3x Iron, a Dysfunctional Family Reunion

Friday, October 7th, 2011.
It is still dark at 6:45 am and under 50 degrees.
It seems as though the sun is not going to rise today.

The start of the Virginia Triple Iron, a 7.2 mile swim, 336 mile bike, and 78 mile run, is supposed to be in 15 minutes.
Steve Kirby, Race Director, herds shivering athletes, friends, and family to the shore of Lake Anna, where a dense fog still clings to the water. We are all grouped together for a photo, and for the magnitude of such a large event looming, there isn't one straight face there. This is just one reason I am standing in line with these other whackos: No Triathlon/Cycling Geek Attitude.
This event is simply too long to take seriously. The only thing you can do is keep a good attitude and adapt to the challenges of the weekend.

We get in the water, and I slap a high five with Jaime. To the lakeside spectator, Jaime and I were just amped to be starting, but he and I knew that we were both about to just work on surviving the morning. Last year at the Double Iron, we exited the water dead last, and were expecting to probably have the same result today.

I wasn't sure about him though, as I had heard him earlier, talking about actually training for the swim this year. As for myself, I knew it wasn't going to be pretty, having not swam a stroke since May (I had been living on a mountain for work). My goal was to flop around in the water like a wounded dolphin for about 6 hours, and then start the race.

Sure enough, one and a half hours after the second to last person had come out of the water, I emerged, laughing and apologetic for having my crew sit there by the lake for an entire morning. To put things in perspective, my buddy Andy(who had been training for an English Channel swim) had broken the swim course record that same morning, and was out of the water in 2 hours, 54 minutes.

The good news was that I had stayed on top of my nutrition for six hours, and was coming out of the water with a stomach that was not unsettled. Nicole, Tina, and I walked up to the bike course, and my parents and Amy helped get me ready to sit on the bike for a long, long time.

Knowing my swim was going to be absolutely awful, I planned to make a ton of time up on the bike. I wasn't planning on trying to win the race or anything, because I knew my mountain summer had cut into my training pretty hard. I just wanted to be done by early Sunday, so I wouldn't have to deal with the hot afternoon temperatures on the run.

Friday afternoon was spent just pedaling kind of mindlessly and catching up with guys like Joe Trettel and Sauerbrey, Chris Trimmer, and meeting the new athletes to the sport. The ultra triathlon community is pretty small, so we all know each other from one race or another. It really makes these races seem less like competition and more like family reunion. There are so few people who live this lifestyle, that it's always nice to either vent to an understanding peer about the financial side of the sport, or get a tip as to how they fit the training in around "normal" life. It is a unique bond we share, and it was an honor to meet people like Frank Fumich, who has done some serious adventuring around the world, and Kathy Roche-Wallace, who completed RAAM this year.

We all seemed to be pedaling at about the same rate for most of the ride...that is, except for the other half of Team Awesome, a name which I just made up a second ago.
My family(Mom, Dad, Amy), Tina, and Nicole were not just crewing for me. We had a prior arrangement to crew for Ghislain Marechal, from France/Belgium. He was absolutely wrecking the course, lapping everyone, and breaking the bike course record in the process. He would tell me after the race that his goal was to blow the race wide apart, and it worked.
He was going so fast, that everyone else thought they were going too slow. For many, it was their first Triple. Numerous athletes either dropped from the race or dropped down to the Double Iron as a result of him.

When night fell, most people stopped riding side by side, and began the tedium of clicking off mileage in the dark, in silence.
For some reason, I rarely remember the events of the nights spent cycling in these races. It was cold.
The toll of the ride was beginning to show, and highs and lows were rearing their heads. You might pass someone pedaling at 60 rpm, lights wobbling as they tried to stay awake in the late hours of the night and early hours of the morning.

At some point just before sunup, I was absolutely frozen, and on the downhill into the turnaround, I found myself nodding off. I elected to crawl into my sleeping bag and pass out for 20 minutes or so. At this point, Ghislain and Kamil were already off the bike and waging war on the run. Needless to say, I wasn't very happy about still having a significant chunk of mileage to do on the bike. Pretty sure I wasted a lot of energy on the swim just trying to get it done.

