Seattle Half Post Race

My race itself was great. My goal was to finish under 2 hours and I finished 1:56:15. Logistically I had problems, but I learned not forget my timing chip at home and not put glass bottles in checked clothing bags. My time is unofficial and my clothes and glucose meter were soaked, but I'm happy as a whole.
I am feeling lazy and uninspired, so adios for now.

Seattle Half-Marathon Morning

At some point in my life the amount of times that I have gotten up before 6am on a Sunday morning might surpass the number of times that I have still been up at 6am on a Sunday morning, but it hasn't happened yet.
While the activities that kept me up might have been really fun (at times), race day looks WAY better at 41 than being the old guy at the after-party.

BIKE!!!

I just received my Cervelo P2 Carbon from FedX. I kind of feel like an 8 year old at Christmas. Gotta go!!

Gracias Dios

There have been times in my life that I couldn't leave part of Seattle for fear of running out of what I needed to be okay. The same could be said of Atlanta. My view was an amazingly small pinprick in the crook of the arm of what was possible. I knew there was more out there, but it was not for me. Through amazing powers of self deception I led myself to believe that more was neither possible nor desirable. Though this mechanism brought survival it was incredible in it's power of limitation. There actually is a lot more to it than that, but that is for another time.

Years later there was a time when I spent days without the strength or inclination to roll over. I was aware of the tubes and machines and loved ones around me but I had neither the physical strength nor desire to move. That latter was also a mechanism of survival. This one was based on trauma, not lies. There is more to this story too, but that is also for another time.

Yesterday I swam, tomorrow I will either run or ride. Sunday I will run a half-marathon, which is smaller than some current training runs.

I can whine, I can begrudge, I can worry about the real and perceived, but I would truly be a fucking moron to not be grateful.

Sleepy

Today I am feeling the affects of being a diabetic triathlete. One of the great aspects of exercise is the lowering of blood sugar; however, the dangerous aspect of exercise is the lowering of blood sugar. Whenever I start ramping up activity I am more sensitive to my normal doses of insulin. This is where the trickiness hides.

One of the symptoms of this oversensitivity (yes I'm oversensitive) is night time lows. Waking up with a low is like a really confusing uncomfortable intoxication. I generally waking up from an extremely vivid yet mundane dream. I am generally fairly disoriented, but I also tend to have an autopilot to the kitchen reaction. On the way to the kitchen I stopped to check my glucose level which was 46. When a normal person feels a peckish or hypglycemic their blood sugar is probably around 80. 20 is nearing a coma. Thankfully my reaction is to wake up; not everyone has this reaction. The treatment for this state is food; eaten quickly without grace or poise. I generally think that I look like an underwear clad bulimic having a midnight binge when this happens. I imagine that my friendly yet watchful next door neighbor has seen this and keeps his suspicions to himself. I actually think this every time I have a low; sometimes 2x a week.
After my life saving food binge I often have a lingering headache. Excedrin takes care of this, but it isn't instant. At all takes a while to deal fix and this is why I'm sleepy.

Motivational Thought for Today

I am not someone who is naturally filled with self motivation. It is dark and cold and I don't want to go meet people at Greenlake and do speed training. I ate a crappy lunch and checked my blood sugar for an excuse to not run, but 168 by no means is a reading that fills that need and I will generally exercise even it my glucose reading says I shouldn't. Emily is sick and I am jealous; I just want to sit on my damn couch, watch TV and ignore the world; however, I told you all that I was training just like I told you all I would write. You all suck for being my audience of guilt ridden accountability. Where would I be without you. I have hardly ever done anything worthwhile without the fear of looking bad, pathetic but true. At least I have learned how to put some of my character defects to good use.

Thanks ....... seriously.
xoxox
Andrew

Young's Lake

I ran 9.something miles at Young's Lake in Renton this morning. I have a high-tech super crazy Garmin GPS heart rate monitor virtual trainer blah blah blah, but I don't really know how to use it yet or I would know exactly how far I ran. I accidentally turned the part off that tells me the important stuff, so it became an overpriced stopwatch.
Like most runs at this distance or farther it sometimes sucked; sometimes was really nice and sometimes all hyper-emotional. Sometimes the hyper-emotionalism feels like ultimate gratitude for what God has given me. Other times it feels like one of the less unpleasant aspects of dope sickness. The thing that used to make be cry at Snickers commercials.
I remember in particular one of the many times I had fled back to North Idaho, the land of my youth. I was feeling just well enough to try to go to a job interview. As I was driving through the woods on the way to town I saw a mother deer and two fawns. Though I had seen this countless times in my life I was so overwhelmed with feeling that I sobbed and wailed to the point that I could not drive. I eventually regained control and continued on the the interview. I was incredibly fearful of which Andy would show up. Many times running I have had similar moments, but the fear of negative consequence just isn't there. Nice.

Let me explain

A lot of people blog. A lot of people blog about sporty endeavors. Commonness is usually enough of an excuse for me to avoid any effort. In spite of that I am starting this for a few reasons: I have some relatively interesting potential hurdles to impede my ironman progress and I hope that this could be helpful to someone with similar situations.
The basic gist is that I spent my late teens and twenties doing lots and lots of drugs. The last seven years of that period I focused primarily on heroin. I say focus, but it just kind of happened. I am one of THOSE types. I smoked on and off for about 23 years (the last 8 years more off than on). I have hepatitis C directly from the IV drug use and I have type I diabetes indirectly from the drug use.
In 2000 a friend of mine ran a marathon and the description of the insane horrible experience that he wanted to repeat intrigued me. Junkies are like that. There was only one way for me to feel the sensation so I trained for and ran the Seattle Marathon. That started an ever-growing obsession that now leads me to training for Ironman Cozumel. 2.4 miles of swimming, 112 miles of biking and 26.1 miles of running in heat and humidity of which I am not accustom. I love the conjoined feelings of longing and dread.
This blog will be part training chronicle and part flashback scenes. At times I plan to talk about unpleasantness and extreme happiness. I plan to talk about the depths of human despair and the glories of human accomplishment. I plan to talk about self will and turning to focus to God and others. These are some lofty blog goals, which I may or may not achieve, but what the hell, I also seem to think I can finish an ironman.