What we do

For my pilot friends and friends of pilots....

I love my job, I love what I do. Flying airplanes for a living is a dream. I never thought I would be lucky enough to do it. It takes years of work, which is not an exaggeration. While I did not take the most expeditious route as a career, I still put in my time, building hours (= experience in the air,) delivering airplanes for a dealer (numerous trips across the Rockies in single engine aircraft, with a couple pleasure trips thrown in,) gave some sightseeing tours, etc...

[Side note-- single engine at night over the mountains in actual IFR conditions... Good Heavens, as an older, grayer pilot, I don't know if I could do that again. There is an old saying that as a pilot gets older, the yellow streak across his back should get wider... and wider... and wider....] [ I deliberately use the pronoun 'he,' because most women start out with a lot more common sense than men do... y'all are born with it, we have to be scared into it.]

Sometimes we forget what a magical world we get to live and work in. Between company politics, union politics, the Feds, our passengers, our coworkers, the weather.... We forget.

We see ourselves as glorified bus drivers, quite often. The way a great deal of our coworkers and passengers behave, it is quite obvious that they perceive us that way, too, and the craft that we fly as buses.

This should not be a surprise, just by the way we treat ourselves.

I am not a 100% go go company/wave the flag kind of guy; I have my own issues on a sometimes daily basis with the management peeps, we all do. That is part of life.

Maybe it is that 'older grayer,' but what happened to Professionalism?

Why is it that walking through the terminal earlier today, for the all of 40 minutes I was in ORD between flights, I saw 2 pilots walking around with their ties hanging down, shirt top unbuttoned, one with a shirt tail untucked from his pants? Sigh.... Yeah, I am just getting old.

So here is what I got to do at work today, 3rd leg of 3 flying.

Lexington Bluegrass, Kentucky, to Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas.

We could see a line of weather was moving in from the West slowly towards DFW. SOC (dispatch) had planned us with plenty of fuel, both for holding purposes and for diverting to an alternate. That's good, pilots like fuel. Fuel makes us happy. Even if the fuel were on fire, we think 'hhmm... I think I can still get to some of that if I need it before we have to put it out.'

Our planned Alternate is Texarkana. (TXK.) This is what the top of our dispatch release looks like, and I will decode it for you:

So, starting from the top left, you would read this in English as:
Instrument Flight Release Eagle Flight 3196/on the 28th,
Aircraft 856 / American Registration # N856AE,
from Lexington, KY to DFW, TX, with an Alternate of Texarkana.
Minimum Take Off Fuel at brake release to start the take off roll is 9487 lbs,
with a Release Fuel at departure time off the gate of 10,435 lbs.
Total fuel burn is planned at 4,978 lbs, (which includes taxi fuel)
with a planned Arrival Fuel of 5,457 lbs (or 2 hours, 43 mins)
if you need to go to your Alternate from the Missed Approach at DFW, it is at Flight Level 170,
with the ATC codes for that route to Texarkana.

Makes sense, they just use shorthand to save time/paper/make us feel older.

We did not think we were going to beat the weather to DFW, we had almost 2 hours of flying ahead of us, and it was just West of the airport. But we had plenty of fuel, so we were ready to go.


The first 1 + 40 of the flight went perfectly smooth. No problems, just like planned. In fact, to the right is what the flight from the day prior looks like. That is about as straight a line as you can get in aviation. Let's hear it for direct routing!

Around Little Rock, where you see the prior day's routing make a bit of a right turn, they moved us over onto another arrival procedure, to take us on a more southerly routing to the airport. No problem, that is what multiple Arrival Procedures are for.

Here is the route we actually flew, after turning south at Little Rock (looks a little different.):

This is where it starts getting dicey.

We could hear the Center controllers telling the flights ahead of us to look up a certain 'intersection' even further south, to be assigned that 'transition' onto the arrival, and to expect holding at that approach fix. So, we know what we are in for.

Now we start getting faced with options. We are flying slightly faster than our planned cruise speed, which burns a bit more fuel, but you are in the air for a shorter period of time. On flights of our length, the 5-10 minute difference is normally a wash, but heading into decreasing weather, 5 minutes of fuel can be an eternity as you watch the numbers slowly drop.

