Backcountry Decisionmaking, the War in Iraq, and the Importance of a Questioning Attitude

With the almost complete lack of snow in Southern California, I spent last weekend getting caught up on reading rather than going on a previously planned ski trip to Sequoia National Park. I finished reading "State of Denial" by Bob Woodward and reviewing the Avalanche Safety Reader given out at the Avy Level 1 course I took last March. At first, I thought that they had nothing in common. It wasn't until Sunday afternoon when I was reading an article in the Economist, "Economics Focus: What the World Bank Knows", which was an assessment of the quality of research put out by the bank, that I realized what the link was. The point in the article that really struck me was that the Bank's leadership was consistently using untested research as gospel that their policies worked. They were looking for their in-house research to justify what they already wanted to do (prove that their aid programs and recommended reform programs actually worked) without criticizing the quality of the data or looking to see if it could also be used to show that their policies didn't work. This problem of trying to support the desired outcome is a problem that affects decisions everywhere from the backcountry to the White House to our everyday lives. I can guarantee you that none of us are immune to this.

In addition to putting out lots of information about how the environment (weather and terrain) affects avalanche safety, one of the big points that S. P. Parker, our instructor at the avy clinic, put out was the need to be aware of what is going on in our minds while making the decision about whether or not an area is safe. He brought up the fact that there's a catch-22 that exists in that the terrain we most want to ski often has the highest avalanche danger. The steep powder field that looks so nice also has a 35 degree pitch and has been having wind deposit snow on it for the last 10 hours. These are all major danger factors. But S.P. pointed out that all too often very experienced people ignore these danger factors and look for reasons why they should ski the terrain. Even if they do recognize that the danger factors do exist, they neglect to give them the proper consideration. Some of the messages that go on inside the brain of our friend Homo Powdericus are:
1) I've just spent 3 hours skinning up this mountain. There's no way I'm leaving without good turns.
2) It's been 1 month since I've gotten half decent powder. I don't care what signs I'm seeing. I need freshies.
3) It looks soooooo gooooood!!! I've never gotten hurt before. So I'll be fine this time.
4) Everyone seems to think its safe...so it must be.

These are all rationalizations that have gone through my head at some point to justify skiing a potentially dangerous slope to get some good turns. In retrospect, I recognize that they weren't very smart. They encouraged me to ignore my gut and not fully consider the downside to the decision.

A related issue that S.P. brought up is the tendency for groups to delegate decision making to those with the most experience. What this means is that a group of people will often just follow the most experienced person. He brought up numerous case studies where many of the lesser experienced people did notice danger factors and were concerned about them. But they neglected to speak up because they had decided to follow the person with the most experience. They figured that he noticed the danger factor and had given it the proper attention.

For those of you who haven't read it, I highly recommend reading "State of Denial". It's Bob Woodward's narrative and analysis of the decision making process behind going to war in Iraq and our subsequent strategy for fighting the insurgency. It was largely based on interviews Woodward conducted with key policy makers within the Bush administration. Whatever your politics are, the book is interesting in its lessons for decision making. Woodward argues that like our friend, homo powdericus, key members of the Bush administration did not maintain a questioning attitude. They both failed to question the validity of the evidence justifying their action (WMD intelligence that was 5-10 years old). Additionally, he argues that they failed to adequately consider the downside (not finding WMD, Iraqi infrastructure being in poor condition, the population becoming hostile and the possibility of Shia vs. Sunni fighting) of their decision. Within the government, there were numerous high ranking officials/military officers who did have serious doubts on all of these issues and failed to speak up just like the backcountry skiers who delegated decision making authority to the person with the most experience.

I do not intend this to be open up a discussion about the merits of the war in Iraq. THIS BLOG IS NOT MEANT TO BE POLITICAL! What I do want to show is that these decision making errors do take place and can result in serious consequences.

Within the submarine force, one of the guiding philosophies is to maintain a questioning attitude. What this means is to always question the information being presented to you (where did it come from, does it make sense when seen against current indications/past history, could it be wrong, etc), to use conservative assumptions (not politically conservative, but try to avoid “la la” land assumptions) and to always look at both the pros and cons. A key part of this philosophy is that it’s every crew members’ responsibility to speak up if they have a concern. What this means is that we expect the most junior sailor to speak up if they have a concern. While I at times found this frustrating while I was serving on board a submarine (USS Toledo), it helped to keep us safe while we were operating hundreds of feet underwater. Just like on the submarine, a questioning attitude will help to improve our decision making and to keep us safe, whether it’s at work or at the top of a mountain in the backcountry. I'm not saying it’s easy to maintain. But at the very least we should be aware of it.

Alta/Snowbird Trip Report

As much as I was complaining about my dad holding me back, I have to give him credit for hanging with me and skiing better as the week went on. Although it hadn't affected him the last two years, maybe his difficulties the first two days were due to the jet lag (flew here from Beijing, China) and altitude. I'm not saying that he transformed himself into an amazing skier beginning on day 3, but he skied much better the last 4 days.
On Saturday, we were greeted with a light snowfall throughout the day. But more importantly, the winds picked up leading to blowing snow. By the early afternoon, this resulted in near white out conditions. Normally, I'd look to see where the snow was depositing. But the wind was fluctuating too much...one minute from one direction, the next minute from another direction. As the afternoon went on, the winds only grew stronger. Like most of the skiers still on the mountain, we spent most of the afternoon skiing the trees off of the Wildcat lift when the top chairs closed. This was perfectly fine with me as the steep chutes through the trees off of the Wildcat lift are some of my favorite slopes at Alta. Unfortunately, by 3:15, the winds had forced the remaining lifts to close. Forcing us to quit early wasn't the biggest consequence of the high winds. More important for my sore back, they closed down the Peruvian's hot tub. So instead of soaking in the hot tub, we spent the rest of the afternoon in the Peruvian's bar. It's a classic ski bar...lots of great local characters, a big fire, ancient couches and lots of dead animals hanging on the walls. If you're up at Alta, I highly recommend stopping there for a drink after skiing. At the very least, it definitely beats sitting in traffic trying to fight your way out of the canyon. If you're there on Sundays, they have great live music.
One of the great things about the Peruvian is that you eat dinner with different people each night. On Saturday night, we ate dinner with Paul, Dick, and Elaine. When I got back from the buffet, I found that dad had enlisted them in his efforts to convince me to put off looking for a real job after I get out of the navy (this August) to allow me to spend a winter as a ski bum. I have to admit that doing that is a once in a lifetime opportunity that I will probably never have again. Sooner or later, I'll get married and start a new career. Once I do that, it would be next to impossible to do something like ski bumming. Not sure if that's what I want to do, but it does sound tempting. I never imagined that it would be my own dad who would be the one pushing me to do something like that.
By the time we woke up on Sunday, the winds (max recorded wind speed at top of Mt Baldy 107 mph) had died down. We found a mountain completely reshaped from the day before...with boot deep powder in many spots. The hike out to Baldy Shoulder was definitely worth it. But the highlight was getting some of the first tracks on Stonecrusher and Lone Pine. What was surprising was that we didn't even hit it in any of our first runs. It was probably an hour into the day. The most difficult part was getting there...the traverse into Stonecrusher was very rocky. But once you were in and made your way over to the right side of the slope, it was wonderful...boot deep and a nice steep long pitch. Despite being wary of where I was taking him, even dad enjoyed the run. Shortly after lunch, dad finally cried uncle and I was left to ski by myself. I expected to be really energized now that I could ski whatever I wanted. But by that time, most of the good snow was skied off and a lot of the mountain was wind packed crud. I got bored and was back at the hotel by 3...I guess that I've become a real snow snob...incredibly spoiled last 2 years getting 60" and 42"over 6 and 5 days respectively.
We spent Monday and Tuesday skiing down the road at Snowbird. Although I love Alta for all of its pureness, I must admit that Snowbird is growing on me more and more each time I go there. Monday and Tuesday were two of the best days I had all week. On Monday, the top of the mountain was covered in a thick fog. So we spent the morning skiing on the right side of the mountain off of the Gad 2 chairlift. It was everything I remembered from the year before...great steep, bumpy chutes through the trees. Due to all of the trees and its aspect to the sun, it also seems to avoid a lot of the freeze/thaw cycle that the rest of the mountain goes through. The snow is therefore seemingly better than just about anywhere...what looks like crud is actually very skiable. Besides that, they had some great groomers where we got some first tracks on perfectly groomed corduroy. I must be getting old because I find laying down GS turns to be simply wonderful...albeit a distance second to great powder.

