Door County 70.3

This past weekend I completed my first sanctioned 70.3 in Door County, Wisconsin. I did a sanctioned 69.1 in New Orleans last year as well as an unsanctioned private HIM last year. Before I get to the race report, I have to say I love Northern Wisconsin. The people are friendly, it's beautiful, the air is clean, the water tastes great and I love the accents with the loooong oooo's :-). The Door County Triathlon is extremely well organized, with a beautiful race venue, amazing crowd support, and wonderful volunteers. Every aid station was well stocked and the volunteers didn't just hand out the stuff, they were paying attention, asked what every racer needed, and took care of us quickly and efficiently. If you are thinking of doing this race, do it, you won't be disappointed.

We arrived in Egg Harbor, WI Thursday afternoon after a long drive (made longer after I got a speeding ticket only an hour into the trip). Thursday night we grabbed some fantastic barbecue at Casey's BBQ in Egg Harbor and just walked around. Beautiful area for sure.

Friday morning we checked out the race site. The lake dropped 20 degrees overnight and was 56 degrees, brrr! Then we drove the run course. It seemed long after not having run a half marathon in over a year. That coupled with the predicted heat made me start getting a little anxious about the run. Friday night I hardly slept a wink. I don't know why, buy I saw just about every hour on the clock.

Swim course pre-buoy

beach at the swim start

Part of the run course

Another run course pic

 

Part of the run course is shaded

Most of the run course isn't shaded

Saturday we drove up to the Maritime Museum then drove through Penisula State Park in the morning then met up with fellow blogger and BT mentor Dave and his really nice family. It's always nice to meet up with online friends and this was no exception. Dave and I were able to talk triathlons and our families talked about who knows what :-). Dave has done a bunch of 70.3's as well as Ironman Wisconsin last year, so this is old hat to him :-). After lunch, Dave and I went to packet pickup then a little s/b/r. We put on our wetsuits and swam out to the first buoys. The water had warmed back up to 74 and was quite pleasant, though a little choppy. After the swim I commented that if the water is that choppy on Sunday, I'm going to have a slow swim, but oddly enough, I wasn't worried about it at all. After the swim, we went for a short 20 minute ride. Dave had some problems with his new Garmin 910xt but once he got that set, he dropped me handily :-). I was working a little harder than I wanted to the day before a race but in hindsight, it was probably the proper intensity. After the ride, we went for a short, "easy" one mile run in 8 minutes! Dave's easy pace, is my fast pace. Once again, probably the perfect pace. That evening I had pizza and beer for dinner then went to bed early. I slept like a brick since I slept so poorly the night before.

Sunday morning I woke up at four a.m., ate a banana and some yogurt, drank a cup of coffee, did my business then fell back into a dead, drooling sleep until my alarm went off at 5:30. Then more coffee, more business then headed to the race site at about six. Parked right next to Dave then headed over to the transition area and set up. Dave and I were in the same wave which didn't leave until 8:33, so we had plenty of time to chit chat about all kinds of stuff. It was really nice and helped keep me from getting nervous at all. This is the first race where I was more worried about the run than the swim, in fact, I wasn't worried about the swim at all even though it would be my first 1.2 mile swim in open water.

Race time was here before we knew it and we worked our way down to the water, sat in the water and did the prerequisite peeing in the wetsuit, got back out when our wave was called, walked through the timing mat, then waded out to the starting gate which was waist deep in the water. Once the horn went off, I started swimming, near the back of the wave and got into a decent grove pretty much right away. I wasn't nervous at all and just got to work. I sighted every other stroke while things were crowded then went to every five strokes after that. Contact was minimal and my sighting was the best yet! It helped they had buoys about every 100 yards. That was also nice because you could see you made progress every five strokes unlike races where the buoys are hundreds of yards apart where you can take 20 strokes and feel like you made no progress. On the long leg back, I could feel the swells in the lake and managed to get in sync with them which made it feel like a current pushing me along. I wondered if the bobbing up and down would be a problem when I stood up, but it wasn't. When I got out, I felt great. I wasn't tired at all and wasn't thinking about the next legs, just about the task at hand, get out of the water, let the strippers take off my wetsuit and head into transition.

