Friday, June 29, 2007



Okay I am a total Copycat right now as this is the same pic that Gordo has on his blog but it's my pic so there!

Anyway, I thought I would back track to our trip to Winter Park. The trip was meant to be a pretty big volume training camp. We rode from Boulder to Winter Park via Trail Ridge. The picture is at the top at about 11,000 feet. AS Gordo say's "We look better than we felt."

Anyway, the ride there was a blast and towards the end Denny and I put the hammer down and rode quite solid for the last 30K. It was great to be riding like that because just hours before that I was attempting to hitch hike LOL. You see once we got to the top the weather turned on us a bit. I found myself in a thunderstorm a top one of the highest peaks in Colorado. Denny and G were descending pretty quickly and I am a total wuss about it. Plus my break pads were worn very thin and I felt like the bike was not going to stop. Add in the shacking from the cold and you had one pathetic scene! I was staying calm though and just trying to go slow. But the rain got harder and I got colder. I stoped for a moment to gain composure and pull my knee warmers down so that they covered my entire leg. During my stop the lighting started and that scared the crap out of me. One bolt hit close enough for me to see it strike. Then the BOOM! the sound hit. That was when I stuck my thumb out. You would think that a poor cyclist shaking in the freezing cold about to get hit by lighting would be able to get a ride down the mountain pretty easily. You would think.....Did I look like a criminal? Why did this mini van that had plenty of room for me and my bike make eye contact with me an my thumb, saw the desperation on my face and then proceeded to not even stop and ask if I was okay??? When they rolled by they had those "support the troops" stickers all over the cars. The irony to me was the Americans don't actually do anything when confronted with it....the most they can do is put a sticker on their car...That was a bit of a tangent, but really what is the point of those stickers? Is it like a bake sale for the troops because our own government won't use our tax money to help them?

So anyway, I decided to get back on the bike and keep at it. After about 15 min of more freezing cold I found myself once again stopped on the side of the road. This time it was to take off all this clothing because I was burning up! Once down the mountain the sun was out and roasting away. It was so amazing to see the weather change like that. 20 min later I was at the gas station where Denny and Gordo were waiting. I could tell what kind of ride Gordo was having as he was eating a Haggen Daz Ice Cream bar. He just looked at me and said " I recommend no less than 800 calories."

We still had a long way to go and Denny and I found new legs and really hammered a section going into the park. By then end of the ride I was ready to be off the bike but was pretty stoked at how I felt because two years ago this ride wouldn't have even been possible for me. Matt was in town and gave us directions to our lodge. We cleaned up, had some dinner and then veged out to a movie as we fell asleep. Oh yeah, we ran off the bike too. The run felt good and actually helped the legs recover. How that is possible I am not sure....but it did.

The next day we were up early to ride to Rand and back. The ride would be about 100 miles and we were doing it as a Time Trial. No drafting and the goal was to run one hour off the bike as a "reality" check. Mind you we are up at about 8,000 feet and would climb to 10,000 or so.

When I woke up I felt okay. Once out on the bike I had a stomach ache right away. I had had stomach issues a few days prior but didn't give it much thought. My initial instinct was to call the ride off and just turn around. But of course I didn't and kept on trucking. I stayed about 10 -15 meters behind Gordo and just used him as a pace. Normally that should feel pretty easy for me in the begging as he is really good at working the back end of a ride. But it was hard from the start. I rolled up to him a few times and told hi how I was feeling and he felt I should just go easy and see if it gets better. By the turn around point I had full on flu symptoms and was in the shitter. We were in the middle of no where and I knew that I would have to ride back. The next 15 miles would be up hill and I was not real excited about that. I was the last one in the group to leave the turn point and thought I would try and work to catch up to Dr. J and Jon. Once I did I just kept it rolling. It was like I was in the zone and just wanted to get home. I knew that I could coast a bit when I go to the the peak but of course I forgot that the weather had said we were in for heavy head winds on the way back. Lets put it this way, when I started the descent I was standing up at times. I think I even hit a moment where I just wanted to get off my bike and go to sleep. I felt feverish and my legs had that ache you get when you have a cold. My skin felt like it had acid under it.