The blooper for the day happened just after lunch. We decided to take the Little Cloud lift up to the top of the mountain. Unfortunately, we didn't see the lift station until just before we reached it. In one of my more graceful moments, my poles got stuck in the chair (sitting on top of the them) and I had to straddle my way over them to get off....got off on two feet, but only pole made it off...the other snapped and fell off a little ways back down the mountain. This ended up being a blessing in disguise. Skiing without poles was a great drill to force me to ski better....never thought it was possible to ski steep bumpy chutes through the trees, but it was actually a lot of fun. Towards the end of the day, we we were able to go through Snowbird's new tunnel, which connects the Peruvian Gulch with the Mineral Basin area.

On Tuesday, we were greeted with warm weather (~40F), blue skies, and soft snow. We made the right decision and decided to spend the morning in Mineral Basin. I highly recommend this as it gets lots of sun in the morning. The snow was particular good in the Bookends area. The second day we bought the "lifts only" ticket. Unless you plan on skiing a lot off the main ridge (great double diamond terrain if there's more snow), a chair only ticket will give you access to plenty of great terrain for $10 less.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to and end and at 3:30 we took the chairlift from Mineral Basin to Alta for our last run of the day. We had enough time at the hotel to spend half an hour in the hot tub and grab a few drinks at the bar before the van picked us up to take us down to valley. For all of you who plan on staying in the canyon and flying out in the morning, my recommendation is to spend your last night in Salt Lake. If a storm hits, its very likely that the Canyon could be closed the night/morning before your flight. (Note: This happened to me 2 years ago)

No Friends on a Powder Day?

...or so goes the old adage. I am two days into the annual ski trip to Alta that I take with my dad each year. Although Alta is pretty bare by their standards (lots of uncovered rocks/stumps that you normally wouldn't see this time of year), we were greeted with 10" of new snow this morning. At breakfast, everyone was talking about what they'd hit first and what their general strategy was to get the most first tracks possible. By the time we got to the lifts (20 minutes before opening), the lines were already huge. The locals were foaming at the mouth to get their first powder in almost two weeks. So I should have been pretty excited, right?

Actually, I felt really torn and it only got worse as the morning went on. On the one hand, I too really wanted to get some of the beautiful pow pow. But on the other hand, I was on vacation with my dad. The vacation is as much about spending time with him as it is about the skiing. The only problem is that he's 57 years old, not in very good shape and doesn't want to take a lesson to learn to ski powder. I still think of him as the person who taught me how to ski and as the skier I looked up to while growing up. To his credit, he will follow me down just about anything...at least until his body just wants to call it quits. While I try to avoid skiing the terrain (when I'm with him) that I really would like to ski, I inevitably take him to some spots that he really shouldn't be trying. After all, there's not a lot of easy stuff at Alta. So I really feel that at times I am putting him in danger.

Of course, I could just ditch him. God nows, I've done that enough in the past. Maybe if it was truly epic powder I would do that. But as I get older, I am coming to value my family more. He came all the way from China to come ski with me. So I would be a terrible person not to spend as much of this time with him as possible. I only see him 1-2x per year. So when he's around, I actually want to spend it with him and can't bring myself to ditch him each day.

So as much as I love Alta, I'm not sure that I can see myself coming back here with him again. Not only is the terrain no longer suited for his abilities, but I do not want to be teased with all the amazing snow/terrain that I am passing up as I ski down another intermediate run. I definitely want to keep taking ski trips with him...its just might have to be to one of those more intermediate friendly mountains that I've always looked down upon.

What Did Santa Bring Me For Christmas?

I have to admit that I love Christmas! As a kid, I was one of those who would do everything humanly possible to find out what I was getting before Christmas morning. I searched high and low to find out where my parents were hiding the presents. Once I found them, I employed just about every technique possible to figure out what was hiding in those packages...everything from the "fine-tuned" shake to the surgical disassembly and subsequent reassembly of packages using the exacto knife. There was no way I was getting any sleep on Christmas Eve...I was way too excited about opening any presents in the morning. It was always a thrill to see if I got what was on my wish list. Now as an adult, I'm still definitely a Christmas person. Despite all of my bitching about buying presents, I love buying presents for people when I get a great idea. (My sister's in a heap of trouble next year since my recent visit to her place in Western New York has given me LOTS of ideas!) Although I don't decorate my house at all, when I do settle down and have a family, I'm sure I'll illuminate my house in the true Clark Griswold style. (Too all of my future neighbors, I'm very sorry!)

