DSQ: Shattered

Ride
time- approx. 5:00*
distance- approx. 70mi*


*I looked at my Garmin last night, saw that the battery was at a bar and a half and thought that should be fine. I was wrong.**

**This happens a lot

Tough day out on the bike, Dirtbag friends. Good day, but at the end there I was hurting it up. Diesel was getting three laps going from Dillingham airport up to Helemano and back. One lap is about 35mi. The Grey and I planned to join him at the top of his first lap, but we missed each other by a few minutes so we headed down Pineapple on our own.
It is still cold here. I need to pick up some of those sleeves for the cool mornings, plus they will protect the Dirtbag guns (very distracting) from the sun when I leave the house without putting on some screen. Again.
The Grey and I were out to the airport and turned around when Diesel passed us going the other direction. He soon caught us and the Three Amigos were back together. Until Diesel turned on the gas on the way up Pineapple and left us behind. I had a good ride up the first lap. Strong, pretty quick. I thought the boded well for the future. Wrong!**
Back down Pineapple and off to the airport. Below is how I look and sound on nearly every descent I ride.

I began to realize the ride back was not going to be all peaches and cream when I heard Diesel and the Grey talking about how lucky we had been with the headwind earlier. There hadn't been one. I'd noticed too but I didn't say anything because the cycling gods can hear you and they laugh at your silly hubris. And right after (Seriously! Right. After.) the words were out of their mouths here comes the wind. It would be the fourth amigo for the remainder of the ride. As we hit the bottom of Pineapple I looked at the Grey and said, "This isn't going to be good." And it wasn't. So I was right, which is nice.
There were points where I felt strong, points where the cadence came up and I felt like someone who had been riding a bike for over a year. And there were points where I was 75% sure I was going to yak and I wondered if I would be able to get off my bike before I did it. Doing so much Pineapple has shortened it mentally and I know the stages of the hill well now. So while powering up it ceased to be an option, getting some was and I got as much as I could. At the top we were supposed to head all the way to the guard shack but I was feeling pretty shattered and opted to go home instead.
This is the kind of Dirtbag Suffering Quotient which will make me strong and fast. I see you, Lance-a-little.

Respect Your Elders (OR A Weekend of Getting Smoked By Old Guys)

Swim Day (Friday)
1 x 150- Warm-up
1 x 200- 3:00
1 x 300- 4:30
1 x 400- 6:00
1 x 500- 7:30
total- 1650 yards

Bike Day (Saturday)
time- 3:40
distance- 51.64mi

Run Day (Sunday)
time- approx. 1:20
distance- 5.11mi

 Aside from the swim, this was my weekend for getting schooled by guys at least 15 years older than me. This is conservative (read: nice so that they don't kick my ass more next time). I know Dirtbag Diesel is 48, which means he's 18 years older. Dirtbag the Grey is a little older than he is. And Art Doesn'tHaveADirtbagNameYet has got to be at least 15 years older than I am, he's got a son in high school. And each and every one of them took my Dirtbag Ego and laughed at it.
Friday, not so much. The swim set wasn't long and I did it alone. Had a good swim. It was nice to feel good about my fitness level for a few hours.
Saturday morning Dirtbag the Grey and I set out a few hours after Dirtbag Diesel. Diesel is in the midst of training for Ironman New Zealand, and he is putting in the heavy miles. So the plan was to ride north until we passed eachother, then turn around and ride back together. That way everyone gets a good number of miles in. As a side note, "a good number of miles" for Sean equaled just over 120. The Grey and I got out and were riding well, the weather was perfect, and up Pupukea we went. Neither of us likes this climb, though I am trying to convince myself otherwise. I think that if I spend the climb thinking, "This is great. I love this. Bring it on. I want more," I will start to believe it and the masochism will grow. We shall see. Either way, based on how time trialing with the Grey had gone during other rides I thought I'd be hanging with him on the climb. Yeah, that or he'd disappear and leave me to struggle alone. Oh well, I pushed and I pumped and I got out of the saddle a few times and I did make the climb a few minutes quicker than Monday. The getting out of the saddle thing is something I struggle with no because it's too hard, but because I don't know how much I'll use it come race day. Standing blows out my legs quicker, and it blows out different muscle groups which, I think, I'll be using for the run. So I'm sitting tight and grinding. Gotta get the cadence up.
We met up with Diesel just after the climb, when he was around 75 miles, and made our way back. And they left me in the dust again. I swear I was pushing, I don't have any idea how I got dropped so fast. But I was hurting. And then I got dropped again going up Pineapple Hill. Again, faster than Monday, but not fast. I'm not even sure my ego will let me give the climb a decent DSQ because my legs were too toasted to allow me to push like I wanted to. I'd ask, and they would give for a minute or two, then it was be back down and grinding again. Frustrating, because I was trying to hurt more and couldn't find it. Like Diesel keeps telling me, I've gotta get some repeats on Pineapple happening. I've gotta get stronger. My, what big hill repeats you have, Dirtbag. All the better to suffer with, my dear.
Today was a new adventure in trail running. I met with Art DHADNY up Pupukea, but at a different trail than I've run with Sean and his crazy ultra-running friends. Art is the parent of a student I had last year, and fresh back from Baghdad. Art is a BAMF. How do I know? He told me stories about how in the sandbox he would only have time to run during his lunch break, so he'd leave and go out for a 5 or 10k and come back. "But Art," I gasped, "isn't it like 9,000 degrees in Iraq?"
Yeah," Art smiled, "it would get around 120 or so. And then when you get back the water tanks have heated up from the sun so your shower is hot too."
"...Oh."
I also can't top a story that includes the words, "...after a firefight sometimes you aren't sure if you used 70 cans of ammo or not when you're filling out the paperwork." Not that I would have been able to even if I did have a story better than that. There was plenty of up and down and up some more on today's run and boy was I huffing and puffing. Art was too, but he was talking most of the time. Why do I always find runners who can talk? I can barely not fall off the trail. I'd post the elevation profile but my Garmin's battery died halfway through the run and Art sent me his data, but I'm not bright enough to open the file. So you'll have to trust me when I say there was a ton of climbs. Damn worth it, though. You break through the tree line and the whole North Shore coast is laid out beneath you, makes all that hurting worth it. I didn't have my camera or my phone but Art did. I asked for the pictures and they are posted below so that all you mainlanders can look at them, then look out your window at your silly winter, sigh, and then have the sad.
I love training with guys faster than me. It pushes me to get faster. it makes me suffer greater. And the fact that most of them are near or above my dad's age? Well that's just something my ego has to take. If it gets too bad I'll make them join me for a swim.

