Crazy Like a Zeba! (IMWI Race Day Report)

I say "zeba" due to my knowledge of the comic strip Pearls Before Swine by Stephen Pastis.  My friend, Susan, sent me a book of his comics a few years ago, and many of them feature one or more crocodiles trying to outsmart zebras.  Take a look:

I am now only ELEVEN weeks out from IMCOZ, which means I am in BEAST MODE. Even though I am pretty organized, it is becoming difficult to do things besides work, train, eat, sleep and the basics of a life.  But I'm trying.

Last Sunday was Ironman Wisconsin.  I ran my 2:10 on the course while my peeps were biking.  As I came back into Madison near the finish line, the first pro was heading out on the run!  I was so shocked, as the race clock was only at 5:30!  WTF!!!  And then Tom Ziebart admonished me to get the fuck off the course (my words, not his).

I'd gotten a text from Dark Knight's wife about when she expected him out on the run.  I am sure I misinterpreted it, but at any rate, I did not have much time to get back to the hotel, shower, stuff my face with as much food as I could, do a costume change, and head back out onto the course to be prepared to intercept DK.  I had saved like 3 pieces of bacon and 2 mini pastries from breakfast, and when I got to my room, I literally stuffed them into my mouth, got a bottle of Endurox R4 out of the fridge and began drinking that.  Then I stripped off my running clothes, which were soaked from the humidity, and tried to finish chewing the food, and I started packing my Kona 2004 sling bag with what I would need out on the course--camera, snacks, phone, etc.

I donned my outfit that I'd been excited to get on for WEEKS!

The guy working the hotel front desk was super smiley when taking my pic, and he thought it was cool what I was about to do.  I got out there just beyond the first turn off State Street and waited.  Meanwhile, I was getting some interesting looks from bystanders, and when some of the fast people were coming through and they saw me, many of them had a huge smile on their face.  Some spectators would ask me to take my pic, and others just did it in stealth mode.

I saw DK come by and he didn't even notice me!  I began yelling at him and running madly after him!  He was running faster than he should have, so it was hard for me to keep up, especially since I'd already run 13.5 miles (I know he was doing an Ironman, STFU).  But I caught him and we talked about pace and he had a huge smile on his face when he saw me.  I mean, why not?  He didn't mention whether he'd intercepted the Batman action figure that I had slipped into his T2 bag.  So I just tried to keep up, but was mainly behind him because I didn't want to cause race interference or a DQ, and boy did I get some cheering going!  I went out to Mile 2 and then left DK to his race and headed back downtown.

I hung out and waited for people to come through, all of course while everyone was checking me out.  I even went up to my former coach, Rich Strauss, in full dress mode, and he didn't even bat an eye when he turned around and saw me.  Sigh.  I guess he just expects this behavior from me!

I intercepted Lori to check on her and she didn't want/need me to run with her, and next I found AJ, and asked him if he'd like me to run with him a bit, he was cool with it, so I did, and once again, the college students were digging on the Bat Girl.  I was having a blast doing this and keeping AJ on pace (I don't know if I was running too fast for him or not but he had a good race), and again went out to near Mile 2 and back.  So I was up to maybe 21 miles of running already.

I did a few more here and there, in between jogging back to the hotel where they would hand me another giant cookie to fuel my madness!  It was all good!  Then I settled in on hanging out with a most excellent bunch of professional spectators like myself who were right outside my hotel, which is right on the run course.  We were being totally silly, and there were 2 girls with amazing bodies that were giving the racers something nice to look at, along with one girl's husband, who was in a Speedo holding up funny signs.

That's as far as I want to go with the report, since I would let the racers themselves tell their own stories.  Suffice it to say, I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and I was pretty damn tired by the end of the night!

This week began my binge running week, and since I kind of overdid it at IMWI, I took a rest day on Monday.  Well, fuck, I ran a marathon, so on Tuesday guess what?  Sore legs.  Oh well, the show must go on!  And to help me run, it was over 90 out, and I thought it was because of the heat that I couldn't manage faster than 9:45 miles, but hey, it was because of Sunday!  Wednesday was the same thing, only it wasn't quite as hot ("only" 86), but I knew I was just tired.  I have been hitting it hard, so yesterday instead of running, I used the Cybex elliptical, which claimed I was burning 700 calories/hour, which may be correct, because I was going to town on it!  This was a good thing for me to do because I'm on the edge of running injury, and I can stave it off now by doing stuff like this.

This morning I'm running 2 hours, and I think it will go well.  If anything hurts, I will back off and head back to the Y for elliptical.

This weekend I decided just for shits and grins to do 2 century rides--Ride Like an Egyptian on Saturday because I want the T-shirt, and Tri-Smart 101 on Sunday because I get a hoodie.  I am such a sucker for swag!  I hope the weather cooperates, which is why I will for sure get at least one century in!

Meanwhile, the training is super intense right now and I have 2 more BIG HUGE FUCKING WEEKS and then I get a rest week (17 hours, LOL!!!) that is mainly a reduction in run volume.  I can't wait for it!

I will try and blog at least once a week, but if I don't, GO BIG OR GO FUCKING HOME!!!