Unfortunately, Santa did not bring me any gear this year...but I did get some checks that will be used to reimburse my checking account for some of the great gear that I have already purchased this Summer and Fall. In the coming months, I'll be doing reviews of all the new gear I've bought this year. So, I'll give you quick preview of what to expect throughout the winter.
1) Patagonia R1 Granular Jacket: Light Weight Windproof Fleece Jacket. This is replacing the black LL Bean Fleece PulloverI got for Christmas in 1992. I think this is well overdue. I went with the lighter weight jacket primarily for ski tours where I always seem to be wearing next to nothing by the time I'm done the skin up. I'll have to see how this will be for lift serviced skiing.
2) Patagonia R2 Fleece Vest: Standard Windproof fleece vest that I intend to wear with the jacket for lift serviced skiing to provide added core warmth.
3) Patagonia R1 Flash Pullover: Pullover shirt that I'll be using as a baselayer for lift serviced skiing.
4) Sierra Designs 600 Down Jacket: After getting envious of all of my ski buddies being warm while resting at the top of the mountain or sitting in the hut last year, I decided this was a must have for 2007. I got a great deal on this at Sierra Trading Post this summer...$56.
5) Black Diamond System Gloves: These are a light weight set of gloves with a shell and a removable insulated liner. Although they aren't waterproof, I think they'll be more than adequate. I also got these off of Sierra Trading Post for $19. My only concern with them is the size. I don't have large hands by any means. So I was surprised when a large was tight.
6) Black Diamond Anarchist Pack with Avalung: At the end of last season, I gave up on my REI pack after the chest strap broke. Although I wasn't excited to fork out the dough required for this pack, I figured that even if the avalung only increases your chance of survival in an avalanche by a small percentage, it would be worth it. It would be bad karma to lower your chances of survival for a measly $70. (Of course, I recognize that the true way to increase your chances of survival in the backcountry is to be prudent and avoid putting yourself in a position to get in an avalanche.)

Those are the major things I've gotten this year and I have to admit that I'm psyched to get the chance to try them out. My first trip of the year will be 6 days at Alta with my dad at the beginning of January. Like last year, we'll be staying at the Peruvian...it's expensive...but I really love that place. Hopefully, as long as the snowpack keeps building in the Sierras, I'll be heading up to Sequoia for 3 days of backcountry over MLK weekend.

Ski Porn Review: Warren Miller's "Off The Grid"

Two weeks ago, I met up with a bunch of friends in Laguna Beach to see Warren Miller's latest movie, "Off The Grid." As described in an earlier post, the weekend was a lot of fun. However, "Off the Grid" was a disappointment when compared with his earlier works. I've always considered Warren Miller's movies to be a cut above the rest of the movies in the Ski Porn biz. True to the term ski porn, most movies these days are just a quick fix for not being out on the mountain. They put the focus on loud music, hucking insane cliffs, out-skiing/surviving avalanches and annoying park scenes. Sometimes this is exactly what I am looking for. But while enjoyable, like watching a porn, they generally leave you unfulfilled and empty afterwards.

In contrast, Warren's earlier movies have at least made an effort to get at the soul of the sport, communicating what makes skiing such a wonderful sport. His quirky commentaries have brought us back to Sun Valley circa 1950, taken us on a fox chase (on skis) with the 87 year old Klaus Obermeyer, or introduced us to the Schrab brothers who built a ski jump on their grandfather's farm in Wisconsin. When compared to some of the better surfing movies like "Step into Liquid" or "Riding Giants", even Warren's earlier movies could have worked harder to get at skiing's soul. Unfortunately though, "Off the Grid" was a move in the opposite direction. I want a movie that reminds me of why I love to ski.

The first question that I have to ask is where was Warren? Is he sick? If not, I hope he's going to be back next year. For "Off the Grid", he was replaced as the narrator by Jeremy Bloom, the former Olympic mogul skier and Philadelphia Eagle. I'm sure Jeremy worked really hard on the film and for the most part was just reading a script, but the commentary was lacking. It consisted mostly of brief intros of the skiers and ski areas interspersed with the skiers' themselves making cheesy "off the grid" comments...i.e. "This place was off the grid". Every once in a while there would be a comment by Warren. But it was never more than a sentence and it sounded like it was just a dubbed clip from a previous movie.

My favorite part of the movie was the section covering the expedition to the Indian ski town (if you call it that) of Gulmarg. Gulmarg is a small village in the Himalayas with a few ski lifts. In addition to some great skiing footage, it also introduced us to an area of the world we probably would never think of skiing. This might seem cheesy, but the scenes of them teaching the children in the village to ski really reminded me of the joy of learning to ski. We are so removed from the learning experience we had when we were little that we forget the tremendous rush of excitement we got the first time we slid down a slope with the two sticks on the bottom of our feet. After all, its this rush that kept us coming back and spending thousands of dollars on gear. With all of the great expeditions going on these days, I'd like to see more of this type of footage, which expands our horizons of where we could go skiing.

The Alaskan heli-skiing section at the end had some amazing footage. The terrain was sick and lines they skied left me drooling. But from a cinematographic viewpoint, I'd like to see less zoom and more long range shots. This gives you a better feel for just how crazy the terrain they are skiing is. I just don't think you get a proper feeling for it until you see just small they are compared with the slope/vertical wall that they are skiing down.

The next gripe is with the section on Jamie Pierre's ridonkulous 250 ft cliff jump. I first want to say that its absolutely incredible what he attempted. I say attempted, because it was more like a swan dive than jumping the cliff on skis. He basically did a half flip and landed flat on his back. I hate to chastise them about social responsibility, but do we really want to make people think that you can do something like he did (land flat on your back after falling 250 ft) and walk away. My answer is no. But also, to me, it shouldn't count as any sort of record until he actually lands it. Not that I have the balls to even attempt it (it takes a lot for me to even huck a 5 or 10 footer), but anyone could fall 250 feet off of a cliff and land flat on their back. The trick is landing it. He didn't do it. So why make such a big deal out it.

I'm sorry if I'm coming off as a hater...I don't mean to be so negative. I just think they can do better. I would really love to see someone make a great ski movie that really touches at the soul of the sport. Maybe my hopes are just unrealistic. Unfortunately, "Off the Grid" falls short of those expectations. I'm not necessarily looking for the skiing equivalent of a Scorsese flick. I'm just looking for something better. While its enjoyable to watch and will not doubt get you fired up to get some pow this ski season, it's nothing more than a quick fix.

San Onofre Ski Group Get Together

Even though we didn't make it out to do any skiing, I consider last weekend to be the start of my ski season. I got together with the group of friends who I skied with last for the first time since last season. Those who lived between San Diego and LA (Carl, Tyler, and Dianna), I had seen over the summer. But it was awesome to see George, Christina, Nelly, and Chris again. In true SoCal style, we met up last Saturday for an afternoon of surfing at San Onofre. The waves were small and mushy...but its always great to spend an afternoon out in the water. All it takes is one good wave to keep me coming back. After spending the afternoon in the water, we had a surf n' turf beach BBQ. Carl brought down a box of live Maine lobsters that he had ordered, Tyler cooked up some killer steak, there was LOTS of vino and Nellie cooked up an amazing Pinapple cake in the campfire.

By the time the cops kicked us out at 8 (park closing time), we were stuffed and ready to head up to Laguna for a night at Tyler and Diana's favorite dive bar...the "Dirty Bird". The Dirty Bird is an old Marine bar that is a classic dive bar...cheap drinks (by Laguna standards), no frills decor, a rowdy crowd of patrons and mediocre cover band that everyone's rocking out to. If you're heading there on a Saturday night, just beware, its definitely cougar country!