I got back on the bike, and stayed there, secretly hoping I would find a point of ignition like I always seem to during the last miles of the bike, and be done by noon. Generally my last miles are the quickest and happiest, but this would not be so today.
By 10am, I was pissed. The sun was coming up, and I had to ditch layers of clothing, which required stopping. This irked me even more. Somewhere around noon, I still had 50ish miles to go, and the Double Iron athletes were flooding the course. I had my second meltdown in 2 hours. So bothered by still being out there pedaling, I began ignoring my crew, because I knew if I opened my mouth, anything that came out would be evil and irrational. Instead, I did the self-destruction thing, and let Mr. Hyde take over. Whereas I was ignoring my crew and wasn't eating, I was becoming erratic. Every now and then I would just take off sprinting and swearing on my bike in a temper tantrum.

Off the bike around 4pm, I pledged to the crew that the run was NOT going to go like the bike. I was going to stay positive if it killed me. Nicole ran the first 14 miles with me, and then I grabbed my Ipod and plowed through a marathon. The first 45 miles of the run went by in a blink, and it was nice to run with Amy here and there. We all watched in amazement as Kamil finished his last lap and broke the course record, finishing the race in 39 hours, 55 minutes.

For a long time, it seemed like a lot of the Triple athletes weren't even on the course. Perhaps they were crashing during the coldest part of the night?
Somewhere around the 52 mile mark, I began the early morning stagger, and elected to take a short 20 minute nap before things got bad. Attitude was still great, and I wanted to keep it that way.

Daylight came, and with it, the Virginia heat that seems to cripple me every year there. With 20ish miles to go, the heat was in furnace mode, reflecting off the pavement. I hit the port-a-potty to bag balm my problem chaffing and umm...tend to business. Ghislain had been done for a while(2nd place!) and was hanging with the crew. He and my Dad got a bright idea.
I came out of the toilet to applause and cameras everywhere. Looking above, the finisher's banner had been placed over the toilet. Everyone laughed. It was a moment of levity that was certainly needed.

Another lap or two later, I had to put my feet up, as they were swelling like crazy. In an attempt to stay positive, I exclaimed,"After this, only 8 laps to go!" My dad misinterpreted what I said and agreed. After a lap, he realized an error and corrected me on the next lap. I still had 9 to go. In these races, this is an absolute detriment to your mental status.
I chugged a Red Bull, and Mr. Hyde came out for two fast laps. Slipknot blasted in my headphones, and I went to a very dark place in my head. Other athletes tried talking to me, and I couldn't do it. Just couldn't. The only thing out of my mouth would have been just awful. I NEEDED to bring the lap count to something that was manageable in my head before I could be social again. Those 4 miles were the fastest of the whole run, over 60 miles in.
Someday, I will find a way to keep Mr. Hyde on for a whole race. There has to be a way to harness that.

I spent the next 5 laps just walking. The heat was broiling, and there was zero shade. I resigned myself to the fact that I would be walking the last few laps, and that I might just as well enjoy it. Ghislain biked alongside me for a few laps, forcing me to dump freezing water on my head. We shot the shit and laughed, while I tried not to complain too much.
He peeled off to bike alongside the legend Guy Rossi, who was running in the Double, and finally there were two laps left.
Jake Holscher's crewman picked up where Ghislain stopped. We talked about his ultra running, and the possibility of him doing this one day.

Before I knew it, I was on the last lap. The last lap of these things are always kind of cool. It's a celebration of the events, highs, and lows of the weekend. All of the Double athletes were cheering as I passed them. I said goodbye to Adam at the run turnaround, who I met in '09 here at the Triple, and started the last mile of the 78 mile run. Down the last long gradual hill, and across the shadeless false flat, I looked down to the finish and saw a small crowd gathering.

This was it. The memory of the 2009 injury and DNF could now be forever forgotten.
Grabbed the American flag, and the anthem began blaring.

