Short answer: 1st 35-39, 3rd amateur, 16th overall. 59/5:10/3:16 = 9:32. 2010 Hawaii Qualifier. And 2nd fastest T1 and T2 of the day. :-) The plan since February had been to drive out to Madison, Wisconsin on the Monday previous. I like to get into town on Tuesday or so before to check out the course, etc., and to have time in case anything goes wrong during travel. As September approached, it came to my attention that Labor day was a week earlier than I had thought. In fact, it was the Monday before the race. So why wait until Monday to leave? Why not use the long weekend to get to know the course? The main reason to stay in DC was for work on Monday, after all. That and I was basically training through Wisconsin. Unexpectedly, I got a Kona slot in June at the Eagleman Half IM. So Kona replaced Wisconsin as my "A" race for the year. If it weren't for Chris , the $1,300 entry fee (community fund), and the fact that Wisconsin was a 2010 Kona Qualifier, I would have blown it off. Since Wisconsin wasn't my A race, and Kona is only, what, four weeks away? I wanted to get in a good hard 100+ ride the weekend before. What better place to do it than on the course in Wisconsin? That, and Chris, my athlete, best friend, and training partner (when I ease up, unfortunately) was more worried than I realized about the hills on the course, so he was also amenable to this plan. His wife, Mary, was not as convinced of the importance of being there for 10 days. But Chris did not win the 1998 World Championship at Diplomacy due to luck. Mary was dassled by his negotiation skills, and we were ready to go. Travel was good, except that work the week previous sucked. I worked over forty hours, *without even going in on Friday,* and left some things for my collegues to finish. :-( Sorry Phil! I'm sure this was not the cause of my starting to feel sick. I was exhausted, and I felt like I was coming down with something. In fact, I let Chris do most of 14 hour drive. Which, for those of you know how much I like to drive, tells you how poorly I was feeling. I had lost an an aerobar pad off the roof rack whilst driving the Indiana Turkpike, so we stopped at a bike shop in Chicago on the way up. Chris & I did our last long runs along Lake Michigan. Perfect. Unfortunately, by the time we finished our run, it was 8pm, and we were still 2h30 away from Madison. There was no time to look up Chicago friends (I have a college housemate there; Chris has NYC theatre friends; there is also a thriving Diplomacy community in Chicago...) Sunday we rode one of the two 42-mi/67k loops of the bike course. I had been planning on crushing an 100mi/160k ride, and leaving Chris in the dust, while he rode 75mi/120k. However, I felt crap. And we got slightly lost. So we rode back to the hotel, while Chris did his brick and I got food. Race morning approached, everything going mostly to plan. I had quashed my cold (or maybe fears thereof) with vitamin C, and reading Bek Keat in an Australian Tri mag saying: "if you don't have a bit of a sniffle, you're not tapering properly." We arrived at the Monona Terrace (the conference center) *after parking on the street* because we were probably 10th to the transition area. I know Chris hates this, while knowing that it's an idea that has merit. He also knows it's really about my sanity in case something goes wrong pre-race. Something did. When I arrived in T1, I have a routine: drop off water bottles, air in tires, pick correct bike gear for leaving T1, shoes in pedals, zero the bike computer. I went to zero the bike computer, and it was dead. Dead. Blank screen. As many of you know, I am not good at pacing. Heck, I made Chris a Janus Inspiration Station sign for the run course that said "race like I tell you, not like I do," and this is what I meant! I know this is my weakness, and among the new things I tried this year was switching to a bike computer that measured power output at the rear wheel. What this means, is that your computer displays not only speed, distance, heart rate, etc., but the actual amount of effort you are putting into turning the rear wheel. Your gearing, the hills, the wind, the fight you had with your girlfriend before the ride? These can all affect how fast you ride. But power doesn't lie. Ok, I could survive the loss of power information. In fact, because I hadn't yet sprung for a power-measuring race wheel, I had raced all year (but not trained) without power. But I had sprung for a $1,500 race wheel for Wisconsin and Kona, because I knew it was the answer to my problems. However, when I did that, I removed the simple time/speed/distance computer I also used as a backup. This could be bad. I went to the bike mechanic tent. Mmaybe it was just a battery, and they had one? No mechanics. Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!! Now I'm freaking out. While I'm contemplating what to do, I run into Pat Evoe; Austin Pro, mate of mine, and fellow Jack & Adam's team member. I am trying to not freak out nor be negative in front of Pat. (Pat is one the most positive people I know.) I don't want to bring him down to my level right? He's about to race too, with more at stake than me. Pat proceeds to tell me the story of how he had the same problem for his first IM. "Just ride on feel. You'll be fine." Ahhhh!!!! I can't ride on feel!!!!! That's the problem!!!! (I thought this, but didn't say it.) I know he meant well, and I appreciated it. But that cemented my decision to get out of T1 where I would freak out, and head back to the hotel, 0h20 away. (A spare computer was included in the $1,500 wheel, which I had had shipped directly to the hotel.) 0h45 later, the new computer on my bike, I rushed through the rest of my pre-race routine, and barely made the swim start. I had a good start. I found a reasonably emtpy place on the front line, and didn't get mugged. However, the guy next to me dropped me about 150m in. So I resigned myself to another draftless-swim; reminding myself my fastest IM swim remains my first: the 0h56 I swam in Australia on the outside, with no feet, passing people all morning. I'll just do it again. The swim was uneventful. The packs were about 2-3m outside the buoys; willing to give me the inside. Interesting. Perfect lines, no feet. Stand up, look at watch: 0h59. About what can be expected without having found a good masters program (swim squad) in DC. Skipped the wetsuit strippers, sprinted up IM Wisconsin's famous helix (four stories of a parking garage ramp) grabbed my bag, stripped the wetsuit myself, skipped the chairs, threw on my helmet, and ran to my bike, where I noticed that there was no bike computer. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Ok, time to see if Pat is right: ride on feel. What else could I do? But heck, I'm supposed to eat 100 calories every 30km. Not every 18.6 mi, but every 30km. Bike courses in Madision, Wisconsin, USA, are not marked in km! Ahhhhhhhh! Ok, ok. Relax, and ride on feel. I did cheat, and not completely ride on feel. There were mile markers posted every 5 miles on the bike. But what the heck is what the heck is 5/112th of 5 hours? Or worse, math-wise, what's 5/112th of my real goal of 5:10? Without a calculator? Even *with* a calculator? Turns out, 13:23 for 5h00 and 13:50 for 5h10, but the math I had done in my head returned "somewhere between 12:30 and 13:00," so I thought I was riding slower than I was. Anyway. Riding along, following 2009 strategy, but with less information. To wit: Just before 60k, a pack of three guys came around. One of them had "Thomas," on his number, and 42 on his calf. I re-passed him up a big hill to Mt. Horeb, and said to him "I bet you $0.25 that you're Thomas Brunhold." (Thomas Brunhold being the five-time M35-39 champion on this course, but now 42.) He grunted. Turns out, that Thomas wasn't Mr. Brunhold, because Thomas Brunhold was on the back of that pack. :-) And the grunt was because he was German. It was the right time, and they weren't going too much faster; so I figured it was the pack to join. But we were going to have to be careful, as the pack included three (four counting me) bicycles and one referee on a motorcycle. I was glad I was careful, and glad for my re-pass on the climb to Mt. Horeb. Epecially when my German friend was given a red card for drafting. Time to be really really careful. After Mt. Horeb, there is a stretch of ups-and-downs that the Wisconsin course is famous for. And ups reduce distances between cyclists -- drafting is defined by distance, not time gap. With a motorcycle in tow. Great. I know the rules, and I follow them strictly. However, since I was the best climber (!) in this pack, but not by much, the consquences of this were that I'd have to punch it to go