We all spent the night up at Tyler and Diana's place in Laguna. For breakfast, we feasted on a nutritious meal of donuts (I had 4 of them) and coffee...we were truly fueled for the rest of the day. So we decided to go mountain biking. Its hard to believe, but this was my first time mountain biking. We went for a nice ride through the park (10 miles, 1400' vert) that surrounds Laguna. In a surprise move, Carl was the hard charger and led the way up the mountain. I jokingly asked Carl if this meant that he'd be breaking trail this winter. In a true return to form, the previous night's drinking and the lack of any real nutrition from the morning's breakfast of donuts finally caught up with Carl shortly after we reached the top. He keeled over, assumed the fetal position, and started wimpering for food and water. I'm not kidding...it was actually pretty amusing. That firmly answered the question about him breaking trail this winter. Don't worry, he was much better after we gave him some water and power bars.

While the ride up was a challenge (bike fit issues), the ride down was eye opening. In fact, it was actually kind of terrifying. I've done a lot of road riding. But I found the downhill portion of mountain biking to be much more technical in that there's more importance placed on controlling your bike. I also found that I needed to overcome the psychological barrier of telling myself that it was possible for bikes to ride downhill, at speed, over rocks, stumps and other obstacles. Despite telling myself to relax, my hands were gripping the handlebars so tight that it felt like I was crush the handlebars. I did one digger. I think the real key is to get out more and with experience I'll become more comfortable with the downhill sections. But altogether it was a great afternoon.

We finished off the weekend by seeing Warren Miller's new movie "Off The Grid". You can read my review of the movie in a separate post.

The Return of El Nino

From what I've been reading over the last week, it sounds like El Nino is back. It just remains to be seen how strong its going to be. As of now, it looks like a weak El Nino. The weak El Nino brings causes a split flow through California. The good news is that this means more precipitation for Southern California. The bad news is that it usually means a dryer winter for Central and Northern California. I'm no weather expert and I certainly don't wish a dry winter on the northern half of the Sierras. But it would be awesome to for the SoCal ski seaon to start before March this year. Who knows, maybe we'll be skiing Baldy by the beginning of November.

For more information on El Nino check out these links:
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WEATHER/09/13/weather.nino.reut/index.html
http://64.29.226.243/dweeb.htm
http://www.elnino.noaa.gov/

Triathlon at Pacific Grove

This past weekend, the big day finally came and I competed in the Triathlon at Pacific Grove. To give you an answer to the big question from my previous post, I didn't shave. I know that if anyone who wants to be a hard-core triathlon geek shaves. But I'm a lazy triathlon geek and just never got around to it.

I left San Diego for Monterey on Thursday morning. Before going up, I knew that the water would be a lot colder than what I was used to down here in San Diego. But I completely neglected the fact that the air temps and gusty winds were closer to San Diego in January than anything I had been training in. So I got a rude awakening during our first course preview bike ride that we did Thursday afternoon. As I sat freezing on my bike, I was wondering how I'd feel 2 days later during the race after spending 30 minutes in the ocean. (Yes, I know that I've become a completely spoiled San Diego warm weather weakling!) Despite the cold, I was amazed at how beautiful coast was. Both bike and run went along some of the most beautiful stretches of coastline in all of California.

Friday night all of the Team in Training participants got together for a pasta party. All told, there were over 350 of us taking part in the triathlon through Team in Training coming from as far away as Georgia. Altogether, we raised over $1.2 million. Afterwards during our final pre-race team meeting, one of my teammates (Dana) told us that she had just found out two days before that her brother's leukemia had come out of remission and he had just started chemotherapy again. It was a big shock to us all as the whole team had met him at some time throughout the season. It hurt all of us to see Dana in so much pain. She asked all of us to think about her brother's challenges whenever our bodies were hurting us during the race and to use his fight as inspiration to push ourselves to keep going. No matter how much our bodies hurt, it's nothing compared to what he's going through.

Enough for the sad talk, the next morning we set off from the hotel at 5:30 AM to make our way to the race. Luckily, it felt a few degrees warmer than the previous few days. The first wave started at 7:15. My wave, the Team in Training Men's wave, started at 8:30. When the gun went off, we all charged into the frigid waters (58F, cold by SD standards) and started the swim. There are a couple of things to know about the swim at Pac Grove. First, its a 2 loop course where you actually have to get out of the water and do a small (25 yd) run up the beach between laps. Second, its cold. Third and most important, there's lots of kelp. In fact, there's so much kelp that you need to be as concerned about steering away from the kelp as swimming towards the next buoy on the course. The problem with kelp is that its so thick that both your legs and your arms get tangled in it and you're stuck until you rip yourself free. Consequently you waste a lot of energy. At first when I got in the water, I was freezing. But once my face and feet went numb, the pain stopped and it was all good. On the first lap I did a great job navigating away from the kelp and found myself in second place at the end of the first lap. On the second lap, I pulled into the lead and no longer had anyone to follow through the kelp. Consequently shortly before the first buoy, I basically came to a complete stop. I freed myself after 15s. But it was exhausting. By the second buoy, the wave of 20-29 year old girls coming up behind us caught up to all of us and I felt like I got ran over by a freight train. Because of the kelp, everyone swims in a very narrow path (a couple of swimmers wide). Luckily, that gave us a carrot to chase and we no longer had to concentrate on finding our way through kelp. By the end of the lap, we had passed most of them again and I came out of the water in second place in my heat with a time of 28:36 for the 1 mile swim. As a team, we represented San Diego well. We ended up with 9 of the first 11 male TNT swimmers out of the water.

The first transition did not go as well as planned. I wasted too much time trying to get socks and a vest on (cold hands don't work quick) before my coach told me just to get out on the bike. Once on the bike, I felt fine. The bike went real well. The course itself consisted of 25 miles over 4 laps. I felt like I was riding pretty fast. For most of the ride, I was consistently passing people and moved into first place among all of the team in training participants. At this point, I started wishing that I had started with the rest of the people in my age group as opposed to those in team in training. I was pushing myself hard. But I was missing the competition that would push me to do better. I ended up finishing the bike in a time of 1:11:56 averaging just over 20 mph. The bike to run transiition went much smoother. Unfortunately, as soon as I started running my lower back just started killing me. It was more intense back pain than anything I had every experienced. If I could have paused the race and gotten a cortisone shot for my back, I would have. But as I didn't have the option, I kept going. I thought of Dana's brother and his fight against cancer. But I also though about my grandfather and the fight that he is currently going through against lung cancer. If they could keep on fighting, I could keep on running. A sore back, even though every step hurt, wasn't an excuse to stop or event to take it easy. The run was 6 miles over 3 loops. I ended up finishing that in a time of 39:16. Altogether, I ended up with a time of 2:24:09 which was good for 12th place in my age group and 51st overall. Although satisfied, I definitely feel that I still have a lot of room for improvement and hope to be down to a 2:15 by next season.

