Do You Have A Prostate?
No. And I apparently don't have any balls either.
It was about 6:30 last night and the sun was setting over the pacific. Steve, Beno, Toni and I were headed back in to Kona from Hawi, the 56 mile marker and turnaround point for IM Kona.
It is an adorable town. A handful of hundred year old buildings with a few eclectic shops and restaurants and generations of families from days of Hawaiian royalty and founders. It sits in the hills of the northern tip of the big island and is the destination of the 1700 or so IM athletes here. It is also the peak of the bike course, the highest point in elevation and the climax of the notorious tradewinds that this event is notorious for.
Yesterday it was my destination for an hour or so bike ride, per Kelly's direction, to get a feel of what one could experience at the upper end of the bike course.
After a more than full day of swimming, socializing, retail taper therapy and bopping around town, we headed out to Hawi about 3:30. The fields of black lava rock make this part of the island feel rather barren, yet extreme. Like who would really build a home or resort where this torrent of black, molten river once ran?
Through the countryside we ventured, looking for the location that Derrick, Kelly's IronSherpa husband, said would be 'intuitive' to find and drop me off. With Beno co-piloting Steve in Toni's reading glasses, we were all confident that 'intuition' would be better than a map at this point.
After passing several places that everyone's intuition said 'stop' but our chauffer Steve's, he was finally group-summoned to exit in a thorny, grassy driveway and everyone jumped out in Nascar fashion to get me on my way in record time.
Off I rolled towards the infamous Hawi. The plan was to meet them there as they would hopefully find a little restaurant to grab a bite to eat (the first meal since 9am breakfast!)
It was pretty rolling ranch land. The road was a two lane country road with about a 30 inch shoulder on each side. The rolling terrain reminded me much of riding Parmer/Ronald Reagan in Leander and Liberty Hill. It was windy, just like I was expecting, because everyone said it would be and that is why I came out here to ride it, right? But I really wasn't finding the wind to be any worse than spring winds are in Texas, and actually they weren't proving to be too much of a nuissance in maintaining good speed. I was happy and content rolling up and down the long gradual hills in my aero bars enjoying a good, solid speed for me. Then WOOSH, out of no where it was like my bike deweighted and literally lifted sideways out of the shoulder to the left into the road beside me. Good gracious! It was still pushing on me as I leaned right and my bike shook, wobbled and leaned left. I cringed hoping no cars were coming, as there had been a great deal of traffic coming and going throughout my entire ride. I saw a wall of cut out lava approaching on my right, so I was praying this whirlwind would be short lived. It was. The cut out road passage through the lava lighhtened the tradewind's intensity from my right - the east. But I also saw that cut out coming to an end, so I slowed a bit, gripped a little harder and waited - SLAM. Another one. I have ridden in lots of windy conditions in Austin but never experienced these types of slamming, lifting winds. Staying on the shoulder when I would get hit by them was quite questionable. The potential of getting blown in front of or into a car made me even more nervous. Getting taken out by this crazy wind or a car BEFORE the event began to concern me. I knew that Saturday during the event this road would be closed and would allow me to flow a
bit more with the wind and that would at least eliminate the potential of getting blown over AND hit by a car. I was about 40 minutes into my ride, about 25% of which I was feeling like I was in boxing match anticipating the next blow, when I decided to abort the risk and wait to experience these crazy winds when I really had to - on Saturday. I have trained too long and hard to not make it to the starting line.
So I pulled over and called Steve. He had just sat down to a cold beer and calamari at a quaint restaurant and bar in Hawi with Toni and Beno, like any perfectly trained IronSherpa husband would do, waiting for his wife while having a little fun not being on Sherpa duty while his wife was out doing her thing. Until the phone rang, little did he know she thought she might die any moment!
And as any good IronSherpa husband would do, he sat down his cold beer, told me I did the right thing (whether I had or not ;-) and came to pick me up.
