Pigman Sprint Triathlon
Palo, Iowa, June 6, 2004
500m swim / 15.6 mi bike / 5k run
Even though my 2004 race season contains a lot of races that I'm doing mostly for fun, book promotion, and research for the next book (I Need This Donut (To Fuel My Workout)), I still feel compelled to treat each race like a race and to reach the starting line well-prepared, well-nourished, well-hydrated, and well-rested. I don't drink any alcohol the night before a race; I drink lots of water and sports drinks, and I try to eat reasonably healthy food leading up to the day. I make a point of getting all the sleep my body wants to get two nights before race day, and at least attempting to go to bed early the night before the race.
Most important of all, I don't usually spend two days at Book Expo America before race day. BEA, the giant carnival and trade show of the publishing industry, happened in Chicago this year, at the cavernous McCormick Place Convention Center. I got an invite from my publisher to spend a little time there on my way to the Pigman in Iowa, do some schmoozing, eat some expense account chow, and finally meet my impossibly cheerful and indefatigable publicist, Wendie. For years I've been hearing Dave's tales of insane parties, lavish eating and fine wines, meeting famous authors, and hauling home huge quantities of free books from BEA, so I pretty much leapt at the chance to see all this with my own wide, innocent, brand-new-author's eyes.
I could write a whole report just about the logistical challenges of traveling with my bike again, this time with an even bigger and more unwieldy bike case that didn't fit in my car when it was closed up. Let me just say that it's not as hard to break down a bike and pack it in the airport parking garage as I thought it would be. Let me also say, for the record, that American Airlines was extremely unhelpful about the hole they put in the case in transit, blaming it on the Transportation Safety Agency's security inspection. Yeah, right.
By the time I got to the Drake hotel in Chicago, I was tired and hungry and just wanted things to be simple. I found Dave's room, where I was going to crash with him and his extremely amiable roommate, Eric, and it was full of exhausted, hungry PGW folks who'd been hauling boxes of books around all day. They had already wrought substantial devastation on the minibar and were waiting anxiously for more beers from room service. People dashed in and out as we tried to figure out what party we were going to, where we were eating dinner, who was going where, and when we were going to all hook up again. I found a Twix and a Red Bull in the minibar and immediately started to feel better. And that was good, because it took us another couple of hours to get to the restaurant, and about another hour after that to actually get food.
The food we did get was pretty darn tasty though. The place was called Feast, and despite the rather spacey initial service, we ate and drank quite well. Even though I was hesitant to order chips and guacamole in Chicago, they were the best chips and guac I have ever eaten, ever. There was also a yummy spicy crab cake appetizer, and a sushi napoleon. I had a really juicy, savory marinated skirt steak on garlic mashed potatoes, topped with tobacco onion rings. I couldn't taste more than the merest hint of tobacco, but perhaps that's a good thing. We drank zin/syrah blend from Ridge, which is right up the hill from my home in Mountain View, and we felt pretty happy about it all.
By this time we had missed the party at Quimby's bookstore and also closed down the restaurant, so we decided to regroup at the hotel. The Drake has a low-ceilinged, smoky, dark bar called the Coq D'Or where all the publishing folks hang out, so for Dave and co., it seemed too much like work. We took a brief walk along the lakefront and returned to the lofty, old-fashioned plushness of the Palm Court, where they serve high tea in the afternoons. But the Palm Court closed too early, so Dave and Eric and I had a nightcap at the Knickerbocker across the street. So this is what it's like to be a sponging author, I thought to myself, and noticed that I was slurring my thoughts a little. It was about 2 a.m. when we got to bed, and we'd be up again at 7 to hit the floor at the expo. Full of wine, cappuccino, beer, and cognac, and utterly exhausted, I collapsed into the cot and tried to sleep through the amalgam of liquids.
Friday morning was pretty grim at first. I felt a little shaky, and I had decided to drive my rental car down to the convention center. Big mistake. It was easy enough to get down there, but then figuring out the parking lot and entrance was Byzantine. I was meandering through the lot, minding my own business, and before I could say "labyrinths" I was all over the darn place, winding through subterranean trails and loading docks and making illegal U-turns. Finally I got myself into the building, but there didn't seem to be a book fair there. I made my way up a mess of stairs and escalators, and finally found it. It was giant. But I didn't have my badge, nor could I figure out where to pick it up. I had to walk around in circles for a while, then go back down another mess of stairs and escalators, wait in two lines, pay $55, wait in another line to pick up the little lanyard thingie and a show catalog, and pledge my firstborn child, and then I was all set.