Last but not least, I would like to thank my parents for flying in to watch the race. Seeing and hearing them cheer for me on each lap was really energizing. They were awesome! Yes, I think I have caught the triathlon bug and hope to continue with them in the future. My next race will probably be the Mission Bay Sprint Tri on October 1st. But due to the soon approaching ski season, that will most likely be my last one until next year.

Triathlon Update: The Shaving Dilemna

So I've now got less than 5 days until the big race and I'm feeling pretty good. Our triathlon team had a practice triathlon last Saturday. It was half of the distance (750m swim, 12.5 mile bike, 3 mile run) we'll be doing next weekend (1 mile swim, 25mile bike, and 6 mile run). The swim, although I was still breathing pretty heavy when I got out of the water, went better than at the Camp Pendleton Sprint Tri the previous weekend. I came out of the water in 4th place. By the halfway point on the bike, I had moved into first place and extended my lead on the run. I ended up with a time of 1:08:40. This puts me squarely on track to meet my goal of a 2:25 in the actual race.

Again, I learned a few valuable lessons from this practice race. First, I learned not to put my wetsuit on the bike rack after the swim. Although I saw lots of people doing it at Camp Pendleton, its apparently against the USA triathlon rules. To teach us a lesson, our coach grabbed all the wetsuits belonging to us "low life bottom dwelling scum" who left our wetsuits on the rack. All he did was throw the wetsuits in a pile. However, all of our wetsuits looked exactly alike and I had neither labled my wetsuit nor ever bothered to look at the size. So after 40 minutes of trying on wetsuits, I ended up with a wetsuit that fits fairly well...although I'm still not convinced that it was the one I wearing earlier in the morning. (It just feels a bit looser in the arms.)

Secondly, I decided that I needed a GU flask for my bike. Once again, I lost my gels. This time they fell out from under my tri shorts. I also learned that if I were to lose a Gu pack in the race, it's a potentially disqualifying penalty if you don't go back and pick it up. I don't want that to happen in the race.

I started tapering last week on the bike and the run. We had our last ocean swim on Saturday morning. I ended up doing ~3 miles. Surprisingly my arms weren't hurting too bad at the end. I ended up making an appointment for a massage on Wednesday. I'm pretty excited. This is going to be my first massage in over a year and I've heard they're just great to loosen you up before the race.

So now I get to the big question: to shave or not to shave? Being the big race, I do want every advantage I can get. But how big a difference will shaving actually make? In high school, we always shaved for the big sectional swim meet at the end of the season. However, we're wearing wetsuits in the water and I have a hard time believing that it will make that big a difference on the bike and the run...at least at my level of competition. I was surprised with the number of guys on the team who I heard were going to be shaving. Its not even all of the most competitive guys on the team. But maybe shaving is just part of being a triathlete. So if I do consider myself a triathlete (and I do now), maybe I should just do it.

Only 3 Months to Ski Season!!!!!!!

I just checked out Telemark Tips this afternoon and saw this beautiful pic on the front page. It made me giddy just looking at the beautiful pow pow! I'm so psyched for this ski season. With all the triathlon training I've been doing, I think I'll be in even better shape than last year and am really hoping for El Nino to come back and give SoCal a winter more like 2005. Well maybe hoping for a bit much, but I would like to be able to ski Baldy or San Gorgornio before March this year.

Here are some of my initial ski season resolutions:
1) Continue training to be in good shape for the start of the season.
2) Do an overnight (freezing your ass off in a tent style) backcountry trip by March.
3) Do the Sierra High Route or Mount Whitney in April or May.
4) Take a couple of lessons at Alta in January.
5) Ski Silverton.
6) Make a trip up to Roger's Pass, Canada to check out all the beautiful terrain my buddy John's been talking about.

What are your resolutions for this year? I'd love to hear what some of your goals are for this year?

Triathlon Update: Knowing When to Say When

One of the ideas our triathlon coaches have been repeating throughout our training is that its better to be undertrained than even a bit overtrained. I fully understand their point. If you're overtrained, you're either going to end up injured or burned out. In both of those cases you won't perform well come race day. That being said, I have a hard time making myself stop training.

For tonight's practice, we had a swim at La Jolla Shores. Going into the practice, I had already swam ~5000 yards this week. After swimming ~1800 yards, I wanted to go back out and swim a bit more. Our coach Dave told me that since we've got a practice tri in the morning, I should just call it good for the evening and head home. I did end up following his advice. However, it took evey bit of will power to do that. After thinking it over, I've identified several reasons for this:
1) I felt great after swimming the 1800 yards. Going back to the swim practices we used to do in high school, a practice doesn't feel complete until your body is begging for you to stop.
2) On a purely quantitative level, 1800 yards just doesn't feel like a full workout. Granted most of my swim workouts these days are between 2000 and 3000 yards. But again my mental standard for swim workouts is based of the 6,000-8,000 yd workouts we used to do back in high school.
3) Even though it goes against the mantra of training smarter not harder, my gut instinct is that it takes more training volume to get better. Yes, I know that is wrong. But this is what my gut tells me and it takes a lot of work to ignore it.

Because of all of these, the feeling that came over me to night when I left (with my body feeling great no less) was one of guilt. Part of me felt like a quitter. But hopefully as I learn to take a more targeted and scientific approach to training, I will find it easier to ignore this voice.

Have any of you had common experiences?

Triathlon: Camp Pendleton Sprint Triathlon and AFC Half Marathon

After months of training, I finally got some real race experience this weekend. I did the Camp Pendleton Sprint Triathlon on Saturday morning and the AFC half marathon on Sunday morning. I know that some of you are probably going to say that I was crazy or plain stupid for doing 2 races in the same weekend. Initially I was just going to do the sprint tri. However, when I heard that a number of my teammates were doing the half marathon, the competitive juices started flowing and I told myself that it was just about the same distance as my planned base building run that I'd be doing anyways. Before I knew it, I was signed up for the race.

The Sprint Triathlon on Saturday ended up being a great training race. I got some of those first race nerves out of the way. More importantly, I validated a lot of the things I was already doing and saw some things that I should work on. The swim was only 500 yds and I can remember telling my buddy Nelson before the race that the course looked really short. However the swim was a lot harder than I was expecting. The water was both rougher and colder than I had been used to over the last few weeks. I had signficant problems breathing and sighting the buoys. The swells were big enough that you had to be at the top to see the next buoy. As anyone who swims with me knows, I can't swim in a straight line to save my life. So I swam off course two times. Thinking back to what our coach told us, I did try and draft. But I had problems finding someone who was going at my pace. As I was swimming in, I did try and catch the waves. However, due to being out of breath, I had actually stopped twice after catching a wave so that I could catch my breath before the next one came. Coming out of the water, I did try and strip off my wetsuit as I was jogging out. I did pretty good getting it down to my ankles. But I couldn't get the damned thing over my feet. I actually fell over into water before I got it off. I ended up doing the entire swim in 11:59 (20th out of 80 in 25-29). Not bad, but I definitely need some more time in the ocean.

