Timberman weekend is here

August is slowly getting away from us but Labor Day isn't quite here yet. That can only mean one thing: time for Timberman! The only bad thing about this weekend is that once it's over I usually come to the crushing realization that summer is almost over. But let's not talk about that right now...

This is the 9th running of Timberman. I have participated in all but the first one, which fell the summer after I graduated college (hard to admit that) At that point in time I had no idea that there were other triathlons besides Ironman Hawaii and I certainly didn't have any idea that I'd be doing races myself at some point. I was running about 3 miles at a time, a routine I had started at the beginning of my final semester as a way to lose weight and get in shape for my final basketball season. Up until then you never would've caught me running voluntarily on my own. I despised it. Running was punishment for messing up at practice. Why would I do it on purpose unless a coach was making me?

But then I suddenly found myself heavier than I had ever been - which is saying a lot - and finally wanting to do something about it once and for all. So I started with a mile. I wish I knew how long it took, although if I had to guess I'd say that I probably tried to run way too fast a pace, then walked a little, then ran too fast again, then sputtered to the finish. It was awful, but I made myself do it every day. Then I did a mile and a half. Then two miles. By the end of the semester, I was running 4 miles on the treadmill. This was huge for me. I never knew I could run that far in one stretch, and I liked how it felt. So when I graduated and moved off campus, I kept on running outside a few times a week, interspersed a bit with riding the old mountain bike I'd had since I was 12.

Fast forward to the following spring. I was still running on a regular basis. I had built up to 6 miles for a while, and then one Saturday morning I was on the treadmill and just figured, what the heck, what if I juts doubled it? So I ran 12. It took me two hours, and I was a bit wobbly when I left the gym, but now that I had done it once, I decided to do it every Saturday. That was at some point in the winter, and I briefly got this crazy idea that maybe I should try and run the Boston Marathon. Thankfully, that idea was fleeting once I was faced with that whole qualifying thing. I knew I could've run as a bandit, but if I was going to run a marathon, I was going to be an official entrant.

So the next best thing was to run in a local road race, the Bedford Rotary 12K. There was also a 5K, but I opted for the longer race, a trend that still continues. I had seen the signs around town for years, but never taken much notice until the year before when I had finally started running. The race fell about a week after my college graduation that year, and I considered entering but decided I wasn't enough of a real runner to do it. But now I felt like I could handle it. I had also signed up in March for my first triathlon. After running regularly and adding some spin classes, I became aware of the race while house sitting for a relative who had done it a few times. She encouraged me to go for it, so I signed up and added my own pitiful attempt at swimming to my training schedule, which I based off the highly scientific book: "Triathlon 101".

But first, a road race. The race takes place the weekend before Memorial Day. That did not stop me from running my first race in the snow. Not kidding. I remember lining up at the start in my cotton Emerson College t-shirt over a skiing long underwear base layer, some compression shorts under the basketball shorts matted to my legs from what started as a soaking, icy rain. Before the gun even fired I thought to myself that if I were to continue racing, I was probably getting my worst racing weather out of the way on the first attempt.

With temperatures in the upper 30's the pouring rain that started the race turned to large, wet globs of snow somewhere around halfway through the race. I'm pretty sure I would've laughed a lot harder had I not been so tired from trying to run as fast as I could. It took me over an hour, but I was quite happy with how the race went. Also, since I had signed up as a "Fillie" or the running equivalent of triathlon's athena, I had also won my very first running trophy for winning the category, merely for weighing more than 140 pounds (at 6' tall, not so hard to do) and beating the only three other women in the quite large race field willing to admit they weighed as much. Winning a running trophy is definitely not something I ever imagined myself doing.

One month later I ran a 20K race the day after I turned 23. In another twist of irony, I'm pretty sure that I still hold the New Hampshire record for 23-year olds in a 20K. I'm guessing this is mostly because they don't hold this race anymore and I may well be the only 23-year old who has ever run a 20K in the state. More importantly though, another month after that I did my first triathlon, the Danskin women's sprint. Before I had raced, I heard some people discussing the Timberman triathlon when I worked at the gym. My father had given me his old road bike and we had been riding together, usually somewhere around 30 miles of outright trying to kill each other - surely the reason I got good at biking so quickly. If only he was a runner! Anyway, I had found out about Timberman thanks to the internet, couldn't believe there was a half ironman so close to home. I had thought about doing it, but it took some convincing before I decided to go ahead and sign up. Imagine, I signed up for Timberman the first time at the end of June. That is definitely not the case anymore!

