Another Perfect Weekend
This past Sunday the New York City Triathlon hosted the the Paratriathlon national championships for the seventh consecutive year. I, too, was there for a seventh go at it. As one my expect, everything over the weekend went perfectly and life was enriched because of it.
The notables started, as they often do, at the airport on the way out of Denver. I took advantage of the technology Expedia offered and downloaded my itinerary—which my prosthetics provider A Step Ahead of Hicksville, NY provided me—directly to my computer’s calendar. This made it so easy to keep track of my departure time and, hence, show up with plenty of time to spare. Nevertheless, I missed yet another flight.
Let it be a lesson to you all that despite a departure from the Mountain time zone, the downloaded version of your itinerary could be on Eastern time.
The nice lady behind the counter at check-in actually remembered me from my flight to South Africa a couple of months back. She kindly checked, free of charge, my bike and bag a healthy 14 hours before my newly scheduled 1:00AM flight, making it a breeze to head back home and cook up a delicious kale soup to enjoy with my family and neighbors in our driveway—the kids played on bikes and scooters while the day’s light dwindled. After dinner and toddler clean-up, I snuck in an hour of shut-eye before heading back to DIA for the red-eye.
Airline sleep is typically difficult to come-by so I did something completely novel for me: I brought my own pillow! And it worked perfectly. I had a whole row to myself, laid my head upon my personal bedding and slept so well they had to wake me up on the tarmac in NYC after everyone had already deplaned. Perfect.
It was then 6:30AM EST and the nice people at Delta ensured me that despite my luggage’s alternate route to Minneapolis, it would be in by 2pm and delivered to my hotel by 6pm. This would make my trip into the city so much smoother without having to lug that bike with me. Perfect.
At 6pm the nice lady at Delta’s baggage counter informed me that my stuff had been noted as “Departed,” but just to make sure she’d check it’s progress toward Manhattan. “Looks like it never left the deck. It’ll got out on the 8pm delivery, you’ll have it by 9.” The mandatory bike check-in would close at 9PM. Wow. How perfect.
At 9PM, with the delivery remaining elusive, Delta assured my things would be at the hotel by the wee hours.
I slept well, perhaps as good as I’ve ever slept before a race, knowing that my machine would be with me when I awoke.
The wake-up call came at 4AM and I immediately proclaimed, as I’ve done many time before, “Rrrrrace Dayyyyyy!” I headed right downstairs to put my bike together so as to arrive at the race start no later than 5AM. But it wasn’t there…
I pulled out my iPhone to make a few calls, eager to come up a bike somehow. The first couple calls provided nothing; the third call was a winner: Justin Modell, a local triathlete and the organizer of the paratriathlon division, had a bike for me and, since he was already at the race, he made the call to his doorman to let me in. I cabbed it over, grabbed his bike and his right shoe and peddled my way to the race, arriving at 5:15AM, in the clothes I’d donned 36 hours prior.
(I would later learn that my bike and wetsuit arrived, in perfect timing, the moment I jumped in the water to start the race at 7:10AM, by a company aptly named, no joke, Perfect Delivery Service!)
Surprisingly, without the wetsuit, I swam one of my faster races there and exited under 17 minutes, ninety seconds ahead of the fastest one-legged triathlete out there: JP Theberge. That 90 seconds turned hard into a seven minute deficit. I had a tough time riding crunched up on a too-small road bike with my bike leg unable to clip in on the mismatched pedal/cleat combo, i.e., I was unable to pull up with the prosthesis or get out of the saddle—JP blazed by me about a third of the way through the ride.
Without my speed lace race shoe I was forced to sit and tie the lace of the race shoe I’d traveled in (probably doesn’t mean much to most of you) and stopped twice before exiting transition to stretch my aching crunched-up back, making for a very slow T2.
I knew I was at least seven to eight minutes off pace of JP when I saw him coming the other way from the 180 turnaround near the bike finish. So, with no hopes of winning, and with the thin skin from the recently-healed blister from the previous weekend’s race, I sucked it up and pre-emptively rebooted a few times on the run. This, I’m happy to say, resulted my first blister-free finish of seven there. More perfection.
(I must note that JP had a fantastic finish time of 2:19, edged only by the ageless and legendary One Arm Willie Stewart. Wingers Joel Rosinbum and Tommy Knapp also had great races and I wrapped up the top five. The top five on the women’s side were visually impaired Robin Caruso, below knee amp Meg Fisher, VI Yvonne Mosquera, wheel-bound Carly Waugh and in fifth was my very good friend and one of my worldwide favorite people, above-knee amp Sandy Dukat.)
So don’t let this photo fool you. I wasn’t stomping mad at Mile 1 as I ran straight at Erik Shaffer, my prosthetist and sponsor from A Step Ahead. I was, atypically, just having a little fun on the run.