around some of them. And it was too early for efforts like that. :-/ But I didn't want a 4-minute penalty, either. So, I'm punching it to go around one of them, when the motorcycle referee calls my number and gives me a yellow card. What! I've never gotten a penalty in my life! "Number 978. Yellow card. Center-line violation. Pull over at the next Penalty Box." Now, firstly, this is a country road with exactly zero lines on it. No centerline, no shoulder line, no nothing. So I'm not sure what he's talking about. But, never pays to argue with a referee, so I don't. I asked him what to do, he explained it was a stop-and-go. No time penalty; just put your feet down at the penalty tent, give them your number, and continue. I kind of hammered for the next 5 miles to the penalty box, hoping I'd be ahead of the pack at the box, they'd come around me during the stop, and I could get back on. But but alas no. The officials weren't really ready for me. I put my feet down, shouted my number, and got back on...but defending 1st amateur Brunhold and his friends were gone. Damnit! This was probably a good thing. I got back to riding by feel. I was picking off amateurs slowly, but trying to ride one gear easier than hammering. There are two monster hills on the back end of the Verona Loop of the course. A great place to watch the race if you get a chance, and the locals know it. It was lined like a climb in the Tour de France, narrowing, cheering, to let us by. Fun! The first time through this part of the course, I stayed in the saddle; though I was nearly geared out with a 39x21. I kept asking the spectators what place I was in; I figured about 10th amateur or so. No one knew. The 2nd loop was uneventful except that I caught two women pros, riding about 50m apart. I dropped 'em actually, which was a little shocking. Especially when the 2nd one was Hillary Biscay, the defending champion; known as a strong cyclist. Biscay and Ali Fitch (an Australian pro who I don't know) had cameras on motorcycles watching them. But they put them down as I went by. :-) There went my chance for stardom. (That and dropping them as opposed to hanging around...) I did get a chance to ask the cameramen what place they were: cameramen usually don't spend a lot of time on pros in higher places. But I had seen these cameramen were going back and forth in front of me frequenly in the 20mi/35k it took me to catch them. (They will just take some quick stock footage of someone in, say, 10th place, in case they run through the field.) I was curious, therefore, about why I hadn't seen my fast-swimming-but-not-expected-to-win friend from Austin, Amy Marsh. I was more shocked when I asked the cameraman what places those women were in: he said 2nd & 3rd. That meant either Amy was leading, and I'd see her soon; or that she was having a bad day, and had dropped out and I didn't see her on the side of the road. I was hoping to see her soon. The rest of the loop was uneventful; except for collecting a Navy Seal and a Air Force Academy dude. I sic'd them on each other as I went around: "you know that guy ahead is a Navy Seal, right?" And "you're not going to let that wing-wiper go, are you?" :-) The second time up the major hills at the back of the Verona loop, I was more tired, and a bit geared out. I had to stand up a bit, instead of sitting and spinning. Instead of asking spectators on the hill time for a placing, (which would have been challenging giving my level of effort), one guy asked *me* if I was an age-grouper. I nodded and he told me I was in 3rd place amateur overall. I found that unlikely; and told him so. After all, I had been dropped by a pack of three with the penalty. If he was right, and the the German with the drafting penalty was still behind me, that meant the pack that caught me at 60k was now for the overall age-group lead. That there was no one else up the road. Seemed unlikely; *someone* was sure to have swam 0h50 and ridden decently, right? Turns out he was right. I normally like to wait until 160k/100mi and see what I got. Deciding at that point whether or not to hammer it in the rest of the way. Wisconsin is ideal for this: the bike course is 20k out, two loops, and 20k back. So basically when you turn back into town, you can make that decision. (Even without a bike computer. :-)) I had nothing. Especially as in Wisconsin the wind was