2013 Half Full Triathlon: Relay Bike Race Report

I had already discovered that triathlons are pretty fun when you only do two of the three disciplines; I can't run but have done lots of relays where I swam and biked.  Yesterday I found out that just doing one leg might be even better.  For the first time at a triathlon I was signed up to just do the bike leg of a relay thanks to an invite from the AFC list searching for a biker. 

Due to the way the relay came together, I met my teammates for the first time race morning.  They both seemed really nice and not surprisingly there was a bit of gentle probing about whether we would be competitive or not.  No one was taking it too seriously, but it would be fun to place and seemed possible.  I thought our biggest competition was likely to come from the relay parked next to ours that had a super nice bike (Scott Plazma w/ full DI2, Zipp disc, etc) and a biker that had recently done well at Savageman and was prepping for IM Florida.  I also saw my triathlete pro buddy Suzzy Serpico who was doing the run for a relay as a quasi-training day (also getting ready for IM Florida) and we assumed their team would be fast too.  So at the start, we mentally slotted our team as contending for third place.

One reason I hadn't already signed up to do Half Full by the time I got the relay invite was that last year was cold and a bit miserable.  I wasn't sure I wanted to go through that again.  It turned out that this year couldn't have been more different.  From my perspective the weather was perfect at about 70 degrees and mostly sunny for my ride (it was probably a bit hot for our runner).  I remember last year wearing a pretty heavy jacket, knit hat and gloves as I setup my gear in the morning.  This year I was in light summer clothes.  With just my bike to setup, it was pretty relaxed as I just put on a water bottle, checked tire pressure and was all set to go.  We had a bit of a wait as our team's starting wave was last, but it seemed to go fairly quickly and soon enough our swimmer was in the water and we were walking back to transition to get ready to go

As we were waiting, I got a nice little surprise and saw my family (including our new puppy) come up to the edge of transition to say hello.  The one weird part of the relay was the wait.  Even though our swimmer was pretty much spot on for her predicted time, the waiting was a little nerve-racking.  Our transition went fine and I was relieved to finally get on the road.  I was also excited by how good I felt at the beginning.  Normally in a triathlon at this point I have just swam pretty hard and trying to bike after feels weird and difficult.  This was totally different; if anything I had to restrain myself since I knew it was a long hard 53 miles ahead of me (the course is advertised as 56, but is actually 53). 

The only thing that seemed to be wrong was that my power meter wasn't registering.  I looked down and noticed that the little magnet on the frame had gotten jostled to a different position and so it wasn't picking up.  So much for the test ride pre-checkin where everything worked perfectly!  This wasn't a huge tragedy, but did mean that I would need to pace myself by feel instead of by checking my watts.  The super nice bike guy had left a minute or two before I did, so I was pretty surprised to pass by him on the first climb up Homewood road less than 10 minutes into the ride.  I hoped I wasn't going out too hard and feared that he might pass back later.  I had the first sign that I was going faster than expected at the 10 mile point.  I had told my wife my guess at splits at that point on the course since you pass it four times and would thus be a good place to try to watch.  I had told her to expect me the first time at about :30.  I hit it at about :25.  I still felt in control of my pace, so I chose not to adjust my effort, just keeping it steady and comfortable.  The first lap of the course was really fun; there were tons of riders for both the half distance and the simultaneous Olympic distance on the course.  I find seeing, passing and routing for so many riders to be a blast.  I finished the first lap and the half way point, looked at my time and was shocked to see 1:07.  I had told my team mates to expect about 2:30 since a previous year on this course I had done 2:29 or so.  In transition, one volunteer came up to me and seeing my full on serious looking kit (awesome AFC skin suit, aero helmet, etc) jokingly said, "What are you going to do, a 2:15?"  I laughed that off and said "Not on this course!".  Naturally at the halfway point I'm starting to wonder if 2:15 might actually be realistic.  At that point I was also worried that I might have massively screwed up my pacing.  I felt fine, but it didn't seem realistic. 

On the second lap I spent a little extra time at the crest of each climb making sure to drink to hopefully avoid cramping or bonking.  The field also got a lot sparser, which sapped the fun and motivation a bit.  Almost all of the Oly riders were off the course by that point and I was starting to reach the front of the field of the Half race.  Fortunately, each time I thought that I had been solo for a long time, I would catch another glimpse of a rider up the road and concentrate on trying to catch them.  I managed to maintain a pretty similar pace for the second lap and with about 10 miles left to go, I was pretty sure I was going to be able to maintain the effort.  Naturally I was mentally calculating just what I needed to do to hit 2:15 and thought it looked borderline possible.  After a final hard effort down Rt 108, I turned into the finish and saw my bike computer reading 2:15:xx and an average speed just under 24 mph.  I realized I was going to potentially surprise my runner quite a bit, so came into transition screaming pretty loudly hoping to get her attention.  After a slight delay she came up, grabbed the timing chip from my leg and ran off.  I was happy to see that I was the first relay biker in to transition and the waiting began to see how big a lead we had.  About 10 minutes after I came in, the second team arrived, so we were predicting it might be quite close for first place.

I'm not quite sure what to attribute my unexpected time.  I usually am able to predict my time pretty accurately, but off by 15 minutes seemed huge.  It certainly helped to not have to swim first.  It also helped that the weather conditions were ideal.  I also have spent the summer doing significantly more volume riding (at the expense of not swimming).  I didn't feel faster during that time, but this may have been the payoff of that increased volume.  Or maybe it was the new AFC skin suit :)

After my leg of the race, I chatted with our swimmer for a bit and then met up with my family and another family friend who did the Oly race as his first triathlon.  I walked my kids back to their car, returned to the finish line and then when my team's runner finished (at almost exactly her predicted time) we ran in to the finish as a team.  After finishing, we checked the results and at least at the time it looked like we ended up first of the 21 relays.  Due to other commitments (two kid soccer games), I wasn't able to stick around for the official results and the award ceremony.  Hopefully those initial results held up and we ended up winning.  Regardless of the overall result, I had a great race and really enjoyed myself.  I just hope that if I race again next year the conditions are this nice.

For the Strava nerds, here is the activity: http://www.strava.com/activities/87349390

Highway to Heaven 2013

Last Saturday I did my first race since June, competing in the Highway to Heaven hill climb.  This race is a .8 mile time trial up Illchester road; one of the steepest climbs in the area.  That description makes it sound easy; it is not.  I find I'm as nervous about this race and the pain required to do well as any race I've ever done.  I signed up to race twice, which made me even more nervous.  I raced once as a Cat 5 (the most novice class of bike racer) and once as 35+ (because I'm getting oldish).  I managed to place both times, taking first place in Cat 5 and third place in 35+, getting myself a couple of medals (which my kids love to play with), a nice little bag of goodies and even a small cash prize!

