Where to start...

A quick recap which probably wont end up being quick:

After capping off my 2011 season with a 9:36 at IM AZ, I had big expectations for 2012. And why not? After 11 months of training I put together a pretty solid race and was feeling good about what a winter and spring of training could do for my fitness. 

And the winter and spring went incredibly well. I was hitting run mileage my legs had never seen per week and I was holding up fine and simultaneously slowly pushing my power on the bike to levels I've also never seen. Never mind that my times in the pool continued to drop. Everything was clicking. I was encouraged by my progress and itching to test my fitness. 

My season started with an olympic at Red Bank which I recapped here so wont go into detail again. Not a perfect day but certainly promising and showed me that a I could actually run. 

My first A race of the year was the Eagleman 70.3. One of only a few 70.3s in the world that offer Kona Qualifying slots and I fully intended on taking the only one available in my age group. Yes, only one slot, which meant I'd have to win my AG. Something I'd never done before. Not at a large national race anyway. Tall task? Certainly. Everyone is always getting faster - myself included. On paper, I had the fitness to put myself in a position on the day. No question. I was confident in my prep. Felt good going in. Was well prepared and well tapered. 

But didn't even get to give myself a chance after DNFing  after the bike (Did Not Finish - DNF). But the melt down started well before that. Eagleman is a notoriously hot race. And humid. Race day didn't disappoint with temps in the mid to upper 90s, high humidity and not a cloud in the sky. To make matters worse, race directors measure water temperatures at 4:30 AM and at that hour, the water was just a degree under the wetsuit cutoff (76 degrees) which meant that it would be a wetsuit legal swim. And, my age group was one of the last to go off which means warmer temps all around. I contemplated not wearing my wetsuit for fear of over heating and costing me my race but I'd never had an issue before and thought it couldnt be that bad (though I've never raced in conditions like this). Plus, I had a lot on the line. Didnt want to give up time from the very start. Bad idea. As soon as I got in the water I knew it was a bad idea. It was incredibly warm. Warm enough that I couldnt keep my goggles from fogging up. Five minutes into the swim I was grabbing at my wetsuit collar trying to let water in to cool me down but that didnt help because the water itself was warm. I had to back off my effort. I literally stopped kicking all together but even by the half way point I was starting to feel light headed. Just kept telling myself "make out of the water and you'll be able to correct it on the bike". Not so much. My heart rate would not come down. My HR was at a level that its at for efforts that are usually much more intense than what I was going at. I began getting dizzy, my vision got blurred and started swerving. I knew I was in rough shape. Some how made it back to the transition area, put my foot down and collapsed into a volunteers arms. Came back to in the med tent about 20 minutes later with an IV stuck in my arm. My day was done. Fantastic. I was crushed. Beyond disappointed. There went my chance at a Kona slot. Great job Bill. The only small positive I could draw from the whole catastrophe is that, in those types of conditions, leave the wetsuit at home. That and I had another 70.3 on my calendar just two weeks later. And another just two weeks after that. I had all this fitness built up that I never got a chance to express and I was going to let it out with vengeance in the coming weeks. 