blowing straight into our faces on this part. I figured it was nutritional, as I didn't *feel* like I had ridden very hard. So I ate all the food I had left and grabbed two more gels, and stuffed them down. However, USAFA, the Navy Seal, and a French Canadian guy (turns out it was Pierre La Voie, a top age-grouper from metro Montreal) went by me. I let 'em go. What can I lose, 2 minutes? It's only 20k. That knocked me back to 5th amateur, it turned out. (But I didn't know that until later.) Rode back into town, undid the shoes, climbed the helix in the saddle while standing on the shoes. Entered T2 alone, to the roars of the crowd! Wow! Now normally they have a volunteer standing by the dismount line pointing at it, showing you were to get off your bike; telling you to slow down. And in Ironmans, typically another person will take your bike from you, a "catcher." They are called catchers, I think, because if you do it right, you step off your bike at 15mph (25km/h), start running, and "toss" your bike toward them, by stepping off it and letting it keep its momentum. It stays upright and runs straight for quite a while if you do it right; but you only need to send it a meter or two, usually. So catchers need to be behind the mount line. Right? So the cute blonde who was standing at line, who kept telling me to slow down? I figured her as the dismount-line marshall. Right? No. She was my catcher. She tried to run with me, but I was flying. And not towards her. She fell down (fortunately it was carpeted), and so did my bike. I still feel bad! I apologized, and then was on my way. The interesting thing about IM Wisconsin is that the transistion are *indoors*. In a conference room. Wierd, eh? Off on the run. Boy did I feel like crap. I felt like everything was about to cramp up. Calves, hamstrings, abs, hip flexors, you name it. Not cramping yet, but all on the edge of doing so. So, I resolved to take two gatorades (for the electrolytes) at every aid station. I quickly reeled in two people (USAFA and La Voie) in the first 1.5 miles. Soon, I picked off the Seal as well. However, one reason for that was because I was running too fast, as usual. (6:38 for 1, 6:50 for mile 2. I was supposed to be running 7:00 or 7:15). After that, I settled into 7:00s, and I figured I'd run them until I couldn't, then slow down to 7:15s. The run was a U-shaped double out-and-back. The 1st and 3rd turnarounds were only like four blocks from the start, making it a very spectator-friendly course. You could watch someone leave T1, and beat them to the turnaround; they had to run 6.5 miles, you had to walk 4 blocks! I caught Pat Evoe at about 4.5 files, walking. He seemed ok, but pretty despondent. I asked him to come with me, knowing that he's a 2:55 off-the-bike marathoner. But he said he was done. He planned to walk to the turnaround where his parents were waiting. Just before the first turnaround, I got my first glance of the women's leader, Amy Marsh. I gave her a big high five, got a big smile from her, and hoped to reel her in soon so we could run together. She was less than a mile in front of me, so I figured I'd catch her fairly soon; like before the 2nd turnaround. When I got to the first turnaround myself, it came to my attention that two or three of the people I had run down in the first mile were hanging with me -- La Voie and two others. All were holding about 30 seconds back. Yikes! No cracking for me today! In addition, there was one guy who I didn't remember passing passing, wearing white shorts who seemed to be coming on. I found out later his name was Stuart Anderson. Held 7:00-7:15 to the 2nd turnaround, and still hadn't caught Amy. She seemed to be stubbornly holding onto a 3-4 minute lead over me. (Well, strictly a negative 6-7 minute lead over me, because she had started 0h10 ahead of me with the pros, but whatever. ;-)) Worse, just after the turnaround (mile 13), I got got passed by Anderson. He wasn't going too much faster than I was; so I toyed with hanging with him. But I decided to run my own pace, and not worry about anyone else, and I let him go. I did do the old Cross-Country trick of watching his heels, on the theory that his stride rate will pull you along... He was gaining, but slowly. 