The golf balls are where the radar tower that picked up the Pearl Harbor attack was. Cool, huh?

Introducing the DSQ

Ride Day
time- 3:28
distance- 47.75mi

This, my friends, is the unofficial start of Honu 70.3 training. It will be the official start when I pick a training plan and write down my 20 or so weeks of pain and suffering to come. Which should happen in the next week. I know you're excited to hear all about that so stay tuned.


Today's ride was my first time back in the saddle in what feels like a while. I did that trainer session with Sean a week or so ago and not much since then due to flats and vacation. To answer your question you didn't know you were asking, yes, the ride today did hurt and my legs were burning disappointingly early. But I expected that so it didn't mess with my head too much. Let's just say the first mile of Pupukea suuuuuuuucked like it hasn't since the first time I hit it (happens at minute 41 on the Garmin link, in case that isn't immediately obvious by the elevation spike and speed crash). But I fought through that, thought happy thoughts, and got to the top. The Top is more satisfying sometimes when you have serious moments of, "Yeah, I'm not so sure this is happening today," early in the ascent. Sure is nice to get to the top and feel like, "Woo, that felt good, lemme do that again so I can feel the way I talked about in that blog that I wrote back in January." (Oxygen debt and severe muscle pain to strange things to the brain.) Pineapple Hill was the same but less so. It hurt and it was slow, but very little matches that opening mile of Pupukea.
All of this bring me to the Main Point of this post: The DSQ. This stands for Dirtbag Suffering Quotient. Put your hand down, of course I will explain. To get properly strong, both physically and mentally, suffering must be involved. As Tom Hanks said as that lovable drunk Jimmy Dugan, "It's supposed to be hard. The hard is what makes it great."And if riding the Honu course with Sean taught me anything, it's that it's gonna hurt. And the only way to prepare for something hurting it to hurt more in training. So that's what I aim to do. I need to learn to suffer, absorb it, and suffer more. Through learned suffering I will have a good 70.3. Obviously, that isn't the only thing I will be working on and looking at during my training cycle, but I think it will be an important component. There is no question that what I'm signed up to do it going to hurt. It hurts for everybody, from the pros all the way down to the little age groupers like me. There is no getting around the hurt. There is only getting ready for it. Hence the DSQ, a completely random and arbitrary quotient I will occasionally assign workouts when I remember or feel like it. Anything that makes me suffer, that strengthens me both mentally and physically, which should be damn near everything I do, falls under DSQ. Today's ride who get a high DSQ because I'm slightly out of shape for a ride like that and there was quite a bit of fighting going on. Soon today's ride ridden as it was will have a low DSQ, which will mean intensity, distance, or both need to be increased.
So that was that. I was going to meet up with Dirtbag Diesel on his way back from his ride this morning but he flatted out and needed to call for a ride. To review- last time he and I rode together I flatted twice, while he pointed, laughed, took pictures, and took a video. While I was on vacation he rode with Dirtbag the Grey. The Grey flatted and I got a text with a picture of the Grey fixing his tire and telling Sean that he is number one. But when he flats no one is around. Not. Fair. Therefor, I close this post with an artists approximation of Sean's ride today.