Crossing the line, I finished about 7 hours slower than I hoped, but overall in a great mood. It was an awesome feeling shaking Steve's hand, and having Team Awesome be there for the photos. One of my favorite parts about having crew from all eras of my life at an event, is seeing friends of mine from different times of my life meet and become peas in a pod in just one weekend.

Thanks cannot be said enough to Amy, Nicole, Tina, and my parents, as well as Ghislain for riding alongside me at a time where I may have had another meltdown if left to my own thoughts. Just an amazing weekend.

So, to the resume, add the 2x, 3x, and 5x. Steve said it best:
"Those numbers add up to 10. Now you just have to go and do them all at once."

Word.



thanks for reading,
krp

Philosophy: Training with the Seasons and Cowboy-ing Up

I am always astounded at how much the weather of the seasons of New England perfectly match my racing schedule.

In the winter, I am drawn to the gym. Not because of the snow and ice which I actually love, but because I just feel like lifting and doing something different than I've done all year.

Spring brings about renewal for most things, including an evaluation of where I'm at mentally, which has always been a time where I decide to recommit to racing and the demands of the training.

The long days of summer give me additional time to put in the long hours necessary to complete these events. The sunny days provide energy to do so.

Fall brings a lull in daylight, and training. The cooler temperatures give me a good reason to chill out on the bike, do a little more running, and generally tone down the training load. This creates a natural taper for the big fall races.

To follow a training regimen where every workout is planned for the next year sounds awful. I tried that about 5 years ago, and it quickly grew boring. I began to not look forward to training. It became work. The gains weren't even that great.

I see these athletes training by the 10% rule and shake my head. How can you possibly make leaps and bounds increasing things at 10%? The conservative, left-brained athlete is boring... following heart rates and numbers, and letting those things dictate their next workouts.

Did you know most professional triathletes are now doing 90% or more of their rides indoors on Computrainers, where everything is measured and evaluated?
I say ignore all that shit and be reckless. One of my favorite sports stories of all time is from the 1989 Tour De France, when Greg LeMond ditched all technology and told his team NOT to give him splits in the race's final time trial, and he made up an unbelievable deficit-over 2 seconds per kilometer- winning le Tour in one of the closest races of all time.

Believe in yourself, and listen to your body. Will yourself into the fitness you want, and train with the seasons. If you've made a commitment to training and it is your lifestyle, everything else will fall into place. The season is changing right this second, just step out the door.

krp

Jekyll and Hyde go to Lake Anna

Well, it's that time of year again.
Cooler nights. Shorter days.
It can only mean one thing.
Ultra Tri season is here.

I've been on the fence for...well...all summer about going to Virginia for the Triple Iron. One day I'm in. Next day I'm not.
It all has to do with money, and I hate that. So much.

The reality is that, no matter what my situation is financially, I gotta do it.
What I achieve down there has nothing to do with being a fitness dork, nor does it have anything to do with the accomplishment of doing 3 times the distance of what many consider the pinnacle of triathlon.

It's the silence in the water, in between the coughs of Lake Anna exiting my lungs.

It's the calm and settling in of night 1, knowing that by the end of the night and the rise of the next sun, I will still be there. Pedaling. Perhaps tranquil in the gray predawn light, or maybe half asleep and full of despair, or if I'm lucky, I'll be in angry-zombie-biker- mode, clicking off fast, hard laps. Race mood swings have earned me the nickname of Jekyll and Hyde.

It's the sound of my own footsteps, rhythmic in the night, looking up the gigantic hill that looked so gradual 30 hours ago.

I need these things every fall, to remind myself why I walk out the door every day and lace up my running shoes.
Why I've made so many sacrifices in my life in pursuit of not so much fitness, but enlightenment.
The last few years, I have entered the water at Lake Anna and seen the dimension where the rules of the universe no longer apply, delving into a world of absolute weakness and absolute power.
Each time, I have exited a new and stronger person.

I don't want to race at Lake Anna.
I need to.

krp

anomaly

anomaly
i walk this earth on two feet
but it feels like, to me, to be
human is weak
the feelings, the pain, you can have just have it
i'll turn myself into a beast
like it's magic
tragic:
to become just a slave to the race
is it you, or is it me
that needs to be
put in their place?

krp

Rambling

I'm not sure how I need to write this.
Bear with me.

