I’ve officially hit “burnout” phase of Ironman training. You all know the feeling–you just want to go into hibernation mode after logging into Training Peaks and seeing what your week’s worth of workouts looks like, and even a one hour recovery spin at an easy heart rate feels like a two and a half hour threshold sufferfest. Not helping matters was the fact that I started a new job right when my last big training ramp up hit, so balancing a demanding (yet thus far exciting) work load with over 15 hours of training has left me exhausted and cranky. August 26th can’t come soon enough. Last week I was faced with a two hour run that I very much did not want to do, but since I hadn’t had a long run on my schedule in a while (minus my Rev 3 Portland run off the bike), I forced myself to grab my running shoes because I figured the workout was crucial. Plus, since I was already mentally and physically drained before even starting the run, the workout seemed especially beneficial since it’d probably emulate how craptacular I’d feel at around mile 18 of the Ironman Canada run course. I took off from my house rockin’ a pretty wicked running shmood (that’s “shitty mood” for those of you who aren’t hip to the Mediocre Athlete lingo). My legs felt heavy, various body parts ached, I felt like I needed to sleep for 14 straight hours, the sun was too bright, it was hot and muggy out, my stomach ached, you know the drill. Every ten minutes I contemplated throwing in the “Fuck this” towel and heading back to my house, but I forced myself to run further out and intentionally place my groggy ass far enough away that I’d have to run back without being able to cut the workout short. You’ve all had one of those days where you feel like ass and just want to get through your workout–you’re not in the mood to talk to anyone or put up with any bullshit. All you want to do is stick your head down and swim, grit your teeth and bike, or squint your eyes and run, and you don’t even want to do the stupid workout but you’re making yourself anyway, so you’re already in a shmood before you get going and a mixture of exasperation and general irritability is all that’s fueling you to get through it. That’s how it was for this run. So perhaps the minor altercation I had with a dude in front of the Seattle Tennis Club could have been avoided or handled better, but I had been hit hard with the running shmood and my tolerance was at an all-time low. I was running on the sidewalk approaching the Tennis Club when I saw a grubby guy who looked very much like Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force loading items from a delivery van into the building via a side entrance. I would have paid this man no mind were it not for the fact that he was blocking the entire sidewalk with boxes and a hand truck. Not a big deal, he’s clearly working on moving supplies from the van into the building–it’s not like he’s intentionally blocking the path or anything. As Carl pivoted from the van towards the building entrance with his hand truck of boxes, I said, “Excuse me” and ran in front of him on the sidewalk, between the entrance and the van. I couldn’t run off the sidewalk onto the street because the van was blocking me, and I wasn’t about to stop and...

So you’re aware that Hawaii was crazy windy and that after my race I almost fainted on Linsey Corbin, but you don’t know how the actual half Ironman went because I haven’t gotten around to writing it yet. My bad–juggling a new job and Ironman Canada training ramp up has been a bit crazy and I haven’t had a chance to blog much lately. But enough with the excuses, I’ve got posts to write and they’ll spill out of my sun-baked brain and onto a keyboard sooner or later. Here’s how it all went down… The 2012 Lance Armstrong Ironman Lance Honu 70.3, Sponsored by Livestrong Oh, was this the race that Lance Armstrong was at? They made such little fuss about him that I barely knew he was there. (I’m kidding–Ironman totally and unabashedly gargled his ball.) Anyway, the morning of the race I woke up, showered, sunscreened, choked down breakfast, gathered my bottles and gear, and hopped in the van with my housemates to head to the race start. I got to transition and went through the standard ordeal: Pumped up my tires Checked my bike computer Arranged my bottles and fuel Used the portapotty Slathered on more obscene amounts of sunscreen Lubed up my nethers I went down to the beach and got body-marked. This race likes to use fancy stamps for your numbers to make athletes feel as if they’re at the World Championships despite only having to do half the distance. I had a really smudgy stamp and a volunteer captain came up and scolded the person who was helping me for using an inferior stamp on my glorious arm canvas. She spent a few minutes painstakingly cleaning up the ink smears around my numbers, and when she finished I promptly returned to transition and coated myself with another layer of sunscreen. (I wasn’t about to get Cancun’d again so I sacrificed number readability for not getting skin cancer.) Jas and I wandered around, avoiding Lance’s entourage and the surrounding crowd of gawkers, in an effort to find his parents so we could hand them our pre-race gear bags to hold onto. We eventually found them on the beach at the swim start, so we dropped off our stuff and headed into the ocean to get warmed up. Jason made it in fine but I only waded in a few feet before a big-ass wave knocked me down. I popped up, sputtering, and tried again, but the waves were all “Haha, no” and bitch-slapped me back down again. At this point I thought, “Screw it, swim warm ups are overrated anyway” and headed back onto the beach. Jason emerged after a couple minutes and asked why I was covered in sand. I explained that the ocean was not being kind to me and he started laughing. It was a great send-off from my supportive boyfriend. Swim Summary I found my slow and steady Lane 7 teammates and stood with them to wait for the race to start. In previous years the pros and amateurs all started at the same time, but since Lance Armstrong was gracing us with his presence this year, the pros were allowed to start three minutes before us peons. They took off while I stared at the buoys, confused by how the course had been set up. It looked roughly like this: We had to start at the first buoy and take a long, diagonal path to a buoy in the upper left area, which meant a lot of swimming without seeing anything for a while. Then we would swim to the second buoy and turn right. From there, we’d...