Cat 5: Attempt #1

There isn't a long story to tell about a race that took just a bit over 4 minutes, but there is at least a little story.  A lot of my AFC teammates do Illchester almost weekly as part of a group ride and know the hill well.  I can't usually make that group ride and have only been up Illy a few times this year.  I'm giving that as context for the excuse of poorly pacing my first race.  As you can see in the picture above, you get lined up on the starter block and then off you go.  I went hard up the first steep section and maintained a fairly high effort for the first couple of minutes.  Then the effect of that hard effort started to hit and I struggled to keep going hard.  Looking at my power numbers after, I set a two minute power best for that first two minutes, so it is no surprise I struggled afterward.  The climb has a slight respite toward the end; a flat section before a final uphill section.  It would have been nice to go fast on that section, but I just didn't have the legs for it.  I stood to give one more effort up the last bit of hill, crossed the finish and then found a patch of grass to lie down and recover.  Looking at my Garmin on the way across the finish, I thought I had done it in 4:15ish, but it was 4:18 on the official clock.  I assume the three seconds was the time it took my Garmin to auto-start.  That was a personal best time, but I was a bit disappointed.  I had a reach goal of getting a bit closer to 4 minutes flat.  In the end, my time was enough to win Cat 5.  That isn't necessarily a reflection of it being an amazing time as much as that not that many people signed up for Cat 5.  It was actually pretty hard to find on the sign up page; many guys ended up signing up for Cat 4 at least partially because it stood out better on the sign up page.

35+: Attempt #2

The week before the race, a teammate pointed out that there was only one entry in 35+, so anyone who signed up had a great chance to podium.  I double checked that I was allowed to sign up for 35+ (in group races they don't allow Cat 5s because we are dangerous), and signed up to find that there were actually 6 guys by the time I signed up.  Still, that seemed like ok odds.  How hard could it be to race twice?  I was having second thoughts after my first attempt.

I had a bit over an hour to recuperate between races.  After spending some time chatting with team mates and friends, doing the Cat 5 award ceremony (oops, no picture!), I went back down the hill and did a short warmup ride to try to see how I felt.  I definitely didn't feel fresh; that first effort had taken a lot out of me.  I revised my plan for the second attempt; I would try to pace it much more evenly, taking the first steep section far easier than my first try.  As I lined up for my second try, I hoped that my legs would wake up a bit once I got going.  Fortunately, they did.  I managed to pace things much better the second time; while it was still hard, it wasn't excruciating like the first time.  In the end, I managed to finish in 4:21, just three seconds slower than my first attempt and slightly frustratingly, only one second behind second place.  Again, it is worth noting that coming in 3rd was cool, but had everything to do with it being a limited field.

 

Awesome Video

A friend's blog post had this awesome video from the race.  I'm featured toward the beginning, showing what it looks like to start the race.

 

Musings 
I don't usually get philosophical during my blog posts, but something about this type of race creates a strange and raw mix of emotions.  During and after the race, I felt so many emotions. The euphoria of feeling strong at the start.  The fear of the pain that I knew going my hardest would create.  The doubt and uncertainty about whether I had really given my best effort and preparation; you find yourself wondering if you couldn't have just gritted through it a bit more or done a few more intervals in the weeks leading to the race. Pride that I place well.  Humble when I realize that friends managed to go an amazing 25% faster than I did!  Embarrassment that I might not have lived up to my own and my friends' expectations.  Relief that it was over.  Most activities in my day to day life don't have the ability to generate so many and such strong emotions.  I guess that is why doing this type of race is worth it.

Credits
I foolishly didn't have any photos taken with my own camera, so I'm grateful to NoFilm Photography for the pictures and video that make this post a bit less boring. 

2103 Celebrating Heroes Triathlon: 3rd Place Relay

Yesterday my wife and I raced in the 2013 Celebrating Heroes triathlon as a relay team, placing as the third overall relay team.  As we have done in previous years, I did the swim and bike and she ran.  This was a really fun local race for us; it is really close to home, it is well organized, and we both went into it with a relaxed attitude.  Also, as a shorter distance sprint triathlon, there is less to worry about logistically; our kids wouldn't grow as bored

Race Morning

I had packed up the car with my stuff the night before, so all I had to do on race morning was wake up at 5:45, get in the car and drive the couple of minutes to the race and walk through the park to transition.  By this point I have my transition setup down  and can do it fast and on auto-pilot.  I had almost forgotten how great it is to do a non-wetsuit race, it is so much simpler not having to carry in one more bag with the wetsuit, timing when to put it on and walking around in it (mine is great in the water, but isn't so fun to wear on land). As I setup, I saw a friendly face from my masters swimming; she was doing the swim leg of a relay.  I think I was in a bit of zombie pre-coffee mode and in retrospect was probably not at my friendliest.  Sorry!  I finished up my setup within about 15 minutes, grabbed my iced-coffee in a water bottle a powerbar and walked over to the swim start to eat my breakfast.  I was expecting to take under an hour total for my two legs, so nutrition and hydration weren't going to be a big deal, but I still needed my morning jolt of caffeine.

Swim (16:20)

I used to complain in my blogs that they always put my wave last.  I'm not sure if some race directors read my blog or it is just a coincidence, but in my last few races I've instead started in either one of the first few waves or at least in the middle.  For this race I was happy to get to swim with the majority of the men's field, including my normal age group.  Since relays or aquabike are usually put in some random spot, this was the first time I'd get to swim with my normal peer group.  It would mean a lot more jostling than usual, but also a nice opportunity to see some fast swimmers.  Right before entering the water, I had the pleasant surprise of seeing my wife and kids and taking a quick photo with them.

After my photo, I entered the water last in my wave to get ready to start, so I had to fight a bit to get a front position.  The start was definitely crowded and as expected it was slightly rough.  I felt a bit bad for my female swim friend who had to start with this huge crowd of guys, some of whom are not exactly polite about swimming over you, bumping you, etc.  I managed to escape the start without any issues and started looking for feet to follow.  I was a little surprised to see just how many people seemed to be going really fast, but reminded myself that a big fraction of all the fast swimmers in the race would be in this wave, so I shouldn't expect to be able to hang with the very front guys.  After two races in a row where I had found great feet to follow, I was getting pretty used to the idea of drafting for most of the swim.  But in this race I never really found someone who worked for me; a couple of times I drafted for a little while only to have the person slow down too much whenever they were sighting.  On the plus side, the faster swimmers made a nice splashing path that made following a good line around the course relatively easy.  So I just concentrated on doing my own pace and following as good a line as I could to avoid swimming any extra.  By the end, I had passed a lot of the wave ahead, and had passed a number of swimmers from my wave (you can tell by the cap color) who had presumably started out faster.

Looking at the results, I think I ended up around 17th overall for the swim, but got 2nd in the relay by a big margin.  There was a young woman relayer who I found out swam almost two minutes faster than I did and had close to the fastest time of everyone in the race!  That was an awesome performance.

T1 (1:29)

The other part I love about a non-wetsuit race is how easy it makes transition.  My entire transition consists of jogging to my bike, taking off my cap and goggles (while jogging), putting on my helmet (darn buckle took an extra second), and jogging with my bike to the bike start.  The only challenge in all this is that "jogging" for me is not a great idea; I have to take that very easy and accept that it is going to cost a little time.

Bike (39:33, 24.3 MPH)

I've done this race before and really liked the bike course, it follows a bunch of roads near my house that I regularly ride on.  However, I found out much to my surprise (should have read the race emails more carefully) the week before the race that they were using a different course this year.  It also goes on familiar roads, but in the opposite direction that I usually go on those roads.  While it isn't a huge deal, knowing the course well is a distinct advantage; you know how to pace various hills depending on whether you can recover on a downhill after, etc.  I did a little recon the Friday before the race and got at least a general idea of the course and what kind of a time I might expect to do.  I figured under 40 minutes was about right.