On the tail end of the ride when I started to feel some hope. That hope was taken away like drivers license for Paris Hilton when I totally forgot an entire section of the ride that was about 20K. I almost cried LOL...Almost. The wind was bad and I was fading big time. I looked back and I could see Jon in the distance. Thank the lord and the baby Jesus! I slowed down to almost a stand still waiting for him. I was going to make him pull me in for the rest of the ride. I was so afraid that he was going to fly by my and he wouldn't hear me that I blocked him on the bike. When he caught up to me " I just said 'HELP!" Or something like that. He laughed and I got on his wheel and we worked together. Every so often I would randomly scream out an obscenity. I think I started to scare Jon a bit LOL....Towards the end we rolled past a KFC that was pumping out grease smells. I think we were both pretty damn close to the idea of having a little sit down with the Colonel! I couldn't give Gordo the satisfaction of knowing that a ride reduced me to a bucket of KFC.

Once we get back I pretty much died. I had a fever and I couldn't eat. I drank about 10 mini V8's and just laid there in a haze. The guys were great. They all came in from time to time to check on me and my loyal roomy Denny is always a good guy to have around.

The next day I did ZIPPPPPO! We decided to drive back early. I wanted to be back down to lower altitude in Boulder and sleep in my own bed....oh wait, our real motivation was that the pool in Winter Park sucked and we were all jonesing for a good pool. Such Tri Geeks!

What happened on that second ride is sort of an unknown. I think that it was just a stomach bug but I guess it could have been altitude, fatigue and the ride the day before. None the less it happened 6 days out from Buffalo Springs 70.3 which might explain why that race was not super fast for me.

Right now Gordo put me on a 3 days of pretty mild stuff. I am tired and my leg's are a bit inflamed so I am going to take everything really slow until Monday.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

ELKDOM Here I Come....


Here is that picture of Lori and Lennia ( I am butchering the spelling of her name as I butcher the spelling of many things but it is pronounced "La-KNEE-A.") Why can't we just spell things the way they sound???
Anyway, I think that the smile you see on her is permanently stuck since she got that KONA slot.
Today was supposed to be the "Team Time Trial" for Gordo on the bike. Denny and I showed up but I decided to go with Gordo's advice and lay low this week. I sat on the back and just drafted for a while and then decided to turn off and cut the ride short. Luckily Marky A wanted to do the same. We rode back and tried to decide who was more tired LOL. Nice to have the company.
So tonight should be interesting as we (The guys on Gordo's squad and Monica) are being inducted into ELKDOM LOL! We all agreed to join the Elk's in an effort to use the pool. Gordo has a community project that is trying to build a 50 meter pool there. In exchange we all said we would join. I am glad that we did because it has changed my views on them. I thought that we were getting into a group of old right wing religious nuts and that really isn't the case at all. While the Elks have hit their peak a while ago, I still think they do valid things for the communities surrounding them. Anyway, tonight should be interesting to say the least. I will try to get a shot with the older Elks in their white tux's LOL! I am wearing Jeans as I left my good clothes at my parents house. I never thought I would need nice stuff here in Boulder. I also shaved my head bald so I am sure I will get some looks.....

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Back from Buffalo 70.3

This picture is from the car that was next to us when we went to go get some lunch after the race. Looks like someone is doing the Ironman of smoking. I mean, if you are going to smoke, you might as well SMOKE!

I finally got the blog function on my site working. I feel like I should get a prize or something LOL! Actually Wyanne should get a prize since she is the one who set it up....

So I should start off that "this" is really my first Blog posting. The other posts and articles are just stuff that I had written before. I have other "past" stuff that I will post on here as well. Especially the next instalments of My EPIC ADVENTURE. I think people doing triathlon will benefit from them as it really goes over the last 2 years when I was in New Zealand and Boulder.

Buffalo Springs 70.3 was a pretty good race. I didn't finish as high up as I would have liked and my time was slower than I would have liked. It was no surprise though as I was not tapered or rested by any means. We had the big training weekend in Winter Park with Gordo and Company last weekend and I got fried BIG TIME on the 100 mile time trial. I was sick or something. All in all though there were many positives to the day. But lets begin with what I felt was a very "controversial" swim.

