Wednesday, October 11, 2006
TUESDAY: BIKING TO KAWAIHAE (That’s easy for no one to say)
I have a colleague at work who, when confronted with someone having an unreconstructed eastern European name, says, “There’s someone who needs to buy a vowel!”(The internet is so great; more precisely, Google. In 5 seconds after querying “Last names with few vowels”, I got this little piece from, of all places, a petroleum newsletter in Australia. About half way down, the writer just goes nutso with absurdist humor.) Well, Hawaiians are sorely lacking in consonants. Witness the fracturing they need to do just to say “Merry Christmas” – it translates out to “Mele Kalikimaki!” This is, of course, not the fault of the Hawaiian language, but of the haoles who tried to translate it into a readable form for English speakers. Hawaiian, like the Islanders themselves, are originally from Southeast Asia (Cambodia? Malaysia?) by way of Tonga or thereabouts. So their language is not Latinate at all, but Asiatic in origin. Witness the problems we English speakers had last century when we were told by the people who should know (the native speakers themselves) that it was not “Bombay” or “Peking”, but more closely “Mumbai” or “Beijing”.
Which is a long way of saying I have no idea how to pronounce Kawaihae, and won’t even try. But this little town represents a significant way station on the Ironman bike course. It was my intent today to bike the segment which most people think of when they imagine the course: stark, desolate, vacant black lava fields beset by treacherous winds seemingly always in one’s face. My coaches prescribed a 3.5 to 4.5 hour bike ride today, followed by a 30-40 minute transition run (they do not like the term “brick”). Further, they suggest riding the race route out to Kawaihae. I ponder this. My biggest fear in this race is not the ocean swim, not the heat, humidity or sun, and not the exasperation and exhaustion of running a marathon after a uniquely draining bike ride. No, my biggest fear is the wind. All the other things I have trained for, or can get ready for, or can deal with mentally, primarily through transmutational meditation (a term I just now made up, meaning actively ignoring them). The way I’ve gotten this far in my triathlon career is to take whatever it is I fear, or feel I can’t do, and examine it, try to understand it, learn how to overcome it, work around it, or live with it. This process is really what I love most about Ironman – there is a seemingly endless set of unique problems or issues, each of which might have a solution, and can be worked on. Add them all up, and success comes that much closer. Take hills for example. You can always find some hills to ride or run on, and the hills will each be constant, that is, always the same grade and length. You can thus pick out the ideal training location for a specific course, and work on that aspect of the race. But wind? Wind is always changing direction and speed. You can never just go to “the wind” like you can to “the hills” and get in the proper workout.
There aren’t a lot of places where you get the unique combination of heat, humidity, sun, topography, and wind effects that can exist on this bike course. And, even here, the variables change from day to day. To me, it’s just like skiing. The slopes stay the same, but the snow quality, the bumps, the visibility – they are never the same, even from one run to the next. So even training, or practice riding in the course, will not fully prepare me for whatever I’ll face on October 21st. But I can try, so off I go today.
Because this is a race prep workout, I go through much of my pre-race routine: lotions for my skin, potions for my stomach, and race outfit on my body. Nutrition and fluid in the Bento box and bottle cages on the bike. I take extra care to put spf 50 on the two areas where I have had excessive burns in past events: the spots on the shoulders where your palms touch if you hug yourself, and the small of the back where my race top rides up, exposing raw skin above my shorts. I used to race in a one piece outfit, and this little area was no problem, but I switched this year to the SST tri club colors, and discovered the top is short, and has mesh holes in the back, which breathes, but burns. It will get a good test today.
I gather all my stuff: three water bottles (two for the cages, one to fill the aerobar bottle), fuel belt for the run, Reecoverite for AFTER the run, extra shirt, running shoes, and bike shoes. As I pull the last off the closet shelf, my prodigal bike lock falls out. So that’s where he was hiding – just where I’d put him. I’d actually lifted up each of the shoes to look around them, but the heft of the cleat on the bike shoe masked the slight extra weight of my skinny lock cable. Sigh; now I have another (my third) bike lock to play with.
I pump air in the tires (taking care not to wake the baby), grab my cyclo computer (which is doubling for a thermometer), and roll the bike and my backpack full of stuff out the door to the car.
Out on the Queen K Highway, the usual traffic muddle slows my progress all the way past Hina Lani Road. As I’m driving, I ponder whether I have brought everything. I remember taking it all out, and stuffing my backpack, so I breath a bit easier. There’s so much to remember, just for a simple bike/run effort! I shoot down the open highway toward the state park past the airport, where I plan to park. I get my bike out, change into my shoes and shirt, attach the water bottles, and … Now, if you were reading carefully above, you noticed I did not mention my helmet among all the stuff I got together for the trip. Yes, my helmet must be sitting back home on the bed where I left it after I found the bike lock in my shoe. Oh well, I figure, better to get all the bugs out of the system BEFORE the race – that’s what race prep is all about.
One hour later, I’m parked at Kohaniki, a side road up to a warehouse district near the Energy lab. I take off at 11:30 AM, noting that whatever winds are out there are going to be at their peak at 2 PM, when I will be just about at mile 80 of the course – the very spot where “the race really begins”. The first hour of my ride is just as Ray Britt describes it in his excellent xtri.com article. I feel like I’m on a big cruiser of a ski slope, albeit with 96F heat and searing sun. The wind is at my back, the road is butter smooth asphalt, the slopes are slight up and slight down – exactly my kind of bike course. Steeper hills, rough road, twisty routes – all of these interrupt the cruising machine I have become over my years of biking. We’ll have none of that out on the road today. I zoom past Waikoloa at one hour, and 20.67 miles, with my heart rate in the 103-108 range – much lower than usual race pace for me (my average for the last two Ironman bike legs I’ve done: 122-124). A James Brown kind of ride – “Oww, I Feel Good!”
The hills get a little steeper towards the T intersection leading to Kawaihae, and floating down into town, the rumble strip invades the narrowing shoulder. No matter, I hit the little store just past the intersection up to Hawi in 30 miles, a little over an hour and a half. Just like Ray says – if I kept this pace up, it would be an Ironman PR.
After refueling at the little store, I turn around, head back up the hill out of town, and right, south, at the T. I get passed by a number of Matson container trucks. Apparently Kawaihae is the port for the Big Island. Everything here comes from somewhere else. Who knows what all is being carried down the road, towards Hilo, Kona, Waimea, Volcano – the whole island is sustained by these diesel belching, gear-grinding 18 wheel flatbeds loaded with one shipping container each. Maybe they even ship the garbage out in the empties?
Once up the hill, I hit the wind. I had been drinking 8 ounces every 20 minutes, but I’m switching to every 15 minutes, as I seem to be feeling the heat a bit. I steal looks at my speedometer (usually set on HR and elevation), and see anywhere from 11 to 17 mph, mostly 13-16 depending on the grade. I don’t know if it’s the mental fatigue of the wind, the emotional drain of going so slow, or the physical reality of not taking enough fluids and calories gets to me, but I “quit” about 30 minutes into the effort. Quitting, of course, does not involve getting off the bike, as there’s nowhere to go. It means just toodling along at a sodden pace, slow cadence, and downcast spirits. I keep drinking, eating, and thinking, “Well, better to have this experience today, on my training ride. After all it IS a training ride, and I’m supposed to be learning.” However, all I’ve learned at this point is I feel defeated by the course. The only saving grace is the 15-20 mile wind blowing in between my right ear and shoulder gives enough breeze, coupled with my paltry little forward motion, to cool me quite nicely. The temp on my speedometer reads “89”.
I eventually stop at a turn out labeled “Scenic View”. I’m less than three hours into the ride, and already I feel like I can’t go on. For the life of me, I can’t see what’s so especially scenic about THIS spot, that it got a pull out. I mean, the road is straight, we’re not at the top of the hill, the view is the same a half mile in front and behind – just clouds over unseen volcano tops behind me, lava all around me, a gentle slope down to a rippled blue sea a half mile in front and 300 feet below me. I rest on the rock wall, and drink a bit more. A mini van pulls up, with a single occupant, who comes out, takes a picture, and ignores the exhausted oddly dress biker looking fully drained. I reluctantly get back on the bike, and start back up the hill.