Unlike some races, I felt pretty good at the start of the bike.  I guess my swim fitness must be coming back a bit.  I managed to get my feet into my shoes within the first couple of minutes and was ready to go.  The most interesting thing to me about the bike leg was the progression of bikes I passed as the race went on.  During the early miles, I was mostly passing people on regular road bikes.  As the miles ticked on, the bike got progressively more fancy till by the end of the ride I was only seeing people on TT bikes with high end race wheels, etc.  I also had the fun of passing one of my local buddies on one of the steeper climbs on the course, giving plenty of time to give him my version of "the look" as I passed. Overall, this was a pretty fun course although I still think I like the old course better.  While there are not a lot of big climbs, there are a surprisingly large number of fast downhill sections; I think I hit 35+ mph half a dozen or more times on descents.  By the end of the ride, the course joined on to familiar territory and I knew based on my time to that point that I should beat my 40 minute goal time and just concentrated on keeping a good effort all the way into the finish.  

Looking at the results after the race, my bike split placed 4th overall, with the three overall race winners all beating my bike split time.  I recognized the name of each of those three guys from previous races and was by no means disappointed to be behind any of them.  Unlike some other longer races where it is quite unfair to compare my bike split against guys who do the whole race and are saving energy for the run, in a sprint these top guys can go very close to all out the entire time, making the comparison a bit more fair.

T2 (:27)

The bike to run relay transition was easy.  Transition was pretty empty when I got there, so it was easy to spot my wife waiting for me.  We handed off the timing chip and she ran off.  I was a bit disappointed to discover another bike already racked right next to mine; I had been hoping to give my wife a bit of a lead on the run.  After chatting with the young man who owned the bike, I realized he trained with one of my biking buddies, so at least we were losing to friends.  His relay partner was the woman who crushed the swim, and they had another fast young man doing their run, so I had no delusions that we were competing for anything other than 2nd place at that point.

Run/Kid Wrangling (33:41)

My wife brought my kids to the race, but obviously couldn't watch them while we transitioned.  A good friend who's husband was doing the race volunteered to watch our kids during the small window when my wife would wait for me in transition and before I could come out of transition to start watching them myself.  I was happy to not have to hunt for them when they showed up at the edge of the transition area and we exchanged hugs.  I quickly packed up my stuff and got changed into street clothes so that we could walk over to the finish line to cheer my wife at the finish.

We got to the finish in time to watch the top overall winners finish and as expected watched the first place relay team fly by.  There was then the slightly nervous wait as we watched for any other big numbers (the relays were all 3000+ numbers).  The kids whiled the time away playing at the edge of the lake.  Apart from worrying about where we placed, I was worried that my wife would hurt herself.  In the last race we did together, she hurt her knee and limped painfully to the finish.  I really didn't want to see that again.  I spotted her coming over the hill and immediately started trying to catch her on film and cheer her on.  Without realizing it at the time, I captured this great shot showing her being passed by the 2nd place relay team within sight of the finish line!  Much to my relief she did not re-injure herself, although she admitted she had to take it a bit easy to prevent her knee from hurting.  I suppose that may have cost us second place, but is a compromise I'm very relieved to hear she took!

2013 Eagleman Aquabike: Almost Perfect till I Pulled a "Lightning McQueen"

Here's the scene from yesterday.  I'm a bit under a mile away from the finish line for the 2013 Eagleman Aquabike.  I've been leading for about the last 40 miles and haven't seen anyone apart from riders going the other way for 10 to 15 miles and haven't seen any hint of anyone behind me when seemingly out of nowhere a guy blows past.  I try to respond and manage to keep the gap from growing too big.  On the home stretch I try to get up out of the saddle, but I have nothing.  I watch from about 10 feet back as my fellow competitor crosses the line first, breaking the ribbon and gets congratulated on first place.  I slog myself through the muddy finish line, coming in second by 11 seconds after almost three hours of racing and collapse in a heap on the ground to rest.  As I'm lying there all I can think is that I was so close to having a perfect day and somehow it slipped through my fingers...

Driving home from the race, I told my kids that I took a gamble and lost, much like Lightning McQueen in the first race of the movie "Cars" that they are very familiar with.  Just like Lightning kept refusing new tires at pit stops, I kept refusing to take on hydration at the water exchanges.  And just like Lightning almost made in to the finish line before his tires blew and almost limped in to win even after that, I almost made it.  Still, I can't help thinking that I should have been a lot smarter than a kids cartoon car who is the example of racing stupidly!  This one may sting for a while, especially since I made a mental error to lose this race the last time I did it in 2011 by a similarly slim 12 seconds.

Setup for a Perfect Day

The night before the race I was really excited about this race.  The weather conditions were shaping up to be ideal.  The water temperature was comfortably in wetsuit legal range so that I didn't have to prepare for two different contingencies.  Race morning was forecast to be high 60s to mid 70s be mid morning with light winds.  On a flat course like Eagleman it was ideal conditions for a fast race.  Finally, the race organizers put the Aquabike wave right at the beginning in the wave immediately after the pro waves.  That would mean instead of having to fight through crowds on the bike I would get a wide open course with the potential of tracking down a few of the back of the pack pro women.  The timing on race morning was ideal.  After my family dropped me off, I walked to transition, setup my bike in transition, made my way over to the bathroom line, put my wetsuit on and walked over to the swim start just in time to see my family and get in the water.  No time wasted, no need to wait around.  It was great.

Swim: 32:22

As we waited between the start buoys, it was evident the swim was going to be a bit longer than average.  Whenever you would start to tread water, you would notice that the current was slowly pulling you back away from the start.  The course is shaped with a long outbound leg and then a short inbound leg bringing you back to a different spot, this meant we would be fighting the current for most of the swim.  As the swim started, I tried to find a comfortable pace and a group to latch onto.  I found myself with a pack of four or five who all seemed to be doing about the same pace and latched myself on to the back.  After a few minutes and a couple of buoys, I settled into a comfortable third slot behind two other guys.  We swam the entire outbound leg to the first turn buoy that way and I was feeling good about my positioning and strategy so far.  A bit after we turned, things broke up a bit and I ended up having to find some new feet, bridging a small gap to a guy going at a slightly faster clip.  That worked well until the next turn where he started breast stroking while trying to find the next buoy to swim toward.  At that point I swam past him and found myself swimming solo for a bit.  I could see a swim cap about 10-15 yards away and a few more beyond that and put in a little bit of effort to see if I could bridge that gap.  After seeing that I wasn't making up ground fast enough, I just tried to find my own pace and a good line back to the swim finish.  Toward the very end of the swim, a couple guys who I assume were on my feet started to come around and I latched on one last time to get pulled into the swim finish.  While the weather on race day was perfect, it had rained a lot the days before, so the transition area was a wet muddy sloppy mess.  Given that, my plan was to walk or very slowly jog in transition to avoid problems.  This gave me a bit more time to spot my family and have my wife yell out that there were five or six guys ahead of me so that I would know how much ground I needed to make up on the bike.

T1: 1:52

My transition from swim to bike went smoothly if not lightning fast.  I walked or gently jogged through the slog and found my bike without any problems.  I had to sit to take off my wetsuit and took a moment to chat with a fellow competitor who came out right with me.  After putting my helmet on and grabbing my bike I trotted off to the bike start.

Bike: 2:17:58

I had high hopes and expectations for my bike at Eagleman.  I had done a lot of preparation and felt like I was in great shape with my equipment and physically.  The weather as we started was perfect, a bit overcast and probably low 70s with no significant wind.  I was expecting that I would ride a time significantly faster than my time from two years ago and had vague hopes of averaging 25+ mph.  That all seemed to be coming true for most of the race.  I knew from what my wife told me after the swim that there were probably just a half dozen or so guys from my wave in front.  As I mentioned previously, ahead of them by ten minutes or so would be the pro women and then the pro men.  This meant that in sharp contrast to previous years when I probably passed 500 people on the bike, I would be lucky to see ten.  As I settled in to the bike, I concentrated on keeping a good aero position and putting out power numbers that I thought I could sustain.  Whenever I looked down at my cycling computer it would show 24-26 mph which seemed right on target.  By 15 miles in to the ride, I had comfortably passed all the guys in my Aquabike wave and was still feeling great.  By around the halfway point, I caught and passed the first pro female and noted that I was just about on target for hitting my 25 mph goal.  

Let me take a brief break from the narrative to discuss nutrition/hydration.  My plan at Eagleman in 2011 was to ride with one bottle of gatorade and to exchange at the on course support stations (I think there are three or four).  In 2011 that worked fine and nutrition was not a major issue despite it being a fairly warm day.  This year I had the same rough plan, but for some reason I convinced myself that I was doing fine without any exchanges.  I was figuring that I had been plenty hydrated at the beginning of the race and that it wasn't that hot.  I've done plenty of two hour plus rides this year where all I drank was a single water bottle.  So I went the entire race waving off the support station staff.  In retrospect, I can't believe I didn't just go with my original plan.  I could have just grabbed a water or gatorade, drank some and thrown it away without exchanging at no risk/overhead, but I guess I wasn't thinking straight.

Miles 25 to 45 or so were still going pretty well, although in retrospect, I think I was starting to feel the effect of dehydration.  By that point, I had passed a few more pro women and was trying to talk myself into upping or at least maintaining the pace for just 10 more miles.  The only eventful bit was when I noticed as the course turned that a pro that I had passed a couple minutes before and had assumed was long gone was sitting about two or three bike lengths back.  I don't know how long she had been there or how close she had been, but I yelled at her to get off my wheel and tried to up my pace a bit to drop her.  I had a pro women friend in the race up ahead and the last thing I wanted was to drag one of her competitors up to her, especially someone who didn't appear to be following the letter of the rules.  I was happy to see that the next time I checked she was no where to be seen.

The last ten miles was hard both mentally and physically.  My glutes started to hurt, making sitting on my seat quite painful.  This wasn't the usual my saddle is bothering me sort of issue, it was that those muscles were getting very unhappy.  I also started getting some cramps in my right hip flexors.  I suppose I could have seen the signs earlier, but it became obvious over the course of a short span of time that I was suffering from some combination of bad pacing and/or dehydration.  Every time I looked down at my cycling computer, I would see that my speed wasn't what it should be and my wattage output was very low for my perceived level of effort.  I was well past the last aid station, so I knew I had to just try to hold on till the finish.  Still, I figured I could hang on to the lead for the last ten miles.  I might not hit my best time, but I should still win.  It was a bad sign over those last ten miles that I wasn't catching up to racers ahead of me anymore; that was a sure sign that my pace had dropped off substantially. 

As I mentioned in the opening, the pass happened within the last mile or so of the race.  The guy did a good job of making a strong pass and quickly had a big gap.  At that point I didn't see how I had a chance and was kicking myself for blowing it.  I tried to up my pace to match his and managed to keep him in sight.  I knew my family would be waiting to watch me go by on the finish stretch and wanted to look good and show some appreciation for their support by finishing strong.  I managed to stand and give one last effort and narrowed the gap a bit, but it was too little too late and was only enough to give me a great view of him crossing the finish first.  I crossed the line and went to congratulate the winner.  I then collapsed into a pile in the mud and hoped I would be able to get up after.  I could feel my glutes crying out and could see my calves twitching as they were preparing to cramp.  Everyone at the finish was super supportive and congratulated both of us on a great close race.  The winner told me he was shocked when he passed me; I had been flying at the beginning of the race and he assumed he had no chance.  Yup, me too!  

It hurt to be so close to both a win and a well executed race.  But at the end of the day I still had a good time and was grateful to be healthy enough to race and to have my family come support me.  I found out afterward that they had a fun morning at the race and were excited to come back next year and try again!

Columbia Triathlon 2013: 1st Overall Relay!

Today I raced in the 2013 Columbia Triathlon as a relay with my friend James as my pinch runner.  The last two years my wife has been my runner, but after injuring herself last year she decided to opt out.  James graciously volunteered to join me and was a great teammate!  We won first place relay with a finishing time of 2:07:38, with an almost two minute margin over the second place relay team.

Back Surgery Bounce Back

I wrote about my surgery at length in a blog post in January The short summary is that I had my third back surgery in January, this time to deal with a herniated L4/L5 disc and the associated pain and loss of dorsiflection muscle function in my right foot.  I discussed my recovery a bit in an earlier post about a bike race I did last month.  I was able to get on my indoor trainer a few days after surgery for some very light spinning of the legs and very gradually worked back up to 8-10 hours a week of cycling.  The swimming was a bit harder since my surgeon wanted me to stay out of the pool entirely until six weeks after surgery.  Six weeks felt like a long time and it took quite a long time before I started to feel like I was swimming anywhere near the times I swam before the injury.  I was very happy that over the last two weeks I finally started to still feel strong at the end of masters practices instead of feeling like I was dying by the end.  This meant that going into the race I felt fairly good about both my swimming and cycling form despite being just four months post surgery.  I still have some minor impairment in my right foot dorsiflection, but that has continued to improve and no longer is an issue with day to day activities and doesn't seem to impact my swimming or cycling.

For cycling training, I have continued to enjoy group rides on my road bike instead of spending all my time solo on a TT bike.  I ride regularly with a group called TMR that rides early morning year round.  During the winter this involves riding in the dark with lights in temperatures well below freezing.  I credit those guys with toughening me up to deal with just about any conditions!  I've also joined a cycling team, AFC , a group of very positive and inspirational fellow endurance athletes.  Riding with and interacting with other teammates has been a uniformly positive experience.

Equipment Changes

I decided to make a couple of minor equipment changes for this race.  I happened across a really good deal on a new helmet, the Giro Selector, that has an integrated visor.  I'm not 100% sure it is faster, it was not obviously so in my brief field testing, but I liked the idea of a visor since I've had trouble with sunglasses before and it was definitely no slower.  I also thought it looks cooler.  I was also in the market for new race wheels; dealing with tubulars was not something I was enjoying.  So when I came across someone selling a Hed Jet 9 front and Hed Jet disc for a good price I grabbed it.  I think that when I sell my old wheels the net cost will be minimal and the new wheels should both be a bit faster and a whole lot simpler to deal with.  The helmet showed up at the house this Tuesday and the wheels this Wednesday, so I was pushing my luck a little bit with new gear right before a race, but neither seemed like an especially big risk.  The last minor equipment change was to wear my new team's skinsuit instead of my old trisuit.  I was a bit worried that the skinsuit was going to be slower, but when I field tested them it actually tested faster.  With that pleasant surprise, I was all ready to go sporting the dots.