The last little bit of perfection relative to the race transpired a couple days later: my customer service experience with both the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission and Yellow Cab was so much more satisfying than that with Delta. After a series of phone calls placed by myself and the lovely Dr Sharon Wetherall, FedEx delivered my iPhone I had dropped in the back of the cab at JFK!
(Regarding the photo, that was kinda how I felt sitting on the tarmac for two hours, waiting to depart, when I discovered the missing phone…)
Crazy Few Weeks
Books, races, swingsets, keynotes, parties, birthdays, hockey teams, baseball games, fetuses, galas, radios, au pairs! Goodness, what a multi-faceted month I’ve enjoyed.
We’ll start by talking about the really important stuff. Check out the latest Martin-in-waiting! Can you believe the 3D images these days?!
This beautiful little thing is due to arrive on August 20, however, we expect he/she—as in “keeping it a surprise,” not as in, “hermaphrodite”—will be here a bit sooner. Sharon has a relatively benign condition called polyhydramnios, or too much amniotic fluid in the sac. This, of course, stretches her belly more than normal, which tricks her system into thinking delivery day is closer than it really is. She’s been having contractions since 30 weeks.
You may have heard—from me—that the new book, “Drinking from My Leg: Lessons from a Blistered Optimist,” launched on June 23. It reached #1 in Sports and Biographies and #36 Overall on Amazon.
Making that happen was quite the monumental time commitment over the last few months—lining up various partners to help promote the book on that one day. For the most part, it worked as planned and now I’m a #1 Bestseller!
Because of this status I’ve been contacted by both Korean and Polish publishers for translation rights. Chinese and Russian woulda been cool…
The day before the launch I keynoted a conference in Lake Placid, NY, then flew back to Colorado that night.
The day before that I traveled to said speaking engagement and for the Boston to Upstate NY segment we flew in a little 9-seater . . . and I got to ride shotgun! Yep, I sat in the in the co-pilot seat as we skimmed across the Adirondack’s at dusk. As I climbed over the others to grab my seat, I assured them they were safe, that I was a licensed Colorado driver, not to worry.
And that was on my 43rd birthday. I had been itching to post this photo, which was kiddie-corner from the house we rented in Boulder last winter, then I forgot about it until now.
The day before that I raced the Boulder Sprint Triathlon. I completed it without much preparation and, hence, was passed by more people on the bike than I’m used. Got what I deserved and I’m cool with that.
The day before that we had a birthday party for Jack at the local park. You know, burgers, dogs, Coors Light, cake, pinata—that sorta thing.
The four days (late evenings, to be specific) before that were spent building this gazillion piece swingset in the backyard. Well worth the time and money, I might add. The boys LOVE it!
A few days before that I was in New York City at the Waldorf Astoria, a guest of the Challenged Athletes Foundation’s Heroes, Hearts, and Hope Gala. The event, featuring Bruce Hornsby and Bill Walton, brought in $875,000 for the foundation and I had the pleasure of chatting a good long while with NHL/Olympic goaltender turned cyclist, Mike Richter.
Pulling a chronological 180, this pic was taken on Jack’s actual birthday, June 24, at his first every Major League Baseball Game. The Red Sox were in town to take on the Rockies. As this photo was being taken, Dustin Pedroia had just connected on his first of three home runs on the day, taking out the Rox in extra innings. We were long gone by that point. Jack’s four. He can’t hang.
Joined a new hockey team, the Ice Bumbs (yes, that’s how they—we—spell it) midway through the season at the local YMCA rink. We lost 3-2 on a shootout in my first game. I fell down several times for no reason.
Last weekend I raced, for the sixth or seventh time, the Boulder Peak Triathlon. It’s an Olympic Distance race with a couple extra kilometers on the bike that allows we competitors to ride up a 15% grade near the start of the bike. I only saw a half dozen or so walking up the hill. On the backside they’ve set up a new 35 mph “speed limit” to reduce the inevitable number of crashes on the steep descent. I was clocked at 49 . . . Appropos to the new book’s subtitle, my run was speed was limited, once again, by huge-0 mong0 Stumpy blister. Happy to say its healing amazingly fast. Must be the EPO. (That’s a blood-doping joke to those of you with quizzical brows.)
Spent the previous Monday at the Horsetooth Reservoir swim beach. DO NOT go there unless you like laying on a 45-degree clay-slickened bank that tends to send the less nimble into the rocks hidden beneath the murky water’s edge.
Also been getting some airtime on the radio sports shows lately, plugging the new book and child on Bob Babbit’s ” The Competitors” show and “The Simon Gowen Triathlon Show.”
To wrap things up it looks like I’m back on full-time daddy duty until the newbie arrives. A couple of months back we took in an au pair from Peru to help us out with the business of a hard-working wife (not to mention preggo) and an oft-traveling husband who needs to spend time working on the speaking business he’s been ignoring as of late. She didn’t quite work out as planned; we’re looking once again so if any of you have an au pair you can recommend, we welcome your input.
