An Early, Unofficial Sunriver Report
As tapers go, it's not like any I've seen spelled out in the triathlon manuals and mags. This is the A-race taper that involves spending several days packing up more than seven years of belongings, cleaning the house for the next occupant, and then driving all that accumulated stuff 600+ nerve-wracking miles in a 24-foot Budget rental truck. (You should have to pass a test before they let you behind the wheel. But you don't.) Oh, and then you move onto three days of unloading and unpacking, all the while worrying a good deal over whether the house purchase you made in this new city was a smart move.

Swimming, biking and running? No swimming for nearly two weeks. No biking for nearly two weeks. But two or three short runs--and some walks!

That was the state of my game as I arrived in Sunriver for the Pacific Crest Half Iron Triathlon. Weird thing was, as I walked the mile or so to T2 setup and the buses to T1 at 6 a.m. this morning, with the temperature just above freezing, it struck me that my legs felt fresh and strong. Hmm. So I wasn't sure what to expect, though I had told my family the night before that I'd finish no earlier than 3 p.m. (a 5:45 effort, given my 9:15 a.m. wave start) but probably closer to 3:30.

Prerace: As I said, it was crazy cold at dawn, not shocking at 4,200-feet elevation, but a big change from last year's much-talked-about heat misery. Arrived at T2 at 6:15, 45 minutes early (nerves), but got on the 6:30 bus to Wickiup, about 25 miles up into the hills. At Wickiup, T1 was in the shade, so with nearly two hours to spare before race start, most everyone migrated to the boat launch area (where the swim would start) to soak up the early-morning sun. It was just generous enought to keep us from freezing. Pity the fool who wandered up and cast a shadow on you.

Swim: Wickiup has got to be the most beautiful lake I've ever competed in. It's surrounded by forest and old barren volcanic ridges and snow-capped peaks. The water is cold--62 was the race-time temp this morning--but I wasn't bothered by the chill and actually found it refreshing. Not that my swim benefited. Don't have the splits yet, but I think I came in over 42, at least four or five minutes off my Vineman swim split PR. That would have been OK, if I didn't flounder in getting my wetsuit off, taking a whopping 10 minutes or so at T1. Pathetic.

Bike: Because of road construction, the bike course was modified this year; the big climb was lost. The revised route was fast. Unlike Vineman, with its ceaseless short, just-steep-enough rollers, Pacific Crest 2007 featured very gentle grades, and most of them of the downward variety. Given the serious lack of cycling I've done this season, I was surprised to find myself at 29 miles at the 1:30 mark, which inspired me to push on harder. Finished around 2:46, my half-iron best bike split ever. Cheers for the roads of Central Oregon; them were some smoothies. And what weather for the ride! 50s and 60s and sunshine up to your eyebrows.

Run: The decent effort on the bike, plus the elevation, seemed to take a bit of a toll on me on the run. I have a run half-iron run PR around 1:50, but never found that kind of grove today. But I put in a steady effort, around 1:56 pending official splits, under increasingly cloudy skies and with midday temps hovering only in the 60s. When I went through the finish chute, I believe the clock showed 5:49:05; with my wave going off 15 minutes after the first wave, that puts me at 5:34:05, a half-iron PR.

Best part of the weekend? That was watching my little guy do the Kid's Splash, Pedal and Dash. Hey, he had an unorthodox taper - he moved, too! - but he killed in the race, working hard all the way. He told that at one point during the run, he told himself, out load, "Remember, it's supposed to be fun." Good job, Niko!

Oh, and special thanks, too, to Mom & Dad for coming up all the way from San Jose, and sister Debbie and hubby Greg from Hillsboro; it was a joy to be surrounded by family.

Woeful PR Jobs
From a news story: "Barbara Negron, president of the North American Natural Casing Association in New York City, said casings are safe to eat."

Why I Race
Lots of triathlon blogs out there by people looking to prove to themselves that they can do something cool. Well, shit, yeah, if you devote practically your whole life to doing an Ironman (but not a lower-case-I iron-distance tri, no, it has to be the trademarked o-fish-ul one), you ought to be able to. 'Specially in the might-as-well-be-walking time of 16 hours.

