Spring has been late here in the Pacific Northwest – VERY late. In our little five acre wood, where we’ve lived for the past 25 years, I’ve come to know the rhythms of the seasons quite well, especially spring. The frogs are the heralds; in late January, they start to moan, and crescendo through to the end of March and into April. Underbrush – salmonberry mostly – often pops out just as the frogs start croaking. Trillium, and nettle shoots – we see them starting in early to mid march, followed in a week by a rain of alder dust, sometimes so thick it darkens windshields of any cars left out overnight.
Then the alder leaves snap open; maple seeds and leaf buds appear in early April. By this time of year, the whole cacophony of the forest is bursting bright green all around me.
This year – this year, it’s all been weeks to a month late. I saw the first trillium just last week. Nettles just burst out of the ground this week. Alder pollen hit the car three days ago. And maple trees are so bare, I can still sit in bright sunlight under the branches.
We had a continuous bout of cold, wet weather, with snow creeping out of the sky into the second week of April. I think I’ve seen more snow fall here this year than almost any other five years put together. The poor flora’s internal clocks are all wierded out. With three or 4 days of 65-70F sunny weather flowing through right now, I’m worried there will be an explosion of vegetable forms this coming week, sending back into the air all the moisture which fell from November thru March, and all the trapped carbon dioxide will be transformed into a mesmerizing abundance of stalks and leaves and … and… POLLEN!
I am allergic to spring. When it hits, I get itchy eyes, scratchy throat, stuffy sinuses, and warped, sleepy thought processes. Loratadine has helped mightily, but I suspect that pharmaceutical crutch may well be overpowered this time around. Or … maybe …. the weak, late signs of spring mean this will be a thin ring kind of year. You know, when they cut down the five hundred year old tree, and show how the weather can be read from the rings – fat ones for warm, wet years, and thin ones for the dry and cold. Maybe nothing much will grow this year.
But I did take advantage of this first Sunday with sun and warmth, to start my heat training. “Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noon-day sun”. And triathletes striving to heat acclimatize for all those agonizing 12 hour races in sweltering, humid sunshine. I firmly believe that I can train not only my mind, but also my skin – the sweat glands and capillary flow – to tolerate running in warmer and warmer weather. “Half the game is 90% mental.” But the other half is 100% physical preparation. Studies clearly show that sweat rates can be trained, and capillary flow adjusted, by exercising in the heat. In my races, it really only matters on the run. Water – usually, it’s more a matter of getting warm than cooling off. Biking – until the temperature goes over 88F, the wind chill suffices to keep me cool. But on the run, anything over about 72, in the sun, starts to wear me out and slow me down.
When it gets really hot, and humid, like in Hawaii, I play little games in my head, using any little breeze to note how cool – chilled almost – I feel when running in an environment where the combined humidity and temperature in Fahrenheit are over 170. I turn my hat around backwards when the sun is at my back, to keep my neck arteries, thru which 25% of the blood is flowing, free from radiant heating. In a race, a well-supported one anyway, there is often cold water and ice to pour down my back, into my shorts, over my head, anywhere I can get it to evaporate a bit.
So today, I took full advantage of the brief lull in our cool and clammy environs. I started my run about 1:30 PM, just after high noon, daylight savings time, and stayed on the sunny side of the street. It actually felt good, running only in a thigh length swim suit and thin polypro short-sleeved t-shirt. My pace and heart rate were no different than days when it’s 40, or 55. Over the years, I have actually convinced myself that I PREFER to run when it’s warm and sunny, unlike most serious runners, who seem to prefer 55F and misty (or colder). That might be good training for a 10 K race which starts at 8 AM, but an Ironman is usually done when its warm, and, for me, the run starts at 2 PM, in the heat of the day, and it only gets warmer for the first two hours. So I’ve got to be ready. Every little thing matters in this damn race, everything.
The run felt good, as it was only 75 minutes long. This is another recovery week, my last respite until the middle of May. The next three weeks are the crux of my training. I will be doing bike rides of 5-7 hours, runs of 2-2.6 hours, 20 hours or more each week of biking, swimming, running, and weightlifting. I will get tired, exhausted, drained. I will have to seek out the solace of my “days off” – the 24 hour period I will occasionally take between training slots, starting with a 7 AM swim or weight session, and then not exercising again until 9 AM the next day. I might even have to sleep more than 7 hours and 15 minutes a night. Hopefully, I won’t be able to keep up with my calorie needs, and will shed the final 30 ounces off my frame to get truly race ready. I will look on any day with less than 2 hours of training, or with only one session, as a breather, a day when it feels like I am getting stronger, not weaker.
And then, after an easier week May 11-17, I build up again, one final push culminating with my 12 day high altitude training camp in Snowmass. By then, Cheryl will have come through her own three to four week push to finish her photography thesis. She is in her own vise-like zone now, furiously Photoshopping and printing the 20 or so images which will go into her gallery show coming in June, just about the same time as my Ironman. We can go crazy together, I guess, between now and then.