Confessions Of A Flabby Ironman

Monday and Tuesday, July 1&2, 2002

There are a couple things about Cornerstone that never change, the heat and the dust. This
year, there’s plenty of both. Yesterday and today have both been in the mid nineties with
humidity that’s almost as high. I didn’t get a chance to bring my bike down, and Monday
as I was reading through the Cornerstone program, I noticed that there was a big page about
the lake and how there wasn’t any swimming allowed outside of the designated swimming
areas… and absolutely NO swimming across the lake. I was more than seriously bummed
that yet another part of my training wouldn’t be able to done this week. After reading that,
there being all this refrigerator noise from a truck next to our tent all night and being
severely sticky with sweat, it just wasn’t a good morning.

There was absolutely nothing going on Monday as well. None of our friends were here yet
and sitting around in the heat with nothing to do just isn’t much fun. We holed up in the
van with the A/C on watching movies for the most part. Sunday night was a "Return of the
Killer Tomatoes" Feature, and Monday had showings of both High Fidelity and
Rushmore.

Ang, Gina and I went for a walk Monday afternoon and ended up down by the Cornerstone
lake. Lo and Behold there are people ALL over the lake, mostly on air mattresses. We walk
down to the water to put our feet in and I realize I actually have a suit on. It’s supposed to
be a day off, but Saturday and Sunday didn’t have anything happening during them (I was a
bad training boy getting ready for Cornerstone) so I figured that I could do well by going
for a swim.

I was really impressed with the fact that there are almost no weeds in this lake. I’m not sure
why, but I’m sure a big part of it is the type of soil that’s at the bottom of the lake… there’s
so much sediment that I’m sure there isn’t much light down there at all. I found that one of
the most refreshing things in the Cornerstone world was/is to dive down into the water
where the temperature drops dramatically… the top water is probably close to 80 degrees,
and about 3 feet down, due to water visibility, the temperature drops precipitously. All of a
sudden you’re feeling water that’s in the sixties right on down to absolutely frigid water at
the very bottom. It felt so good diving under the water and floating up through the
temperature layers. I was also really happy that I found out I’d be able to complete my
swims.

Tuesday called for an 1:15 of swimming and :45 of running. The day started off better with
a full night of sleep thanks to a handy dandy pair of ear plugs, but the temperature today
surely wasn’t cooperating. It just isn’t good when the temperature is already almost 90
degrees when you wake up. I lunked around the campsite for a little while and eventually
convinced myself to get on with things for the day. As soon as I started running, I knew it
was going to be a long workout (or at least the run part) 5 minutes of easy running had my
heart rate in the stratosphere (around 180) just because of the heat. The swim makes things
easier, just because the water keeps you cool, but there was a problem there too. The
sunblock I used today isn’t waterproof, so I have nice big sunburns across the top of my
back. OUCH! Maybe that tells me that I need to work on my form so that my sunburn is
more even across my back. _

The swim other than the sunburn was pretty uneventful. Since I don’t have my bike here
with me, I think that I’m going to do a swim workout everyday this week with the runs in
the same position, so it’ll be

Monday: Swim
Tuesday: Swim, Run
Wednesday: Swim
Thursday: Swim, Run
Friday: Swim
Saturday: Swim, Run (instead of Bike)
Sunday: Home-LONG bike.

It won’t hurt to spend a lot of time in the water this week. Aside from the fact that it’s the
coolest place on the grounds, it’s also something I really need to work on. I’m still
struggling with continuous form. I can keep form, but I just don’t have the endurance in
Freestyle that I’m going to need. I can move – breast stroke, butterfly, backstroke,
sidestroke, but I just can’t keep doing freestyle for a long period of time. That’ll be
something I work on in the water this week.

When I got out of the water today, I had a sudden sense of what Ironman Hawaii in Kona is
like. Running kind of felt like it might feel in Hell. There’s not the isolation of the Queen K
Highway in Kona, but running on grounds that are completely covered in people, and
drinking lukewarm water made potable with a brita pitcher in the extra humid heat just
wasn’t that much fun. Once again my heartrate raced to probably it’s peak this season (I
accidently left my heart rate strap at home, so I can only estimate, but when I took my pulse,
I was close to 200 beats per minute, in just a jog. It’s totally and completely the heat.
Inhaling the dust didn’t help either. We really need a rain to secure all the dust to the
ground finally. It’s not as bad as it’s ever been, but it’s certainly not the best it’s every been
either. I cut my run short, even though I finally hit my stride toward the end. I was worried
about the heat, and I really wanted to get some fluids into me. I think I’m almost back to
normal hydration wise, I’ve been trying to suck back all the water I can. But I’ve still
generated almost no urine today, so that bothers me a little bit. On the one hand, it means
not having to use the porta-potties (which are clean for the most part, but c’mon they’re
PORTA-POTTIES, they’re not going to be perfectly clean EVER), but I don’t like what it
says physiologically. As soon as I finish this I’m going to grab my water jug so that I can
work on finishing it off.

Tomorrow will just be swimming. I’m going to try and do a 2 1/2 hour swim. At least two
laps across this lake. I don’t know distances at all, but I’d judge that I did over a mile today.
Anyway, more news later.

To all the ships that sailed the seas of dust,
Brian