Did I say 2:28? I meant 3:10:58

Now for the big report on St. Anthony's Triathlon.

The race was great and the weather was near perfect. Not a repeat of last year's storm at sea. We raised over 2.1 million dollars at this event. Met a guy named Ed who had almost exactly the same story and dates as Lisa. Ed participated and finished the event. Just barely since he does not know how to swim.

Oh yea, David Young raced with TeamBigWave and finished SECOND in the TeamInTraining wave. A super fast swim. Esp for someone who is just learning to swim. An excellent bike. Quick feet on the run sealed the day and we have a podium finisher amongst us. More on David in a later report.

I ended up going 3:10:58 and was very happy to do it.

The swim was much different this year. Calm and flat. There are 4 orange bouys in each of the three legs. Normally, I start thinking about getting out of the race by the second bouy of the first leg. This time I did not start to think about quitting until the second bouy of the second leg. I ended up going 32:16. My dream goal was 30 and my real goal was 35. So I will take 32. Of course I did swim off course a fair amount so I know that things can get better.

Out of the swim and Lisa and Jody were there. Shocked to see me out so fast. Then a run through the mud into transition. I had trouble getting my wetsuit off and that added one minute to my transition but not horrible.

The bike was around 1:21 and off of my goal of 1:15. I was very happy with the consistency of my effort. But I struggled against the wind at times and had speed ranging from 14mph up to 23 mph. Let's just say that the headwind on the home stretch made me very happy to see the finish line.

At the end of the bike comes the dismount. So one foot stays clipped into a pedal and the other comes out and hits the ground. Then you swing the free leg over the bike and disengage the second pedal. As I went to lift the first leg over the bike, I realized that a MONSTER cramp was coming. Now the bike and I are faling in front of the crowd and race officials. Did I mention that it is against the rules for anyone to help you? So I have to drag the leg over and limp the bike and myself back using a pirate style, peg leg type of technique.

Ready for the run with the best of intentions to get in done in one hour. About 200 yards into this effort I realize that it is not going to happen. No gas for that kind of effort. But my coach was looking for an even effort both out and back. And I did at least pull that off. Coming down the line to the finish I was really struggling. I know they announced my name and I remember hearing it in my brain about 30 seconds after it entered my ears. I went right for the ice cold towels and Lisa helped me over to the tent. After about 30 minutes things were coming into focus. I fill you in later on some of the data but that's the report for now.

One more thing

That David is kinda fast, hey?

Dr. Freud says, "Triathlon"

An article was posted on the Leukemia and Lymphoma website this week ( www.lls.com ) . Basically it says that depression is actually much higher in the spouses of transplant recipients than in the patients themselves.

That was not much of an issue for me because I basically come pre-depressed. I am sort of a half empty glass kind of guy. So when the hammer comes down I have nowhere to go since I am already lurking at the bottom.

Given this I suspect triathlon became my Prozac. It gave us a way to deflect the bad stuff and in a sense achieve the goal of turning a bad thing into a good thing.

That was all fine and good but now Lisa is better. As a sign that she is better, I did not purchase health related trip insurance for our upcoming trip. Now its tme to start racing not as a way to defeat a negative but rather as a way to create a positive.

2 weeks to St. Anthony's. What will I make of the chance?

Lucinda and Jan are TeamBigWave

Lucinda is in training. My neighbor, Lucinda, helped organize last year's Tri For Joe. The season starting race is great beacuse it benefits the Down Syndrome Society , occurs near my house and the swim happen in a pool that is only 6 inches at its edge (an easy out).

Last year she did the stroller walk as well as helping to organize the kids race. This year--the plan is to RUN the 5 k. So she has been off and in training and Lisa tells me that that she looks ready.


Jan did the 10 K Heart Mini Marathon. Did I mention her back surgery? Did I mention the grade uphill on the way back to the finish line. Did I mention her donation to our St. Anthony's Team? True grit. Our kind of effort. Our kind of athlete.

And I'm complaining about a little swim? Ok , a little swim with sharks.

Art and Sports

Art and sports are , at the same time, both the most absurd of pursuits and the greatest expression of our human nature. Why is that?

