A well deserved beat-down and a love story

Our fun-filled, sun-soaked, beach-lovin’, five-week Australian vacation (which is less that half over!) has easily taken the sting out of the whooping I received less than two days after our arrival. I pretty much saw it coming and, regardless of lack o’ preparation, acted as if I was ready for a podium finish at the ITU World Championships on the Gold Coast of Oz.

Like years past, at 6:45am we paratriathletes (PTs) were the first wave to kick off the day’s races. Moments before the gun went off I sat on the water’s sandy edge next to my long-time rival and good friend Rivaldo Martins.

“Another race,” I said with an appreciative smile to acknowledge over many battles over the past 12 years. The man with one of the biggest grins on the planet replied, “Another race.”

Two seconds after the big speakers broadcasted “racers ready,” the horn blew and the gimps were off and swimming, some of us slower than others. I’ll spare you lots of race details—not so fun to write about getting schooled—and tell you that my swim was pathetic, my bike OK at best, and my run snail-paced. At the event I’ve yet to place worse than second, I finished fifth of six, and I had to pass that guy on the bike.

It’s almost amusing to tell you that I’ve been beaten by JP Theberge, among other BKs, the last four consecutive triathlons I’ve entered. First was NYC, then a month later, in mid-August, at back-to-back races in London before the recent thrashing.

Along with 40 other PTs, I raced in the UK as part of an international invitational super-sprint triathlon staged to promote our hopeful inclusion within the 2012 Paralympic Games. The race was held a few hours after the pros competed on the future Olympic Course. Perhaps the biggest thrill for us—for me anyway—was being granted use of the pro transition with its big blue carpet and individualized racks stating our name, country and race number. (We’re told this will be standard for upcoming world championship events. It’s incredibly fulfilling to know that the future of our sport will be given such respect.)

The course was all of 300 meters in the water, followed by a 10k bike before wrapping things up with a 3k run. This took me all of 37 minutes and even quicker was JP and a young Frenchman. The latter isn’t missing a leg but has a club foot. He races with us in the “slight leg impairment” category. (I know, kinda funny, but if you ask an above-knee amp, they’ll tell you our lot are challenged with veritable hangnails.) It was brought to the authorities’ attention that this categorization might not actually be fair, and it’s not because the athlete in question could swim, bike or run faster that JP or I, but because he didn’t have to change legs between disciplines, which is what ultimately earned him the top spot. Rumor has it the book will be amended.

The next day at the same venue was an age-group Olympic Distance race that JP and I opted for since we’d traveled across the Atlantic with our bikes and wetsuits and spare legs. Like in NY, he bested me by three minutes. Consolation: I finished 7th in my age-group (of around 60 in the 40-44s) to his 12th—he’s a few years younger.

Just a few weeks later I met JP, Rivaldo, a rookie from Brazil, a couple of fast Austrians and a bunch of others PTs of various “disabilities” and genders at Worlds. Those of you who don’t care much for excuses might want to skip a few paragraphs.

Reminiscent of the joy experienced when The Great War ended, Sharon finished her residency on Tuesday, August 18—the day after I returned from London, the same day I picked up a UHaul in which to load all of our belongings. I’d been focused on our return to Boulder, CO and little else for the previous five or six weeks. Along with the packing of dozens and dozens of boxes, my time and energy were absorbed by the longer-than-expected punch-list I’d agreed upon with our home’s new owners.

After two and a half days of truck-loading and habitat-clearing, we closed on the house  at 4:30pm on Thursday and immediately began our five-day adventurous move across the country. Sparing more details and redundancy here, I’ll say it was a great trip, thoroughly enjoyed by all, even 3-yr old Jack and 2-yr old Luke, thanks to portable DVD players in the minivan.

Upon arrival to Boulder on Tuesday afternoon, the pain Stumpy had experienced for the previous 24 hours intensified due to yet another cellulitis infection just below and to the left of my patella. Unloading was far from pleasant and the two days of house set-up were miserable at best, resulting in three crutch-reliant days of near immobility with pain, fevers, cold sweats and lethargy, all the while driving Sharon absolutely batty with my pissy disposition.

I’m happy to say I recovered very quickly once the infection drained. Two days later I was feeling nearly OK and simply had to get back to the YMCA rink to play a game of pick-up hockey with the boys I hadn’t seen in nearly four years. I had my new skating leg from A Step Ahead ready to go and relished every minute of the workout. Even scored a couple goals. I should mention the goalie was a bit soft…

The next day—thrilled beyond words to take advantage of all that is Boulder—I did a two-hour run up the stair-stepped Saddleback Ridge trail and down the more gradual Gregory Canyon descent.