T1 went smoothly with the exception of the aforementioned wetsuit problems. The bike ride was a 20 mile out and back. There was some rolling terrain, but no significant hills. The wind was not bad at all. It was actually in the first part of the bike that I felt the after effects of the swim the most. It felt like I had just been hit in the gut. For the first 15-20 minutes, I was still gasping for air. I felt nauseus when I ate an energy gel. Over that time I was only averaging ~17 mph and getting passed left and right. Around the 20 minute point, my body seemed to settle down and I started feeling better and better. Over the second half I was averaging 20-24 mph and started passing some people myself. On the bike, I came in at 58:42 (25 out of 80). I came into the race thinking that the bike was my weak area and this result just reconfirmed it.

T2 went great. I was in and out in under 1 minutes. The run was 3 miles and consisted of two loops around the Amphibious Craft Unit Five area. Going into race, I already felt that the run was my strong point. I felt great throughout the entire run and was passing people the entire time. I came in at 19:56 (5/80). In retrospect, I definitely could have pushed it a little more. But at the time I was worried more about cramping.

Overall, I came in at 1:30.37 and had a great time. There was a lot of great competition there and I now have a better idea of what I have to shoot for to do better. The following are my lessons learned from the race:
1) The swim sucked. Need more time in the ocean. Pool workouts aren't the same.
2) More Interval Bike Workouts. Got to get faster.
3) Buy an Aerobottle. Everytime I went to take a drink, I'd slow down by 3-4 mph.
4) Set up extra towel and foot basin in transition area to clean off feet.
5) Use bodyglide on feet to help get wetsuit off faster. Must practice this more. Don't want to fall over again. Highly embarassing.

This morning I set off at 4:40 to head off to the AFC half marathon in downtown San Diego. If you're thinking about doing it next year, disregard the statement about the last bus leaving for the start at 6AM. That's not true. However, be aware that the traffic on the 163 is pretty bad. It took me 45 minutes to go a grand total of 2 miles to the parking area. The race itself was a lot of fun. There was approximately 6000 runners. Being a late arrival, I literally started at the very back. Unfortunately, I had to run through the entire field as I got started. But that was good in that it forced me to start off at a slower pace.

Initially I was worried that my legs were going to give out due to being tired from the triathlon the day before. So I started out at an 8:30 pace my first two miles. My initial plan was to eventually speed up to a 7:30 pace and hold it there. But I got caught up in the moment (it's so fun passing people!) and to my surprise, my legs kept feeling better and better as the race went on. So I just went with it and trusted that they wouldn't fail me. I averaged 7-7:30 for miles 4-7 and 6:30-7:00 the last 5 miles. The hardest part by far was the hill at mile 12. By the time I got to the top of it, I was genuinely gasping for air. It was very similar to how I felt after the swim yesterday. But luckily it was just a short coast into the park from that point. I ended up with a time of 1:37:15 which was good for 47th out of 406 in my age group. I feel pretty good about my performance in the race. I can't keep but wondering how I would have done if I wouldn't have run a triathlon the day before.
As for lessons learned from the half marathon, the big one is that I obviously didn't push it enough in the triathlon. If I would have truly been pushing my limits on the bike and in the run, I wouldn't have been able to run as fast in the half marathon. What I need to do in my next triathlon is to dig down, push through the pain, and go harder. Maybe my next brick workout goal should be to push myself until I find that limit where my body gives out.

Triathlon Update: Is There Such a Thing As An Easy Butterfly?

Every week, one of my triathlon teammates Emily sends out a couple of swim workouts. When we started out, they were entirely freestyle. I like freestyle. Freestyle is easy and its fast. However as the season has gone on, she's increasingly mixed in a stroke of our own choice in some of the sets.

Normally, it would be no question and I'd choose the backstroke. However, I normally workout at the USD pool over lunch (outside with the sun overhead) and am almost completed blinded by the sun whenever I try the backstroke. The other problem with doing the backstroke at USD is that they only have the flags at the end of the pool on one side. For those of you who aren't swimmers, the flags let you know when you're approaching the wall on the other side of the pool. I realized that one day when I was moving along at a nice pace and my head hit concrete. So there you have it, two reasons not to do backstroke over lunch at USD.

I could also do the breastroke. However, the breastroke is just so slow. I'm normally in a hurry to get in my workout over lunch and don't want to waste any time. So that leaves me with one other stroke...butterfly. It is fast. However, everytime I do it, it feels like I'm in an all out sprint. I'm fighting just to finish 25 yards. More often than not, my last few strokes look more like an impersonation of a dying whale than someone actually doing the butterfly. I actually kind of like it....yes I'm into putting myself through excruciating pain. I just wish that it would be possible to do the fly at something less than 100% effort. I look forward to the day when I can joke about doing a 50 fly cool down. My question for the day, is there such a thing as an easy butterfly?

Competition: Against the Clock or Your Competition?

This morning I saw a comment that did get me thinking some more about competition. Like I said before, I definitely am motivated by those I'm competing against. But I do also compete against certain benchmarks (the clock in the case of Saturday's time trial) to see if I'm doing well when compared with previous performances. In the case of Saturday, I did see a big improvement. In June we did a 20k time trial that I finished in ~40 minutes for an average speed of 18 mph. On Saturday, I completed 40k in just over 1 hour and 10 minutes for an average speed of 21 mph. So that was a big improvement. I should be happy. But psychologically, I saw my battle against the clock and my battle against the other riders as two seperate races. I could be glad that I had improved. But I wasn't going to be satisfied unless I at least caught up with the two riders in front of me (one being our 60 year old coach) going into our last lap.

Competition

I have to admit that I've really caught the triathlon bug and hope to continue with it next year following ski season. Earlier, I wrote about my addiction to endorphins. However the high from an endorphin rush is not the only reason I've been having such a good time with triathlon training. This other reason has been simmering in my brain the last few weeks. Quite simply, I love competing against other people.

In races, you are either the rabbit or you're chasing the rabbit. If you're the rabbit, you want to work as hard as you can to keep the others from passing you. I know this sounds incredibly unfriendly. But the best part of being the rabbit is when you break the people chasing you. At the moment, I look back and see the look in their eyes that they can't catch me, I feel an instantaneous sense of joy. Although we weren't racing, this is the same feeling I had when going on ski tours and pushing the pace to the point where others would never be able to catch me. (Yes, I realize that this isn't exactly safe in the backcountry and only did it during extremely conditions where everyone knew where they were going.)