We dropped to slightly slower than our planned cruise speed, since we knew they were already holding at that intersection. No big sense in flying full speed into a holding pattern; we can eat up some time by slowing down a bit now, save some gas, and increase our holding time.

ATC gave us the hold, and we told them we were slowing enroute to the hold to our holding speed. They said to expect further clearance in 40 minutes (actually, they give a time limit on the clock, but it was 40 minutes out, so it makes more sense to write it this way, contextually.)

We were planned with 35 minutes of Holding Fuel, but we were also planned with 200 lbs (11 minutes) of taxi fuel, and I know we only used 100 lbs of that by the time we took off, so that gave us another 100 in the 'bank,' plus we were slightly ahead of the fuel game arriving at the hold, because we had slowed down enough to make up for the slightly fast flying we had done earlier. Whew!

When they plan our "Fuel to Alternate," It is based on going all the way to our destination, doing a "Missed Approach," (go around, bolter, wave-off, bump and run...) and then flying to our Alternate. Well, we were already flying close to our alternate, so maybe we could find a closer alternate with decent weather so we could amend out flight plan and use that fuel to give us more holding time?

Time to abuse the dispatcher. They do all the computer entries and planning for us, because we don't have the capability to do that in the air in real time the way that they do.

We moved our Alternate to GGG (Gregg Country, TX,) so our alternate fuel burn dropped, which means we had more fuel to play with.

That gave us some time (fuel = time... once you take off, the clock is ticking, because unlike military aircraft, we don't have a way to get more gas in the air.)

We continued to dig for weather for airports that were closer, in case we could move closer, plus we needed to be able to answer the question "IF we divert, where will we go?"

We flew around the holding pattern, which is a pre-planned racetrack-type pattern designed to provide a safe area around the aircraft contained within. We had a bunch of planes above us, but slowly planes were leaving the pattern below us. This is normally a good thing-- ATC brings you into the pattern top to bottom, slowly pops flights off the bottom, and we work our way down the 'stack' until it is our turn to head in.

This time, the planes below us were giving up and going to their Alternate destinations to wait out the weather, get some more gas, etc, instead of being cleared towards DFW. Ruh-roh... that's a bad sign.

They extended our holding time (Gave us a later Expect Further Clearance Time,) and we knew were were starting to get up against a wall, with regards to fuel. We keep track of our fuel as we hold, and we were perfectly configured for the hold, burning as little gas as possible to wait out our time. Eventually, the clock runs out.

We convinced SOC to move our Alternate again, and after he moved it he wrote back "Good thing, we would have had to change it, GGG and TXK are no longer taking diversions, they have too many on the ground. SHV is also not taking anyone." [This, btw, does not have the force of law, or anything; we could have diverted there, they just didn't have room for us operationally (stairs, generators, etc.) which could be a major headache (what if it takes 4 or 5 hours for the storm to blow over, what do we do with the passengers trapped on the airplane??) but we can always land there... it might just not be brilliant!]

TYR (Tyler, TX) is now our new alternate, and it is right off of our right hand side in the hold.

By now, the weather had moved East enough that it was going to be a problem in our holding pattern. In addition to that, we were facing a quick drop in to TYR, or crossing a bit of the weather (but not the nasty bits) to get south to Waco (ACT.) A Delta flight asked if they could move to a track further north to avoid the weather, and hold at a fix there. ATC asked us if that would work at our altitude, too, and I told my FO to reply "Sure, we can get there."

So we started to the new hold, and my FO was starting to get cautious. He had worked out what we needed to get across the weather and into both Waco and Wichita Falls. We heard them start to take flights all the way south and around to basically over West Texas, and there was no way we were going to be able to do that. We just did not have the fuel (lucky dogs, those 767s!)

As we entered the new hold, I knew our time was going to be running out, and we certainly didn't want to wait till the weather completely overran our current (and right below us) Alternate, nor did I want it to 'close the door' for us to reach Waco (which was actually going downhill faster.)