The convention floor was an ocean of books. No shortage of books at the Book Expo. I felt like an amoeba, watching the big fish swim by. Random House, Harper Collins, Little Brown, Penguin. The exhibitors had yellow-barred badges, booksellers blue, "industry professionals" purple, and the press, blast their canny little hides, had plain white ones, to make it harder to see them and buttonhole them. I managed to snag a dude from the Washington Post anyway. I knew I was being obnoxious, but I made him laugh a little. Hopefully he didn't toss my book away. I snagged piles of free books from the big boys' booths, but got slapped down when I tried to score a cool yellow tote bag that said "books make boys cry." "Those aren't for exhibitors," a sour-faced publisher told me. I slunk away. I tried not to get in the way of my friends at PGW, who were busy trying to acquire cool new clients and butter up old ones, or of Matthew at Marlowe, who was a mere blur of activity, conversation, meetings, greetings, hugs. I signed some books for Wendie and chatted up everyone I could find at Avalon. Their big buzz generator for the weekend was former Ambassador Joe Wilson, whose book The Politics of Truth is kind of a heavy hitter right now. The word was that Bush had hired a lawyer specifically to deal with the allegations in the book. Now that's the power of the pen.
A quick slice of pizza for lunch, back out on the floor. A 30-minute wait for a frappuccino, and back out on the floor again for the final two hours. I wasn't even really working, and I was still totally bushed by six. Dave decided to ride back with me, but it took us another twenty minutes to figure out how to get out of the building and back to the parking lot. Brain paralysis. We had to make tracks, though, dinner reservations awaited. Wendie, who takes meals seriously, had a foodie friend of hers from Chicago recommend a couple of places, and she had made reservations at both. One was Feast, so it was just as well that there was another one.
Another dose of Twix and Red Bull, and I was set to go. We all piled into Matthew's venerable Mercedes turbo diesel wagon (why did he drive all the way from New York?) and headed for the same neighborhood we had been in the night before. Was it Wicker Park or Bucktown? Even the locals didn't seem sure. Signs on stores and bars said both in equal proportions. Our destination, Meritage, looked like a nondescript corner café from the outside, another low-slung brick building on a street full of brick buildings. Could this be it? Are we in the right place? We wondered.
We shuffled out onto a leafy patio, heaters blasting in the unseasonably cool air, and commenced to be delighted. Even though our waiter had the waiterly tic of saying "tonight" every fourth word, as in, "We have some specials for you tonight; we've got Maryland soft-shell crabs tonight, and those are served with sauteed arugula tonight with a topping of crisp potato laces tonight," he still managed to entice us tonight with some pretty amazing sounding dishes tonight. We had a few oysters with a lime and wasabi caviar mousse, a startling yet exactly perfect flavor combo. Then the single best salad I have ever, ever eaten, bar none, blended spinach and crispy potato things and blue cheese and beets with this incredible vinaigrette. It harmonized in a way that gave me chills.
For the entrée, Dave and Matthew and I all went for the tenderloin of New Zealand elk, and let me tell you, the New Zealand climate must agree with those elks and their loins. Melting, velvety, savory, absolute essence of meat, with an incredible reduction of cabernet and mushrooms, over a pile of mashed purple potatoes that tasted of earth, in a good way. Wendie ordered ahi tuna, and she ooh'ed and aah'ed over it with gusto. Dave and Matthew had pored over the wine list and come up with a delectable Oregon pinot noir whose name escapes me, and later we moved on to some other red, rich and hearty, well capable of running wild with the elk. Because the portions were so well judged, it was easy to contemplate dessert, and even to eat it. Caramelized bananas in puff pastry, pear and hazelnut tart, chocolate and berry bread pudding, yum. The best part of it all was that we were talking and laughing at such a rate that I had to remember to swoon over the food. I was really enjoying the whole sponging author thing.
Once again it was late by the time dinner was done, and once again we ended up at the Drake for just one more drink. I was determined to get a little rest, so departed the group before 1 a.m.
Up at 7 again for packing, more Red Bull, and a hasty departure for Cedar Rapids, which I guessed would be just under a four-hour drive. The city was quiet and the air startlingly clear for the Midwest, and I found the proper Interstate easily. Before long I was on the east-west toll highway that would deposit me at the banks of the Mississippi. I didn't know an Interstate could also be a toll road - did you? Huh! Cruise control and satellite radio made the trip roll smoothly, and pretty soon I was over the river and into the rolling hills of Eastern Iowa, fuelled by more Red Bull and a bag of caramel corn. A perfect pre-race midmorning snack.
It's such a cliché for coast dwellers to mock the whole rural Midwest, but I have a real soft spot for Iowa. The landscape is so perfect and serene, and the people are so incredibly genuine and nice, I couldn't ever bring myself to make fun of them. And Iowans have more passports per capita than any other state, so clearly they're going places and seeing things - and then coming home to live in Iowa. Every time I've been to Iowa, I've felt comfortable and relaxed and happy. So all these smarty-pants coasties should think twice, that's all I'm saying.