The swim was in a lake that was quite warm. However, the race directors found a way to make the race wetsuit legal. For that to happen the temp needs to be 78 or below. I'm sure it was below 78 degrees at the bottom of the lake! None the less, they were allowed and it just seemed like a crime to do that. I fell that triathlon swimming was meant to be on wetsuit when ever possible.

So why didn't I just chose to not wear one? Well we all know they create a HUGE advantage. Since swimming is not my strong suit I would have been at a disadvantage. The point here is that they should have been banned....I had a really long e-mail dialogue with the race director about it and it I understand all the arguments made on his end. But still.....Maybe I will post the conversation on here.

I had to stop twice in the swim to let waste into the wetsuit. It felt like there was an electric blanket on my chest and there were times when I got a bit panicky. Luckily I have more experience in the sport and know how to calm myself down and just "get through it." I always tell myself when I am not having a good swim that I went 4:11 on a 31:00 min swim last year.

Once I got to the swim exit I stopped and let water in the suit several times and then riped it off right there in the water. I couldn't believe how hot I was! My transition was okay but not super fast. I was going to test out wearing a camel back for the ride to see how I liked it in a race. I might wear it for Full Vineman this Aug but not 100% sold on it yet. It was surprisingly quick to get on. It was funny though, because I got a tiny bit self conscious with it on. What a FREAKING GEEK I looked like!

The ride was fine. I felt like I was moving along and my legs were okay. It was a bit disappointing to see my ride time. I got my ass handed to me by Natasha Badman. I wonder what she eats to make that tiny little body of hers go so damn fast. She had one of the fasted bike times of the day...period.

Off the bike I went to go do my 1/2 marathon and again there is not a sole around me. It was like being on a training run. My run legs are just not there yet. It is so frustrating to only have the ability to run a 1:27 right now. I did feel stronger at the turn around but all in all the run jut feels laborous. It doesn't feel like I am "running." I do know that things are getting better in trailing and my foot is starting to behave. But overall the injury took a lot of good run training out of me and I am seeing that now.

I saw Denny out there many times. He started 5 min behind me in the 4th wave and I could tell throughout the race that he was about 5 min behind me. The last mile of the run I kept saying "You better push it or Deny is gonna get you!" When I finished I went and sat down in one of those old school lawn chairs they had set up...Ya know the ones made of plastic tubes that leave marks on your but and stick to you....Well about 5 min later I hear "Dennis Meeker from Boulder CO." Turns out we I fished 14 sec ahead of him. How interesting that the guy I train with the most basically does the exact same race time as me!

After the race we wasted no time and gr abed some lunch with Lennia and Lori (I will post a pic of them because they look so cute!...and no not lesbians LOL) then Denny and I went to do the really hard part of the day which was driving 11 hours back to Boulder. WTF were we thinking? Well actually it was all Denny! I was cool with staying one more day and then driving back but NOOOOO Denny had to get back LOL! Actually the ride back was really fun. We had people on the phone looking up race results for all the Ironman's going that day in the world.

Congrats to everyone out there that raced! There were some really solid performances. Billy Edwards on our squad had a PR at IM CDA and his first top 10 finish as a pro. GO BILLY!

The big excitement of the day has to go to Lennia for sure. She is really new to the sport and got her KONA slot at Buffalo Springs 70.3. Say good bye to IM Wisconsin and HELLO KONA!

Okay enough race rambling. I would much rather talk about all the crap I saw today on Fox News and that crazy FUCKING BITCH Ann Coulter (I dont' normally use bad language on her but I felt that bad language was made to describe things like Ann Coulter). And don't you worry as I will write about that when I am not so fried.....

Ciao,
bdc

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Gay Games

I decided I would go to Chicago to do the Gay Games Triathlon. My friend Jeff and I had started “Team HRC” a while back and used the triathlon and ½ marathon as fundraising events. We had a decent number of athletes coming to the race from all over the place. It was going to be fun to meet some of these people and have an opportunity to hang out in Chicago.