As we entered the hold, I said "If we come back around over this fix again, I want you to call ATC and tell them we're pulling the plug and dropping into TYR; Let's not get stuck up here (as the options disappear)"

Weather, amended releases, more amendments... killing trees!

We made the first turn in the hold, and ATC asked us if we could take a path of Waco. I knew the direction 'line-of-sight' from where we were, and there was a clear shot across a small cloud ridge there (That should also put us most of the way onto the other side of the weather, where assuredly the sun was shining, the grass was green, the breezes were soft, and we had more options to land!) So I told my FO "Take whatever they offer us, we're going to go to the other side," and shot off a quick message to our dispatcher to see if we could change our Alternate to AFW (Alliance Fort Worth, TX, which is right next to (relatively) DFW. While not the best bet for our passengers, it would allow us to fuel up and jump right over to DFW, because we would be on the 'clear' side of the storm front.)

As we passed over Waco, ATC cleared us via a long arrival from very far North West of the airport. That was just not going to work. If we went out that far, we'd never make it back. I said "What are they doing, putting us behind someone just rotating out of El Paso? IF they take us more than 50 miles west of Waco, we're going to Wichita Falls, sound good?"(Waco had finally had the weather close in on them.)

My FO was reluctant; he wanted to just drop right in to TYR, but we had the fuel to make the trip to SPS (Wichita Falls,) plus we had Alliance in our back pocket as the 'real' alternate. I knew that ATC was giving us a full long clearance to get us headed towards the traffic filing in to DFW from the West, but I didn't imagine they would take us that far out.

I certainly hoped that they didn't.

As we made the turn and started working our way northwest, we pulled up some more weather, but we could visually see quite a bit more than we could further east. Then, only a short distance along, ATC said to turn right and go direct JEN (Glen Rose VOR, which chopped about 150 miles off the arrival we were heading out towards.... which was just what I expected.)

The Delta that had started us that way said "If Eagle thinks he sees a hole, I'm following him all the way in," and they were cleared out of the hold and along our path behind us.

We were given a few heading changes, slowly working our way towards DFW from the southwest now. Barely a bump in the clouds, and actually we were mostly outside the clouds by this point.

From there, we just picked our way through the weather, made a normal beautiful approach, and landed at DFW; plenty of gas in the tank, too.

We taxied in to a pretty deserted terminal. "Of course!" my FO said; "They all diverted!"

Not this time for us, anyways. I have diverted before, gotten stuck in the wrong city, had myself or my crew go 'illegal' due to FAA/DOT mandated duty time limitations, which strands our passengers (and ourselves) in cities... totally for safety (by the time you reach the limits, believe me, you are pretty shot.)

But this is the kind of flying that I like (not all the time!)

It is a challenge. How can we maximize our hold time? What can we move to make it more likely we can complete our mission? What is the best way to handle this as the weather goes down the tubes and we are faced with decreasing options and less time to make the decisions given those options (eventually you are faced with a single decision regarding a single option... which is a place you should fight to never be... few options =  no bueno.)

This is why pilots are different. We make these decisions, and we have a planeload of people who essentially have no say in the matter other than they purchased their tickets and they expect to be taken to their destination; safely, hopefully on time, and with a minimum of fuss.

Our dispatchers can't really tell us where to go... although most of the time it would behoove us to listen to their advice, but; they're sometimes hundreds of miles away and sitting in a chair in a building.

Even ATC can't actually make us do something... after all, if in the interest if safety we decide there is a better course of action... well... then that is what we are going to do! (That is part of the job, after all.)

I have said for a long time that runways are magical; they are where the sky and the land intersect... where the airplane changes your world. 5,000-13,000.... that's about it, that is all the concrete you get. But with that little bit of concrete, you get all of the sky... and who gets that concrete?

And who gets to make that world connect? Who is the one who takes the leap?

We do. Nobody else gets to do it. People dream of it, but we get to live it.

We are not bus drivers, or truck drivers, or anything of that sort.

Who is it, who gets........

  Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
 And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
 Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
 of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
 You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
 High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
 I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
 My eager craft through footless halls of air....
 Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
 I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
 Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
 And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
 The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
 - Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

To really enjoy John Gillespie Magee's words, read them slowly... savor them. That is a taste of what it is like to fly!