Race Morning

I've lost track a bit, but I think this is around my 10th race at Centennial Park, so I've got the routine down pat.  The only minor change was that I was going to pick up my teammate James, who actually lives even closer to the course than I do.  After some coffee and half a bagel at home, I drove over to James' place at 6am sharp and we got to the park shortly afterward and walked into transition.  The weather forecast had been dreary, 60ish degrees, foggy, with a good chance of light rain.  I then went through the usual process of getting body marked, pumping tires, getting my swim stuff organized, etc.  We took the opportunity to snap a couple of team photos and then headed over to the swim start together at around 6:40.  Unlike many previous years, my wave was not last.  It was scheduled for 7:50, giving us just over an hour to kill.  As is traditional, much of that hour is killed going to the porta potti some unbelievable number of times.

Swim Leg: 22:46

At the swim starting pen, I searched for and quickly found my fish like friend Reg.   I still had vague ambitions of drafting off of him; if I could do that I knew I would be in for a good race.  Reg claimed he wasn't on good form and implied that I would be able to hang with with him today.  Then the race started.  I managed to go with Reg for maybe a minute or two before I felt like I was fighting for his feet with two or three other bigger guys.  Then much to my surprise we started getting hit by a few swells.  This is a calm wind protected lake, so I'd never experienced anything other than pristine flat water here.  I'm not 100% sure about the source of the waves.  I would guess it might have been a boat going to retrieve a struggling swimmer.  This same thing happened a couple more times during the swim.  After being momentarily thrown off (and taking a gulp of water), Reg was gone, but there were plenty of other folks around.  I got a bit lucky and found some feet that seemed to be going at a good pace and who's owner seemed to be doing a good job navigating.  I decided to stick with those feet for a while and ended up swimming almost the entire time in a nice draft.  I'm sure by the end of the swim the guy was sick of me periodically lightly brushing his feet with my hands as I got momentarily too close.  If you are out there reading this, I'm sorry if that got annoying.

My time was about a minute slower than last year.  With an open water swim comparing times year to year can be a bit misleading since the course may be a bit different.  Looking at the overall results, the top few male pros were about a minute slower than their times from last year, so maybe the conditions were a touch harder.  On the other hand, my time would have put me 121st overall in the swim vs around 70th last year, so I probably was a bit slower than last year.  Still, I'm happy that I saved some energy drafting and got a good result in spite of logging significantly less time in the pool this winter and spring compared to last year.

T1: 1:44

I was a touch worried about transition.  Running or even fast walking still feels a bit awkward with my foot issues.  Fortunately, we got a bike rack slot close to the center isle, which made it relatively easy to get to my bike and get going.  As is expected, I felt like crap as I lightly jogged in transition and was impatiently waiting for the blood to get out of my upper body from the swim and get into my legs.  I got the wetsuit off with few problems, got my helmet on and got going.  In the end, my T1 time was only a few seconds off of last year's time, so I guess it went well.  I did notice that my new helmet's cool visor was all fogged up, an issue I had vaguely worried about earlier that morning and then discarded as unlikely to be a problem.  I figured once I got up to speed the wind would clear it up. 

 

Bike: 1:02:53

I get on my bike and within the first few minutes have to resolve three issues.  Issue one is that I feel really tired.  This is largely a mental thing.  I always feel bad at the start of the bike after the swim.  I just need to tell myself to settle in to a good pace and that it will get better and it usually does.  Issue number two is getting my feet into the shoes at speed.  I practiced that a few times during my pre-race ride and pulled it off without trouble.  One difference on race day vs. my practice is that my feet are wet, making it all slightly harder.  I guess I should practice with wet feet sometime.  The third and more persistent issue was the visor fogging.  It was foggy and drizzling the entire bike ride and the wind was not clearing the visor.  I could see, but barely.  It is good that I know this course really well.  I did discover that a few quick strokes of my thumb would give me clarity for 30 seconds or so and made good use of that for the more dangerous sections of the course.  

Apart from the foggy visor, I didn't find the wet roads to be too problematic.  They had been soaked pretty well by the time I rode and my tires seemed to grip the road securely.  A more challenging aspect of the ride was dealing with the other cyclists and cars.  I suspect that the wet roads made people more cautious about riding close together which from my perspective meant that it seemed like people were constantly blocking the road.  I lost track of how many times I screamed "on your left"; it was certainly a lot more than at previous races where I passed a similar number of people but the weather conditions were better.  I also had a couple of annoying run ins with cars that were blocking large sections of the road.  I played leap frog where I passed and was then overtaken by one particular car four or five times on the stretch back toward 108.  Apart from slowing me down, this also felt unnecessarily dangerous.

After getting over the initial "I feel bad" part of the race, I managed to pace it relatively evenly.  I went a bit harder on the uphills, but wasn't really redlining it at any point and only got out of the saddle two or three times mainly to stretch things out.  I was happy to see that my time was on pace with my previous years time despite the conditions and thought I had a good chance to even beat last years time.  I ended up 27 seconds faster which was very satisfying.  My bike split was the 15th fastest split overall, including the 20+ professional triathletes in the field.  Of course to be fair, they also have to run afterward while I get to just become a cheerleader after my bike ride is done.

T2: 0:32

There isn't much to say about the transition from my bike to James running.  I run down the hill into transition after hoping off my bike.  James takes the timing chip off me and puts it on his leg and runs off.  I then get to go chat it up with the other relay folks and see that I'm the first biker to arrive and after waiting a bit minutes realize that I've given James a bit of a lead.

Run (James): 39:46

I only know a little about James' run based on what he said afterward (maybe he will write his own race report!).  I do know that from my perspective he looked like he was really moving!  Before the race we had guessed that he might run about 40 minutes in order to time when we should start looking for him at the finish line.  I think he was quite pleased to break that 40 minute guess on such a tough hilly course.  By the time he came sprinting by, I had a pretty good idea that we had won.  My family and James' family had been waiting for him near the finish and we hadn't seen any other relay teams run past yet. 

Post Race and Awards Ceremony

Thinking that we had probably won our division, we naturally wanted to stick around for the award ceremony.  The only issue with that plan was that we had two wives and six children who were probably not quite as excited about our race and the potential for an award.  Fortunately, they were very patient and ended up being well fed by the post race food that James and I brought them.  We set ourselves up in front of where they would do awards at the 11:30 scheduled start and then waited.  After it started a bit late, we then got to find out exactly how many awards are given at a triathlon because our category was darn close to dead last in the award order.  Due to saintlike patience from our families we made it to the end and proudly collected our little plaques.  We even got a spare in case we break one since they naturally had three plaques for each relay winner and we only had the two of us.

Summary

I couldn't have asked for a better race.  My team mate was fun, fast and supportive.  Our families cheered for us and patiently waited and supported us.  My own results show that my recovery is going great and my back held up without the slightest hint of problems.  All in all probably the best race I've ever had.