I competed in the Gay Games back when it was in Sydney. At the time I wasn’t doing triathon and just went down to run the 10K and 5K. The experice was really good and the city put on an amazing event. It was pretty cool to run on the 2000 Olympic track and see all the new arenas they built for the Olympics. After all my “distance events” were over, I actually did a 4x100 on the Los Angeles B team. We came in second over all LOL…I couldn’t walk for a few days. That wasn’t the brightest thing to do because I probably could have hurt my hammy pretty bad. I spent the rest of the time recovering on a beach! We had a great few nights of going out and living it up in Sydney. The whole thing was a memorable experience.

Chicago was the other side of the Sydney coin. I think they did a pretty bad job with the whole event. I must give them some slack in that I know there was some controversy with the “Out Games”. They were both supposed to be in Canada and then something happened and the Gay Games got switched to Chicago. Do gay people really need two games? I’m not even sure they need one, but that is a whole other issue. So is the fact that there is inner conflict. But I won’t go into that now…..

So the triathlon was on the same course as the Chicago tri. You would think with that being the case that the Gay Games could pull of a triathlon with a lot less people. Really all they had to do was copy the other race….Lets just say that didn’t happen. The biggest issue was that there were no bathrooms until 10 min before the race.

I managed to find a way to take my mega pre race crap and still make the start. The swim was right in the harbor and fun because the whole time you can see people walking along the boardwalk watching. I was surprised how rough the swim was. The stereo type of gay people being “sissy’s” was no where to be found. I was getting punched and kicked the entire time.

When I finished the swim there is a a very long run to T2. For some reason I have very sensitive feet and don’t do too well with rough barefoot running. None the less I did what I could and made my way to the bikes. Once out on the bike I felt really flat. I was trying to get that feel I had when in Hawaii for Lavaman. I rode really strong there and was able to push really hard the entire time. Not the case today. But I also knew that I wasn’t riding “bad”. I came off the bike in 3rd about 4 min down from the leader.

After my extremely long T2 I was out running. Again, flat legs. Major bummer. I even had a feeling that made me not want to run at all. I think part of that was coming from “Oh man I don’t want to loose at the gay games.” But I kept on trucking. I got to see the leader when we hit an out and back section and he looked like he was running so much faster than I was. But then again, everyone always looks like they are running fast to me. When I hit the turn around I started to think I could catch him. I had passed the other guy around mile two. We had about a mile to go so I just sucked it up and ran as hard as I could. When I got him in clear sight I knew I would have to pass with authority and not let him know how crappy I feel. I made the pass and he couldn’t respond and I ended up winning by about 2 min. I really wanted to go sub 2 hours but didn’t do it. Oh well….

The rest of the week was pretty good. I was able to go watch Wadley swim and see a few of the track events. I won’t go into how bad I felt the track stuff was run. But lets put it this way, I was going to run the 5K on the track and decided not to.

I did run the open 5K road race mid week. I won that too which was surprising because the Frontrunners had some decent runners. They went out pretty fast and I stayed back. I used my IM fitness to work the second ½ and pulled to the front. I think I went 16:27??? I laughed at how quick it was over! When you train for an IM a 5K feels like a blink of the eye….pretty sad that I worked so hard to run so slow too! Ahhh the good ole’ days of running short fast races is O.V.E.R.! But I did use the race as a workout as I have a ½ Ironman this next weekend in Racine Wisconsin. I have been a bit nervous that I have not been able to get any biking in as Chicago is not the best for that. However, swimming the lake has been so great! David Bishop and I have had some good training swims. I did drive to a sports store to buy a trainer for the bike. I only got on it once fo 50 min LOL. The best part is that I can return it!

I think Racine will go well! I will post about that when it is said and done.

Cheers,
bdc

Pre Honu 70.3 Blog

Well it has been almost a month since Wildflower and I have been training pretty well here in Boulder CO. It has been great to be on Gordo’s squad and have access to great swimming and ridding buddies. Denny and I have had a few good rides and I feel like I am acclimating to the altitude pretty well. The big issue of course is still my running.