There are a lot of questions and hypothetical scenarios swirling about right now.

For the last 8 months, there has been no real career plan...no LIFE plan.
Only a race plan: Deca 2011. All else: secondary.

Plane tickets for Mexico were paid for by Katherine, whom I was coaching.
All I needed was my entry fee, which I could have easily had paid for.

A few weeks ago, my plan was flipped totally upside down when I came from the woods: Mexico was cancelled.

There would be a new race in Italy, 1 month prior to the scheduled Mexico race, but my tickets would not be transferrable.

I set about looking for options, but my being in the mountains for 10 days at a time, with only 3 full days off, would be a large hinderance. Who could sponsor me? How could I raise this money? The budget would total more than $5,000 just to cover the most basic arrangements- not including food, or flying my bike, or other unforeseen expenses.

The hard truth is that I cannot get this together in the next 2 months, having only 6 full days off per month...the other 24-25 being away from any and all technology. Doing the math, I only have 9 days to get this together before I would have to think about leaving for Italy.
Who could have predicted my life choices, always passion-motivated, would virtually kill my chances of racing a Deca in 2011?

That was not easy to write, as I have only hinted around it to my parents and a few others.

Could this last-minute cancellation of Mexico be some kind of divine intervention?
Kale, get your life together.
Kale, these efforts are selfish. Get a cause.
Kale, get a career.
Kale, get some more racing under your belt first.
Kale, you're going to be 30 next year.
Kale, use your scorn as fire for next year, a la Triple DNF=Quintuple Finish.

Do I want to go another winter in a job I absolutely hate, or do I look for a compromise...a job with benefits that I can deal with year-round?
As you can see, there are a lot of things going on in my head, and this is why I maybe need to take some time and focus up after this summer of fun in the mountains.

The temporary closing of 1 door opens many others for the fall.
I'll go back to Virginia, and finish the Triple. Get back to my running roots and try to improve my times in ultras.
Not a step back, but a lateral step, to become a faster, tougher Ultra triathlete for 2012, where the Deca will be a priority.

I REALLY want to thank those that have believed in me all along, and supported me mentally or financially.
This is not an easy thing to deal with, having looked forward to it since the second I crossed the 5x finish line, but I take solace in the fact that every down has an upswing, and I ALWAYS make sure the upswing is equal or greater.

Part of me is still waiting on a miracle to come through, but I have to also look at reality.
The miracle-hoping side of me is the same side of me that just assumed sponsors would come flocking to me by the dozens after my Quintuple finish, which they did not.
Still considered very young for these distances, I plan on some pretty big things in the next 10 years.
The only thing I can do is keep putting notches in my belt, and more importantly to me now than ever: inspire and help people in the years to come.

"New life, in place of, old life....unscarred by trials" Pantera

krp

simplicity: impossible
a carrot over my head

never to be reached?

escape to the high peaks
only to find a valley

time out
morphs into
a time out

"think about what you've done"
sitting on rocks, basking in the sun
no distraction

but, for once
i could use one.

Inspirations Series: Part 1- Bruce Bell

It was my first week of middle school.

Things were....odd.
If this was to be expected, I sure didn't know it.

A lot of things had changed since I "graduated" from 6th grade.
I had gone from confident kid with buck-teeth to lanky, ugly, insecure 7th grader, in 3 months flat.

This also happened to be the only September in my short career as a student that I wasn't signed up for a sport.
I spent most of my childhood fall months running around like a chicken with my head cut off on a soccer field, and even caved to peer pressure the autumn of 6th grade and signed up for football. If I was no good at soccer, you can only imagine what football did to my psyche.

My only grade school redemption: Gym Class and the 1 mile run.
I couldn't hit. I couldn't catch.
Tackle? Ha.
I could, however, put one foot in front of the other faster than almost anyone else in school.