....' on laughter-silvered wings '....

AA 737 contrail in the hold as we arrive

Nearly all of my pilot friends have done the flight, or one similar to the one I did today... they come up a few times a year (hopefully that rarely!) Sometimes we divert, because things just do not work out in our favor; thankfully, it generally works out that we can find a way through. I was lucky enough to spend 10 years as an FO working with a number of very skilled Captains before I took the upgrade to Captain myself (and a few whose interpersonal skills left something to be desired, but what can you do? People are different.)

While we were not born with wings, we have earned them... and that does make us a little different.

The pilot flying a load of cancelled checks across Lake Michigan in December. She is flying low because the forecast was for icing in the cloud layers; she is not even up to her planned cruising altitude, which would give her some margin of safety to glide to shore in the event her single engine failed over the 38F lake water, but this plane always runs rough, there is only a little ice forming on the wings, and it is accreting slowly... going south to stay over shore takes too long, she has a schedule to keep.... just keep running, dear sweet engine, and get me across the lake again, she says to the Cessna 210, as she shines her slowly dying flashlight back, studying the bottom of the wing, watching the ice slowly form.

The pilots who have been holding due to delays; they finally left on their last leg, plane is full, after hours and hours of delays from storms. They make the 2 hour flight across to Montreal; The sun is starting to come up, it is May, so it is rising early, or are they so late? As the sun rises, fog rolls in, blocking out the approaches to the airport, sending them into a missed approach and out to hold while they wait for a little fog to burn off, as their fuel also burns off.... " The fog was not part of the forecast, but how old was that forecast before we left, and I hope that damn sun burns the fog off as it is burning into my eyes; I've been up for 19 hours, and caffeine has stopped working for me; I just want to land.... that damn fog better burn off...."

The pilot sitting amid-ships on the aircraft carrier in the dark, in pitching seas in the Indian Ocean. She is in her F-14, she was one of the last classes, and she will probably be the last female pilot to fly the mighty Tomcat. Her squardon mates have repeatedly boltered; she is sitting ready to launch should the need arise with extra fuel to refuel them in the dark and stormy night. This is her first cruise, and even long time veterans can't hook the wire. Once she launches, one way or another she will have to return to the ship. What is going through her mind as she watches her mates miss the wire and fly off in showers of sparks, sound and fury as they light the afterburners to escape a terrible fate?

The pilot is slowly easing up on the Collective in his gunship; he has been hovering just off of a ridge line, while a small team of Marines is working their way across a field and some obstacles to get in position for whatever hell they are planning on unleashing this evening. He scans his instruments... everything is right in heli-world (a world held aloft by forces working against each other,) he is just waiting for the call in case he needs to provide support. Those Marines are our Marines, but in his eyes, they are HIS Marines. Whatever he needs to do, however he needs to bend and shape his machine to fit the bill to come to their defense, he is willing to put it all on the line to bring them protection, cover fire, help, anything. 

Except for this particular F-14 pilot (PBS's Carrier documentary) I know the pilots of those planes personally, they have told me their stories. I've heard probably a thousand variations on them, too.

We sacrificed; we bled; we did shit jobs to get our dream job. Numerous times, many of us have risked Death (Him whose name shall not be spoken.) I know plenty of pilots who cleaned sewers, threw bags, washed dishes, fueled planes, fought wars, flew in the wee hours so that they could do the job of dreams.

And that is what we do. How can we ever lose sight of that? We have a dream job.

So yes, pilots are special.

...and We are pilots, after all.

A Rant

Hello again!

Ok, this is going to be much more of a rant than usual, and I expect to offend some people. There will be tough love involved, and if you are offended, well... Too bad. Harden The Fuck Up and Hike The Fuck Out (there will also be swearing for emphasis.)

Here we go.

So, on an unnamed airline today (not necessarily the airline I fly for; I've been in this industry a while, ya know) one of the female passengers was sexually molested by the male passenger who was sitting next to her.

Yes, that's right. Right out there in the open. When the FA came by, the molester said "we're together;" the FA was pretty new, and didn't know how to handle the situation. Maybe she thought they had arrived separately for something clandestine, who knows, but for whatever reason, she did not pick up on that as a lie.