2 miles later, I could still see him. It was clear he was running faster than I was, but he wasn't getting away. It was a little puzzling. We were mixed up with people starting their first lap by this point, so it wasn't always easy to see him. But when there was a long straightway, the white shorts made it easy to see where he had got to. We're only at mile 15 or so here, so there was plenty of time for him to crack; I was patiently awaiting that to occur. We turned a corner onto Walnut, and I could see the aid station at mile 15. Anderson guy was walking the aid stations! That's why he wasn't getting away. Brilliant. Now a) I can walk them myself :-) with the crowds I was not always getting the Gatorade I needed to fight the cramps), and b) I was taking the time he was putting into me by running 7:15s back out of him by running or faster-walking the aid stations. He was still in sight as we turned to go up the only hill on the run course, at Observatory Drive. Just before the hill, I saw him check a portapotty; someone was in it. Then he disappeared around a corner. I was the only one running up the hill; all the people who I was lapping were walking. And Anderson was nowhere to be found. He *must* have stopped for a porta-potty. (Moral: learn to pee through your shorts, which I had done at about mile 5. :-) Later Anderson explained that wasn't the problem: "I was worried about becoming a You-Tube video" he said with British reserve.) At the third turnaround, I cheered for Amy, but she didn't look as good. (Of course, she was still stubbornly about 2 minutes in front of me, but he looked less happy about it. :-)) But I was running 7:45s at this point, so I wasn't 100% sure I could catch her. I also saw Chris at this point. "I rode too fast!" he yelled! When I got back to where he had yelled that to me, I tried to figure out if I could catch him before the finish. Nope: he was a good 15 minutes ahead; even if I was running 7s, not 7:45s, it was too much of a gap. There is little out-and-back section on Campus at 22.5 or so, and as I appoached that, I could see the lead motorcycle stopped waiting for Amy. I was going to get her soon. Turn around, and I see two guys still right on my heels: one Anderson, and another who had been there the whole time (La Voie). Anderson yelled something at me as I passed; I didn't know if he was taunting or cheering. Yikes! I didn't feel that great, but I was very happy to still actually be *running* at 22.5. This was new ground for me; I never been running -- as opposed to walking or doing the Kona shuffle -- at this point in any of my marathons or Ironmans. And I was running scared! I caught Amy at 23, asked her how she was doing, and got a grunt in return. She was not looking good. Of course, she had a 0h15 lead at this point, so she was in no danger. But she didn't know that! Mindful of a tongue lashing I'd recieved from Michelle Deasy at a similar situation during IM Brazil, I tapped her on the back, said "good job," and continued on my way. I did slip and run one 8:30 mile: 24. But I ran 23-25 with the lead motorcycle on my hip. (I didn't pass Amy with much of a delta, so he really couldn't get away from me.) I tried to pretend the motorcycle was for me, and not Amy. :-) I turned the corner at 25, waved to Chris, out for his second loop. All you have left at this point to circle the Wisconsin capitol building. I looked at my watch, and realized recent 8:30 notwithstanding, that if I ran 7:30 or so, I could get a personal IM best of 9:31:44. I was counting down the seconds in my head as I rounded the capitol grounds, with big crowds screaming: but just missed. I was still at special needs, about 150m out, when I hit 9:31:44. Oh, well. I had had a great race. A perfectly executed plan (57 goal vs. 59; 5h10 goal vs 5h10; 3h10 goal vs 3h16); all without my biggest crutch. And I had *run* 26 miles, not shuffled or walked. I had wanted to be first amateur, but I hadn't missed by much. I was pretty sure that I was the 3rd amateur across the line, and I didn't know what age-groups the other two guys were in, but I didn't care. Turns out Anderson of the white shorts and I went 1-2 in the 35-39s. I just missed catching the usual top amateur, local stud Thomas Brunhold, but he's 42 now. Joe Kurian, also of Madison, won the 30-34s while going 9:12. I never saw him, and he had a great race for top amateur of the day. Thanks everyone for your attention if you made it this far. Next up: IM Hawaii on October 10th!