I pulled into the Collins Plaza Hotel in Cedar Rapids a little after noon, already slightly late for my book-selling gig at race registration. The volunteer I talked to didn't seem to know anything about a Slow Fat Triathlete thing, but there was an extra table set up, so I immediately colonized it with books. In a few minutes the Cedar Rapids Amateur Radio Operators Club came in to share the table, but I figured we could co-exist amicably, and so we did. They were going to be providing radio support for the race, and they were trying to recruit at registration, but there turned out not to be much crossover between the triathlete and ham radio populations.
The afternoon wore on and I got more and more tired and hungry - water and energy bars didn't seem to be perking me up at all, and I was afraid to leave the table in search of real food, in case I missed a big sale. Like two books at once, or something. I joked around with the triathletes as they walked by. Heather bought a book. She was going to do her first triathlon in the morning, and she was built solidly, kind of like a keg of beer. She promised that she was going to finish dead last. I said hey, maybe not, but the important thing is that you're out there. Lots of other people came by the table, and many of them laughed at the book title, and some of them even bought one. What I can't figure out is, if you look at a book and the title makes you laugh out loud, why wouldn't you buy the book on the spot? Still, I made enough to cover my hotel room and dinner, and I sold some books to Gear West, the Upper Midwest's biggest triathlon store, so I was pretty happy. Hungry, exhausted, but happy. As soon as six o'clock came around, I bolted for food.
Wendie had made me swear that I would go to Zoey's in neighboring Marion for pizza or calzone, and I decided that this was the moment. The ham radio guys had helpfully drawn me a very precise map of how to get there, so I felt obliged to use it. Pizza's not usually my pre-race dinner of choice - a little heavy on the cheese and grease - but I was weak from hunger and my judgment was clouded. I figured 6:20 or so would be a good time to hit Zoey's and get in and out fast. Uh-uh, no way. The place was tiny, and the line for tables was already out the door. I stood numbly for about twenty minutes before deciding to order a Chicago-style deep-dish pie to go. "That'll be ready in an hour," the perky counter girl declared. I was so tired and stupid I could only nod. I stumbled back to the car, drove to a nearby park, and spent an hour dozing and listening to the BBC on satellite radio while rain spotted the windshield. Finally I had the pizza in my hands. It weighed far too much for one person's dinner, but I was past caring. I drove it to my hotel room and hunched over the box, slavering like a wild beast. It was really, really good.
By the time the digital clock struck 9, I was in bed, clutching my bloated stomach and watching a Law & Order rerun. I had tossed all my race stuff onto the floor in a pile so I could find it easily in the morning, attached my race number to my bike frame, and memorized the directions to Pleasant Creek State Park. I slid blissfully into sleep with Sam Waterston murmuring in my ear.
On race morning, the threatened thunderstorms had faded away, and the sky was pretty clear. Even at 6 a.m., it seemed warm and muggy to me. I had a windbreaker over my race clothes, but by the time I had loaded the car, I was sweating. I was on schedule as I headed west down Blairs Ferry Road to Palo Marsh Road, enjoying the luxuriant greenness and the perfection of the gambrel-roofed barns. I felt pretty good, considering my sleep debt, the hectic schedule I'd been keeping, and the amount of rich food and junk I'd been eating.
True to form, Pleasant Creek was extremely pleasant. Undulating hills embraced a sparkling reservoir surrounded by giant shade trees. The parking was easy and the beach at the swim start was golden and freshly raked. The water was so warm, and the day was so sunny, that I made a wild decision not to wear the wetsuit that I had schlepped out from California. I had never raced without a wetsuit, and I was kind of curious to see how much the loss of floatation would impact my speed in the water. They say that wetsuits make you faster, but I wanted to test this in a race setting. And I just didn't fancy wriggling into the neoprene body stocking on such a balmy morning.
It felt weird, warming up in the lake in just my tri clothes, kind of like skinny dipping. I kept vacillating about my decision, thinking I'd just run back to transition and grab my wetsuit, then deciding against it. Finally my wave start was just two minutes away, and my decision was made. All the Athenas and Clydesdales went off together in the last wave, splashing and kicking up a storm. The swim course was a straight out and back, so navigating should have been easy, but I kept getting pushed into the line of buoys that marked the lane. Still, I felt great in the water. I could breathe easily without the constrictive neoprene casing, and my shoulders felt loose and free, unfettered by wetsuit sleeves. I was aware that I was floating lower in the water than I do with my wetsuit on, but I swam hard and popped out of the water in just over 10 minutes.