We'll take a break here so I can give you a little story about myself.

Quite a few years ago, I was on the Blue Line (Chicago ELevated train line) coming home from the western suburbs. Where I lived at the time, this was a jaunt.. probably a good hour from the Western end of the Blue Line to my stop, which would be Addison or Irving Park, based on which direction I came from... I lived midway between the two, so I just got off at whichever came first.

So, there I am on the train.

We'd left Clark/Lake, and were working our way northwest, and there were maybe a dozen people on the train. A girl that had been further forward in the car sat across from me, but diagonally across the doors. Then a man sat down in the row behind her, and starting talking under his breath to her. I could see the look of annoyance pass across her face, and I thought... great, a lover's quarrel to end my train ride, that's really sweet.

After a while, and because I like observing people, I realized that her body language was describing her running away. She was nailed down to the spot she was seated in, but her body was telling another story. I decided to pay a little bit more attention.

The man kept talking to her, low, quietly, and then I saw her reaction, and heard her say "Just go away, I don't know you."

Suddenly, I know why her body language looks like she is trying to run away. Trying to flee. Flight response.

I could see there was a little bit of panic set in around her eyes. I could see that the man's body language was very forward, very aggressive, even seated.

I looked around the train, and ahead of me on my side of the train were 3 men and a woman, the three men all looked fairly good sized. On the other side of the train car were a few couples and a solo man, plus the 'couple' that I was watching.

Nobody.. and I mean nobody... was paying attention to the drama that was playing out in the back of the train car, except for me.

How many stories have you read in the newspaper of someone who was accosted in broad daylight (this was night, and quite late.) People all around, and yet.... something happens to someone and there is a chorus of 'why didn't she speak out?' 'All she had to do was call out!'

My quandary was that I was rapidly approaching my stop (Addison.) The girl was sitting near the doors, so I would get a good close look when I was getting ready to exit. I decided if something still seemed out of place, I would come up with something.

I got up for my stop a little early, and stood by the doors for them to open. I looked at the girl, and I could see 'help me' in the panic in the whites of her eyes. So I said

"Hey! Holy Smokes! Is that really you? Remember? Scott, from first year Algebra at school! Where on earth have you been and what have you been up to?"

I could see the relief flood through her that someone... anyone had noticed her plight.  She smiled up at me and said "Oh, yes, hi! So good to see you again!"

So I let my stop go by. We chatted for a little longer, and I could see the guy was getting really frustrated at getting blocked. I decided to go in for checkmate:

"Hey, why don't you jump off with me if you don't have anything going on; I know a great place we can grab a cup of joe and keep catching up."

She got off the train with me, clutching my arm. The man got off at the same time we did, and when I looked at him he gave me a big toothy grin. When we got down Irving Park Road, the man turned for a moment and I basically tossed the girl into a cab that pulled up as if I had summoned it. I jumped in behind her and told the cabbie to go go go. As we pulled away, I saw the man leap out into the street to see where we had gone, but he never saw us in the cab.

She was so thankful as we pulled away. She was practically sobbing. I only had a few blocks to go in the cab, but I made sure she had cab fare, gave her my home number (this was before the prevalence of smart phones, etc... etc...) and told her to call me when she got to her destination.

So you know what my course of action is.... and that is.... action.

Returning to our topic;

A man on a flight changed seats to sit next to a woman he did not know, and then he sexually molested her. I don't know the exact nature of what he was doing to her, but it involved unwanted physical contact.

The cockpit crew (Captain and First Officer, both of whom I happen to know, surprisingly) did not know anything of this, and as I mentioned above, the FA thought that they were together, or at least the man had said they were together.

As the woman was getting off the airplane, she told the FA what had really been going on. The FA made sure the Captain knew, and the Captain, being a proper male, immediately jumped out of his seat, asked who the man was that was involved, and then took off after him. The police were called, and statements were taken at the gate.