 

Dave and I just before the race start

Headed to the swim start which was in waist deep water

 

Expected swim time 50 minutes, actual 43:05. Woohoo! Faster than my pool time for 1.2 miles.

The run up to the transition area was really short and the transition area is pretty compact, but not crowded. It made for fast transition times. Socks and shoes on, glasses and helmet and it was time to go. As you will see later, I could have used some sun screen, but if they had volunteers applying it, I missed it.

Expected T1 2-5 minutes, actual 2:01

 

T1

 

Time to bike. My goal on the bike was to take in a thousand calories and not go too hard. Every 15 minutes I took a drink of my home made energy drink, then a drink of water. I watched my cadence and tried to keep it about 90 and watched my breathing. Whenever I started breathing too hard, I backed off. I executed the plan, just about perfectly. Early on a woman passed me that was going the perfect pace, so I followed her ( about 5 bike lengths back so as not to draft). She coasted on the downhills and I pedaled so I passed her on the down hills, gave her a rabbit to chase, then when she passed me, I paced off her. It was win-win as far as I was concerned. We ended up chatting a bit then she blamed me for pushing her too hard and proceeded to drop me :-). The route was beautiful, along the lake on the way out, then through farm fields for the rest. I felt great the entire ride, no knee pain, not too hot, no real issues at all. That said, I was ready to get off my saddle by about mile 50, but that's to be expected. It's hard to describe, but it was like my mind and body were disconnected. My legs just kept turning while my mind thought about fueling, cooling, and bottle exchanges. The aid station volunteers were like pros. I pointed to the volunteer I wanted, slowed slightly, made the grab and they didn't let go until I grabbed it out of their hand, I thanked them, they told me the bottle was already open and away I went. I don't think I slowed down to much less than 15 mph which is a bit fast for an exchange for me.

Expected bike time 3:10, actual 3:00:07, woohoo! I thought I would have to hammer to be at 3 hours. Makes me want a TT bike even more :-).

Once back in transition, Dave passed me on the way in! That was pretty cool, I figured I wouldn't see him until after he had a couple beers after the race. Anyway, another quick transition and I was off.

Expected T1 2-5 minutes, actual 1:55


This is where things got interesting. I was starting the run at the 3 hour and 47 minute mark and my original goal was sub 6 hours, a 2:10 half marathon is "just" 10 minute miles, and I was feeling pretty good. The down side is that it was hot and humid and I was a bit bloated. I started the first mile thinking about going for the sub six instead of sticking with the plan. I ran the first mile in 8:30 and my heart rate was starting to red line. I was still thinking about hurting myself then saw a guy up ahead blowing chow on the side of the road and I thought to myself, I want to enjoy this race and the post race, I really don't want to be that guy. I wasn't up tight or anything before this point, but after I made that decision, the race became even more fun. By mile two I knew I was going to finish and I knew I wasn't going to go sub six, so I decided to have fun. I ran when I felt like it and walked when I was overheating, had skyrocketing hr, had side stitches, and was in an aid station. Yes, I walked a lot and had a great time. I high fiver lots of spectators, thanked all the volunteers and several spectators, experimented with keeping cool In warm temps, encouraged everyone that passed me and just enjoyed the long run.

This run took forever, yet oddly enough didn't seem that long. The volunteers were awesome again. Seriously, when I went to every aid station, I had a staff of people in a line offering me Gatorade, then water, then ice, then more water then more ice, oh and throw in some cold towels. Not only did they offer these things, they were fully engaged. They looked me in the eye ( may have been like looking into a deer's eyes at many points :-)), asked me what I needed and got it for me quickly. They worked their asses off in the heat and treated us like rock stars. Kudos to the volunteers!

As I mentioned, I experimented with keeping cool. At every aid station I took a couple cups of water, a cup or two of ice and a cup of Gatorade (at every other stop). I had never poured ice down my shorts before and thought I would give it a try since it was pretty hot out. First or second station, I poured a whole cup down my shorts and things got pretty cold, pretty fast. After a quick flashback to a Seinfeld episode where George had shrinkage due to being in the pool, I pulled one of the legs of my tri shorts open and let most of the ice fall to the ground :-). After that it was a third of a cup in the drawers, a third in the back of my shirt and a third down the front. Would it be wrong for a dude to wear a sports bra just for holding ice? I know Patrick did a dude band, maybe he could do a dude bra?

