KANSAS 70.3

What the fuck was that?

I guess Karen MIGHT have been right. I should not have done this freaking race. Maybe...

but...I wanted to.

Shingles are some painful sumbitches. I have been in pain since the 3rd of June. A couple rounds of steroids and anti-viral meds. I pretty much trained through them...again not a good idea...with the exception of swimming. I really didn't feel bad until Thur and Fri of this week. Even LMS was concerned about me racing. I am hard fucking headed. I was beat down tired Thur and Fri but with Jamie and Fish coming into town I wanted to drink some beers and catch up. Fish cooked a big dinner for us all on Thur and it was a great time. I really miss my Texas peeps.

Friday was travel day and I was feeling really tired. I basically sleep all day Friday but never felt rested. Sat was packet pickup etc...shingles were acting like big fucking knives digging at my skin. We went out and swam at the race site but only for a couple minutes.

Race day:

Up at 4:15 am eat drive regular stuff...

Got a little warm up in the water hurried to the front of my wave and boom we were off.

I was stroking well and time seemed to be flying...I was in the middle of the wave ahead of me and felt like I was flying out of the water and FUCK :39 minutes what the hell...nothing to do but go...ran a bit through the sand to the TA. Got on the bike...I really just wanted to have a nice solid ride...hills hills hills...I have never been passed by so many people in my life. I was so fucking bummed out. I really wanted to just get off and forget the day. I seriously said "No way am I doing placid". My that sucked but I just sort of tried to do the best I could...

I saw a dude lying on the ground with his femur sticking out of his leg..it was pretty nasty. I have no idea how he crashed. The medical guys said his quad was ripped open but it wasn't a compound fracture..it was nasty to say the least.

I also saw a dung beetle rolling a ball of shit across the road. That made me laugh. They are funny little critters...

Finally of the bike in like 3:07 by far my worst ever 1/2 split. I was totally embarrassed. I got off on the run and actually felt pretty good and was enjoying the run...about mile 8 a huge stormed rolled in and the temps dropped about 20 degrees...the down side was they pulled everyone off the course around mile 11...so I didn't get to finish the whole run.

Had a nice dinner with CLM and her dad and went back to the room early...I was asleep by 8:15 and didn't get up until 7:30 the next day. I was toast.

I am keeping the red wrist band they gave us as a reminder to get my shit together in the next 5 weeks. Karen chewed my ass out of at least a 1/2 hour about me doing this race. She was totally pissed and didn't cut me one inch of slack.

Fuck stupid