The Captain actually managed to get the man trapped in a revolving door at the terminal exit, but neither TSA nor the Chicago Police saw him, nor noticed that there was something wrong. He had left his cell phone in the flight deck when he bolted from the cockpit, so he could not call anyone to tell them he had the guy there, and it is not like he could just hold the guy hostage in a revolving door forever. So he came back to the gate, described the man, and returned back to baggage claim to help identify him, but the man had fled.

They had the seat number, and can obviously find out who the man is, but the woman said she would decline to press charges; so the Cops and the airline have washed their hands of the deal.

I can only imagine what the situation was like for this woman. Here she is, minding her own business, and a man traps her in her seat and starts touching her somehow and someway. A small part of me can imagine (because I have seen it, and have gone to the aid of someone in that position) what she was going through. Isolation... Exposure... a feeling of being trapped and alone.

Here is what my problem is with this.

She refuses to press charges. Refuses. I am sorry, but what you went through was not the end of the world. Yes, you don't want to see that man again. So, best to just be quiet, right?

Can anyone else see the problem with this?

The man has no 'feedback loop' discouraging him from behaving the way he did. He got exactly the reaction that he wanted; a panicked woman.

He didn't get a 'punch to the kisser,' he didn't get someone who would simply stand up, start laughing, point at him, call out, yell, anything.

Just a compliant little bunny rabbit. Perfect for the wolves... let us make their lives easier.

This woman was on a crowded airplane, and even though she may have felt alone, she sure as hell was not alone! All she had to do was speak up.

Girls, get this through your heads. We are not mind readers!

If you are in trouble, maybe nobody will notice it. What are you going to do, just go to slaughter for the wolves? I guess there is a population that will do just that. I have even seen it in action.

And this is why these dirtbags are able to continue what they are doing, because they are not stopped when it happens. You know what would be a good solution to this? A punch right in the face. A kick to the balls. Laughter (since most male on female sexual assaults are about 'power,' and not about sex, laughter is a great weapon... no man anywhere wants his 'sexual prowess' laughed at.)

I know plenty of women who would do exactly the same is this woman did... not press charges, because you don't want to relive the experience, or whatever excuse you want to give. Too damn bad. Relive it. Pay that price, because when you do not, some other woman is going to be in your shoes in the not too distant future, all because you wouldn't speak up and nail the bastard to the door. They had to police, they had a witness, all they need is a name... and... nothing.

Girls... ladies... women... until you are ready to speak up, then this kind of thing will continue. I happen to know that the Captain of this flight would have gladly gone back and punched the guy in the face (A case for this could be made, but not once you are on the ground!) He certainly would have hog tied the man and left him trussed up for the police at the gate.

So why not speak up? Shy? afraid? Nervous? Too Goddamn bad! This is a major fault with women--- by not speaking up, you are selling the next woman, the next victim, down the river. You are giving her up to the wolves, as sure as you were trapped yourself.

Fight, Flight, or Freeze.

Women need to fight.

If a piece of crap like that sits down next to you, and exposes himself (which has happened to at least 2 women that I know) stand up and point... laugh... yell out... call attention to it. Hit the man... kick the man (trust me, the last thing this piece of excrement is expecting is a battle) ... do whatever you want; he has lost his rights.

Whatever you do not do, don't sit there meekly, hoping that it will all go away, that he will just stop, or that please please someone notice me I am in a bad place. Even in a crowd, people will simply not notice.

Women, you need to speak up. You need to act. You need to decide not to be a victim. 90% of men will gladly come to your aid, but, if we don't know you are in trouble, then we don't even know to help. There had been a couple other women on the train when that guy in my own story first got on, but who did he pick out of the crowd? The meek one... the wolves circle the rabbit...

The only way you can become a victim like this is if you let yourself. Fight... kick.. scratch... punch... make a scene; if not for yourself, then for the next girl, for the wife, for the daughter. Until someone stands up and fights back, he will continue... and they will continue... doing what they are doing.

More on this at a later date....

Chicago Triathlon breakdown (no kidding)

So I have had a little bit of time to reflect on my 3rd Chicago Triathlon (actually, my 3rd, 4th, and 5th, if you count 2013 individually.)

I know I was a little bit undertrained. I had slacked off with the Race to Mackinac in the sailing world, and then after I had to pack a bunch of flying in, trying to baby my knee, and then works.