So here I was, September of 1995, teetering on the precipice of anonymity. Perhaps even worse as a 12 or 13 year old- I had no clique. I needed....something. I just wasn't sure what that something might've been.

It was mid-week, at the end of the day. I departed my last class, and began the journey up the stairwell to my homeroom, from which we extracurricular-less students would be put on a bus and destined for home.

A middle-aged guy in glasses, shamrock-colored polyester pants, a white shirt, and matching green tie passed me. I had seen him once before, but couldn't remember where. All I knew was that he was the Wood Shop teacher and Cross Country/Track and Field coach: Bruce Bell.
I had never previously thought about running Cross Country, so I surprised myself when I stopped him on an impulse and asked if I could run this fall. He smiled, shook my hand, and told me to come to the meeting next week.

The meeting blew my mind.
I remember sitting in his Wood Shop classroom, him lecturing about running, practice, and interspersing life philosophy all at the same time. What really hit me: he was talking to us like adults. This was something none of my teachers had done yet.
As an early teen, all you hear is,"do this or else".
This "real talk" was captivating. You wanted to attract his attention just so you could feel like an adult in talking with him.

Bell did things that no teacher could get away with nowadays.
He swore. He flirted with women. He was famous for cracking jokes about how he pissed his wife off while doing some home improvements the night or weekend before- think Tim the Toolman. There was nothing creepy at all about it; his personality was extremely non-threatening, and everything came across in good fun.
He'd bring a duffel bag full of pills and athletic supplements to work with him every day, and on occasion, with a note from a parent, would give his young athletes zinc or vitamin c tabs.

Bell was an anomaly in the middle school teaching arena. The longer you knew him and his eccentricities, the more his legend seemed to grow.
There were rumors that he would run from his house in Augusta to school in Turner, then at the end of the day, run home.
He could do more pushups and core exercises than any of us, and sometimes egged us on jokingly as we were laying on the grass trying to keep up with him.

He'd make us drink "ultra fuel" before each race. I remember him pulling one of us aside every week, and giving us 5 bucks and telling us to go to the juice machine in the cafeteria, where we were instructed to buy as much of every type of juice as the 5 dollars would allow. No one really knew what exactly was in those 5 gallon Gatorade drums, but it was a crazy mixture of powders and a plethora of juices.

In the classes that he taught and even before every practice, he might skip the intended subject matter altogether and instead go on tangents about life lessons. While it may not have been to the school's liking, a lot of kids who may not have had guidance at home(or from the guidance counselor, for that matter), received it from him. I know of kids who stayed eligible for sports, and not just in cross country, because of his foot up their ass when their grades were in danger.
If a kid didn't have money for dinner on the way home from a race, he wouldn't even blink before handing over cash.

Bell would tell you exactly what he thought, and if that included swearing at you during a race or in school, so be it.
If you acted like a drama-kid, he would promptly tell you to cut the shit.

I had zero running form as a kid. If I had a dime for every time he yelled at me from across the field," GOD DAMN IT KALE, STOP HUNCHING OVER. RUN TALL!", I'd be counting stacks of money instead of writing this. I still run races and think of how I need to get my hips under me. Thanks, Bell.

Before every race from middle school to high school, he'd have all of us get on the school bus, where he'd play out the expected scenarios of each race. He would tell us what he wanted all of us to accomplish, making eye contact and singling each one of us out, laying out his expectations for every individual, and for everyone else to hear. We each had a goal, and we were all there to help each other with it.
We'd step off that bus every time in the minutes before the race, in a fury and ready to burn up the course.

If we failed and tried hard, there was never sympathy. If you were particularly hard on yourself, he would tell you to suck it up and that you'd get 'em next week.
If we failed because we didn't put in our best effort, the next week of practice was miserable, and he made it known why.
It set us straight.

In a world quickly blossoming to a place where no one was responsible for their own actions, Bell made every effort to mold us into upstanding citizens on and off the course. Nowadays, the number of educators and coaches like him is unfortunately few. New societal standards make it hard for a teacher or coach to step in and do or say the things he did. While we can't create people like Bruce, we can definitely be thankful for the ones that are.

thanks for reading.
krp