Somehow, and I’m really not sure how, I woke up the next morning feeling like I’d been I’d been sent through a meat grinder. My legs were fine, my upper body was quite sore but it was my forearms that were tender to the point I couldn’t even write with a pen. It took all I had to even get the ibuprofen out of the bottle! This lasted for three days; the three days leading up to our departure for Australia. I suppose this could have come from playing hockey, but the severity truly mystified me.

The summation of all these little factors surely squashed my thin hopes to perform up to standards and the beat-down I received was even greater than expected.

The desire to get back to fighting form is not lost, however. I’ll certainly need to return to the well properly and effectively for next year’s quest of another Ironman notch in the race belt: it looks like I’ll be joining a few dozen fellow Boulderites for a poke at Ironman Canada in August, 2010.

On a final, completely unrelated note, Sharon and I entered yet another contest a couple weeks back. We’d met six years ago at The Rio, an infamous margarita bar/restaurant in Boulder. The management recently held an essay contest called “It All Started at The Rio,” inviting patrons to submit their stories on-line with a grand prize of a one-week trip for two to Guadalahara, Mexico!

I submitted our tale a few hours before the midnight, August 31 deadline.

We were notified shortly before boarding our flight overseas that we’d landed in the top-5 and that there would be an award party held at The Rio which we’d unfortunately have to miss. We’ve since learned of our fourth-place finish—no trip, but it looks like we’re the proud new owners of a José Quervo iPod with a speakers deck and matching JQ back yard chairs!

Here’s the submission if you’ve any time or interest remaining. While you’re either reading or moving on to better things, there’s a good chance Sharon, the boys and I will be back on the boogie boards attempting to catch some waves!

I strolled into a gift shop on Pearl street intent on a Christmas present for friends back in Boston. Found one. In the checkout line I also found myself in the glow of a beautiful and friendly patron. The wheels began to turn.

It was around 7:30 and I was to meet friends at the Rio at 10, same time the gift shop was closing. I went, cleaned up, put a nice shirt and boldly approached the young lady at 9:50 intent on bringing her along to hang with me and my friends. As Bon Scott belted nearly three decades past: “Ain’t it a shame / To be shot down in flames.”

So with my clean shirt and thirst for a marg, I picked myself up and headed to the Rio. Upon reaching the gang at the elevated seating section, far left, I immediately laid eyes upon a smiling young lady. My buddy chimed in, “There’s a cutie.” I couldn’t have agreed more, but at the moment was content with chumming it up with the crew. The only seat available at the table was directly in front of this lady we’ll call “Sharon.” We traded flirty smiles as I turned my back to her and took my seat

Before too long she’d left to freshen up and upon returning to her seat, she laid a long, flirty, marg-assisted gaze on me that scarred the very back of my retinas…in a good way.

At that moment I was chatting it with a guy who\’s story seemed to have no end. The moment he reached the closing, I abruptly excused myself, did a 180 and asked the aforementioned if she would allow me to join her and her friend in conversation. She moved right over and the banter was in full swing

It’s here I should mention that I was wearing shorts and have a prosthetic leg. She was in medical school and had just amputated her first leg that day! I had also just shaved my head bald, bald for the first time in my life. Shiny white dome. She thought I was a cancer patient and, she’ll say, was giving me “pity time.”

I took advantage of this window and continued to charm her to the best of my abilities, which for me boils down to acting as if I didn’t want to have sex with her that night…

Then I almost made the biggest mistake of my life: I said good night and we parted ways…without getting her phone number! Fortunately the three margs didn’t fog my judgement too much and I made it back for the digits scripted on a Rio napkin.

Six years later, that napkin resides in a glass frame, adjacent the pictures of our two beautiful boys, Jack and Luke.

Thanks for providing the venue and the liquid courage to start yet another Rio love story.

Love Thy Competition

Sunday morning at 7AM I sat on the 95th Street pier jutting out in to the Hudson River, thinking I knew how the NYC Triathlon/ParaTriathlon National Championship was about to unfold. The only one-legged man to ever beat me in a triathlon was sitting 15 feet to my right, five years older than he was when we last raced. That’s only meaningful because that makes him 50, presumably a bit slower that he used to be. However, his comment just minutes before we entered the water, strategically placed perhaps, that he just won the 50-54 age-group (able-bodied) at Brazil’s National Championships left me thinking he hasn’t lost too much.

