Mount Rainier climb with RMI

Careful readers of this blog (okay, that's probably nobody) might recall that while I did reach the summit of Mount Rainier in 2009, I did not stand at the very highest point, on Columbia Crest. I always meant to go back and remove that asterisk from my highpointing roster, but it was never a priority. Frankly, I figured I could skate by and finish the 50 state highpoints without having to revisit Rainier. However, when I was climbing Denali this summer, two other highpointers shamed me into admitting that I couldn't really say I had gotten to the highest point in the state of Washington. Since I already had a 2013 Rainier climbing permit (from when I did the winter skills seminar in February), and my climbing skills were honed after 20 days on glaciers, I figured this would be a good time to knock it off. Since I don't have a climbing partner, I once again climbed with RMI. I was kind of hoping to climb with one of the guides I had climbed with before, since I would more or less be jumping straight onto the mountain, but it was nice to get to know some new guides. Thanks to these great guides and much better weather than was forecast, I was able to stand at 14,410 feet, as high as I could have gone without leaving the ground. This completed a sort of "highpoint trifecta," climbing three of the most difficult state highpoints this summer (after Denali and Granite Peak, MT). Just based on how my legs felt afterward, Rainier was less challenging than Granite; Denali is in a whole different realm.

Thoughts on Motivation (via Uptown Classic 10K)

That nagging voice. The one that says "Slow down already," or just "Quit." It has many names, but I like The Oatmeal's: The Blerch. I hear it pretty much every race I do. I actually have a little saying that if I don't hear it, I'm not going hard enough. It says "You can't possibly hold this pace, so just slow down now." I know this isn't true. I've been from extremes of intensity (namely stair racing, especially the Willis.Sears Tower) to extremes of endurance (14+ hours moving during an Ironman). A typical 5K or 10K is nowhere near that level.
But there's another voice. Its mantra is "Just for one mile," a runner's corollary to Alcoholics Anonymous's "Just for today." Just for one mile, I can run this pace. Don't worry so much about the mile after that. At least keep going until the Garmin clicks off this mile. Usually in a race, this voice (I don't have a name for it) wins. Most of the time, at least in road races up to half marathon distance (marathons and tris are a different story), when I do finish the mile I find I can keep going at that pace.
Today, I feel the Blerch won. Usually it waits until I'm a mile or so into the race before it starts telling me to slow down. Today it didn't even want me to leave the house. I defied the Blerch and went to the race. It was pretty quiet until about 50 feet into the race, and I thought I might puke. Nope, just a burp. My time for mile one was slightly slower than my goal, but it was at least in the ballpark. Shortly into mile 2 there was a water station. My mouth was parched, so I grabbed a cup. It went down wrong. I pulled to the side, coughed, got a sip down the correct pipe, and carried on running. I was sure the walk had ruined my chances of hitting my goal, but when the mile 2 time clicked off, it was only a few seconds slower than mile one. The Blerch had not won yet. Mile 3 was okay, a few seconds slower still. I may not be able to set a new PR, but I can still have a decent race. The Blerch took over on mile 4. I got to the water station and hit the brakes. When I did start running again, it was at a much slower pace. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't that slow (I know plenty of people who would like their 'fast' pace to be my 'slow' pace), but it felt slow to me; more than a few people passed me. Really I had no desire at that point to chase or resume my earlier pace. The Blerch had already won.
Now, I do have legitimate excuses, such as racing a half ironman last Sunday, being a touch ill after getting a flu shot Tuesday, and resuming hard workouts too soon after a big race (speed work Thursday and stairs Friday). Maybe my body wasn't capable of a PR today, but it was capable of more. The mind got in the way.
Is anyone capable of performing an exorcism on my Blerch?

Illinois highpoint / Ironman Wisconsin

Several years ago, when I was on a road trip through the midwest, I attempted to visit the highest natural point in Illinois (the Willis/Sears tower, which I have climbed, is actually higher), not realizing it's on private property, and they only allow access four weekends a year. It's been on my list to go back on an open weekend ever since. When I was considering this year's dates, September 7-8 was the only weekend that would work with everything else I already had planned. That date seemed familiar, and I eventually realized that was the same weekend as Ironman Wisconsin in Madison, which is not far away. I decided to make a weekend of it: Fly to Chicago, rent a car, visit the highpoint, volunteer for the Ironman, and sign up to race next year.

Marathon Relay

For the third straight year, I raced on my company's team for the Marathon Relay. The format was quite different this year from previous years. Instead of five legs of different lengths (12k, 10k, 10k, 5k, 5k), it was six equal 4.37 mile legs. Or at least it was supposed to be. There was some mixup, and the first leg was short, about 3.9 miles. I spoke with an official, and apparently they moved the turnaround cone on Cesar Chavez once all the first-leg runners had been through. I had the good (or bad, depending how you look at it) fortune of being first for one of three teams fielded by my company, the "fast team."
The course was the same as many other downtown races, along Riverside, across the South First bridge, down Cesar Chavez, and back. One other change made this year was to have an actual baton to pass, with the timing chip inside of it. Having never run track (at least until an all-comers meet this summer), let alone relays, it was kind of weird to me to carry a baton. I was a little worried it would slip out of my hand, especially once it got really sweaty. It didn't slip out, and other than a brief second to find my next runner, the handoff went smoothly.
I had a goal pace for this race of 7:15. Thanks to superb fall weather of 65 degrees, and finding a good pacer for the final miles, I surpassed that goal, with a 7:02 overall average (at least according to my watch). Not bad for less than a week after climbing Mt. Rainier. The guy I found to chase/pace off of for the back stretch is a guy I see around all the time, but don't actually know. He dropped me in the final quarter mile, but I don't think I would have maintained my pace through the whole race without someone to follow. My pace tends to be somewhere between the really fast people and the moderately fast people, so at some races I start to feel like I'm all alone. I was grateful for some company this time.
After my race, I told the other team runners the course was short, then had to go back once I found out the distance had been fixed. I stuck around a little while to cheer some folks on, then went for some breakfast. I've been meaning to go to this place Bacon for a while, which has chicken & waffles, a favorite post-run breakfast I haven't had in a while. It was pretty darned delicious, with strips of bacon in the waffle. I have a friend who advocates bacon as a recovery food; I'll have to take him there next time he's in Austin.

Ride Americas / TriRock Austin

With a long Labor Day weekend, I had a chance to get in more events than I do on a normal weekend. On Saturday, I participated in the inaugural Ride Americas at the Circuit of the Americas (Formula 1) track. It was not a race, or even timed, more of a fun ride, but I considered it as something of a gran fondo, seeing how many laps I could do in the three-hour period. I think 16 is a respectable number, the same as a guy I happened to run into the next day wearing the event shirt. However, I payed for it a little when I raced TriRock on Monday. The Olympic-distance triathlon went okay, but I was a bit disappointed to end up 10 seconds slower than the last time I did this race, two years ago, when it was still called the Austin Triathlon. I felt those 16 times up turn 1 of CotA biking up Congress Avenue. But the worst part is probably that my splits were all slightly quicker than last time. Basically, I lost to myself in transition.