As he was dodging odd and random things blowing across the road as we drove back to Hawi, I told him felt like I needed a cold beer to calm my frazzled nerves. He told me there was a cold beer waiting for me at the table at the restaurant, and as any good IronSherpa husband would do, what he didn't tellme was that it was his, the one that had probably just gotten and in the heat of the 911 distress call he had to put down his cold frosty and abandon the few minutes of IronSherpa solitude and enjoyment of being 'off Iron duty' with friends and come pick my whimpy butt off the side of the road out in the middle of nowhere.
But IronSherpas do that without the bat of an eye. No complaints. No comments. With a very solemn face they come to your aid. Whatever they really are thinking, whatever they really want to say, they swallow it whole and show up in all their IronSherpa glory with their IronSherpa capes, to rebuild your Iron confidence. Thank IronSherpa.
So back to the bar I was shuffled, to the cold beer, calamari and good friends with unconditional love. Over a couple beers my confidence rebuilt and our conversations and good times in the hills of Hawi carried on.
By the time we left the sun was setting and we all squeezed into the Dodge SUV with my bike wrapped around the 4 of us to drive the 56 miles back to Kona. We chatted, laughed and shared fun stories of sports, coaches and events. But after a couple beers and lots of water my conversation began to focus on my need to pee for the past 20 minutes and of course, Steve drove on. I commented about the fact I could probably pee on myself easier in the car than on my bike, and shared how the first time I tried to pee on the bike it took me 20 miles but I have gotten better ;-)
Since this triathlon is Beno's first 'rodeo' he turned around in his OSHA 2 co-pilot seat and looked at me inquisitively over the top of Toni's reading glasses, and didn't say anything because his expression said it all. We had just been talking about junior high health ed so I figured those lessons were probably rerunning through his mind.
Yes, I told him, it took a bit of deweighting and moving around on my bike seat, but I can now let it flow.
In all of his Lt. Col. and Starflight glory he then asked me "Don't you have a prostate?"
Nope. And thank you dear Sherpa Friends, for telling me I don't have any balls either.
:-)
It was about 6:30 last night and the sun was setting over the pacific. Steve, Beno, Toni and I were headed back in to Kona from Hawi, the 56 mile marker and turnaround point for IM Kona.
It is an adorable town. A handful of hundred year old buildings with a few eclectic shops and restaurants and generations of families from days of Hawaiian royalty and founders. It sits in the hills of the northern tip of the big island and is the destination of the 1700 or so IM athletes here. It is also the peak of the bike course, the highest point in elevation and the climax of the notorious tradewinds that this event is notorious for.
Yesterday it was my destination for an hour or so bike ride, per Kelly's direction, to get a feel of what one could experience at the upper end of the bike course.
After a more than full day of swimming, socializing, retail taper therapy and bopping around town, we headed out to Hawi about 3:30. The fields of black lava rock make this part of the island feel rather barren, yet extreme. Like who would really build a home or resort where this torrent of black, molten river once ran?
Through the countryside we ventured, looking for the location that Derrick, Kelly's IronSherpa husband, said would be 'intuitive' to find and drop me off. With Beno co-piloting Steve in Toni's reading glasses, we were all confident that 'intuition' would be better than a map at this point.
After passing several places that everyone's intuition said 'stop' but our chauffer Steve's, he was finally group-summoned to exit in a thorny, grassy driveway and everyone jumped out in Nascar fashion to get me on my way in record time.
Off I rolled towards the infamous Hawi. The plan was to meet them there as they would hopefully find a little restaurant to grab a bite to eat (the first meal since 9am breakfast!)