My first Timberman took place at the end of a string of literally 95+ degree days for about two weeks straight. Race day was to be no different. It is a heat wave that probably has never been matched before or since. I remember eating Wheaties for breakfast and my parents drove me to Ellacoya, where the traffic was backed up so badly that the athletes were getting out and walking. The race start was also delayed because of this. I walked into transition and didn't know a soul, just set up my area and wondered what to do next.

I was in the last swim wave, designated for the first timers. I had no wetsuit so I wore some tri shorts I had invested in and had a bathing suit top pulled over my sports bra. The sprint used to be run on the same day as the half, so after exiting the water in roughly 44 minutes, which would've been longer had a kayak volunteer not pointed me in the direction of the swim finish after I veered off course, found myself in the mix of the sprinters coming out of the water, their race having started well after ours. I rode my dad's '98 LeMond Zurich road bike, threw on a bike jersey and took the time to put on bike gloves and put on my Camelback since I had no clue about aid stations. Did you stop to get water? I had no idea, so instead I thought it would be best to haul 70oz of fluid on my back.

In the beginning of the bike I was surrounded by other people because the sprint racers were on the same course, but after 7.5 miles they got to turn around and I was left very much alone on the course. I remember thinking my lungs were goingto explode when I pedaled up the biggest hill on the course. I think I ate a banana, a rice krispie treat and a Gatorade energy bar (yes, they made those) that had come in my race bag the day before. It took me 3:03 to complete the bike course, and now I got to run in 95 degree heat and the oppressive humidity that accompanied it.

I had no clue about nutrition. I think I had a little bag of gummie bears in my back pocket to help get me through. I spent much more of the run walking, some of it near tears because I thought I was melting and wanted nothing more than to curl up under the shade of a nearby tree and just fall asleep. I wasn't sweating. Most of the other people in the race were done already. Someone I knew even drove by on their way home after finishing, and I still had like 6 miles to go. There were some clouds that taunted us with the relief of showers, but they never materialized, and I was left in the blazing sun. I somehow finished, in 6 hours and 20 minutes, and decided immediately that it was by far the hardest thing I had ever done. I walked directly into the lake to cool off. The only post-race food remaining were a few bagel halves and some besically empty jars of peanut butter. There was evidence that there had been pizza, but it seemed to be long gone. Luckily, my parents were nice enough to take me down the street to Sawyer's for the most well-earned brownie sundae I had ever eaten.

Of course, immediately afterward, I was plotting about how I would do better next time. That was 7 years ago, when the sickness overtook me and it hasn't released its grip since. The following year I had upgraded a bit by purchasing a wetsuit, forgoing the bike gloves and Camelback and adding clip-on aero bars to the old road bike. Unfortunately I flatted halfway through the bike when I ran over a screw, but still improved my bike time to 3:00 flat even with the lost time from the fix, and crossed the finish line in 5:37. I finished second in my age group (out of four) and there was still even some pizza left.

Every year after that I did Timberman four weeks after completing Ironman Lake Placid. Now, it took me a lot of tries to learn that 4 weeks just isn't really enough time to do well at Timberman. Actually, in the 5 times I have done the combination, only twice has it actually worked out relatively ok. The first time wasn't bad, actually set a serious PR, probably based on the fact that I had walked a fair amount of my marathon 4 weeks prior due to Clif bar-induced stomach shut-down, so the recovery may have been quicker. Then in 2006, when basically nothing could go wrong for me, that didn't either. Every other time it hasn't gone so well, but I hated the idea of not doing it because I love the race so much. Of course last year Timberman marked absolute rock-bottom for me in the worst racing season ever, and it took a new coach who doesn't let me do whatever I want even if it's not good for me to tell me that I will instead be racing in the sprint. I will miss not racing the half, but at the same time, I'm kind of glad I don't have to do it. As a compromise though I will be doing the bike as part of what I'm hoping will be the winning co-ed relay team.

It's just funny how much things have changed from that first Timberman. Firstly, it's a good thing you don't have to sign up as early anymore, because I never would've been able to do that first one and might have been too intimidated later on to sign up for my first one so far in advance. I know how to use aid stations now, except for last year I'm usually done in time for there to be plenty of food left. It has always felt like the race where I became addicted, and I'm glad that I can sleep in my own bed when racing there. I'm also glad that next year I will be back for the half since I am doing Ironman Utah instead (surely you can expect a lengthy post about my not doing Lake Placid in another 11 months) but at least I will be back for what I consider to be my favorite race. In the meantime, I better somehow awaken my fast-twitch muscle fibers for tomorrow. You know, all both of them.