RIVET

I learned how to race this summer.

Haha, you say, if you are a regular reader of this column. Not possible. You’ve been injured—you told us all about it earlier this year.

But it’s true what they say: We never stop learning. And sometimes the lessons crop up in the unlikeliest of places.

This has indeed been the year of injuries for me. To recap: It all started in late February when I turned my knee ever so slightly on a trail run. Suddenly running was a real problem. Suddenly I got to learn about anti-inflammatory "strategies." Suddenly I was running three miles a week if I was lucky, not 20. Surgery was mentioned, then rejected as unnecessary. Well, that was something. I overhauled my plans early on, abandoning my hope of finishing two half-Ironmans and instead trying to get through a couple of local sprint races that I really, really, really would’ve hated to miss.

This was somewhat comical because I was, in many respects, vastly overprepared for these races. I’d been able to continue swimming and biking even while my running fell off the map. My bike mileage through the winter and spring was such that a 16-mile ride was a blip on the radar screen. A half-mile swim? No biggie. When it came time for the run, though, I held my breath. Would my knee rebel? Would my lightly used running muscles seize up? Miraculously, in each and every instance, the races were pain-free. It was the training that was giving me fits. Hmmm.

For biomechanical reasons unknown to me, my knee seemed to like running best after a long or hard ride. So my two or three runs a week were, but of course, done as bricks. Sometimes very hard bricks. This gave me a certain fearlessness about running off the bike, and it grew with each passing week. Lesson No. 1: The pain stops after a while, so keep running strong and eventually you’ll be running fluidly, too.

For a former swimmer like me, this lesson, now imprinted on my bones, was nothing short of miraculous. Read it in a book as many times as you like, you’ll never know it—really know it—until you do it again, and again, and again. (Well, duh.) While I instinctively know just how hard I can push in the water, I have no idea where the edges of the envelope are in running or cycling. I only knew that I had not gotten there yet, not in three seasons of racing.

But this year, because I felt that I was never entirely assured of a finish until I actually crossed the line, I developed a somewhat kamikaze approach: I told myself I’d just swim and bike as hard as I could and try to run if my legs were willing. Perhaps not the best plan, but when you’ve got so little to wager, you might as well bet it all. Kind of a double-or-nothing thing.

Seasoned vets no doubt know how to push themselves right to the edge, manage the pain and go fast. I knew how to do that in only one discipline. Hence, Lesson No. 2: Racing hurts, but the pain isn’t forever. I’d read that a million times, heard it from friend after friend, but I was always so fearful of injury that I never pushed into the special, painful place where racing resides.

Which brings me to my last race of the season, the Nautica Malibu Triathlon. We had a great time with our pals in Rincon Racing, but by Saturday I was sneezing and staggering around in a way that made me think, no, it’s not allergies after all. I was getting a really interesting cold, and the race was just a day away. I started feasting on zinc lozenges. I took some allergy pills to try to clear the fog from my head. Then I laughed at it, because what else could I do? As long as it stayed above the neck, I told myself, I’d race. And why not? It was the end of the season for me. I would have weeks to rest if I wanted to.

(Fair warning: If you’re horrified by the thought of someone racing when sick, ignoring vast acres of conventional wisdom and in general acting with complete disregard for sense, please stop now. It’s not going to get any better from here.)

We watched the women’s Olympic triathlon on television, then headed to bed—only I couldn’t sleep. When the 4:30 a.m. wake-up call came, I was actually grateful to get out of bed and stop the tossing and turning.

I left my heart-rate monitor behind. I didn’t want to know.

An hour or so later, I found myself in the unlikeliest of positions: Standing in a transition area blowing my nose, sucking on a zinc lozenge and trying to remember why it was I wanted to do this. Talk about having no expectations. The only thing I could think was, woe to anybody drafting should I need to blow my nose again.

Sometime between that moment and the end of the race, though, something miraculous happened: I had the best race of my young triathlon career. I had decided, through the haze of my congested head, to just put myself on the rivet and try to stay there as long as I could. (I must credit my announcer heroes Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen here for that phrase: They use it a lot to describe bike racers who are right on the edge, pushing with all they have but dangerously close to blowing up.)

Soon it’s time to swim. You know, the water is a lot warmer in the Southland than it is here in the frozen north, but earplugs still would help when you have a head cold. OK, so that’s Lesson No. 3: Never leave the earplugs behind on an ocean swim. When I hauled myself out of the water, I was again disappointed in my time. Clearly my focus, what little there had been, had drifted. Oh, well, I told myself, just keep breathing hard and see where that gets you.

So I got on my bike and nudged myself up on the rivet, or as close as I felt I could get riding a course almost completely unfamiliar to me. I held back here and there through spots friends had warned me about, but I mainly kept on breathing hard. That was what I’d been learning in my races earlier this year. If I could keep my perceived exertion at a certain level, I’d be good to go. I’d be right on the rivet.

Again, the run was going to be a question mark. Could I? We’d soon see. Coming into the transition area, I honestly had no idea if it’d be one step or a hundred. Well, one step turned into another. I knew, suddenly, that I was going pretty fast—for me, at least. The first mile passed in a time that would’ve stunned me, if I’d had my wits about me. Thankfully, I didn’t, so I just kept on breathing hard. Good God, this is hard. Keep pushing. Next mile and again, by rights I should be dead or something. Keep pushing. Stay on the rivet. Right there, but no further, just right there. Mile 3: Lord in Heaven help me. This hurts. I fear my labored breathing is startling the other competitors. To one man, I say as I pass: "I only sound like a train." Toward the end of mile 4, I slip over the edge. I stop to walk a few steps, have a little drinkie and gather myself for a last push. I cross the finish line with by far my best time ever and the biggest look of disbelief on my face. As soon as I stop, all the muscle groups that had been tuned out began to seek my immediate attention, all at once, and urgently. Talking to friends, I suddenly found myself wheezing.

Aha, I say to myself. I have finally, finally, finally efforted all the way through a race. No slacking, no backing off out of fear. When you’re sick and tired and newly 35 years old, after all, what do you have to fear?

So this is how I learned how to race. I certainly wouldn’t recommend it, but it’s knowledge I treasure like the most precious gemstone.

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