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The instructions said to be careful when you get off the bike. Your legs have been doing one thing for almost three hours, and it can take a while to convince them to try something new. It is for this reason that the beginning of the run is a common place for triathletes to start cramping. Ha! START cramping? Heck, I�d been dealing with that for the hour and a half! Back in transition, I took a minute or two and massaged my legs with a �massage stick� that I had in my bag. It felt good to give the muscles a bit of a rub-out before I tackled the half-marathon. I grabbed my visor, filled my back pocket with four energy gels and a small bag of salt tablets. With the tremendous volumes of sweat that is produced during a race of this length, many athletes need to take a few salt tablets per hour to keep their electrolyte levels normal. Of course, these tablets are not filled with table salt; there is actually a mix of sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium. Sometimes these help with cramping� other times, well� I�m not sure.

The instruction manual had suggested walking the first few hundred meters before starting to run, but, there was the crowd, and the cheering, and the banners, and it seemed like I just had to move at more than a snail�s pace. Legs actually felt good as I ran out of the spectator area, and I started to think that maybe my cramping problems were behind me. Then it started. That slight twinge in one leg� then the other. A bigger jolt in one of my quads forced me to walk. �Okay, I�ll just walk for a while and then things will be better,� I thought. But after just a few steps both of my quads were in a complete spasm. Simply standing had become too much, and I quickly found a free spot on the curb to sit � with legs straight out in front of me. I didn�t dare bend a leg for fear of other muscles cramping. I knew that if I could relax the muscles, the spasm should go away as I started to rub my muscles. The spectators that I was wedged between asked if I was okay. I shrugged, and said, �This is going to take a while...�

13.1 miles was the task at hand. I had the 0.1 done, and at the current pace of sitting on the curb� I would never, ever finish this thing. I sometimes like to joke to my car passengers when we are driving in stop-and-go traffic. Inching along a crowded freeway, we come to a momentary stop, and I say, �You know guys, at this rate we will never get there.� Of course we start moving again, and I announce that now our current pace is 2 miles an hour and we should arrive two days from now. When traffic lightens up and we�re moving at 65 again, I announce that we�ll get there in 45 minutes, as planned!

Not wanting to take two more days to finish this thing, I stood and said to the encouraging spectator, �I hope to see you again in about two hours�! And off I went to finish 13 more miles.

Now, this course is what�s called a double loop course. This means we run for about 3 � miles, turn around and run back for a total of 6 � miles. Then, we do it again! In my mind, I had divided this total course into 4 segments: out, back, out again, and back again. When I ran this course on my recon mission a few weeks ago, it had taken me about 25 minutes to run each segment, which is about 7:45 minute miles for a total time of 1:40. This of course, was on fresh legs, and today would be slower, but I now had an extra forty minutes to complete the race in less than six hours. As I plodded along, tried to calculate what my pace needed to be in order to meet my goal. With forty extra minutes, I figured that was ten extra minutes per section, which is a pace of just over 10:30 minutes per mile � which is a pretty slow jog. �I can do this�!

On the run, the aid stations are now placed every mile, and I am sitting on the curb again, downing a cup of Gatorade, rubbing out my thighs again. I hate Gatorade! It is really one of the worse sports drinks you will find! It is full of high-fructose corn syrup which is a lousy source of sustainable energy and there are artificial dyes in it. Most �good� sport drinks that are usually available in a bike shop or running store will have a mix of simple and complex carbs � and no dyes. But today, I have no choice because Gatorade has enough money to be a major sponsor of this event and be the official supplier for all Ironman events. On the bike, I simply packed my own sports drink in large bottles (Cytomax � no dyes, available at most good bike shops, and no, I don�t get paid to say that!). While running, you can�t carry much more than a few ounces, so I was resigned to drink what was available � Gatorade Endurance formula. This has higher amount of electrolytes than the normal Gatorade that you can buy in the grocery stores or 7-11, but it still has HFCS and dyes. For those younger (and older) athletes out there, if you need a sports drink (one is usually recommended for sustained aerobic activity for longer than 1 hour) don�t get your sports drinks from the grocery store. You will perform better if you get it at a bike or running shop. Just check the ingredients.

So, despite my knowledge of sports physiology and excellent training methods� I am sitting on the curb rubbing out quad spasms after just one mile of running.

Why? Because I was a little too competitive to throttle back at the beginning of the bike ride. And I didn�t listen to my training buddies that gave me a crazy look when I announced that a half-Ironman would be my first major triathlon. And, of course, my secret weapon was still sitting on my kitchen counter (see 4-2-07 blog).

Time to get moving again. You know, this whole Ironman thing really is quite a spectacle! We are running along �The Strand�, which is a small road that goes right along beach. This is great because the temperatures are lower than they were out on the bike course. California is like that. If you can see the ocean, temperatures are rather mild, but as soon as you get inland about a mile � it is desert all the way to Arizona. I come upon the next aid station and down a cup of Gatorade and eat my first of four energy gels. I walk for about 1 minute to give the legs a bit of a rest then start hoofing if again. In my running training, I had adopted the run-walk-run method that was developed by Olympic runner Jeff Galloway. In his books about running, he suggests that a brief walking rest every mile or so will keep legs fresh, and your finishing time will be faster than if you just tried to run the whole way. I know many �non-runners� that have completed marathons in respectable times using this method.