So while the run was longer than it should have been and hot, a couple funny moments pop into my mind while writing this. About mile eight I grabbed a couple cups of water, a cup of ice and a cup of Gatorade at an aid station. I came to a complete stop in the aid station trying to figure this out. The two water cups were in my left hand. The Gatorade and ice cups in my right hand. I stood just past the aid station table staring at my hands trying to figure out how to pour the ice in my right hand into the water in my left hand without spilling the Gatorade in my right hand. As I was standing there trying to solve this extremely hard problem, a wonderful volunteer came over and said "what do you need?". I said, "I have no idea, maybe I just need to be done with this race". He said "there is beer right over there in that cooler if you want one", I don't remember what I said but I solved my problem by setting my four cups down on a table and moving on. :-)

Not much long after that I was walking toward the big hill of the day and random people were cheering me on like I was a rock star, while I was walking. Since I was walking, they had plenty of time to cheer :-) and they kept cheering! Finally I said thanks then asked if I was winning the race :-). They said that they thought so and I said, just kidding, I'm getting my monies worth out of the course. We all had a good laugh and I trudged on.

Mile 9 has a nasty hill leading to the final 5k which had no shade and a nasty, steep downhill to the finish. I was pretty happy to be done but I was still feeling really good. My family commented thatbinlooked way better than I did after New Orleans and I actually felt great considering having just finished propelling myself 70.3 miles. I got my medal, then sat in the lake to cool off.

Cooling off in the lake

 

After cooling off, we met up with Dave and his family and rehashed the race and had a couple of beers. That evening, I had a hard time sleeping between a pretty bad sun burn and some significant pain in my left calf. I had a hard time rolling over and getting comfortable.

 

You can see where I sprayed one spot that ran :-)

 

All in all I'm very happy about this race, how my body felt, how my knees didn't hurt, and how I stuck to my plan. Overall time was 6:25:30 and I wasn't worried about time at all, I was focused on feeling good, thinking about what I needed to be doing at each moment, and having fun.

 

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Changing Goals

At the beginning of the year I set a goal to go sub six hours at the Door County 70.3 this weekend. Well, in the last month, I've realized that goal isn't the right one for me right now. With my knee injuries in April, I haven't done any interval training. It's all been at a slow steady pace. That fact coupled with my knees feeling just like they did before my injury, twingy, slightly swollen and sometimes hot to the touch, I decided to remove that goal from the list. I've also had some rough times after my long workouts (in which I have lost a lot of weight training in this heat wave) where I'm dizzy, and feel like I'm going to barf, similar to what I felt like after NOLA 70.3. They posted a heat advisory for the race too. "It's probably not a day to set a PR, folks," says race director Sean Ryan. That said, I've been running in 95+ degree weather, so mid 80's shouldn't feel too bad for me though I have shortened my runs due to the heat.

New goals:

1. Don't permanently damage my knees.

2. Take in enough nutrition and fluid to stay out of the med tent and hopefully feel good after the race.

I've had some serious thoughts this week about DNS and DNF. Not a good mental place to be race week :-(.


 

Random updates:

My pool shoes came in! Should help avoid my athlete's foot moving forward :-).

 

For nutrition I plan to go with Maltodextrin, salt capsules, and lemonade flavored Crystal Light. I tried using powdered Gatorade for the flavoring and while I liked the taste better, it gave me acid reflux like symptoms on a long ride.

I washed my bike for the first time in like a year. The bike shop guys gave me crap about it the last couple times I brought it in.

I'm looking forward to taking a week off of training and thinking about what to do next. This is my last scheduled tri of the season.

Anyway, I'm in full stress out mode yet I haven't started gathering gear and packing for leaving in 36 hours.

