About that triathlon

Today was my fourth assault and third completion of the Richwood (really Greenbrier and Pocahontas County) Scenic Mountain Triathlon. Considering how closely I came to dropping out several times and how long it took me to limp across the finish line, I have only this to say:

*Thanks to some friends who helped pull me through.

*If I do this again, I really need to learn to swim. It felt like the lake hated me and it was mutual.

*The next time a certain friend of mine gets a bright idea, I hope he pitches it to somebody else;

but more to the point:

*Been there, done that, got the tee shirt.

Next up? Probably a 25K trail run. At least it's on solid ground and doesn't involve gear.

Y'all shoulda talked me out of this

I'm about to head to Richwood, WV to make another attempt at the Scenic Mountain Triathlon (1/2 mile swim in a very cold river, 17+ bike mostly uphill, 6.2 mile run). I got talked into it by a much younger friend who incidentally has a functioning heart despite the fact that I'm a terrible swimmer with a busted cardio system and have done laps in a pool exactly once in the last few years.

However, to compensate, I got one of those triathlon wetsuits for warmth and buoyancy. It's hard to put on and take off but it does make me float like a cork. I may croak tomorrow but I probably won't drown. I figure if I make it out of the lake I can finish, although it might take a week or so.

Don't wait up.

UNPLUGGED

Caption: My legs hurt.

Pardon the late post--I'm on the road this week and it looks like internet access will be a problem. Please excuse any possible "interruptions in service."

Also, thanks to all who wished me well on the triathlon Sunday. I am pleased to say I survived and even managed to finish it before everybody went home.

I think the swimming was the hardest part, but none of it was exactly a picnic. The swim was 1/2 mile. The distance looked pretty easy from the shore but it was another thing in the late. Goggles or not, it's hard to see in a lake and hard to swim in a crowd. I think I zigged and zagged a lot.

The 24.8 mile bike ride gave me a chance to think about important things, like how much my legs and butt hurt.

The transition from the bike to the 3.1 mile run was another jolt. It is my experience that legs that have been biking a while don't like to be told to jog.

Did I mention it was uphill both ways? Even the swim?

All of which goes to show that having a seriously messed up heart is not an obstacle to endurance sports provided one is stupid enough.

KRUGMAN ON KIDS' HEALTH CARE. Here's a good one by Paul Krugman that attempts to answer the question "What kind of philosophy says that it's O.K. to subsidize insurance companies, but not to provide health care to children?"

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

SWIM BIKE RUN

Caption: A good triathlete is something of an amphibian.

El Cabrero has been thinking about endurance in sport and life this week. If this is your first visit, please click on earlier entries.

When most people think about triathlons, they think about the Iron Man, a grueling race of truly epic proportions that began in Hawaii in the 1970s: a 2.4 mile swim, followed by 112 miles on a bike and topped off with a marathon run of 26.2 miles.

A Half Iron Man is the same, divided by two.

No, I can't say I've done either one and won't get there in this lifetime. But it would have been kind of cool.

(Such things are much better to have done than to actually do in the present tense.)

Most triathlons are a good bit shorter, thank God. The Olympic distance (it became an official event in 2000) is 1.5 meter swim, 24.8 bike, and 10K (6.2 mile) run. Shorter ones are called "sprints," although most are a far cry from sprinting.

In El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia, there's a nice one in Nicholas and Greenbrier counties that includes 1/2 mile in the icy waters of Summit Lake, 17 bike miles (mostly uphill) and a 10K at Cranberry Glades.

There's another one each year near Huntington at Beech Fork in Wayne County, which offers an Olympic distance and a "sprint" of 1/2 mile in the late, 24.8 miles on a bike and 3.1 on the hoof. That's the one I'm going to try Sunday.

Assuming one doesn't drown or have a bike wreck, triathlons of a reasonable distance (say Olympic or less) are actually easier on the body than long runs since you're not punishing yourself in the same way all the time.

My problem is that I swim only slightly better than a rock and have the kind of body that water apparently feels no obligation to hold up. My technique is only a little better than a dog paddle. Plus, swimming in a lake is a lot different than doing laps in a pool.

The one time I did an Olympic distance event, I could barely finish the mile in the deep dark waters of Beech Fork. The only thing that saved me was the fact that one of the rescue guys who followed us in a boat was on my fire department and I knew that if he fished me out I'd never hear the end of it.

I've tried one triathlon since having all the heart troubles and didn't finish. The waters of Summit Lake where cold and I couldn't seem to get enough air. Here's hoping for better luck Sunday. I figure if I make it out of the water, I'll be good to go.

MORE ON HIGHER ED. Here's a good editorial from the Bluefield Daily Telegraph about the need to boost WV's educational attainment and make it easier for adults to access higher education. Here's the punchline:

In light of the recent reports, West Virginia must review its programs that promote and assist high school and non-traditional students in getting a college education and, if need be, overhaul them.

If officials are serious about improving the economic environment then educational opportunities and training for adults must become a top priority.

The Mountain State will never be truly “open for business” if we don’t have the qualified manpower to fill the ranks of incoming industry.

GIANT BUGS NOT AN OPTION TODAY. In case you were worrying about this, the current atmosphere of the earth would not support the huge flying insects that used to live here. You can scratch that off your list.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

TRI TRI AGAIN

Caption: The swimming is the hardest part.

In a little less than a week, El Cabrero is going to try something stupid. You may well ask, so what else is new? Let me be more specific.

Next Sunday, I'm planning on trying to finish a triathlon, a questionable action under any circumstances, with a (literally) broken heart. How broken? Let me put it this way: when I read an article about Dick Cheney a while back, I learned his heart (or functional equivalent) had an ejection fraction of 35%, which is 5% better than mine.

One of the symptoms for my condition is "sudden cardiac death," which sounds like it could be serious under certain conditions. Earlier this year, I got a shock box installed, which may come in handy when cars need a jump start.

If I had a different heart, I'd use it, but as Donald Rumsfeld, mad poet of destruction, once said, "You have to go to war with the army you've got."

The fact that I wound up with this condition shows that the universe has a sense of humor. I've always been physically active, haven't smoked in years, am not obese, and only drink as much alcohol as is absolutely necessary.

In the three years before I had bypass surgery in 2004, I'd done two marathons, three triathlons, three Charleston Distance Runs (15 milers), two half-marathons, and several smaller races.

Like Dylan said, "They'll stone you when you're trying to be so good."

Paradoxically, though, finding out my heart was almost totally blocked made me feel a lot better. I kept wondering why I was getting slower and slower. The news did wonders for my self esteem. After all, anyone can finish an endurance event with a functioning heart, but it takes a real man (or an idiot) to do it with a crappy one.

NEW NOTES. One blog that is always thought provoking is Jim Lewis' Notes from Under the Fig Tree. Here's the latest.

OTHER VOICES. An interesting development over the last year or so has been the emergence of evangelical voices that have broken with the religious right on issues such as poverty and climate change. This latest example is even more surprising.

STICKING TO THE RELIGION THEME, here's an op-ed on the subject from yesterday's Sunday Gazette-Mail by Perry Mann in which he suggests that churches should do more to deal with the problems of this world.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED