So if you’ve been following our feed on Twitter at www.twitter.com/whitelinefever you’re now aware that in a little over a week, me and three other endurance freaks are heading out to San Antonio to run the most circuitous route we can find to get to Austin Texas in the RAGNAR Texas Relay. I invite you to check out our blog at www.teamwhitelinefever.com.

I think all of the team members agree that by the time we actually get to the starting line, the hard part will be over. How can I say this? Well, this process is right up there with Ironman in terms of confusion, mixed messages and frustration. Don’t get me wrong, when you speak to the co-founder, Dan, you get an incredibly reasonable, cool guy, but the people that he has working for him do not seem empowered to apply common sense and over the past few months have done little more that read from scripts and logs, information which we can read for ourselves.

To bring you up to speed, here’s the deal, a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, Long Runner Rich called Texafornia Brett and asked, young Padawan, “How would you like to run 200 miles with me?” Texafornia as usual drinking from the marrow of life replied, “Hell, yeah!”. Yours truly, equally an idiot, responded when Brett asked for other idiots to join him. Then Herr Professor Erich jumped into the fun, believing that killing himself by running 200 miles in Texas heat was a better option than facing the other crap in his life. There you have it, the fab four signed up to run 200 miles on October 24th and 25th.

While the other teams have 12 runners, we are hardened endurance athletes so someone decided that we should sign up as an ultra team. But even that wasn’t enough on the suffering scale. Long Runner got special permission for us to register with only four runners when even the ultra teams normally have six. Thankfully, nobody has suggested dropping the team down to two runners because I’m confident that one or more of us would respond with the traditional “Hell, yeah!”

So Long Runner checked with the RAGNAR folks and confirmed we would be running with 4 runners and would be rotating one runner every hour until we were done. Additionally, we received extra good news when we found that the run would only be 182.4 miles, less than the projected 20 miles. What this all meant is that we went about our daily lives running for an hour at a time over and over knowing that on race day, we’d probably run 6 five to six-mile stretches each – challenging but certainly doable.

Here is how RAGNAR describes their race on their RAGNAR home page:

“It’s really quite simple. Get a bunch of friends together (or we can help you find team members who’ll quickly become your friends) and start running.”

No plans, no restrictions and using your common sense? After the recent years under the thumb of North America Sports Ironman Gustappo techniques, we were giddy as school girls at a Jonas Brothers concert.

And then it happened. The RAGNAR Race Bible. Rich received an e-mail about needing to acquire volunteers and telling us that there is a Race Bible. This Race Bible spends most of its content dedicated to the acts that will either create time penalties or disqualifications, and in short, our plan of alternating runners every hour was thrown out the window. According to the Race Bible, we are required to run two prescribed consecutive legs, anywhere between 6 and 16 miles and to rotate on a prescribed basis. Because we only have 4 runners, we still have to rotate as if we have six with two of the four runners filling in for so-called “injured runners”.

What does this all mean?

• Runner 1: Rich
• Runner 2: Brett
• Runner 3: Adam
• Runner 4: Erich
• Runner 5: Injured (Rich)
• Runner 6: Injured (Erich)

Basically what this means is that because we cannot rotate based on four runners, we’ll need to sub in runners for the fake injured/non existent runner positions, which means that our rest periods will be further reduced and runners will be disadvantaged further. To our credit, we did ask the RAGNAR people why this was an issue, in other words, why was this rule in place given that a prudent person would assume that for a recreational activity, a rule is put in place for either safety reasons or to ensure that no team has an unfair advantage. For the life of me, I can’t figure out how this helps safety or how us rotating normally every hour would create an unfair advantage given that we only have four runners to begin with – we’re already at a disadvantage to every other team. To get the answer to this reasonable question, I called the RAGNAR offices. Unfortunately, even though we talked for about twenty minutes, and I phrased the question in multiple ways, the representative had no answer either, only that that’s what she was told to do and she was only following orders. Now that’s excellent customer relations, isn’t it?

Long Runner story short, Rich finally did get a hold of Dan who compromised by allowing us to rotate our runners two legs a piece but still not every hour. I should point out that Long Runner has tried to resign from being our team captain multiple times but we just continue to ignore him.

So there you have it, the rotation and total miles for the 2008 RAGNAR Texas team White Line Fever on October 24th and 25th will be:

• Runner 1 – 51 miles – Brett
• Runner 2 – 57 miles – Rich
• Runner 3 – 42 miles – Erich
• Runner 4 – 33 miles – Adam

I want to thank my good team members, given my current health issues, for still allowing me to participate, as well as Cindy who really was expecting me to go to Ohio with her for a Halloween party, for doing the same.

I also want to thank TriBoomer who is assumed the roll of den mother by providing us with his superior management skills, his patience and his time driving us all around and tending to our every need. TriBoomer even took the time to sit down with a RAGNAR racing veteran and interviewed him on the ins and outs of this race. I encourage anyone who is interested in doing a relay race to listen to this podcast of Zen and The Art of Triathlon dedicated to TriBoomer’s interview.

Lastly, we’re still going to be disqualified before we ever show up because we don’t have enough volunteers. Scratch that, we don’t have any volunteers. Part of the Race Bible states that we need to supply three volunteers to work shifts doing all sorts of stuff for the event (basically the same kind of thing that hopeful Ironmen/Ironwomen do the year before they actually want to race so they can earn the right to stand in line at 5AM the next morning to sign up to register for the following year’s race). So if you live in or around San Antonio or Austin and want to help us out, we’ll try and find ways to bribe you. I’ll personally make a $100 donation to your favorite legit charity if you come out. No Rick, the “Hollywood Hill’s Apartment for Wayward Strippers”, and the “Hooters School for Mobility” are NOT legit charities.

So it looks like I’m traveling all the way to Texas to do what I originally wanted to do, spend a few hours with good people running in a place I wouldn’t otherwise run. No medal, no recognition, just the knowledge that in 2008, I spent a weekend doing this. And for me, that’s more than enough, especially given that the alternative was going to a Halloween Party in McDonald, Ohio dressed as either a Rooster or Senator Obama.

OK, I’m pushing the trigger on my plane tickets to San Antonio. Wish us luck!

If you’ve been living under a rock, there is this technology called Twitter, you can read more about it on Texafornia’s blog at www.zentriathlon.com. Now Twitterers are mostly self absorbed, self promoting, insecure, procrastinating, self indulgent or just plain self unaware. Hey I know this because I’m a Twitterer and I probably fall into many of these descriptions. We’re all Modern Jackasses, more on what that is in a future post.

So with my 43rd birthday coming up, I decided to see if Twitter had any real value aside from letting people know where I was on an Ironman Bike course so they could have adequate time to leave Charlie’s or Pizza on Main Street to come out for the 30 seconds to cheer me on as I pass by before making that massage appointment at the Mirror Lake Inn – yes Sherpaing can be done with style.

But I digress. On Saturday, I’ll turn 43 years old and against all good judgment decided to do this whole B-Fit, B-Day that Everyman Triathlete Roman Mica has dreamed up. Let’s face it, an ADD endurance coach like me isn’t going to want to stare at lane lines for 3 hours and I founded a program called Race with Purpose, so here I could kill off a few avian flu birds with one stone by participating in Swim Across America’s Long Island Swim. And given that I’ve only ever swam 2.4-miles before and had so much fun doing that, I figured I could complete Roman’s B-Fit, B-Crap B-Day Challenge and qualify myself to get a cool Rudy Project aero helmet so I can wear it backwards and look like a cone head while riding my Trek 1400 at 14mph.

In the process I can also raise a bunch of money for cancer research to honor my mom who got me into this whole endurance sports thing in the first place. Lastly, I could prove once and for all if Twitter has any use beyond making me feel like I have friends that could ultimately replace my stuffed Barney figure that I talk to all too regularly.

So for the past week, I’ve been acting like the program manager for the local public radio station tweeting all sorts of crap to basically encourage (annoy) people into donating $10. With 80 Twitterers following me (get a life), and most of them spending their non-Twittering time polishing their carbon bike frames, I figured $10 from each person would easily raise more than the $500 I’ve pledged. To make it even  more enticing, I’ve committed to matching the donations up to the $500 just to calm the critics out there who think I’m doing this as a way to get out of paying for the honor to swim with jellyfish in the Long Island Sound. Oh, I fell off of my white horse years ago, and don’t think the thought didn’t cross my mind, but in this case, I’m actually sincere and have the funds to back up my commitment.

So what do you need to do to participate? Go to Twitter and specifically go to my twitter page where you’ll find the link to donate. Trust me, it won’t be difficult to find. I can’t post it here or that would defeat the entire purpose of seeing if we can use Twitter for good as opposed for evil as Brett has proclaimed previously. I want Twitter to be Twitterlicious.

What do you get for this? Nothing, well not nothing, you get to add yourselves to the multitude of people who have already donated like @KonaShelley, @JenWillTri, @TriJD, @HolisticGuru, @hak42 (thanks Tanya), @jg_65, @billrisch and @bmatheny and @Rambonie who have all donated more than their requested $10.

You also get to see if I can get dropped off a boat in the LI Sound and can make it back alive under horrible conditions. Read what the Swim Across America has posted recently:

And since we already know I ain’t doing this in a pool, I’m wearing a full wetsuit and will put duct tape anywhere there is still exposed skin. Hey, the only other tape I had laying around is packing tape and I thought that might not be hypoallergenic. So go to Twitter and donate your $10.

Now switching gears, I have a few thoughts on Roman’s whole B-Sh1t B-Day thing.  Roman, who thought of this stupid thing of swimming 4 miles for 40, 5 miles for 50, 6 miles for 60, 7 miles for 70, 8 miles for 80, 9 miles for 90? Someone’s going to die and YOU’re going to be responsible because all they will gurgle as they’re being pulled out of the water is “I just wanted that Rudy Project aero helmet.” DEAD!

Everyman triathlon my ass! What everyman triathlon at age 88 is going to swim 8 miles, run 8 miles and then cycle 88-miles. Jack LaLane? Maybe you should have included that we need to hold a rope to a tugboat in our teeth to make it more reasonable.

Here are the details and the rules for the B-Dead, B-Myass, B-Day Challenge:

http://bfitbday.ning.com/

Take your age and in any order:

1) Swim the number of miles in the first number,
2) Run the number of miles in the second number,
3) Bike the number of miles in the combined number.

So a 45-year-old athlete would:
1) Swim 4 miles
2) Run 5 miles
3) Bike 45 miles

If you choose to accept the B-Fit B-Day Challenge you must….
Bronze: Do all three (swim/bike/run) during the week of your Birthday.
Silver: Do all three (swim/bike/run) in the three days before, after, or on your B-Day.
Gold: Do all three (swim/bike/run) in 24-hours to celebrate your B-Day!

Important Note: Since “0” Birthdays like 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and so on are important milestones the “0″ in your birthday represents a 10. This means that on those “0” Birthdays you get to celebrate this big milestone by running ten miles. Whoohooo!

Whatever, I’m a lemming so as I stated above, I’ll be doing the Long Island Sound Swim version.

According to the Swim Across America folks:

“The Long Island Sound Swim started in Larchmont, New York in 1992 at the Larchmont Yacht Club with a 4-mile swim. It was, and still is, dedicated to the memory of Mrs. Kathy Webers, who along with family and friends courageously battled cancer for over a year. Our first year we had 35 swimmers and raised $15,000. In 1994, the swim’s course ended at the Larchmont Shore CLub, where a brunch was held. Without a swim in 1996, the Long Island Swim Committee reformed and in addition to the 4-mile swim added the 1 mile swim. Now, we offer a 6 mile swim as well. We also added the Cancer Support Team and Children’s Hospital of New York- Presbyterian at Cornell Medical Center as additional beneficiaries.

Swimming requirement for 4 milers - 4-mile swimmers must be able to swim 1 mile in 30 minutes or less, as attested to by a Pool Director, Swim Coach or Life Guard.”

NOT!

I freak’n hate to swim and now I have to get a note from my local swimming pool that says I won’t drown on their watch doing this stupid thing, which is, oh by the way, the week after Ironman Lake Placid. Oh give me a break, I did the swim and a loop of the bike there. I just bet that there will be some lame-ass rule that says I can’t listen to music as well similar to the USAT or RRCA rules now. F-that. I’m going out to buy a SwiMP3 or something similar so I can listen to 4 hours of podcasts while I practice drowning myself in the Long Island Sound. What is the level of exposure to bacteria necessarily to contract Hepatitis? Will 3 hours be sufficient or do I need four? Where is lunch served in a four-hour open water swim? Let’s be honest, I’m supposed to swim 4 miles and then I have to run 3? Who thought up of this brilliant parody that is so heavily weighted towards the swimmers? I have an idea, let’s make the swimmers run 40 miles and then they can swim 3.

Roman, I am officially declaring theB-Fit Birthday, the B-F’d Up My Ass Birthday Challenge for the criminally insane. It is incredibly discriminatory. Let me get this straight, a 14 year old has to swim 1 mile, run 4 miles and then bike 14 miles, and a 88 year old man, presumably a bit more frail, has to swim 8 miles, run 8 miles and bike 88 miles? This has got to be some Arian way to kill off the lessor species or an I hate old people statement. And as an older Jew, I take this as a personal assault. Also as an older Jew, as I’m ranting, I know I’m going to do everything in my power to do this stupid thing. Go ahead; brand a number on my arm as soon as possible, I hate it when body markings come off.

Forget Rudy Project and Hornet Juice, you need to be sponsored by Aetna, or Blue Cross or what the hell am I thinking, you need to be sponsored by Mutual Life Insurance Company.

I expect you, Mr. Everyday Triathlete, to financially take care of my girlfriend, my detached selfish and anti-social dog, and my blind/deaf cat after they dredge my lifeless body from the sound. Please make sure someone escorts Cindy to Tyler’s and Kelley’s wedding next week.