 

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Taper Time

My 70.3 is in a week and a half and it's taper time. I've only had a couple "real" tapers, a couple two week tapers for 70.3's and a couple one week tapers for half marathons. I can say there is a difference, at least for me. At the start of the two week taper, my legs are absolute toast and 3 mile runs feel like there is no way my legs can carry me 10 more miles, specially after already being on the race course for four hours. Then comes the niggles, aches, pains, and other injury type feelings in a bunch of new places all through my feet, ankles, calves, knees, quads, hamstrings, etc. you name it, and during taper it's going to develop a brief bout of feeling like a race ending injury just popped up. I think it is just the body repairing the cumulative damage that months of training has inflicted on my body, at least that is what I hope. Then there are the thoughts, "did I do enough?". Well, if I didn't, it is what it is. Some like to say the hay is in the barn. I'm feeling pretty good about my base training. A quick comparison against what I did for my first half Ironman shows ...

NOLA 2011

Door County 2012

My conclusion? First, It is tough to compare graphs of different scales. Second, don't look at your graphs a week and a half out from a race :-(. Seriously, it looks like my knee injury hurt my base building period significantly and joining an extreme fitness class hurt my already pathetic swim volume significantly. I guess comparing the graphs is valuable, even if you don't like what you learn.

So besides the taper madness, I've had some other issues leading to the need for taper and rest. After my last tri, I developed an extremely runny nose that I'm not sure if it was allergies or a cold (I'm still not sure). This lasted for 3-4 days then turned into an extremely gooey nose that as kind of thick and caused snot rockets to be gooey stringy messes like two year olds get. This lasted for 4-5 days. Then it moved into my chest where it currently resides. I think it's getting better and fear it's too late to do anything about it anyway. Besides the cold, I had some lower back pain for a couple weeks that seems to be on the mend. Besides the back pain, I've been extremely busy with travel, work, and house guests.all good stuff, but none very good for rest and recovery. Besides the business, I finally stopped denying I have athletes foot and started treating it. I've had peeling, cracking feet for a few months and wrote it off as being due to doing exercises on a rough pool deck with my wimpy feet. Well my skin started getting thicker and itching and burning. It finally reached a peak on Saturday and after some self diagnosis on the interwebs, came to the conclusion I have athletes feet. So I bought cream for my feet, a liquid for my toe nails, powder spray for my shoes and Epsom salts and started treatment.

Shoes after being sprayed with powder. I did take pictures of my feet, but spared you.

So in my research I found out that I violated every rule I could find about avoiding athletes foot. So, don't be like Mike and do the following:

- keep your feet clean and dry

- wash your feet with soap every day including between your toes

- completely dry your feet after they are wet including between your toes

- wear clean socks

- let your shoes dry out between each wearing

- always wear pool shoes or sandals at the pool and in the locker room.



I did none of these and went further by wearing dirty socks to work out, sometimes still wet. I figured when doing two a days, why not? Well now I know. I also use to wear cycling shorts multiple times until last weekend. Turns out the same grunge can end up in the nether regions. Who knew? The not re-using bike shirts was a precautionary change. No jock itch here :-).



I also did some research regarding peeing in the shower preventing athletes foot. Well, it doesn't, and I have proven it by peeing in the shower every day for at least a year (don't tell my wife :-)) and still getting athletes foot. Before you knock peeing in the shower, entire countries are recommending its citizens pee in the shower to save water. Plus, it saves time :-).



Ok, enough about that. Back to tapering......

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Product Review: Aqua Sphere Kaiman Goggles

The folks at AquaGear sent me a note asking if I wanted to review some gear of my choosing. That is a no brainer for me, I love trying out gear and sharing my experiences. So I went to their website https://www.aquagear.com/ and started poking around. They have quite a large selection Of items and I was having trouble choosing something. I thought about getting some paddles, then thought better of aggravating my shoulder injuries. I thought about getting some fins or kick board, but I just use the ones at my local YMCA. So after a drawn out, indecisive stretch by me, I went with something I already know and love, Aqua Sphere Kaiman goggles. I went through the painless Aquagear ordering process and within a couple days, I had my goggles in hand.

I ordered a pair of black goggles with smoked lenses since I already have a pair of blue with blue lenses for the pool and a pair of black with mirrored lenses for really sunny days. I've also lost several pair over the last couple years. Sometimes I leave them in the shower at the Y and sometimes I give them away. I gave a pair to a friend that just did Knoxville 70.3 and he loved them too ( and lost them in the race :-)).

nice big lenses

Easy adjustment clips adjust in seconds

When I first started swimming a couple years ago, I experimented with several different brands of goggles and once I tried these Kaiman's I knew I found the right ones. The adjustment is super easy to pull, yet they lock in place. They are wide for a good field of view and no "goggle eyes". I really haven't found anything I don't like about these goggles except that I keep leaving them at the Y :-).