It was pretty rolling ranch land. The road was a two lane country road with about a 30 inch shoulder on each side. The rolling terrain reminded me much of riding Parmer/Ronald Reagan in Leander and Liberty Hill. It was windy, just like I was expecting, because everyone said it would be and that is why I came out here to ride it, right? But I really wasn't finding the wind to be any worse than spring winds are in Texas, and actually they weren't proving to be too much of a nuissance in maintaining good speed. I was happy and content rolling up and down the long gradual hills in my aero bars enjoying a good, solid speed for me. Then WOOSH, out of no where it was like my bike deweighted and literally lifted sideways out of the shoulder to the left into the road beside me. Good gracious! It was still pushing on me as I leaned right and my bike shook, wobbled and leaned left. I cringed hoping no cars were coming, as there had been a great deal of traffic coming and going throughout my entire ride. I saw a wall of cut out lava approaching on my right, so I was praying this whirlwind would be short lived. It was. The cut out road passage through the lava lighhtened the tradewind's intensity from my right - the east. But I also saw that cut out coming to an end, so I slowed a bit, gripped a little harder and waited - SLAM. Another one. I have ridden in lots of windy conditions in Austin but never experienced these types of slamming, lifting winds. Staying on the shoulder when I would get hit by them was quite questionable. The potential of getting blown in front of or into a car made me even more nervous. Getting taken out by this crazy wind or a car BEFORE the event began to concern me. I knew that Saturday during the event this road would be closed and would allow me to flow a
bit more with the wind and that would at least eliminate the potential of getting blown over AND hit by a car. I was about 40 minutes into my ride, about 25% of which I was feeling like I was in boxing match anticipating the next blow, when I decided to abort the risk and wait to experience these crazy winds when I really had to - on Saturday. I have trained too long and hard to not make it to the starting line.
So I pulled over and called Steve. He had just sat down to a cold beer and calamari at a quaint restaurant and bar in Hawi with Toni and Beno, like any perfectly trained IronSherpa husband would do, waiting for his wife while having a little fun not being on Sherpa duty while his wife was out doing her thing. Until the phone rang, little did he know she thought she might die any moment!
And as any good IronSherpa husband would do, he sat down his cold beer, told me I did the right thing (whether I had or not ;-) and came to pick me up.
As he was dodging odd and random things blowing across the road as we drove back to Hawi, I told him felt like I needed a cold beer to calm my frazzled nerves. He told me there was a cold beer waiting for me at the table at the restaurant, and as any good IronSherpa husband would do, what he didn't tellme was that it was his, the one that had probably just gotten and in the heat of the 911 distress call he had to put down his cold frosty and abandon the few minutes of IronSherpa solitude and enjoyment of being 'off Iron duty' with friends and come pick my whimpy butt off the side of the road out in the middle of nowhere.
But IronSherpas do that without the bat of an eye. No complaints. No comments. With a very solemn face they come to your aid. Whatever they really are thinking, whatever they really want to say, they swallow it whole and show up in all their IronSherpa glory with their IronSherpa capes, to rebuild your Iron confidence. Thank IronSherpa.
So back to the bar I was shuffled, to the cold beer, calamari and good friends with unconditional love. Over a couple beers my confidence rebuilt and our conversations and good times in the hills of Hawi carried on.
By the time we left the sun was setting and we all squeezed into the Dodge SUV with my bike wrapped around the 4 of us to drive the 56 miles back to Kona. We chatted, laughed and shared fun stories of sports, coaches and events. But after a couple beers and lots of water my conversation began to focus on my need to pee for the past 20 minutes and of course, Steve drove on. I commented about the fact I could probably pee on myself easier in the car than on my bike, and shared how the first time I tried to pee on the bike it took me 20 miles but I have gotten better ;-)
Since this triathlon is Beno's first 'rodeo' he turned around in his OSHA 2 co-pilot seat and looked at me inquisitively over the top of Toni's reading glasses, and didn't say anything because his expression said it all. We had just been talking about junior high health ed so I figured those lessons were probably rerunning through his mind.
Yes, I told him, it took a bit of deweighting and moving around on my bike seat, but I can now let it flow.
In all of his Lt. Col. and Starflight glory he then asked me "Don't you have a prostate?"
Nope. And thank you dear Sherpa Friends, for telling me I don't have any balls either.
:-)
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