Despite the pain, I was having a wonderful time enjoying the whole scene of a world class sporting event! The sun, the beach, the spectators, and over 2,000 other athletes. It�s always fun to be able to compete on the same playing field as the world class athletes. Back when I started the run, the winner of the event just happened to be crossing the finish line as I was leaving the start/finish area to begin my 13.1 mile jaunt. I actually gave him a �high-five� as he ran by!

After my second �massage break� my legs felt pretty good, and I was able to sustain a decent jogging pace over the next few miles, of course, stopping briefly at each aid station to drink some electrolyte solution, and a salt tablet. The miles started to pass by, and before I knew it � I was approaching the halfway point! I checked my time schedule, and was shocked and disappointed to see that I had spent my entire 40 minute advantage! It had taken me an hour and a half to get this far, and I would need to finish the second half in just one hour. Any hope of beating the six hour mark was gone, and so I grinned and said, �Oh, well, maybe next time�.

So I just kept running. I had this amused, disappointed smirk on my face � the look that showed that I was both annoyed and proud of myself. I knew I was more than capable of doing this � but my legs had let me down. In practice, I had easily run the pace I needed and I wished I was feeling better.

Originally coined by Olympic gold medalist skier Bill Johnson, I quickly had adopted it for my competitive sailing. In a sailboat race, while going down wind with a spinnaker up (the big, colorful, �parachute� sail), the boat tends to be fastest right on the edge of losing control. If I was winning the race, I would tend to be a little more conservative, play it safe, and preserve my lead. But, if I needed to catch up to the leaders, I would say to my crew, �come on guys, we�re going to win, or crash!� Making adjustments to the sails and position of our weight to make the boat much LESS stable, but much faster, we would fly down the racecourse. If we could manage to stay upright � we would surge into the lead!

I had two choices: move at a comfortable pace, finish the race but miss my time goal; or I could go for the win and run fast enough to meet my time, but possibly causing some race ending leg cramps�

Legs are feeling okay� so I ran even faster! I was still careful to stay relaxed and not overdo it for fear of cramping again. I was thankful to be running again, and passing people, but I was also very tentative, knowing each step could bring back the pain.

Soon, I had reeled off a couple miles keeping a great pace and I arrived at the last turn-around point. My watch said I had covered the last 3 � miles in 25 minutes, which meant that I still had 35 minutes to cover the same distance and get to the finish! �This should be a piece of cake!� I said out-loud as I made the turn and headed for home.

Well, apparently �pieces of cake� and running a half-Ironman don�t go well together. The familiar bolts of lightning shot through my legs again as the cramping returned with a vengeance. A quick sit-down on the curb to rub out the cramp (I was getting pretty efficient at this) and I was up again, only spending a fraction of my ten minute time cushion. But these cramps were much worse than before and not 50 meters later, I was on the curb again!

�I can still make it if I make these stops brief!� And I was up again running, still ahead of the looming six-hour mark.

Maybe I should have called this �a walk in the park� because that�s what I had to do now. It�s so frustrating when your muscles just say, �we�ve had enough� and they refuse to move any faster than a walk. But I had no other choice. I was walking, with about 1.5 miles to go, and 15 minutes left on the clock. At my current pace, the math just didn�t add up. I would have to move faster!

There are special times in people�s lives when the mind narrows its focus on one singular goal. Everything else gets put aside: there are no �to do list�, planning meetings, bills to pay, shopping lists or project due dates. One gets tunnel vision, and you are only conscious about attaining that goal. I would imagine that reaching the summit of Mt. Everest or the final stages of child-birth would be prime examples. I like to call them �polarizing events� � because all the brain waves seem to get lined up in one direction and all your attention and will power gets hyper-focused on the task at hand. For a few brief moments, you are the �Olympic champion� or the �Super bowl winner� or �Rambo� and the rest of the universe ceases exist - except for your goal and any hurdles that stand in your way. A six hour time was all I could see now. Gone were any thoughts about sharks, haystacks, or secret weapon protein shakes and all I wanted was that finish line!

11 minutes to go. I would walk or �joggle� (a cross between jogging and waddling) until I got to the 12 mile marker. Then I had 8 minutes left and knew that it was now or never. Win or crash. I started running again and just hoped my legs would hold together. I did start to cramp again, but this time I just kept going, knowing that I could handle the pain for just a few more minutes. I slowed just a bit and found a tolerable compromise between a joggle and a crawl� One short uphill and I came around a bend and I could see the line now but it was a long way off. Looking at my watch, I knew I had just slowed too much. Ironically, as my watch hit the six-hour mark, my legs started to feel better and I was able to stride through the last few hundred meters.

With the crowd cheering again, I caught a glimpse of a little girl holding a big sign that read, �My Daddy is an Ironman!� The sign wasn�t for me, but it did the trick anyway! With teary eyes hidden by my dark glasses, I looked ahead of me and saw about five runners just in front of me. I could also see the Ironman finish tape strung across the line � I wanted that tape! As I was sprinting past those runners, I noticed that three of them were in my age group, so I was moving up in the standings. Then one of them got a leg cramp and went sprawling to the ground! Ooh, that could be me any second! Now with the group behind me, there was nothing standing between me and the�.

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