But I digress…

For many, Ironman USA in Lake Placid begins 12 months earlier when racers, volunteers and spectators wait in lines of varying lengths in what used to be the Olympic Village to obtain a voucher, a golden ticket, entitling them to register for the following year’s race. In Lake Placid on Ironman weekend, silver wristbands and vouchers separate the entitled from the envious.

On that same morning in 2007, sitting in my office in Midtown Manhattan, I was one of the very few who were able to register without the assistance of a golden ticket, helped by an online Active.com registration system that was plagued with glitches, just enough to delay the opening of online registration and making the exact start time somewhat suspect and elusive. During the confusion, I found a more direct hyperlink to the registration site, had all of my data ready to go, and sat at my desk on conference calls while consistently clicking refresh, refresh, refresh on my keyboard. I speculated correctly that the registration would open up a few minutes before the revised stated time, which it did by about seven minutes. And so I was in, a registered and committed member of a selective group of those who began their experience by sticking an entry into their Outlook calendar like a commitment signed in electronic blood from our pricked and still twitching fingers. I was registered for Ironman USA in Lake Placid on July 20th, 2008.

At the time, I was feeling pretty darn good about myself. I had just run a sub 1:25 half marathon, My Half Ironman bike time on a hilly course was under 3 hours, my weight was slightly under 180lbs and I had successfully trained for and did quite well at the Tupper Lake Tinman Half Ironman just a few weeks before.

What happened between then and now can be clearly seen via the race actuals on the right hand sidebar of my blog, but suffice it to say that things went awry. For those who aren’t regular readers of my blog, the short recap is as follows:

• August – November 2007: Training on track, cautiously optimistic
• November-December 2007: Loss of family member
• February 2008 – April 2008: Viral illness
• April 2008: Training resumes
• May 2008: Illness returns
• June 1st 2008: Black Bear Triathlon – Could not generate enough power to get around the bike course without getting off and walking and DNF’d before the run.

Which brings us to late June 2008 and what for many is the beginning of Ironman Lake Placid month. It begins with the Tupper Lake Tinman Half Ironman distance race. In short, after crashing heavily at Black Bear four weeks earlier, I didn’t know what to expect but I was pleasantly surprised that at Tupper Lake I accomplished all of my goals. I completed the swim, completed the bike and completed the run. I finished the race, not in style and not in any great time, but given where I was, I felt very pleased and encouraged by this result. That said, the lingering illness was still apparently wreaking havoc on my physiological systems as evidenced by the fact that I found myself during the run shuffling along at a 12:00 min/mile pace with a heart rate at 172 beats per minute. To put this into perspective, 170 beats per minute is reflective of my lactate threshold effort and the same heart rate at which one year earlier I was running 7 min/miles in the NYC Half Marathon. At Tupper, my primary goals was to finish the race and I knew that there was no way that I was going to do that by running at effort levels exceeding my LT. Dutifully, I reduced my pace to about 12:30 min/mile to keep my effort level below that 170 marker and continued to shuffle along taking walk breaks whenever my heart rate exceeded that marker.

Now let’s be honest, it’s hard to shuffle along at that pace. People that regularly run at a twelve to fourteen minutes per mile pace have my utmost respect if only because they take so many extra steps and are out there on hot courses for so much longer. At Tupper Lake, I was one of them. Race with Purpose Wonder Twins, Joshquatch and Holistic Guru made my day and the day for others by coming back out after the Sprint triathlon to run with the rest of us that were still out there on the Half Ironman course. In the end, I finished with a bike split of 3:25 (16.3mph) keeping my average heart rate at 142 bpm, and a run time of 2:49 (12:54), with an average heart rate of 160 bpm. This was the data that I looked at as I considered revising my objectives for Ironman Lake Placid scheduled for just three weeks later.

For the best trained athletes, Ironman is not to be taken lightly. A 2.4-mile swim, a significantly more challenging 112-mile bike course and a marathon for the run make IMLP a race that is to be treated with serious respect. Given that I was still having trouble running 5 miles around my house without having to stop to catch my breath, I new I’d have to revise both my expectations and objectives for this event. The one thing I really wanted to do on Tupper Lake weekend was to ride at least one loop of the IMLP bike course the day after the race, but I was simply too beat up to do it. So at this point, I still didn’t know if I could push my carcass around the bike course on race day. All I had to go on was a 3:35 Half Iron bike time.

After some contemplation, I decided to participate in IMLP but to limit my participation to completing the 2.4-mile swim and one 56-mile loop of the bike course. My key goal was to complete both before the 1:30pm cutoff. I took my 3:25 bike split and the completion of the Tupper Lake Half along with the fact that my ‘91 Ford Explorer had made it to/from both Tupper Lake and Princeton, NJ as positive signs that my objectives for IMLP would be achievable.

To be continued…