last 5k may have been my fastest 5 k since high school. I ran it in just under 29 minutes. I wouldn’t believe it if my watch didn’t tell me. So I am rather proud of that and of the fact I did finish and didn’t do so very badly.

One really nice part of the race was that some friends came down and cheered. Due to the way the course was designed they found a location where they go to see us several times. Only a few times before have I had fans besides Bill and never so frequently did I see the fans during the race. It really kept me going at times when I was my worse. I wasn’t a very good racer to be a fan of though—I nodded and grimaced and waved the few times I could—but mostly was trying not to throw up on them or near them (not good fan treatment at all).

The nausea and dizziness stayed with me throughout the day and the nausea until Tuesday. I also was shaking quite a bit for the few hours after the race. When we visited the butterfly gardens I had to sit down most of the time as I couldn’t really stand for more than a few minutes at a time. I also had to rush my luggage down to the car because I thought I was going to throw up. Due to the race delay we were leaving our room after checkout and I decided it would be best to throw up in their lobby bathroom and not our bathroom post check out time. Luckily a few minutes sitting in the lobby helped quite a bit, and I was up shortly to check out.

I did learn some good things about doing duathlon:

• Obviously don’t be dumb the day before.
• Before taper get in a long run exceeding the time I expect the duathlon to last, so I have recently exercised for longer and my body is better prepared for the time.
• Work on my hills—both up and down—on biking.
• Work on sharp turns biking, especially downhill ones.
• Try biking without my gloves. I did try to put them on and in my awful state it was hard to do that and bike at the same time. I ended up with two fingers in one finger hole and the was no way I could fix it.
• Work more on drinking and doing other such stuff on the bike. My state made this harder, but I should be generally more comfortable like this. I should also be able to take Gu on my bike and I couldn’t.

We had quite the interesting morning. Luckily it was not as interesting as some in our neighborhood. We had “wrath of god” level of storm role through our neighborhood before 6:30 this morning. I woke up just as it was starting. We had huge gusts of wind that were almost frightening in their power. The wind gusted so baldy I could barley see trees outside. The one I could see was swaying ominously. We got little rain, but what we did sounded like grit hitting the house or thick mud with peddles and sand. Our house is now covered with dirt and torn pieces of vegetation—I actually think small piece of bark and twigs that came with the rain and the gusts. It was ferocious.

We lost power, and when I left around 11:30 we still didn’t have it. But power was a little problem compared to what some in out neighborhood suffered. Around 7:30 I went out to explore the neighbored with Bill, who had already explored. We could not get out of the neighborhood in a car. The nearest exist was closed because the road it attaches to had power lines and a few tress down on the road. It was closed for about a quarter of a mile. The other exit was inaccessible because a large tree was down blocking the road to get to the exit. We actually saw pieces of the street lights all over the road too from the downed poles on the main street. More seriously right across this street we saw a house with three (yes THREE) trees that had fallen on it and destroyed the roof in various places. Apparently a few more houses right near it were also similarly damaged and you could see furniture through the new holes. Damage in our actual neighborhood was not as bad. The house right next store lost four or so Bartlett Pear trees, one causing (comparatively minor) roof and gutter damage, and the rest just handed in a big pile (on their mailbox). A few other houses suffered roof damage. Apparently the people in one of the houses were in bed when a branch came through their bedroom ceiling and landed inches from them! Scary! The top of one tree I walked by was laying 30 feet away pointing in another direction. Several tress, and I mean substantial tress—not little weak tress—were ripped in half. We had really serious winds. Bill estimated between 80-100 mph winds.

Walking around the neighborhood this morning really felt like those people in all the post storm videos surveying damage. The neighborhood was so trashed and destroyed that it felt surreal. And yet, the damage still doesn’t compare to what may have gotten with hurricanes or tornadoes. I felt very thankful that our house was so lucky and that things were not nearly as bad as they could have been.

I did miss my lunch date today, but made it in to teach, due in part to Bill, who used his chainsaw to help move big tree across the road to the second development exit.

Bill took some pictures and I will link to them here too. I was quite happy my little spring flowers all survived. Shocked, but happy! I’ll post pictures of these too.

Due to the recent move of the fall time change back, I have been given a special gift by the time change powers that be. The “fall back” time change occurs on my birthday, which means November 4th is 25 hours long! One extra birthday hour! What better gift for someone who doesn’t have enough time as it is? Since I plan on spending my birthday relaxing and spending time with myself, loved ones, and friends, I won’t use this time to get any “work” done, but it does mean I get extra time to not work, which is truly a wonderful gift.