With 16 days to go before Kona, I'm thinking about a race I needed to qualify for, and what it took to get there. In 2008, I decided that I wanted to try to qualify for the 2009 Long Course World Championship in Perth Australia. The qualifying race was in Boulder City, Nevada. Ten days before that race, I wrote my first blog. In relation to my taper for Kona, this quote stood out: "Ten days to go. We'll see what my coach gives me to do, I always follow his instructions and it has almost never led me astray. I tend to set a PR at over 70% of my races for the last three years." The rest of the blog is both interesting and ironic, as I see many of the elements in my first blog the I've been writing about for the last 233 days, and the last 11 years for that matter! I wrote about a swimming breakthrough in that first blog, http://wassdoc.blogspot.com/2008/10/swimming-breakthrough.html. It's funny how my comments eleven years ago sound so similar to what I'm writing today. Ten days later, I raced the 2008 Halfmax National Championship. I needed to finish 10th in my age group in order to qualify for Long Course Worlds. It's fun reading my race report 11 years later, http://wassdoc.blogspot.com/2008/10/halfmax-race-day.html. I even had my typical pre-race "injuries": "On Friday, woke up feeling better, did my bike and run workouts and somehow managed to pinch a nerve in my neck. I spent the whole day trying to work out this pinched nerve! Also, my left low back was sore." How many times has the same thing happened to me over the years? It's even more fun reading my "post-mortem" from the race, http://wassdoc.blogspot.com/2008/10/race-post-mortem.html. Do we ever really change as human beings? Rereading my blogs makes me wonder.
The journey to qualify for World's was my first major triathlon goal. It was essentially a one year journey. It's ironic to look back as I'm about to go to Kona in what has been a ten year journey. When I first did an Ironman, the idea was to be able to qualify for Kona, but the competition is far more intense than for World's. By the time I completed Ironman Lake Tahoe in 2013, the Legacy Program was in place and my journey for qualifying through the Legacy Program had begun. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. In two days, I'll begin my journey down memory lane as I reflect on all 14 Ironman's that I've finished in my sixth decade of life (50-59). Today, I'm reflecting on my initial journey to qualify for Long Course Worlds in 2009.
I have to admit, even in 2009, qualifying for Worlds was not going to be an easy achievement for me. I was still "only" good enough to win the occasional local sprint triathlon in my age group. I generally finished in the top 20% of my age group in sprint to half ironman races. However, I definitely was not at the top. As I've written before, I just couldn't run with the guys at the top of my age group, who at that time were clicking off 6-7 minute miles with regularity. With that said, in 2007 I'd run a half marathon at 7:05 pace. In 2008, right after my 49th birthday, I ran my only sub-20 minute 5K ever. I was prepared to compete for that World's spot when I drove to Boulder City, Nevada in October of 2008.
The thing I remember most about the Halfmax race in Boulder City was the swim. The water was clear, I felt so comfortable in the water, andI literally felt like swimming fast was easy that day. I ended up having one of my best half ironman swims. Not fast enough to be at the very top of my age group, but fast enough to be competitive.
The bike was incredibly hilly, not only throughout the bike course, which it was, but finishing with a 1000 foot climb (and a net elevation gain of 1000 feet). While my bike training had been solid, it wasn't solid enough to have me come off such a challenging bike in great run shape. My quads hurt the entire run, yet I persevered, which is something I've always been good at. I needed to be in the top ten in my age group, and when I finished and looked at the results, I was 10th!
The great thing about training for Long Course Worlds in 2009 was that I knew it was also a springboard to my first Ironman, Ironman St. George, in 2010. What I didn't know was that I was going to have a bike crash during the first 1/2 mile of Long Course Worlds. I rode 48 miles and then walked 3 1/2 miles before going to the hospital with what turned out to be a fractured clavicle and (non-displaced) fractured left hip socket. My only DNF, yet, one of my proudest "achievements." http://wassdoc.blogspot.com/2009/10/
Six months after my bike accident, I was in St. George, Utah, for the first ever Ironman held there. In two days I'll start my Kona countdown by reflecting on that race. Tomorrow, I'll make a slight diversion from my recent posts and talk about Hiromu Inada, the Wish of a Lifetime Foundation (https://wishofalifetime.org), and the need to fight against ageism.
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