O.k., enough excuses.

The Sprint

The Sprint Tri went off right about as planned. The ChiTri Sprint consists of a 750M swim, and 20K bike, and a 5K run.

The time for the swim includes the 400M run from the end of swim to transition (that run is longer than the swim in the SuperSprint, btw.)

So, my not so glorious times----

Swim - 23:50
Bike - 52:45
Run - 34:54

Swim Note:
I would have liked to have the swim come in around 21 or so, but with the run added to the distance, I am not surprised by the result there. I had a decent swim that was only marred by getting kicked in the face FOUR times; one gave me a good load of water up da nose, so that kind of annoyed me. I was very high adrenaline for the swim, and I could not get my heart rate down. It usually takes me a good 300+ yards to get my heart down when I swim laps. I am working on this, but it really saps your energy in open water.

Bike Note:
52:45 works out to 15.5mph. My goal was 49:00, which would have been about 16.6 mph, but I was only able to pace a 15.8 on the Super Sprint, so I should not have been surprise to be a little bit slower. Still, pretty good. Not bad for a kinda new guy. Plus, the heat was starting to pick up.

Run Note:
34:54 for a 5K. Yikes. I was hoping for about 31:00. My best time in a 5K is around 28:20, and I have run that many many times on the treadmill and on my overnights. I have not done a lot of brick type workouts towards the end of my training, obviously, I need to run after biking quite a bit more. But... 35 minutes... sigh. I suck so bad at running. That 34:54 was almost EXACTLY double my 17:05 from the 2.5K in the SuperSprint the day before. Foreshadowing!!

The Olympic.

Oh, jeez, the humanity!!

The Chi Tri Olympic length is a 1.5K swim, and 40K bike, and a 10K run.

I finished the Sprint at 08:02AM (it was an 0600 start,) and I had the Olympic coming right at me with an 0900 start. I had to get from the finish line to transition, reset my transition area, then hustle on down to the starting line 3/4 mile away to make the 0900 start. I made it with about a minute-thirty to spare. I had no time to rest (which is part of why you do the Triple Challenge... it is a challenge, after all!) and only time to snarf down a chocolate chip bagel and a banana... plus throw a bottle of gatorade onto my bike, and drink 1/2 of another one.

My times (which put my DEAD LAST in my age group... ugh.)

Swim - 52:06
Bike - 1:43:54
Run -  1:37:16

I am not happy with any of that, although I have to admit, turning around after a Sprint tri did kind of wear me down.

The Swim:

I was a little tired after doing the Sprint and not getting to even sit down between races. I barely had time to get my wetsuit back on, let alone relax for more time, so I was a bit put off by the swim start (although getting in the water felt GREAT.) Ironically, the last 500M or so of the swim was by far my best swimming of the entire triathlon. I was passing swimmers left and right. Too little too late, though.) A good chunk of my swim time was a 'trudge to transition.' I walked, not jogged or ran, the distance to transition. My time on this last year was 38:33. Doing that swim after the 20K bike and 5K run really (massive understatement) killed me here. I would have been better off having another mile of swimming than any kind of biking or running. Ah well, That is why it is a challenge!

The Bike:

Last year's time was 1:35:??. I felt really strong, and I had great strength in the first loop around; as I started the second loop north, I realized that I had not refilled my water bottle when I put the gatorade bottle on my bike between races (being rushed makes you forget shit,) and the temps were pushing 90 by now. I needed lots of water, and I did not have it. I had also not dropped any energy gels or grabbed another banana for the ride. I was going to rapidly run out of energy and hydration somewhere soon. I certainly did. I had a great split time coming out the first half of the bike (considering it was my 2nd Tri of the day,) but... I just fell apart. By the time I was southbound on the final 1/4 of the bike, I could feel the dehydration sapping away at my strength. I was trying to marshal my forces for conservation, but in an endurance sport, you really need access to nourishment (the 4th 'leg' of any triathlon is nutrition,) and I had painted myself into a corner by being rushed resetting transition.