I have been able to get in one semi long run since Wildflower. Everything else has been an hour our less. Just yesterday the foot started to act up a bit. I’m not alarmed because I just took running off the schedule for a bit. I only have 4 days left until the race. Limited running won’t effect my fitness at this point. It is best for me to play it safe with the injury. I need to e able to get to a point where I can consistently run! I will be seeing a PT here in town that has a great reputation with the tri community. He thinks he can help knock this out for good while I am still running. Music to my ears!

Other than that I have had some insomnia. I am wasted today! I’m not sure why I am not sleeping well but I can tell you that I am OVER it! Hopefully tonight will be the end of that. If not we are calling in the drugs!

Honu will be one of my chances to qualify for Kona. I really want to race there this year so I added the Buffalo Springs 70.3 to the race calendar. That gives me one more option to qualify and I won’t have to put all my stress on Honu. But hopefully I will take care of that there!

Should be a great trip as lots of my training buddies and friends from all over are going to be there. Look for the race report and post race report!

Cheers,
bdc

Lana

I am sitting here eating some lunch after a very productive ride. For some reason I have become a tad bit stressed out regarding my foot and how it was going to effect my upcoming ½ Ironman in Kona. I was started flipping through the channels in an effort to just “tune out”. I stumbled across Court TV where they were covering the Phil Spector murder trial. It was a bit shocking to see him sitting there as the victim of this murder was my friend Lana Clarkson. I had been following what was going on briefly in the news. Her sister had told me a while back that they had actually got a date set for trial. I didn’t realize that it would be shown on TV.

Watching made me reflect a bit on Lana and my time getting to know her. It brought up this whole notion that what is happening to us is something that we are constantly creating. You see, Lana had the ULTIMATE desire to make it in Hollywood. I have never met someone with such determination about this. Given the fact that she was 40 years old it was very inspiring to see this 6 foot tall, outwardly funny yet extremely sexy and diva like women constantly go on about how she was going to make it in Hollywood. She went after every lead, had meetings with producers and directors, mingled with anything that could help her career. I think it was just part of who she was to never give up. In many ways she had made it. She lived the life of someone that was famous that to many might have seemed a bit obnoxious. I loved it! She was never rude to people and found the good in pretty much everyone she came across. In a way she was a bit like Tallulah Bankhead always calling everyone Dhaaaarling. For the amount of attention that Lana needed she put out twice as much to whoever was present.

I had picked her up at her cute little house in Venice (Which was sadly torn down after her death) to go to her “final” birthday party. We were meeting some of her friends and family at Il Sole on Sunset. When we got there you would have thought that Julia Roberts was walking in. Lana knew how to make a true Hollywood entrance. It wasn’t today’s cheap Paris Hilton entrance but rather an entrance that had the glamour of old Hollywood. People responded to it and every time she did it, she truly was famous.

I miss her and am sad that her life was taken like that ( I am 100% bias and feel there is no way that Lana took her own life) but at the same time I have this odd feeling that Lana might be okay with what happened. She wanted sooooo bad to be famous and now she is infamous. She is the victim of a huge Hollywood murder. Do I think that if you asked Lana when she was alive if she would want to be the victim of a Hollywood murder? No I don’t think that. But I do think that the universe works in very mysterious ways and you have to be careful at what you are trying to create out of life because you just might get it in a form that you haven’t thought of.

When I was at her funeral in Malibu I remember at the end one of the lawyers getting up and telling us that there was some paparazzi out side and that they apologize for that and we should just ignore them. I was very sad at the funeral but when that was said it put a tiny smile on my face because I could just hear Lana where ever she was going “What do you mean SOME? Where the HELL is E Entertainment? “ Lana would have wanted EVERYONE there. As sad as the whole experience was for the family, it really seemed like paparazzi would be the ultimate tribute.

Anyway, Lana reminded me of two things. One, you ALWAYS have to go after your dreams at all costs. If not, what else are we here for? Two, you have to be careful about what you put out to the universe. That is very “The Secret” but I do believe that it is the law working amongst us all.