Had to throw in a cheesy pic

If you are in the market for some new swim gear, check out Aquagear.

(Disclaimer: I was given Kaiman goggles for free, courtesy of Aquagear . I did not pay for the goggles, receive payment for this review, or agree to give a positive review. Aside from information gleaned from the company website, the opinions are my own.)

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Cohasset Tri 2012

We combined a family visit with a race this past weekend. My son and I flew to Boston Thursday and took the ferry to Hull where my sister picked us up. My daughter and mother flew out Friday to meet us. It was really nice to catch up with my sister, BIL, niece and nephews. We spent a lot of time at a beautiful local beach, playing games, and just hanging out. We also spent a lot of time around the tri. Further proof triathlon is a selfish sport.

View of Boston from the ferry

In preparation for the tri, my sis and I ran the run course Friday morning, then drove the bike course a couple times. Later in the day, my BIL took me to the Bike Barn in Whitman MA to borrow a test bike that happened to be nicer than my normal bike. They let me test ride a Specialized Allez. The guys at the shop were super nice and spent time helping me get it set up properly. I brought my saddle and pedals and the bike guy (John I think) put it on the trainer and got things dialed in for me. The bike was fabulous and I never once thought about racing on a bike I had only ridden once. Thanks guys, you rock! If you are in the Boston area, go check out the Bike Barn, these guys know what they are doing.

Start of the run course

Saturday morning I met up with a friend from BT, his swimming instructor and her friend to ride the bike course. It was a beautiful morning and beautiful course. Mid morning, my sis and I went to packet pick up and got my race numbers applied. The woman applying the numbers mentioned I had nice muscular hairless upper arms, so the tats went on easy :-).

Packet pick up

 

Saturday afternoon was more beach time for the family while I went for a practice swim. The kids thought the wetsuit was pretty funny (which it was), then we went back to my sisters place for a cookout. During the cookout, a big storm blew in and knocked out power. We ate, then everyone played Apples To Apples but me. I get a little edgy the night before a race so I said I was on a team, then proceeded to finish reading Chrissie Wellington's book before going to bed really early. I was starting to worry I wouldn't have hot coffee in the morning, but power came back on about 11 pm. I tried something new for this race. I woke up at 4 am and ate, did my business and went back to bed. The idea was to digest breakfast before leaving for the race site to avoid 4-5 trips to the nasty Porto potties. Woke back up at 5:30, did some more business, then my sis drove me to the race site at 6 so she could drop me off, then get my cheering section up and moving. It worked! I only had to hit the portable potties once.

 

Beach time

 

Once at the race site, I got my timing chip, set up my transition area, then chatted with Mike_D from BT and a few other athletes. Despite this being my first ocean swim in a tri, racing on a borrowed bike, and knowing going all out hurts, I was pretty calm. I went for a warm up jog then swim and just hung out until my HUGE (for me) cheering section arrived. The kids got busy making signs and I just chilled with them. It was awesome.

My bike still had a price tag and said testbike

My transition area

My peeps making signs

 

My kids before they colored in the sign

Me and my sis (not a chobani commercial :-))

Me and my mom

Chillin with my nephew

I felt like a rock star!

Just about game time

I was in the third wave with 92 of my closest friends. I lined up near the back since I'm a slow swimmer and really don't like lots of contact. Once the horn went off, we ran down the beach and into the water. The water wasn't as calm as it was Saturday. I swallowed three or four full mouth fulls of water. I didn't panic or even stop and tread water, I just kept swimming. I think this was the first swim I didn't stop and tread water during the swim (except when rounding the buoys), I felt strong and just kept going. Once we got out of the water, we had to run several hundred yards up to the transition area. This time was added to the swim time.

 

Once in T1, it was wetsuit off, socks, shoes, glasses, and helmet on, then run out. No trouble at all.