TT Fit Progression

I got a new helmet today (found a great deal that I couldn't turn down) and since it was too windy to field test it, I decided to take a couple indoor shots to see how it looked.  I then went back and looked out of curiosity at some of my older fit photos.  Wow, there has been a bit of progression, it is no wonder I'm faster now.  In all of them you can see that my basement is a kid playground.

Feb 2011

This was the first set of shots I took after getting my Slice.  My seat is WAY too high partly because I was scared to cut the seat post and it wouldn't go in any further.

I then got a little bit of feedback to lower the seat and the front end a bit and for some reason decided I needed to take the shot from the other side.

September, 2011

I ended up making some more changes to get lower in front.  This looks notably better to my eye.

 This shot shows the previous and new positions overlayed.  You can see how much lower I've gotten. I'm also on my Adamo.

May 2012

For the 2012 Columbia Triathlon, I had just seen DZ in the Tour of California TT using a stacked hands position and decided to give that a try.

 June 2012

Here's an actual road shot in more or less the same position as the May one indoor.  The one difference is that I have a different set of aerobars (Easton Attacks).

May 2013

In August last year I had a pretty bad crash on my TT bike where I was using the stacked hand position and think that it contributed to the crash.  I thus decided to modify my position a bit so that I would have similar angles, but a more solid (and hopefully safe) grip.  I used this position last October in the Half Full triathlon, but don't have any pictures.  So here is the new helmet, along with a sweet new kit from my new team, Adventures for the Cure.

For comparison, here is the same position with the old helmet.

And just for kicks, the same position with a regular road helmet.

Extreme Makeover?

 Just to make the point clear, here are back to back pictures showing start to end.

 

Oh, and just in case you were worried, I've got some sweet new race wheels for this weekend too.  But we'll have to wait for the next blog post for shots of those.

Carl Dolan 2013 Race Report

I'll get into plenty of detail below (probably too much for many), so I'll summarize my day here.  This morning I raced in the 20th Annual Carl Dolan Memorial Criterium and placed 7th overall (with a photo finish loss to 6th) and won the intermediate prime, ending up with a couple awesome six packs of root beer.  I would have liked to finish a bit better, but given that 3 months ago I had debilitating back pain, neuropathy and ended up having a third back surgery, racing at all seems like quite the victory.  I took a video of the race with my Contour Roam camera and used a cute tool to combine it with trajectory data (speed, heart rate, power):

http://suffervision.appspot.com/v/437001

The video is of the full race, most of which is pretty boring, but I'll reference a couple of exciting points such as the sprint finish.

Training Post Surgery

Three days after surgery I got on my indoor trainer and lightly spun my legs.  With my loss of muscle strength (dorsiflexion specifically) in my right foot, many simple activities such as walking, while doable,  required extra mental attention.  In contrast, clipped in to my bike, I felt very normal.  Doing a daily spin on my trainer became a nice respite that I looked forward to every day.  My wife and doctor were vehemently opposed to riding outside for the first 6 weeks, so I ended up riding my trainer every day for about 6 weeks.  At first I only did 30 minutes, but by 6 weeks I had worked up the duration and intensity to close to my pre-injury level.  Once I was able to ride outside 6 weeks after surgery, I continued riding 8-10 hours per week and feel like my form might even be ahead of where I was at last year at the same point in the year.  Apart from some competitive group rides, Carl Dolan was going to be my first real post surgery test of fitness.  

"Cleaning" the Bike: A Sticky Situation

Every good racer knows that you shouldn't mess around with your equipment too much right before a race at the risk of screwing something up.  My typical routine for races is to clean and setup my bike a couple days ahead of time and make sure it seems right during a short test ride or two the day before.  I had done exactly that on Thursday night to make my bike race ready, cleaning the bike, lubing it up, removing the flashing tail light, adding latex tubes, etc.  I short ride on Friday confirmed that the bike was fine.  As I was getting ready to put my bike in the car on Saturday night I noticed the rear derailleur and chain were a bit dirty and thought I would quickly clean them with a spray degreaser.  So I take the bike out to the front yard and start spraying.  After a little while of spraying I start to wonder why it is foaming so much and why the usual degreasing effect is not happening.  I look down and realize I'm not spraying the degreaser, I'm spraying a similar shaped can of 3M glue that I use for gluing my number to my jersey for TTs!!  I had accidentally laid it out when I was organizing my equipment and guess I accidentally picked up the similarly shaped spray can.  Rarely have I felt so foolish, which is really saying something!  I ran back inside the house and found the can of degreaser and spent the next 30 minutes applying all sorts of cleaners to the chain, cassette and derailleurs.  I think in the end I managed to get everything nice and clean and back to its non-glue state, but not after quite a bit of panic.

Race Morning, Checkin, Warmup

The race is at an office park loop about 15 minutes from home, so traveling to the race was simple.  After helping make breakfast for my kids, I got dressed in my race gear and headed off at about 7:30 am to drive over to the race.  The morning was a bit chilly, so this meant wearing arm and leg warmers, etc.  As predicted, the commute was simple.  I parked, registered and got myself ready to ride in short order.  I started my warmup at about the same time that the juniors started, 8 am, doing some easy laps in the opposite direction as the race.

Start and the First Few Laps
The start of the race was uneventful.  We were given some instructions by a referee and then started rolling.  My main worry was to not get myself into any trouble and try to stay safe for the first few laps.  For each of the first couple laps, I ended up finding myself toward the front at the climb back up to the finish line and briefly discussed pushing the pace a bit with some other riders.  In the end, that wasn't to be, instead the race ended up yo-yo-ing at high speeds for one stretch and then slowing down dramatically as we headed into a head wind and no one seemed willing to pull.

Almost Going Down (~14:50 in video)
A big fear in a race like this is crashing.  As a beginner Cat 5 racer, we are all at risk from both our own ineptitude and the ineptitude of the other riders.  Being cautious and riding well yourself certainly helps your chances of avoiding a crash, but someone can still take you out.  I know that my skills are by no means elite with regard to group riding etiquette, but I've made an effort to educate myself and try to regularly do group rides, so hopefully I'm not too high of a risk.  During what seemed like it should be an uneventful part of the race, I suddenly feel my back wheel getting pushed hard right and then hear a grinding sound behind me.  I'm not 100% sure what happened, but I believe a guy behind me overlapped his front wheel with my back and saved himself by clipping out and putting his cleat down.  In the end no one ended up falling and after the race the guy came up and apologized.  Looking at the video, I'm out in front and don't seem to be weaving or anything, so I don't think I did anything wrong.

Winning the Prime (~23 minutes in the video)

Lap 4 was a "prime" lap; they ring a bell at the beginning of the lap and whoever crosses the finish line first at the next lap wins a prize.  I was feeling pretty good and thought I might as well go after the prime.  I saw an opportunity as the field slowed a little after the corner and sprinted off the front up the long shallow climb to the finish line.  After a while, I checked and saw that I still had one guy on my wheel.  I figured I wasn't going to drop him and I didn't want to just lead him out, so I managed to let him go by and still hold his wheel.  At that point he started weaving all over the road, presumably trying to shake me that way.  As we approached the line, he seemed to give up a bit and I came by him to take the prime.  After doing it, I realized I was pretty spent and that it had been a bigger effort than I intended, but once I started trying for it I wasn't willing to give up on getting the prime.  Right after the prime, it looked like a group of about half a dozen of us had a bit of a gap.  A couple guys tried to encourage the group to work together, but in the end we didn't and just got swallowed back up.  I was ready to take it easy for the next few laps, hoping that going for the prime hadn't used up too much to still contest the finish.