Why does American Idol (sorry Julie and THE ENTIRE REST OF THE WORLD) make me want to jump off a bridge while Lucinda Williams makes me want to keep on living?

Why does trash talking from a second rate player seem absurd, while Dick Hoyt pushing his son for 20 years in marathons and triathlons uplifts the soul.

A couple of thoughts:

1)To make art and to play sports we must have a need to express ourselves
2)We also need to have at least a little breathing room in our society. Look at Sarajevo in the 90s--hard to imagine hosting an Olympics under those conditions.
3)In almost all cases, it is necessary for others to be interested as well.

So Lance Armstrong becomes a saint of sorts because he raises the limit on what is possible. We may not all achieve what he has but the bar gets higher, the pie gets bigger and so my share of the pie grows too.

I thought about this yesterday when I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about our transforming view of living with cancer. You can check out this guy at:

http://paulsposse.com/default.aspx

Riding a bike with cancer is both the best and worst idea at the same time.

I also thought about this riding to work today. There is a church here where people climb these enourmously steep stairs on Good Friday. Does it make any sense that an entirely otherworldly concept like God, should be approached in a completely physical way, like defeating gravity. It makes no sense and it makes perfect sense.

For me, however, I have stopped contemplating the grand and am focusing on the here and now. To this end I set up an evalaution unit half way up the church stairs. So far I have 20 patients with chest pain and shortness of breath. The quation goes this way: Out of shape catholics + bad dietary habits + Weight Gain + Peer pressure and a fear of going to hell = Momma's New Shoes.

If you can't be an athlete, at least be an athletic supporter

2 things that are great about sports:

1)You are responsible for your own performance

Rewind--I used to see plots against me everywhere. When things were not in my favor, I would see some master plan designed to work against me. That was one of the many reasons that Lisa's illness was so difficult. It threatened to reinforce the notion that some force was working against us. To a certain extent triathlon helped me avoid descending back into that pit.

I was thinking about this tonight because I had to schlepp out for a 10pm swim session. But I realized that come race day my effort will be my own. So there is no great plot against me even though a lot of things don't go my way.


2)You can lose yourself

Fastforward-I question everything. I have made a cottage industry of trying to annoy everyone. It works this way. I feel like I am constantly anxious and unsure. So naturally, I cannot stand it if someone lacks my anxiety and is confident in their opinions.

Each day I get a specific workout from my coach. It dawned on me tonight that I never even think about the workout. I merely goo out and complete the workout as prescribed. I have confidence that if I put my head down and follow the plan thongs will work out. For me that's progress.

And by the way

To add the opposite of insult to injury. I was washing my bike at home and found a flat tire.

That's a flat tire at HOME and not on the trail. "Think I'll flip a coin. I'm a winner either way. Ohhhhh I feel lucky today".

I Feel Lucky

This weekend I hit the sweet spot.

First I was interviewed by the fabulous Jen Murphy of the Wall Street Journal who wants to do a column about our TeamBigWave efforts. Hopefully, we will make into into print or whatever the online equivalent is.

This was to be a big weekend for biking and thunderstorms were planned for both days.

Saturday I went to Team in Training practice. Using my new aerobars I was able to get in a 25 mile bike and then a 6.2 mile run. We did this to remind ourselves that biking 25 miles and running 6.2 miles is really hard. So I did finish and then sat down in the parking lot. As an aside I should mention that I bring my own chair to practice so that I can sit next to by rear bumper and eat PowerBars after practice.

No sooner did I sit down when , "Raindrops keep falling on my head". Perfect we got one in. The only bad thing--I now need a nap.

Sunday I did the unthinkable. Slept until 9 am with Lisa running interference on the kids. I had a 3:30 bike plannned with a 7:15 start time. Instead we start at 10:30 with perfect weather and beautiful skies. Good luck continues.

Now over to Christopher's first soccer game. Yes, it starts for me now. Carrying on in the Murtaugh tradition he is the smallest guy out there. The score is NIL to NIL and they put my guy in goal. The other team scores a goal and we are down. Next shot on goal we corrects his technique and blocks the shot. Then with about one minute to go our team scores a goal and the game ends tied. Murtaughs off the hook. In the words of Mary Chapin Carpenter, "Ohhhh I feel lucky today".