Trim Tram Donovan

That's Brains

Feeling your age is like closing your eyes and putting your hands in a bowl of spaghetti.

When I was about ten, our church had a Halloween haunted house. It didn't boast a ride or a path, instead they blindfolded me, took me to the "haunted cellar" then would take the blindfold off, then put it back on me again then take it off for the grand finale. The haunted house was escorted. Very classy, I must say.

At that age, I was easily scared but this wasn't moving my fear needle. During the second blindfolded section, my escort grabbed my hand and led me through some catacombs of the church's cellar. The noises were expected to freak me out. 

She took my hand and put it in a pot. 

I knew at the first touch which pot they stole from kitchen to make this event. My eyes were covered, but if you asked me, I would describe it to the blackened spots on the bottom. It held cold water. And something else.

"Do you feel that?" My fellow ten year old asked me.

"Yea." My eyes were certainly pointed to the pot and into the air randomly moving.

"That's brains," she expected some fear.

"Oh, yea?"

"It's ok," she said, "It's really spaghetti." She secretly lifted my blindfold so I could see it. She darted looks around to make sure she wasn't caught revealing the haunted houses' secrets. She scuffled me off to continue.

Don't get me wrong when I say that I feel old. It's something, like the cellar of the church, I'm not afraid to enter. I feel it happening though. I see and feel the pain of races that I haven't trained to take.

Coming off a 30.96 mile race, I was tired and sick of training. I've been feeling rebellious and lazy. Two things that coaches don't like to hear. In some ways, I wanted to catch my El Guapo and try to run Philly and really capture the Boston Marathon qualifying time. 

I just got off an email, though, with someone who trained with me this summer. She said, "It was great not to run for a time."

There's something inside me that feels that.

There's something inside me that feels like this is my race to qualify.

Then there's something inside me that's blindfolded and my hand is being grabbed and being put in the pot of cold water, "That's brains."

ironman 1

When I was getting out the water, the water was calm and the crowd of swimmers were far gone from me. To this day, I keep mulling over the Ironman Wisconsin like it was a lover who I let move away. Like I was letting a pet that I loved die. The swimmers kept going farther and farther away from me like a pack of buffalo running away for its life, leaving the weak behind to be eaten by the oncoming predator. In some ways, I was eaten up but there was sense of relief. All this heartache and trouble and anger and pain was over. But now I see it's just the beginning for me.

Pulling myself up onto the boat, I stood up on the deck of that pontoon boat where five lifeguards silently looked on me. It seemed they didn't have a playbook for conversation. The swimmers flew farther away. The lifeguards knew the procedure to call on the closest speedboat to take me back to shore. The swimmers kept going. A black speedboat pulled up to the side of the pontoon boat. They helped me into the boat like a flight attendant helps an old woman off a plane. There's a person on each side of me, holding my forearm as I direct my feet onto the flat carpeted floor of teh boat. The boat's driver was about fifty with very short shorts that harken Magnum P.I.'s wardrobe. His shoes were blonde docksiders that barely kept its leather shoelaces in a slipknot. That's all I could see of him since my head hung, confused while the two thousand participants swam on. I sat down and gasped for breath. I gasped again then lost control and cried the boat ride back to shore.

The solo speedboat driver was given the duty of officially taking off my timing chip, wrapped around my ankle. I have heard that when you officially drop out of Ironman there's a list of things you have to do. For me, it was as simple as letting him take my ankle bracelet off.

Among the onlookers, most were silent as I walked by. Occasionally, I heard someone say, "Good job, man." I began to take off my wet suit as I walked up the helix. Deliberately, I kept my head down and didn't look at anyone. I was afraid what could happen. I'm not sure what would happen. This was the gamble I took. This is one of the possible outcomes of that day I had examined. It was up to me to decide what to do with this unfinished business. And it started in the bathroom.

Chicago Marathon

Reflecting on the Chicago Marathon, I see that everyone's made a big deal of it.

Over the past five years, there have been three participants have died in the wake of this race. This year a police officer from Michigan died as a result of his effort at the marathon.

The Chicago Sun-Times even told the city and the race director to apologize. At times during their editorial, they made hints to some blame to be put on the runners as well. The Sun-Times seemed to sum up what many members of the media were whispering in news meetings when the subject is brought up.

It was a big deal and the strenuous conditions were reported immediately after I crossed the finish line. Without a doubt, I like telling the good story about how everything unfolded that day. During that time, there was water at every station. Ice was being handed out and sponges were offered at mile 20.

Locals & store owners sprayed water hoses. Dozens of people had water spritzers (where did they get them all?) that they sprayed at you whether or not you wanted it. Water and Gatorade were pretty prevalent in the Chicago Marathon for us. My friend Stephanie and I weren't exactly burning up the track. We hit the finish line at 5:13.

The water/Gatorade stations were long stretches that went for about three blocks. Bottlenecks occured in the water stations during the first 3-5 tables. Then in the back part of the station, there were volunteers just standing there with water. Most of the time, volunteers in the front five tables were scurrying to keep up with demands while the back table volunteers were bored.

It was a difficult race to finish and many people were collapsing. Many more people were being helped. A lot of people weren't happy with their performance and felt let down by organizers. It's tough to train for 18 weeks and drop hundreds of dollars for a race and receive weather like that. I can sympathize with the frustration.

The attention the race got for the heat was peculiar and reactions over it were even more peculiar. Any recreational sport is going to deliver good days and bad days. Organizers put their best foot forward from my point of view and runners got confused from misinformation from the cops on the street. The most frustrating part of the day occured when spectators would spray their water at runners whether they wanted it or not. It was a chaotic day for everyone and it didn't seem like there was anyone to blame. Nor do I want to blame anyone.

I got my medal, so I'm good.

Con't

I'm glad to be posting again. Life carries on and the leaves are changing this time of year.

I made some goals for the upcoming months. It includes running a few marathons, racing a few triathlons (maybe a half Ironman) and starting a blog back up. I guess I have achieved the latter part.