Friday, June 20, 2008

YouTube - Bill Carlson, World's First Diabetic Ironman

YouTube - Bill Carlson, World's First Diabetic Ironman
ABC Wide World of Sports telecast 1983 Hawaiian Ironman Triathlon
with Terry Blair and Al Michaels, 8 minutes

YouTube - Triabetes Promo 2

YouTube - Triabetes Promo 2
Three minute trailer overview of the Triabetes Documentray Project,
Andiamo Productions, Spring, 2008

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Wildflower Triathlon, May 3, 2008

Stage Place was Lake San Antonio outside of Paso Robles in Central California. I have raced this event many times and one year came in 5th overall, back in the old days. This year would definitely be different due to unanticipated fatique from the prvious weekend at the La Jolla 1/2 Marathon.

Stayed with Anne Findley and her Tri-friends from San Francisco and Peter Nerothin from the Insulindependence Headquarters. The camping was cool with thousands of very fit campers, great food all over the place, and good sleep brought on with my new Thermorest pad in the tent.

Woke the morninng of the race with good blood sugar value 100. Race start wasn't until 8:00am so I had to time the food intake and insulin correctly. I have it worked out that I eat 50 minutes before the event and take 4 units of regular in a none weight bearing muscle structure like the abdomen.

Swim was all over the place with my direction going L and R, back and forth. I just could not get on the right set of toes to pull me straight through the swim course. 30 min swim. Once finally in I had a fast transition and left the transition area with none other than an old buddy of mine Dean Harper who I raced with in the early and mid 1980's. Now that his his kids have grown up abit and the law practice is going well he is back at the Tri-scene again for the last 8 years. Dean is still an awesome athlete as he was in the 1980's.

Once on the bike for 10 miles, I could feel last weekend's effort in my legs; fatique--yuck! Those legs were stale and the mojo was no-mo. 56 mile ride went pretty slow, 2:52. The wind was not too bad. The air was quite dry like where I live and the replacement water at aid stations on the course was sparse. Dehydration was the theme for the day.

The run 13.1 mile was 1:57, quite slow considering I had just had a training 1/2 marathon of 1:36 the weekend before. Total 5:24, 18th /300 age groupers, and I was way back from the leaders in my group. Shucks, 22 years ago at this race I performed an hour faster on the same course.

There is an art to training hard and resting correctly before one of these big races. I just feel this fire inside me that says just go fast, on the steeps, and long. It is hard to relearn those basic principles of resting well before a big effort. Hopefully I will be able to control myself a little better for other big efforts I make later this year. Training races are different, just train/race right through them.

Once finished the blood was low, 69 mg/dl, and I really didn't realize it. The heat on the run surely played a few tricks on my senses. I should take a meter with me on those long runs even though I feel like I have a handle on the sense of LBS.

It's fun to be in great shape again. Cheers, BC