Look, I know how therapeutic athletics can be. Explore the catacombs of this very blog and you'll find instances of the author drawing inspiration from some pathetic success (or even failure!). But to a tiresome degree, the tri-blogger community that has emerged is beginning to feel like a sprawling, voracious, pop-psych-spewing self-help-best-seller-hypnotized group. You see this, too, with Team in Training, and with the advocates of fat people "running" a marathon in six hours to feel good about themselves. It's depressingly common stuff.

Fine, fine, feel good about yourself. But I'm in this for the sport, and the sport is to go as fast as possible, and though I'm slow, my times matter to me, matter a lot. Just finishing is not what it's about. To me.

Saturday Brick
Up Veeder, back through Yountville, then down Solano and California to home. Thirty miles, a nice mix of climbing and flats. Then off the bike and into the Asics. I was surprised to see, after a tenth of a mile or so, that my pace was around 7 min/mile. Hmm. So, though I really didn't need to or want to and I really shouldn't have -- I'd done a hard run last Sunday, and my legs were still kinda sore -- I went hard. Did 2.5 miles at 6:30 pace.

Post work-out thought: Yeah, my legs were wonky from the bike ride when the run started ... but I was fast from the get-go. Whaddup there? A lesson, I think, in the value of a great warm-up before a running race.

Gas Prices
This has not been a place for rants, but I've had it! I can't take anymore of the bellyaching about gas prices! Today, it was the old guys at the gym, who probably drive about two and a quarter miles a day, who were griping endlessly.

I'll believe people are really bent about gas prices when they: (1) dump their gigantic SUVs (the parking lot at Niko's school is still jammed with Rovers, Yukons, Explorers and the like); (2) drive slower on the freeway (the estimate is that for every mile an hour over 55, up to 65 mph, your fuel economy dips 1 percent -- and after you pass 65, it's even worse); (3) walk, ride the bike or simply forego the trip.

Until then, I don't want to hear it.

Wouldn't You Know It
We spend three days in Portland looking for houses -- the move will come in mid-June -- and already those Seybold boys have Niko playing hockey. (That's Nic stalking the lad here.)

Early Morning Ride
Hit the road for a 20-miler at dawn. Monday afternoon Niko and I were out playing in 80 degree weather. Summer! Then yesterday a cool air mass swooped in and it felt like, well, April. This morning, clear and calm, was downright wintry.

Don't know what the temperature was, but in Napa in April it's easy to figure out if the mercury is nearing 32F: Vineyards have their frost-protection going. Such was the case today. Not everywhere; but definitely in the spots where colder air settles. Lots of wind machines were fired up. At points, you'd have thought we were on a tarmac with several prop planes preparing to take off. Other vineyards were guarding against damage to the young buds by running overhead sprinklers; the droplets of water on the vine release heat when they reach 32 degrees and begin to freeze. Then they thaw as new water arrives. The subsequent freeze-thaw-freeze-thaw process can keep the plant safe even if the ambient temperature falls to around 28 degrees.

Ninety minutes into the ride -- nearing its end -- the sun was up and strong. Damn, I thought; I wish I could ride NOW! But the workday beckoned.

Poppies Under Bridge
A year or so ago they opened a new bridge over the Napa River at the south end of town. The old Maxwell Bridge was a green, steel two-lane drawbridge that bottled up traffic. The new four-lane, divided bridge first seemed too big, out of scale. But I think it's grown on people and now seems just fine. Kind of elegant. And in the spring, there are poppies under it.

Free Day
So Niko and I arrive at school a minute or two early this morning and the place is quiet. Too quiet. There are, like, no cars parked out front (OK, maybe one) and a bunch of cars parked in the back on the playground, where cars are never parked. Quiet. No kids running around. Hmm. We go his classroom to put his lunch in the cloakroom and there we are met by Judy the teacher: "No class today -- teacher work day."

OK. What to do? Ride the bike! Run! Stumble upon a bunch of other Sunrise kids at Kennedy Park! Bike some more! Play with Rory! Have a big lunch at First Squeeze!

Good day.

Gravity at Work

This is one of my favorite trails for doing hill repeats. At the top, there's a trail that loops gently around to the bottom of the hill. A minute up hard, two minutes easy back around for more. Seven or eight of these pretty much does me in. Niko prefers going down the hill. Fast.