The transition was up a good steep hill and the whole transition area was also on a slope, so I didn't feel too speedy getting through T1, even though I didn't have to shuck a wetsuit. Once I did get onto the bike, though, I felt ready to let 'er rip. The first mile was all mildly downhill, so I got up onto my big chain ring and down into my aerobars to build up some speed. Oops! The elbow rest on the aerobars was coming loose. This was not good. I guess I hadn't tightened it properly when I was reassembling my bike. I debated stopping to adjust it, but when I'm on my bike in a race, I'm just crazy to keep going. I leaned firmly to keep the pad in place and kept cranking. Over the dam, up the hill to the park exit, right on Palo Marsh Road, and it was a long straight ride down to the little hamlet of Palo (rhymes with halo, not fallow). The Palo Marsh was stinky, but it was small, and soon I was making the rectangle through downtown Palo and heading north again, past the park and out to the second turnaround. I saw Heather riding along towards me and gave her a holler. Then I put my head down and kept cranking. I would probably have had my fastest bike leg ever if it wasn't for the one mile hill coming back into the park. Whoever thinks the whole Midwest is flat is woefully misinformed. As it was, I still felt pretty fresh as I turned into Pleasant Creek.
The narrow road back over the dam was jammed with runners, and there was nothing to separate them from the incoming cyclists. This felt pretty hairy. I went as fast as I dared, screaming "BIKE! BIKE on your LEFT!" or "on your RIGHT" depending on what I judged to be least risky. It was a relief to get to the transition again, even though it meant running uphill to my bike rack.
By the time I hit the run, the sun was high and the air felt a lot more moist than I'm used to in Cali. It was only about 9:30, but it felt tropical. I enjoyed that first mile downhill again, down across the dam, but after that it started to feel pretty hard. The next mile was all rolling, and the last mile was back up across the dam, all uphill until the last 150 yards or so. I could tell I wasn't going to break 10 minutes per mile, which felt disappointing, but I was so hot and working so hard that I couldn't care too much. I was giving it all I had to give on the day, and that's all I could do. Finally I hit that downhill to the chute, and I picked up my feet and pretended to be fast as I crossed the line. A cup of water over the head, two down the gullet, and I was ready to be human again. I changed into my new race T-shirt, which says "Dig The Big Pig Gig" on the back, and dry shorts, and hit the food tables. Mmm, pizza! And Coke! I saw Heather coming in to the finish, and by golly, she was not last!
The race director, John Snitko, had promised that I'd have a chance to address the crowd at the awards ceremony, and the crowd was gratifyingly large. Not because they wanted to hear the Slow Fat Triathlete, but because Gear West was raffling off a triathlon wetsuit and a Quintana Roo triathlon bike at the end of the awards. Still, I got a good laugh and we gave out some books as door prizes, and everyone who got an award got a nice big cheer, which was great. It's sad sometimes to be at the end of an awards ceremony where nobody's left to give you a hand. It turned out I missed third place in the Athena division by 40 seconds, and I couldn't help wondering how much difference my wetsuit would have made, or a few extra hours of sleep earlier in the week, or maybe saying no to one of those slices of pizza, but I was still delighted with the day, the race, and my fellow racers.
Back at the hotel, I indulged in a long shower and a much longer nap before driving out to check out the Amana Colonies, about 20 miles southwest of Cedar Rapids. Seven little villages were founded by a bunch of German folks who wanted to do their own religious thing and live communally on some nice farmland. Kind of like the Amish, but without the whole anti-technology thing. In fact, they ended up making microwaves. Nowadays the villages are mostly tourist trap fare, but they do have some cool old buildings and a great fudge store. Most of the stores were closed, it being late on Sunday afternoon, but I did get some peanut butter fudge dipped in chocolate, and later a dinner of really overly intensely pickled sauerbraten. I was hoping for homemade spaetzle or potato dumplings to go with it, but only got mashed potatoes out of a box and weird gelatinous green beans.
The next morning I ate a big farm-style breakfast and headed back to Chicago, listening to endless radio discussions about the legacy of Ronald Reagan, who had died the morning before, possibly right as I was driving by his birthplace of Dixon, Illinois. I hopped off the highway in Oak Park, eager to catch a little Frank Lloyd Wright action before dealing with the madness of O'Hare. That Frank Lloyd, he could really build some crazy buildings. I checked out the Unity Temple, which may be the coolest thing ever built with poured concrete, and his house and studio, although I had already missed the last tour of the day. The amazing thing about FLW is that even though his design motifs have been reproduced ad nauseam in all those cutesy gift catalogs, when you actually get into one of his spaces, it all seems fresh and bold and revolutionary.
So I did dig the big pig gig, and I highly recommend Pigman to anyone who feels the need to do a Midwestern sprint triathlon. And definitely get some pizza or a calzone at Zoey's. But if you care about those extra 40 seconds, do wear your wetsuit even if it seems kind of warm, and don't do the Book Expo, with its attendant sleep deprivation and decadent behaviors, before you go.