Once out on the course, my goal was to keep breathing hard the entire ride. I had no hr, cadence, or speed sensor, so it was all by feel. I'm a relatively slow swimmer, which gave me plenty of people to pass on the bike. I passed a bunch of people and played leap frog with a couple guys in my age group. We joked around as we passed each other which was kind of fun. The course was rolling and beautiful with some fun turns.

Once off the bike, I ran into T2. Racked the bike, helmet off, shoes off, run shoes on, visor, number belt and I was out of there. To quote my nephew, it was time to "embrace the pain" :-). The course was hilly (for me) and absolutely beautiful. The crowd was great and there were kids spraying runners with hoses which was nice since the temp was moving into the 80's (I think, I never really looked). I was happy with the run given I'm not very use to hills. The rest of the run was uneventful. I was able to chat with some other runners, so I think my cardio is currently outpacing my leg strength/speed.

After the race, I had a couple bottles of water then waited around to pack up. After a big lunch and a big nap, I was pretty much back to normal. We all went out for an early nice seafood dinner then back to play Apples to Apples. I played this time and we all had fun. Seeing that it was supposed to storm all day Monday starting early and I had a 2 hour run scheduled for this weekend, I went to bed early again and got up early again (what kind of vacation is this?) Checked the hour by hour weather at 3:30 am to see if I needed to leave at 4, 5, or 6 am. I was happy to see the storm wasn't coming as early as expected and went back to bed until 5:30. Then at six, I ran the bike route from the race and felt pretty good. If things go well tomorrow, I'll get my long ride in when we get home.

Overall it was a great weekend visiting with family. If my sister and/BIL sign up next year, we might just have to come back :-).

The numbers

Overall rank 220/801

Age group rank 30/92

1/4 mile Swim - 10:34 (352/801)

T1 - 1:44

12 mile ride - 35:35 (167/801 20.2 mph)

T2 - 1:11

3.2 mile run - 27:20 (319/801 8:33 min/mile)

Total - 1:16:21

 

Nutrition Testing

I started doing some testing with maltodextrin this weekend at the suggestion of fellow blogger Mike. Maltodextrin is a common food additive containing easily digestible carbohydrates, yet is cheaper than sports powders. It can be purchased online or at your local brewing supply store, since it is a common ingredient used to brew beer. My local brewing supply store is 40 minutes away, so I ordered a pound online so I could experiment. There was no calorie label on the package but doing a little googling, it looks like a cup contains about 360 calories.

I had a long brick work out scheduled for Saturday for which I planned on mixing a one hour bottle and a long ride Sunday for which I planned mixing a four hour bottle. My first attempt was one cup of maltodextrin, one scoop of Gatorade powder and one tablespoon of salt. I mixed that up, took a sip and promptly poured it out :-). The Gatorade flavor was way too strong as was the salt taste. My second attempt was one cup of maltodextrin, one Succeed S!CAP for electrolytes and a little lemonade flavored Crystal Light for flavoring. The taste was pretty good so I went with it for my first test.

On the plan for Saturday was a brick workout consisting of an hour swim, an hour ride, and an hour run. Unfortunately, lap swim didn't start until noon and the temperature was forecast to be in the mid 90's with the heat index being over 100. If nothing else, it would be a good nutrition test. If you can take in calories in the heat and keep it down, it should work in just about all conditions, right? The workout went fine, nutrition seemed to taste good and sit well but I did cut the run short due to the heat (5k instead of a 10k). Cutting it short had nothing to do with nutrition. I didn't want to hurt myself and risk missing the long ride Sunday.

With that success, I decided to make a four hour bottle for Sunday. I mixed three cups of maltodextrin, three S!CAPS, and lemonade flavored Crystal Light again. Maltodextrin is easier to mix hot, so i mixed the bottle Saturday night and put it in the fridge. Sunday was a little cooler than Saturday, but not much. I set off on a four and a half hour ride with ~1100 calories in one bottle and a second bottle of water only. My plan was to take a sip of calories every 15 minutes and drink water to thirst. This plan seemed to work ok. A couple times I skipped a calorie drink because I was feeling a little bloated. This worked out so I finished the bottle four hours in. I think finishing it in three hours would have been a little soon. I did notice a slight after taste a few times, but nothing stomach turning.