While being the rabbit brings a moment of euphoria if you win, I feel that the greater pleasure (and pain) comes from chasing the rabbit. On our triathlon team, I've established a pretty competition with a girl named Cassie. On Saturday, we had a 40k time trial. Although I started out ahead, she passed me by the end of lap two and due to a series of mistakes I was still far behind going into the final lap. I don't know what came over me, but somewhere inside I found a ton of untapped energy, was able to increase my speed by a few mph, and passed her with 1/3 of a lap to go. Although she ended up beating me by 30 seconds in the actual time trial, it was an awesome feeling to have caught up to her, passed her, and opened up a comfortable lead. It's the pleasure of setting a goal, executing a plan, and seeing it succeed.

Even though I'm talking about competition, I'm not going to talk about losing because losing sucks. The only good thing about it is that it provides you with motivation either to stay ahead (if you're the rabbit) or to catch up (if you're chasing the rabbit).

Triathlon Update: Iron Mt and More

I'm too lazy to write a whole update for my training over the last two weeks. So here's a copy of the most recent update email I just sent out to friends. For those of you who are new to my page, I am training for a triathlon with Team in Training which raises money for Leukemia and Lymphoma Research as well as patient services. My goal is to raise $5000 by August 18th. It's a great cause. If you'd like to make a donation, you can visit my fundraising website at: http://www.active.com/donate/tntsdh/leister



Everyone,

Hello, I hope you all are doing well. The triathlon training continues to go well. Thankfully, it has cooled off considerably over the last 2 weeks here in San Diego. That's made the training much more pleasant. There's still a lot of pain involved, it's just that the risk of passing out from heat stroke has come down a bit..

My workouts continue to go well. Last consisted of a fun 20 miles running (can't believe my knees aren't hurting yet), 85 miles biking, and 4 miles swimming. As I said before, I feel pretty good on the run. I just need to get a little faster on the bike. This past weekend, we completed the Iron Mt brick workout, which is the most difficult workout we will do all season. We met up at 6:30 AM on Saturday. Yes, I am aware that I said 6:30 AM and Saturday in the same sentence. Unfortunately, in the interest of getting the workouts in before it gets too warm, triathlon training involves a lot of early mornings on the weekend and giving up late nights. (I promise to make up the late nights once the race is finished!) The bike portion of the workout consisted of a hilly 29 mile ride. The fun part was a twisty turny section where we reached speeds of 45 miles per hour. Unfortunately, on a bike, what goes down, must come back up. So the last 9 miles was pretty much one continuous hill climb and it was pretty painful. Being a brick workout, as soon as we got off the bike, we threw on our running shoes and ran up a mountain (3 miles up, 3 miles back). As we ran up, we ran past lots of hikers who looked at us like we were absolutely crazy. When I think about it, we must be a bit crazy for beating up our bodies like that.

I feel pretty confident in that as much pain as I was in, I was able to stay at the front of the pack and never ran out of gas. One of the biggest things our coach talks to us about is "fuel". Fuel is triathlon speak for food. It surprised me how much we're really supposed to be eating throughout the workout. For example on this workout, I ate 3 Guu Energy Gels (by far the tastiest gels) and one Lara Bar (pricey, but very tasty energy bar) and drank 80 oz. of water.

Upcoming Events: Just to get some of my race butterflies out of my system, I decided 2 weeks ago to enter the Camp Pendleton Sprint Triathlon on Saturday August 19th. I'm pretty excited as this will give me the first opportunity to practice my transitions (going from swimming to bike and bike to run) in a race envrironment. The transitions are key because its time that you can make up (or lose) without expending a lot of energy. It makes know difference if you have a killer swim if it takes you an extra 2 minutes to get out of your wetsuit and onto your bike. Additionally, it will give me an idea of how I stand competitively. I previously said that I was aiming to be in the top 10% of my age group. Looking at last years results it means I'll have to finish around 2 hours 20 minutes. That might be pushing it. In my efforts to meet my goal, I swear that I won't resort to any "Landis" like tactics. (Not all San Diego residents are dopers.) Me being the type who finds it hard to say no to any athletic challenge, I've also pretty much decided on entering the "AFC San Diego Half Marathon" the following day, Sunday August 20th. It'll be a good base building run and a few of my teammates are already doing it.

On the fundraising side, I'd like to thank all of you who have contributed an awesome $800 over the last 2 weeks and $3155 total. You are all awesome! Last weekend, I set up a bike trainer in downtown San Diego for 3 hours and asked for donations from the people walking by. All in all, it was a great experience. I was literally set up right next to the bums on 4th and Broadway. (The bums know all best places to beg for money!) I ended up raising $131 while getting in an easy 45 miles in. The memorable part was the people I met. Some of the bums were certifably insane. The two best were JFK's personal lawyer and the guy who tried to sell me steroid enhanced orange juice. (formerly Lance Armstrong's smoothie specialist) But I also met a number of people who were cancer survivors. The most memorable was a family with a 7 year old daughter who had been suffering from Leukemia and just went into remission. As you all know I'm not one to normally show much emotion, but meeting her almost brought me to tears (while I was pedaling away) and really reminded of why we are out here. Its not just to do a triathlon. We're trying to save lives. The donations that all of you give are helping to save lives and improve the lives of families whose loved ones have leukemia or lymphoma. Without all of the scientific progress that we have made over the last 30 years, she probably would not be alive today.

As I've said before, I have committed to raising at least $4000 and I would still love to have your support. My fundraising deadline is August 18th. (At that point, I'll be making a personal donation to make up for whatever I am short of my committment. If you would like to donate, you can visit my fundraising website at: http://www.active.com/donate/tntsdh/leister. Take care and I hope all of you are doing well.

Doug

More Thoughts on Why We Love Gear

As I was on a bike ride yesterday trying to rationalize why it was absolutely necessary for me to shell out $120 for a heart rate monitor, I inevitably came back to pondering my last entry when I put it out there that men love shopping just as much as women do. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I needed to clarify my thoughts a little more.

First, why is it that it's so much fun to buy gear? The way I see it, gear is the adult version of toys. While it may help professional athletes perform better and earn more money, for the rest of us, it just helps us to play our games better and to one up our friends. Just as getting a supersoaker squirt gun instantly made you a force to be reckoned with in the neighborhood squirt gun battles when you were 9 years old, the $5000 carbon fiber road bike gives you that much more of an edge over the other guys you ride with.

Second, I think the reason that the belief persists that men don't like shopping is that we really don't like the act of shopping. We like spending the money for the new gear. But whereas women will spend an entire day shopping for one shirt, we like to make each shopping trip a quick in and out mission. We research what we want to get, find it, and buy it. We don't try on 30 other jackets or go to 10 other stores to see if we can save $5. Generally, we don't just go to REI just for the sake of seeing if there's anything we're interested in. If we're going to go, its for the purpose of buying one specific thing that we've decided on before we get there.