Final Sprint (starting roughly time 48:00 in the video)
A race like this is almost always won in a field sprint and I was planning on giving the sprint a try.  I decided that my best bet was to try to follow the guy who had almost won the prime since he was the only other guy I knew was likely to be strong.  I managed to be in roughly the top 10-15 around the corner and then tried to stay with my chosen guy.  My field surfing skills clearly could use some work; I found myself in the wind instead of just drafting and also almost got run into the curb on the left.  I also seem to have chosen poorly, my guy blew up 300 meters or so from the finish and I left myself a bit high and dry without a wheel to follow.  I managed to make up a little ground, but the top three were no where close.  I tried to drive hard to the line and thought I might have clipped the 6th place guy at the line, but I guess I didn't.  We ended up with the same time, but he got the higher place.

Mmm, Cupcakes, Root Beer
After putting my bike back in my car, I loitered around the finish, getting myself coffee and a cupcake and waiting for them to announce the results.  In 20 minutes or so, they announced the top 10 results, took some pictures and that was it.  I walked up to the announcer after and asked about the prime.  The story seemed a bit confused; he thought that maybe they had decided not to do the prime, but a number of fellow racers confirmed hearing the bell and someone say "prime lap".  The organizers were super nice and started trying to give me various things, in the end offering a bunch of beer.  I suggested the 6 pack of root beer instead (I'm not a huge beer fan) and he was more than generous, foisting both 6 packs they had on me.  They made for some great post race snacks at home!

Bump in the Road: There goes L4/L5

My blog entries to this point have mainly been race reports and a few minor write ups on my aerodynamic testing or other training points.  Today's entry is a bit less fun to have to make.  As I mention in my first blog post, I had two surgeries about two years apart on the same herniated L5/S1 disc about 15 years ago (reherniation of the same disc happens about 10% of the time), with the first surgery done when I was just 21 years old.  The MRI that I had done at the first surgery already showed that the adjacent disc between L4/L5 wasn't in perfect shape.  Since then, I have tried to be "careful" by avoiding activities that would put a lot of compression on my spine, which includes all running sports.  That strategy had been serving me fairly well, but it all fell apart this last week...

MRI Last Spring

Before discussing what happened recently, a little recent history is in order.  Last year, I got the stupid idea in my head that maybe I could safely run and was limiting myself unnecessarily.  Before making such a rash change, I thought I would go see an expert.  I exchanged some email with Dr. Witham, a highly recommended neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins, who recommended I have an MRI and review it with him.  After looking at my MRI, he strongly advised against adding running since my L4/L5 disc already looked pretty questionable.  I agreed with that assessment and prepared myself to continue on the conservative activity route.

One Month Ago: Fly? Skating?

It was the beginning of December, and I was still feeling in perfect shape.  Then I woke up on a Saturday morning and my back was feeling a bit tight.  I went to help coach my kids' ice hockey clinic and by the end of skating I could tell things weren't quite right.  After practice, I had a hard time bending down to untie my skates and by that afternoon (my daughter's birthday party), I was having a hard time with the pain in my back.  I was feeling a bit low and remember telling my wife, "I think I blew my disc".  On the plus side, I didn't have any sciatica and the pain went away completely when I would lie down.  I started myself on some heavy ibuprofen, bed rest and some hot pad that a friend kindly gave me.  Since I am usually just coding from home, I can often manage to continue working from bed without any major hiccups, so I did that for a few days and started to feel much better.  At the time, I thought the trigger was that I had done a lot of butterfly (maybe 500 yards total) on Friday and then that I had exacerbated things by skating the next morning.  So I told myself I would avoid fly while swimming and try to take it especially easy when skating.  In the past, I sometimes let my enthusiasm take over while coaching and would skate hard while playing games with the kids (tag, etc).  I wasn't going to do that anymore.

The rest of the month of December was not terribly eventful as far as my back was concerned.  I was worried about being able to ski with my kids, so the week before our ski trip, I worked at least half time from bed and was feeling much better.  Over the course of our somewhat crazy ski trip (which started by missing our flight and driving to Colorado instead), my back didn't give a hint that there was a problem.  I skied every day with the kids and felt fine.

Skating. Again, Really?!

That brings us up to the first week of January, still feeling fine.  Again, the main event was ice skating.  I was again helping coach my kids' ice hockey practice when I felt a minor twinge while skating.  I don't remember any particularly traumatic event and certainly didn't skate hard the entire practice.  In fact, I finished the practice and thought I had just re-tweaked whatever had happened last month.  My wife happened to be at practice taking some photos, so here's what I looked like as coach demoing a simple drill for the kids.

After practice, we went shopping at Costco, and it was becoming clear that I had hurt myself, although at that point it still wasn't clear how bad it would get.  After shopping, I tried to rest for a while, hoping I would feel better.  I then took my son to his basketball game and during that time it became obvious to me that I was in bad shape.  I had a hard time finding any comfortable position to sit in and by the end of the game found that I could barely make the walk back to the car.  I believe people were staring a bit as I layed down next to my car to rest before driving home.  On the way home, I first noticed the numbness and tingling in my right leg. 

Weekend Wait

At this point, I was still vaguely hoping that this was a minor event even though there was a fair bit of evidence that it was not.  Unlike previous "minor" flair ups, I could not find any pain free position.  Lying down was sure better than standing, but it was still painful.  More disconcerting was that I had pain, numbness, tingling and muscle twitching down my right leg.  I could tell that one of the nerve roots for my right leg was getting some serious action.  I knew enough about the human anatomy to figure out that it was likely the L4/L5 nerve root, which made sense based on my spring MRI.  Over the course of the weekend, the pain got a bit better.  I could generally lie down mostly pain free with sufficient ibuprofen.  On the other hand, the numbness if anything got worse and I couldn't stand for much more than a minute without the pain coming back at an unbearable level.  I found myself crawling around the house in preference to walking if I needed to get somewhere.  My wife and I considered going to the ER a few times on Saturday and Sunday night, but decided against it, holding out to see someone on Monday.  I also had to watch the Redskins devastating loss on Sunday night, which was almost as painful as my back :(

Monday: Paging Dr. Clark, Drop Foot

There are a few heroes (at least to me) in this story.  My wife is clearly hero number one for putting up with this crap and helping get me through it, in fact she did almost all the leg work to setup our stories other heroes.  Hero number two in my story was Dr. Clark.  On Monday morning, I tried first thing to call my regular doctor's office.  Unfortunately, my doctor's schedule was all booked and they scheduled me to see a nurse practitioner mid afternoon.  This made me a bit nervous; I wasn't sure how much experience an NP would have and wasn't excited about waiting till the afternoon.  The thought occurs to my wife that we should try our friend Dr. Clark.  It turns out that one of my daughter's best friend's mother is an internist who actually makes house calls.  A few calls from my wife and Dr. Clark shows up in my bedroom by 10:30.  She does the exam and quickly relates to my wife and I that things look quite serious.  In particular, she noted during physical exam that I have "foot drop", which means that I have no ability to raise my right foot or toes.  I hadn't noticed that myself to that point, but once she pointed it out it was obvious and really disconcerting.  Dr. Clark set me up with a steroid prescription that would help with the swelling (my neurosurgeon later said this was exactly the right move) and later that day was critical to helping me setup an MRI as soon as possible.  Dr Clark also made it clear that I needed to consult a neurosurgeon.  Fortunately, I had one in mind...