The last half hour of the ride wasn't pretty. I was exhausted and over heated and stopped at every water fountain to pour water over my head. Afterward I think I hopped in the shower too quick because when I got out, I started sweating, got the cold shakes, nausea, and really light headed. Let me tell you, its tough to shave when you are about to pass out (and probably not a good idea). I laid down for a while and felt better. I guess I shouldn't be surprised since I weighed seven pounds less than when I started. I don't think it had anything to do with nutrition, I think it had to do with heat exhaustion. I guess when I do a full IM, I need to find a cool one.

With four and a half weeks until my 70.3, I'm running out of time to experiment. I did run to my local brewing supply store and buy some more maltodextrin and plan to try mixing some powdered Gatorade instead of Crystal Light for my next long session. Speaking of which, my next long ride is scheduled for Sunday, but I'll be in Cohasset, MA for a family visit and a little racing. The race should be challenging as it will be a cold ocean swim and ill be riding a borrowed bike. I'll try to fit in a long run while I'm there and a long ride when I return.

The goods :-)

 

Anti-training in Northern Wisconsin

This weekend was my annual guys fishing trip. I think this was the seventh year so far and while I'm not a good big fisherman, I love being outdoors and hanging out with the guys talking trash. I didn't bring any training gear so i wouldnt feel guilty not working out and my only goals were to unwind and get bass thumb. Bass thumb is a term I coined when you lip enough large mouth bass with your thumb, while removing the hook, that your thumb gets all rough from the sand paper like bass teeth :-).

The guys I fish with are very competitive (as I am myself), so we had to have a fishing tournament even though it usually ends in arguments. The entry money was low, but bragging rights huge! Knowing what was at stake, I figured we needed a secret weapon. I brought one a couple years ago and it worked brilliantly, knocking out one of our competitors for a full day. This year it also knocked out one of our competitors, but at the high cost of a pretty serious brawl and some ill will :-(. Next year the secret weapon might be some aroma therapy or mediation books :-).

 

When we arrived Wednesday evening, we went straight out on the lake. The first four casts yielded 4 hits and 2 fish. Great start to the trip! The lake was beautiful as was the weather.

Lake Placid in Hayward, Wisconsin

Turtles sunning themselves

So the fishing tournament was our boat vs. my buddies brothers boat. It really wasn't fair because they had three fishermen in their boat and we only had two, but we took the challenge anyway :-). Day one we ended up winning. Day two we also won. Day three they requested we go double or nothing and we agreed. They are actually better fishermen than us so the likelihood of us winning three days in a row was slim. We fished hard all day and with an hour to go in the tourney, we were one fish behind. Our competition was getting tired of fishing and went in giving us an hour to pull out a victory. The next thirty minutes didn't even yield a hit so we went back to the method that worked the first night. Rubber worms, drug slowly across the bottom. The fish were sluggish so when they hit, you had to be patient. In years past, when the fish hit, you would count to two, set the hook and that we pretty much that. This year when they hit, you had to wait until the second hit, give the line a little slack, wait for the third hit, put slight pressure on the line then on the fourth hit, set the hook and reel like hell.

One of many large mouth bass

With 20 minutes to go, I caught the tying fish using that method. Then with 10 minutes to go, I caught the winning fish. I was removing the hook thinking of a funny blog pic to take kissing the fish or something, when the fish flapped hard enough that I lost my grip and ended up with one of the other hooks in my ring finger just below the fingernail. Pain and panic ensued as I had a flopping fish hanging from my finger. I managed to grab some pliers and hold the lure while my buddy dropped the anchor, then cut the fish away from me. Then I cut the lure away from my finger and inspected the damage. The nail was in tact but the hook was lodged in there pretty good. I tried to shove the barb through, but it hurt too bad so we went to the ER. They were backed up so they checked me in and suggested we go out to dinner and come back. We went out for pizza and beer with the hook still in my finger. It didn't hurt except for when I would brush it against things.

 

This fish was hooked in the middle hook, my finger on the top hook

Picture on the way to ER

In the ER, the doc gave me a lidocaine shot right in the tip of my finger. It hurt like hell for about three seconds then it was numb. He shoved the barb through, cut the hook and that as it. As a bonus, my tetanus shot is now up to date :-) All is well now and I have a good fishing story to boot.