Historically, he’s always buried in the swim and it’s a flip who’d beat who on the bike and run. This year I figured swimming with the current would deflate his lead some and perhaps I could better him on both the bike and run and we’d have an exciting sprint to the finish.

My 16:34 swim was solid and I came out not too far behind him, in stride with Jeff Glasbrenner and just a few seconds in front of J.P. Theberge, who’s been creeping closer and closer to my finish times over the past several years. For the first time in our many matchups, I was in transition along side Rivaldo, who took longer than I would expect to get out on the bike.

As I’m leaving T1, my aero bottle was all but falling out of its holder, which required me to stop and waste about 30 extremely frustrating seconds trying to fix it. I knew if I didn’t I might potentially suffer far worse losses from dehydration. In the meantime Rivaldo pulled away and both J.P. and Jeff joined me simultaneously in the chase. This was shaping up to be an exciting race. Never before have the first two, never mind the first four BKs, been so close to each other in any world-class triathlon, ever.

In the 12 miles that took us out to Yonkers, I relinquished about five seconds to Rivaldo. After the turnaround I didn’t see J.P. coming the other way, but presumed I had been opening up the gap as he has yet to match me on the bike. No sooner do I wonder just how far back he is, when he passes me! I was sincerely impressed and sincerely appreciate the competition. Rivaldo remained in our sites as the two of us exchanged leads over the next few miles.

Then he opened up a gap that kept getting bigger. His slightly inefficient body English told me he was working very hard, harder than me, it seemed. I didn’t have too much more power to provide and I opted to let him go and chase both him Rivaldo down on the run, which has been pretty good to me lately.

I entered transition after a 1:08:06 ride (not my fastest nor my slowest of my six consecutive NYC Tri’s) as JP exited and was out about five seconds behind Rivaldo when crossing the T2 exit mat (like in T1, he wasn’t so speedy in T2). I passed him before too long and kept up the best pace I could—not a terribly fast one but the best I could muster. Even on 72nd St, where athletes could see a good stretch in front of them, I didn’t see JP and wondered just how fast the guy was running!

Along that stretch the four inch long rubber tread on my run prosthesis became nearly completely unglued and was flapping underfoot, not tripping me but on every step it would drag across the pavement, and occasionally I’d step on it as it folded underneath, leaving me terribly frustrated. Beside the course I saw my prosthetist and Amy Winters, our Team A Steap Ahead manager, about a mile later. I barked out my issue hoping they might have an answer. A couple minutes later Amy pulled up next to me on her mountain bike, pulled a couple hair bands out of her ponytail and temporarily secured my tread. That only took 15-20 seconds and I was right back in the hunt. (I acknowledge that this would be considered “outside assistance,” reason for disqualification under USA Triathlon rules, I believe. If anyone reports me, so be it.)

Some of you might recall that in T2 of the last triathlon I raced, I forgot to switch my bike liner for a fresh run liner and PR’d the latter discipline. This gave me all the reason I needed to purposefully forgo the liner change in pursuit of J.P. Whether or not replacing it would have made a difference I really don’t know, but the leg got a bit lose and Stumpy began to moan about Mile 3, and I didn’t stop until Mile 4 for a reboot. Nice big pink open blister looked up at me. With the liner and leg back on securely I got back at it. By Mile 5 I had to stop momentarily for a leg dangle as both the blister and gimp-side calf cramp called for it. I hadn’t seen J.P. in a couple of the longer stretches I could see in Central Park and all but bowed out of the quest for first. Just then Rivaldo passed me, which gave me all the motivation I needed to tough out that last mile as fast as I could.

My 46:27 run (again, I’ve gone both faster and slower here…and I was expecting something faster) was almost two minutes slower than J.P. and I crossed the line 20 seconds ahead of Rivaldo.

The close battle with my former nemesis—seems I’ve got a new one now—was very much expected. Getting schooled by J.P. was a little bit of a surprise, but not totally. The man’s been strong since he entered the scene several years ago and has been getting faster every race. And every ear I hear “J.P.’s fit and looking fast this year.” I believe we last raced in 2007 when I got him by a 13 minutes.

So, all due respect Champ, but it wasn’t you I was worried about. I can honestly say that I’m impressed as hell by your commitment and dedication to training—with a real job and three kids—with the goal of taking that top spot. Furthermore, I appreciate the fire you’ve stoked not only under me but also my wife who has just granted me two hours of training each day to catch you at Worlds on September 12!

PS - I’d like to thank Affinia Hotels for providing phenomenal accomodations for my family over the weekend.