Fast forward two weeks later and I'm at the Syracuse 70.3. I was done sulking from the result at Eagleman and prepared to have a great day. Water temps were again close to the cutoff so I opted out of the wetsuit and donned my Xterra Speedsuit. I was probably one of only a few people in my age group to do so. Swam pretty well and about what I thought I would without a wetsuit. Felt GREAT heading out on the bike. Legs were there. Power was there. Things were coming together and just about the time I thought "this might be my day", I lose most all of my First Endurance Liquid Shot calories bombing down one of the big descents. 500 of my 800 calories were gone. Had it been on the flats, I'd have probably turned around for it but with others on the course coming down the descent that made it impossible to retrieve. No sweat. I'll just feed off the course I thought. I needed to come up with 500 additional calories through 20oz bottles of Powerbar Perform even though theres not even 200 calories in an entire bottle. I did my best to manage the issue and entered T2 feeling great and knew I rode pretty well (2nd fastest bike split). I always run with another First Endurance Liquid Shot Flask filled about half full (250ish calories) on the run for a 70.3 but in my haste in T2 decided to not bring it along with me out on the run. Great job Bill! Lets really try to sabotage your day. I was about a mile in before I realized I didnt have it in my hand. Again, no big deal, I thought. I fed off the course on the bike and was feeling great. I'll be fine on the run - I felt good at the time so why think otherwise? Well, turns out my stomach doesnt like Powerbar Perform. Not one bit. The nutritional gaff on the bike was now presenting itself on the run. My stomach was in knots, distended and felt as if it might pop. No, I didnt have to crap or even feel like I had to puke. It just felt like everything I had consumed in the last few hours was bouncing around in my stomach like kids on a trampoline. I literally could hear my own gut sloshing around. I was suffering from what endurance athletes like to call gut rot. My First Endurance nutrition strategy is rock solid and has carried me through an Ironman. This stuff on the course on the other hand - not so much. Any time I tried to bump my pace up and in turn bump up my HR, my stomach protested. I felt like I had the legs but was simply incapable of getting them moving. Some might ask, "why cant you run through something like that?". Anyone involved in the sport wouldnt ask that question. Its miserable. And in turn resulted in another less than desirable day. 

No sweat! I've got another 70.3 in two weeks to try and put it together one more time. Headed back to Indiana for another crack at the Muncie 70.3. The midwest had/has been suffering from a super intense heat wave. A record number of days over 95 degrees with many of those days over 100. I had the opportunity to spend a week at my moms house leading up to the race and made it a point to get my workouts done during the hottest part of the day in attempt to prepare for the heat I knew I would face on race day. Well, turns out the heat was so hot, the race directors made an unprecedented decision and shortened the race. Many people were all up in arms over this. I didn't really care. I honestly had no interest in racing 70 miles in 104 degree temperatures, 80% humidity and a real feel of over 110 degrees. I wanted to test my fitness. Not test my ability to trudge through a death march. I was not excited to race. Watching the forecast that week was depressing. I usually wake up racing morning anxious and eager to get going. I woke up in the hotel room and really wanted none of it. My mind was in the wrong place and on top of the bad string of luck I seemed to be having, I also was starting to feel a little burnt out. A combination of things not going well and also trying to do too much racing too close together. I ended up swimming as I usually do. The heat of course affected my bike power. The bike course was shortened to 30 miles which is essentially an olympic distance course. I could barely get my power up to a pace that I can hold for 5+ hours. Came into T2 frustrated and headed out for the 10k run. Hated every minute of it. Finished the race barely making the top ten in my age group. My season was officially in the shitter. 

At that moment and for the next week, I wanted nothing to do with anything triathlon related. I couldn't wrap my head around why things were going so terribly. I had such a good off season of prep. Everything was in order. I was given three chances to put it all together and all three ended in disappointment. It wasnt fun anymore. I needed a break. So I took it. 

This past week marks my first week "back" after my week completely off. I was sort of afraid that I was going to still be discouraged but thankfully getting back into my routine felt good. The constant lethargic feeling one has after a big training week has been welcome (I say this after 6 hours on the bike yesterday and a solid 15 mile run today). And what I failed to mention earlier is that after the debacle at Eagleman I signed up for the Louisville Ironman. I knew I wouldnt be happy unless I gave myself a real shot at a Kona slot and this was my only opportunity. So, its back to big training weeks and I'm happy to report I'm looking forward to it as much as one can look forward to 15-20 hours of exercise in any given week. 

Ultimately, this is sport. Its meant to be fun no matter how seriously you take it. And I take it very seriously but needed some perspective. I had three crappy races. So what? Really though. So what? Is this my last season of racing? No. Will I have loads of other opportunities to make things happen? Absolutely. As always, things dont always go as we plan. And thats what I like to call life. Learn what you can, from not just the good but even more so from the bad, and continue moving forward. 

When it stops being fun its time to rethink things. I'm having fun again.