Dr. Witham is a busy neurosurgeon (and hero number three in my story).  When I saw him in the spring, for what amounted to a well visit consultation, it took about two months to get an appointment on his calendar.  I wrote Dr. Witham an email after seeing Dr. Clark asking if he might be able to see me, describing in brief my symptoms.  Dr. Witham quickly responded that he would, asking his scheduling assistant to setup an MRI "ASAP" and setup an appointment.  I was getting a bit nervous as the day proceeded and I hadn't heard from the assistant.  Eventually I heard back from her that I had an MRI and an appointment setup for the first week in February!  I wrote back to Dr. Witham, asking that if he didn't have room, maybe he could suggest a colleague.  He quickly wrote back to his assistant saying "He has foot drop!" and that he would find a way to squeeze me into his schedule one way or another.  I was eventually scheduled to see him Friday at noon.  In the meantime, with the help of Dr. Clark, I had scheduled an MRI for first thing Tuesday morning so that would be ready in plenty of time.

Tuesday: MRI, Dr. Witham

Overnight, my wife had a brilliant idea.  By  coincidence, my mother in law had recently had surgery with Dr. Witham and was scheduled for a routine follow up Tuesday at noon.  My wife wrote to ask if Dr. Witham would allow us to switch our appointments, with my mother in law seeing him on Friday.  So long as I got the MRI done in time, this could work out nicely. Fortunately, the MRI went about as smoothly as you could expect (thanks ProScan) and I had both films and an electronic copy in hand by 10 that morning.  I couldn't help myself and took a peek at my own films.  Reading an MRI is no easy task, there is a reason radiologists require lots of training and get paid well.  I'm sure a real radiologist sees all kinds of subtleties.  I don't think it required that much expertise to look at my scan and see that something was very wrong.  I even had my old spring MRI to compare to, which made the compare and contrast easier.  The first shot shows a particularly gruesome part of my current MRI.  The next two show a comparison of my spring MRI (on the right) with my recent MRI.

When we saw Dr. Witham a bit after noon, I had looked over these pictures myself already and anticipated that the news was not good.  After a short consultation, Dr. Witham was already talking about scheduling me for surgery.  He couldn't do it that day, or Wednesday due to his clinic schedule, but was going to schedule me for first thing Thursday, bumping another surgical case of his to the next week.  He said it was good that we caught things early, but then gave what I'm assuming is the standard "you never know what you'll get" talk about what to expect from surgery.  By the end of the talk, you figure your lucky if you aren't dead or paralyzed after surgery.  I guess if you are still willing to get surgery after that talk, you are clearly in a lot of pain.  He said I should check into the hospital on Wednesday afternoon to get prepared for the surgery.

Wednesday/Thursday Morning: Checkin+Surgery

By Wednesday, I was already counting the hours till surgery, looking forward to whatever would take away the pain and numbness and hopeful that I might return to some form of normal.  While things didn't exactly go smoothly checking in (I waited for four hours in the admission lobby while they tried to get me a room) it all seemed quite minor in the grand scheme.  I settled into my very nice private room and tried to get as comfortable as I could while waiting.  It was a bit hard to sleep as I was poked and prodded virtually from the moment I got into the room, including an EKG, a chest X-ray, an IV, blood draws, blood sugar checks, periodic blood pressure checks, etc.  I mainly passed the time reading and was generally as comfortable as my physical condition would allow.  I experimented a bit during the night and determined that I didn't generally have pain for the first 15 to 30 seconds after standing, but remaining in an upright position, even without moving, would get progressively more painful.  My wife came to the hospital early Thursday morning as they moved me down to prep for the OR.  There we saw Dr. Witham, who we learned was a hunt and peck typist, something I found ironic for a guy who we presume (or at least hope) is dexterous with his hands.  He seemed serious and confident.  We waited a while for the OR and then not surprisingly I don't remember much (they knock you out pretty good!).  

Thursday: Post Surgery

When I describe my first surgery to people, I say it was like someone removing a big splinter.  I felt really sore, but immediately could tell the original pain was gone.  This time had some similarities, but was not exactly the same since I was immediately trying to figure out not just if the pain was gone, but whether I could use my right foot properly.  My previous surgery I had lost most of the ankle jerk response in my left ankle, but that wasn't a real functional deficit, so I had no point of comparison.  Immediately on waking, I found that I could at least very slightly move my right foot and that most of the numbness was gone, but it was by no means "right" yet.  For example, I could not independently move my big toe up, just slightly pull up my whole foot. I got up and walked within about an hour of waking and was pleased to not feel any pain down my leg.  My post surgical pain was very minor; for the next twelve hours or so I didn't end up taking any additional pain medications until finally taking some Tylenol after midnight.   I experimented with walking more through the afternoon and evening and while I felt a little wobbly I was pleased to confirm that I didn't have pain walking for minutes at a time around my room.  

My food situation was also slightly entertaining.  I had last eaten at about 10 pm on Wednesday and ordered a lunch after surgery.  They managed to screw up my order somehow, so I ended up getting both my lunch and dinner back to back at around 4:30 pm.  The guy delivering the food commented on how quickly my "lunch" disappeared.  I did manage to hold off on eating the "dinner" part till I let the vanquished lunch settle a bit.

Friday: Home Again

By Friday morning, I was ready to go home.  At that point, most of the pain I had was from the soreness of the operation site and the stupid IV in my hand.  I gather that for safety they put the largest gauge IV they can fit in you and had multiple nurses and other hospital staff comment on the unusually large gauge of the IV on the back of my left hand.  My back itself was quite tender, making lying on it a bit uncomfortable.  In some ways, getting up and walking felt better since I wasn't in any acute pain.  For anyone who has read Lance Armstrong's book, he relates this point where he is asked to blow on some device to show he has enough lung capacity and blows the shit out of that thing and says he never wants to see it again.  I felt a little that way when the PT department took me to a set of stairs to make sure I could go home.  They needed to check if I could safely do stairs and started describing how I could hold on to the rails and walk sideways if I needed to.  I restrained myself from running up and down the stairs (it would have hurt like hell), but I sure didn't need any rails!  Even with some slight foot drop, I can get around just fine and compensate.  My wife came to pick me up after taking my mother in law to see Dr. Witham and we drove home.  I was a bit more sore in my back than immediately after surgery; it felt difficult to try to engage any core muscles to try to sit up in bed, etc.

Saturday: Hockey?

I helped take my kids to hockey this morning.  I didn't skate.  Instead I took lots of pictures and video.  It was my first trip out of the house post surgery and felt good to start to return to normal.

I'm not sure yet how much function I will recover, but I'm optimistic that I am back on the right track.  I'm hopeful that I'll be able to resume swimming and biking again, although I have to admit that being competitive there suddenly seems a bit less important.  I guess we'll see what the coming days bring...