Women Love Gucci, Men Love Gear

We men are always bitching about women and their shopping. We are flabergasted at how they could spend so much money on shoes and handbags. But I have to admit that the truth is, we men are just as bad. Women's weakness is clothes where as ours is gear. I have to admit that I am very fond of it. I'm in to my hobbies (skiing, bicycling, travelling, etc) and I love buying all the gadgets that go along with it. I often tell my friends that the quality of your bike or your skis only makes a small difference as to how good you actually are. I firmly believe that. However, I still enjoy splurging and treating myself to a new sleeping bag or pair of gloves. Last year was a particular good year as I was updating my alpine ski gear for the first time in 7 years and just buying all of my backcountry gear for the first time. November's credit card bill was absolutely horrific. It's looking like this year is going to be a little easier on my mastercard. The past few weeks have been especially fun as I took advantage of the Sierra Trading Posts' 20th anniversary sale and got some black diamond gloves for $19 and a Sierra Designs Down Jacket for $55. The biggest items I plan on buying this season include a new fleece jacket, GPS device, and altimeter.

Triathlon Update: I love Endorphins

The triathlon training continues to go well with the last 2 weeks being especially good. This is an excerpt from my last update email:

In my last email, I mentioned that I had been having some foot problems. The truth is, I had those foot problems at the same time that my bike broke. So me being the semi-autistic workout fanatic that I am, I did somewhat get out of my workout routine and dropped down to 3 workouts a week for about two weeks. This also coincided with a 2 week period in which I was just in a bad mood. Over the last 2 weeks, I really started ramping up my workouts again and my spirits coincidentally started improving. Then last Wednesday morning as I was riding up a very steep, painful hill going from LaJolla Shores to Torrey Pines, I was hit with a sudden wave of ecstasy at the same time that my legs were telling me they had had enough. So what caused this ecstasy out of pain? I have two competing theories. One, I realized while going up that hill that it was less than 5 months from the theoretical start of ski season. (Yes, I admit that I am a complete ski dork!) Second, I think that I am addicted to the endorphins that go through your body when you're working out. That endorphin rush I got while going up the hill gave me the extra oomph to power me through the last 25 miles and put me in a great mood for the rest of the day. So after I'm done this triathlon, I might have to find another race to train for in order to maintain my sanity.

At this point, I know that I'll be able to finish the race. As I enter the last half of my training, my goal is to do well. I know that I won't win it. But I want to finish in the top 10% of my age group. This weekend, we had a bunch of great workouts. Friday night, we did a 2.5 mile ocean swim at LaJolla shores. In regards to my last update email, I just want to let you know that I was using sarcasm when I said that I was going to lube my black wetsuit with seal oil just to give the swim an added thrill. I'm not that stupid. On Saturday, we did a great workout riding from Lake Hodges to Solana Beach and back. It was a very hill ride and it was hot...damn hot. I'm not sure if it was Africa hot...but it was pretty close. On the way back, the thermometer registered 115F in the sun and a cool 107F in the shade. And as soon as we got off the bikes, we went for a 5 mile run. Luckily I stayed hydrated pretty well. But some of the people who were out there longer got pretty dehydrated and were shivering uncontrollably. Today I did a bit of surfing in the afternoon and then went for a 7 mile run this evening.

Now I'll share a couple of my lessons learned with you:
1) The Energy Gu's are great. When I'm on the bike, I now prefer those over the power/lara/cliff bars. That being said, all gu's are not made the same. Avoid the cliff bar gu's at all costs. They are absolutely the worst! The raspberry gave me flashbacks to the fluoride treatments I used to get at the dentists when I was a kid.
2) It's as important to poor water over your head as it is to drink it. I know what you're thinking. But I never used to do it to. But when it's hot, you can totally feel the difference in your body when you squirt a bunch of cool water into your bike helmet. Even better is to put ice cubes into your hat when you're running. It basically just cools down your body and keeps it from overheating.
3) Don't go cheap when it comes to bike repair. I had to replace my rear derailleur last November. I took it Performance (big box nationwide chain bike shop) to get fixed. They ended up putting a derailleur that was incompatible with my bike. (2 chainring derailleur when I have a triple) So when I got sick of my derailleur and my tri coach said that they had sold me the wrong part, I took it to another big bike shop (bike warehouse) to get fixed. At first they did a great job and they even cleaned up my bike. However after 2 weeks, I noticed that they must not have relubed my chain after they cleaned it off because it was covered in rust. Lesson learned is to take your bike to the small shop that can you better service even it costs a bit more.
4) Hamburgers, wings, fries, and beer are not appropriate to eat before going for a run. If you are going to eat them, 1 1/2 hours is not enough to let them digest before attempting said run. That's what I had for an early dinner tonight after surfing. I felt like I was about to vomit the entire second half of the run. So don't do what I did.

I'd like to thank all of you who have donated an awesome $2925 over the last 2 months. You guys are all awesome. Two weeks ago was our recommittment weekend where I recommitted to raising a minimum of $4,000 by August 18th. As part of that recommittment, I have promised to make up the difference between what I raise and the fundraising minimum. So for those of you who haven't donated, I would really love to have your support.
http://www.active.com/donate/tntsdh/leister If you're already thinking about making a donation, I just ask that you make it before August 15th if at all possible so I can minimize the damage on my credit card.

Triathlon Update: Suck it Up!

The last time I wrote, I was complaining about my elbows and I wasn't sure if I was imagining it. The pain seemed to be moving around. It seemed to be moving around between my forearm and my tricep and everywhere in between. Finally, last Wednesday, I had enough. I told myself that I really must be imagining it and decided to go swimming the next day. Although my elbows felt a little tight afterwards, on the whole they were fine. I ended up swimming 1700 yds that day and am now back into the routine. So the lesson learned is, if it feels like your mind is playing tricks on you, it probably is. So just suck it up and deal with it!

On Saturday at our team bike practice, Lisa and Sara, two of my teammates, told us a story of their friend Rita who had recently died from Leukemia. Both of them joined Team in Training shortly after Rita was diagnosed. She was an honored teammate for several seasons and used to cheer on the team during practices. They told us that whenever they feel like they can't climb another hill, swim another lap, or run another mile, they tell themselves to do one more for Rita. I found that pretty motivating and used it get myself to do one more climb up Mt Soledad on Sunday.

My totals for last week were: biking 91 miles, running: 10.5 miles, swimming: 1700 yds.

Moving on to another topic near and dear to me, I'd like to talk about the world cup. The TV coverage this year has been great. The fact that every game is being broadcast this year shows just how far soccer has come in this country. Also surprising has been just how great the turnout has been to watch the games at the local San Diego bars. I never would have guessed that I wouldn't be able to get into a bar to watch a soccer game due to the bar being at max capacity. Like everyone, I was pretty disgusted by the US performance against the Czech Republic. But I've got to give them a big hand for the spirited effort they showed against Italy.