I also had a shoulder problem that was getting annoyed. I had purchased a 'bike trainer' so that I could get used to being on the aero-bars, but I had not used it nearly enough. My shoulders were aching, and my left shoulder had a knot in it the size of a baseball. Made it difficult to stay symmetrical. 

Now the race just becomes about 'survival.' Keep going for the finish. Forget times, forget Personal Records, Personal Bests, etc... just drive. This is where having done prior triathlons kicks into play. No giving up, even if I have to crawl over the finish in a dehydrated pulpy mess. No matter how you slice it, I was miles ahead of everyone who had never done a Tri, and here I was, doing three in a weekend (a decent sized case could be made at this point for me being an idiot, but.... who is keeping score?)

The Run:

A funny thing comes into play when you know you will not win, in fact your age group partners have already been finishing for a while, you are totally knackered, and... well... you are dehydrated and annoyed at yourself. That funny thing is reality. Bam.

I basically slept through transition to the run. I lay down, stretched out my back, tried to get the knot out of my shoulder by laying down on some equipment. Not a whole lot of luck, so it was time to press on.

I stopped at the transition tent exit water stand, and basically stood there refilling myself like a camel. Drink.. drink... drink. I had a number of cups of water, and balanced those with about the same of Gatorade. I didn't want to over-drink and get cramps, so I tried to play it safe. There are drink stops about every mile on the run, so I knew I would be able to top off every stop.

By now the heat was getting up to about 94F or so. It was hot. Normally, I like running in the heat, but I was borderline dehydrated, and I had not run enough (even though I had done more distances than the individual races, I had not run this much TOTAL in a 24 hour period.) to really put in a good show.

So mile #1 I basically walked/jogged/hopped. I was trying to get my running feet under me, but I as also trying to stay sane and re-hydrate (an abnormally frustrating process. The more I have read about it, the more I have found it is a losing proposition. Once the dehydration monster starts in on you and gets to a certain point, you are fighting a losing battle... it is nearly impossible to get enough water in without drowning yourself.)

I made myself a deal.. instead of my normal system of running 7 mins or so and walking 2, I was going to reverse it, and run 2 and walk 7. As you can tell by my time, I did a lot more walking than that, even.

Around mile #3, I took a break in a port-o-john, and I heard them pull a racer off the course for dehydration. The paramedic was making sure he was ok, and then the racer started to vomit from massive dehydration. I have no idea how anyone would have been pushing so hard at this point int he race... all that was left on the course were the cruisers and the pros. They got the guy into an ambulance, but it was startling to hear someone crash so hard 'medically.' Numerous people got pulled off of the course, or dropped out when they realized they had lost it. This was where I decided to drop nearly all pretense of being a 'runner,' and just enjoy the walk, jog a bit when I could, nurse my dehydration properly (I doubled my water and gatorade intake after hearing that guy) and enjoy the damn race! I was supposed to be having fun, damnit! So I walked a little fast, broke into a jog now and then, and stopped at every water table and gatorade table and took a big swig or five.

At mile #5, the first pro came blasting past me. Holy cats that was amazing to watch! They started a full TWO HOURS after I started. Yes, I know, they are professionals, and I am a hack... but WOW, they were amazing to see up close, and on the same course!! (and passing the daylights out of my ass!!!!)

The last 100 yards of the run is through a finisher's chute, so I started jogging at a fair clip for the 50 yards prior, and then broke into a good run through the chute. I high-fived a bunch of people along the sides, and then raised my arms in victory at the end as I went through the finish, 7 hours and 31 minutes after I had started the Sprint that morning.

Not nearly my best times, not even somewhere near average. But I did have a good time on the race. A few things that I learned though---

Yeah, baby, that's honest sweat.

There is a GOOD reason why only about 180 people out of 7500 do the Triple Challenge. It is idiotic.

I swam well on the longer distances, I just need to not get kicked in the face, and I need to do the swim BEFORE I do the run and bike, not after a good set of run and bike.

I really want to try a 1/2 IM distance. We'll see what the future holds.

Dehydration sucks, and it takes days to recover. Better planning!!

My knee did not hurt in the least on the longest runs I have done in a single day. I like that!

More to come!

Cheers!

Scott

(yes, I know I took a screenshot of a proof.)