Strangely, getting to the top feels much easier. The wind hasn’t let up, but I can get out of the saddle, and pump a bit, and not feel like my legs are made of rubber. Ah – I’ve bonked! A rest for more calories, and more fluid and some absorption was just what I needed, then?
It appears so, as the rest of the ride home is an exercise in increasing strength. The Road gradually curves left, more east, away from the sea “breeze” – a makai today. By the time I hit the hill heading down towards the airport, I’m flying again, albeit only at 21-22 down the hill, as the wind is still a factor, just not dead in my face. The last turn left towards the airport finally puts it at my back a bit, and now I’m scooting again. Just in time to start the run.
I decided in the middle of my bonk to drop the run to 2.5 miles, basically up the hill to the energy lab and back, the part of the Queen K I did not do two days ago. Even though I feel up to more, I decide to go with that plan, as this will be my sixth straight day of running, and my number one plan is to be well rested and recovered come October 21. Also, I’m trying out the full race gear today, meaning the shoes I’ll actually use.
My two best triathlon run splits have both come the only times I’ve worn racing flats – a 4:22 marathon in California in 2001, and 1:47 half at this year’s Troika. It doesn’t seem like shoes could make that much difference, but it seems to add up – seven minutes on the marathon and three on the half better then my splits in heavier shoes. That works out to almost 20 seconds per mile. My trainers weigh about 12 ounces each, my “light weight trainers” – the ones I usually race – weigh ten ounces, and these flats weigh 6-7 ounces. The light weight trainers feel good, but they cramp my toes. I always end with a least one black toenail after a marathon in them, whereas none with the flats. But the flats have NO support – they’re just basically moccasins with a little padding under the feet. I think of it as a big injury risk to run in them for over four hours. But what, really, am I saving my feet FOR at this point? I’m having foot surgery on the left one right after the race, so if I mess up that bunion, well, ol’ Doc Yearian will just make it all better for me. And if I aggravate the plantar fasciitis that crops up now and then, the enforced rest after the surgery will just let that heal up, right? And if I can never run again, well, I never liked to run to begin with. (Although I do really love triathlon – some sort of a paradox, eh?)
Back home, I take stock of the day. Let’s see, the run: compared to yesterday on the Queen K, the weather is a little warmer, sunnier, and earlier in the day. Heart rate today was 125, compared to 127 the day before. Pace was 8:44 compared to 9:18 – and this coming after a 3.6 hour bike ride. Terrain was the same. Hmm, maybe the shoes do make a difference, I don’t know.
I peel off my clothes, and examine my back. The shoulders are a bit red, just in the spots I tried to save. But much worse is the diamond shaped patch of radish colored skin just above the elastic line of my shorts – about one inch high and a foot wide, it is going to be a BIG problem – how to solve it for the race, and how to repair it before then, so it’s not a drain on my energy supplies. Remember, the skin is the biggest organ in the body. And the skin is where all the sweating and cooling takes place – it must work just as effectively as any other part of the body for a good Ironman result. Sigh; at least it’ll give me something to worry about besides the wind.
And, I learned a LOT about hydration and nutrition needs out there in the lava fields. I add it up – I do indeed need to get 300 calories and 48 ounces an hour. Luckily, the aid stations are 7 miles apart (about 10 K). Plan: EVERY aid station: drink a bottle of water – what I can’t get down, pour on my head and clothes. A bottle of Gatorade every other station – try to finish it before two more go by; store it in the seat tube cage. A bottle of triple strength Perpetuum on the down tube cage – 650 calories. A squeeze bottle of Hammer Gel in the Bento – 600 calories. And 150 calories per 24 ounces of Gatorade, about 6 bottles, close to 900 calories. Yeah, that ought to do it. Oh, and don’t forget the salt pills and Race Caps. Two salt, one Race each hour. That just might be enough to get me to the run in good shape.