Triathlon Hell Part 1

Okay those aren't the Zipps but they ARE a spare. Tri shoes, helmet and other such musings..
Madeline looking every so puuuurdy

When sex met carbon fiber and had a baby..PRO missle stem with SRM and Di2 [shudder]

Part 1 in a series of 3, describing my trials and tribulations as I wrestle my [skinny] [AND vegan] arms around the world of multi-sport.

For the past 2.3333333333333 months, I've been doing multi-sport training. Waking up at ungodly hours of the morning to haul my skinny ass in a pool and swim it out with the rest of the fish. Sometimes, these would be 100, 200 even 1000 m intervals in the pool; othertimes, it would involve zipping up the wetsuit and doing my best sea lion impression in the cold waters of the San Francisco Bay Area. And when I mean cold, I mean holy-shit-I'm-freezing-my-Hawaiian-ass-off cold. In fact, I'll go on record and say Meg Whitman isn't that cold!

And after swimming until my arms felt like they were going to fall off, I had to get on the bike and then run it out in the afternoon. Without question, these are the two strongest sports in my multi-sport 'aresenal' and the two I would rely on most come race day. So take all that, compound that for days and months [2.33333333333333333 to be exact!] and you've got the culmination of my efforts leading into the Santa Cruz Triathlon, Sept. 26, 2010, a day which will live in infamy!

To start with, I had the entire familia regalia out in force. My mom, your mom, my dad, my hermano Andy, his wife Katy, young William [who just turned one!] and Ms. Denise all tagged along for the sojourn to Santa Cruz. You probably want to know what I packed and all so I included that in the above photos. We had all kindsa drinks [just water really....], mixtures, zipp 303s, running shoes, glasses, BME kit, etc, etc. The trip started off with a flat tire...well, the tread literally tore off the tire! FAIL. So we went back, changed it out and then started again. Sigh....

And so we made our way to Santa Cruz and the drive was shy of breath-taking. Lots of produce stands...artichoke and avocados as far as the eye can see. What's a skinny vegan supposed to do except look and drool?

After picking up the registration packet at the expo, I surveyed the course and made the following observations:

1) Shit, the swim looks as daunting as the choppy water.

2) See 1).

3) The bike course is undulating but mostly flat...obviously, there are NO climbs and NO mountains. Darn and darn.

4) The run course has slight inclines followed by slight declines. Maybe 3% gradient at most but otherwise, flat run-in to the finish.

Good. Course recon check! Bananas? Check! Vegan burrito? You know it. Next stop...Sunday....Eagle Day....Race Day.

NOTE: [I made up Eagle Day but it's actually a real day used in the Battle of Britain movie...yea...didn't think I knew that did ya!]