April 19, 2008

Whoo hoo. Look for me.

Way over on the sidelines.

Holding a beer.

Click on the image for details.

It’s only 4 hours down the road. And since I won’t be deep into a training cycle, methinks I’ll have to convince Goddess to take a trip down and watch.

Gotta find me a cowbell…

Hasher’s $4K Run

<rant>

Absolutely freakin’ amazing. Some Hash House Harriers do what they do all the time, sending an ignorant township’s leaders into a tizzy. Instead of facing a felony conviction, they pay $4,000 as a plea bargain.

People have lost their paranoid, freakin’ minds.

Perhaps, using prosecutor Marc Ramia’s words, we should prosecute all fast food joints because the spreading of such food “creates a dangerous situation for the public, who are not aware of what the substance is.”

</rant>

Full text follows:

Flour-sprinkling joggers out of trouble

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Charges have been dropped against two siblings who inadvertently caused a bioterrorism scare when they sprinkled flour in a parking lot to mark a trail for their offbeat running club.

New Haven ophthalmologist Daniel Salchow, 36, and his sister, Dorothee, 31, who was visiting from Hamburg, Germany, had been charged with first-degree breach of peace, a felony.

The charges were dropped Thursday after Daniel Salchow agreed he and his sister would donate $4,000 to local charities. Prosecutors could reopen the case if the Salchows do the same thing again in the next 13 months.

Dorothee has returned to Germany and prosecutors agreed not to require her to appear in court.

The siblings set off the scare while organizing a run for a local chapter of the Hash House Harriers, a worldwide group that bills itself as a “drinking club with a running problem.”

“Hares” are given the task of marking a trail to direct runners, throwing in some dead ends and forks as challenges. In August, the Salchows decided to route runners through an IKEA furniture store parking lot.

Police fielded a call that someone was sprinkling powder on the ground. The store was evacuated and remained closed the rest of the night. The incident prompted a massive response from police in New Haven and surrounding towns.

Daniel Salchow biked back to IKEA when he heard there was a problem and told officers the powder was just flour, which he said he and his sister have sprinkled everywhere from New York to California without incident.

Daniel Salchow and his attorney, Michael Jefferson, said they were pleased with the resolution but still believe authorities overreacted.

“We felt all along it was an innocent activity,” Jefferson said.

Many fellow runners sent letters of protest over the Salchows’ arrest, but New Haven officials maintain their response was warranted.

Prosecutor Marc Ramia said in court Thursday that spreading such material “creates a dangerous situation for the public, who are not aware of what the substance is.”

For the actual page.

HOW100

As you may or may not know, September is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

So why’s it in my blog, you might ask? It’s a topic that’s near and dear to my heart.

Some good people around this here blogosphere are doing some good things to raise awareness. One that comes to mind immediately is Brian, aka Triboomer, who will be carrying 500+ names of our friends and family that have been touched by cancer, during his quest to finish IMMoo this coming Sunday.

Another that comes to mind is my very own Goddess, who will try to complete her very first 29 mile ride this Saturday at the Hope on Wheels 100 (HOW100). She’s sat by, supporting me in my quest to complete my first IM-distance race. This one’s for her.

If you’d like to support her, you can through the HOW100 web site. If you click on this sponsor page, select the pull-down menu and select Jennifer Anders. We’ve found that the page is not Firefox-friendly, so you’ll have to use IE.

Alternatively, if you’d like to provide the great support that you all do through this page, just leave a comment at the bottom of this entry. She reads them all.

And what will I be doing? Of course, I will be there to support and cheer on my Goddess. It’s the least I can do for the one who has given me nothing but unwavering support. But I’ll also be working. I’ve signed on as the event photographer, so I can combine several loves in one event. What a deal!

I hope all is well with each of you.

Painful Brick?

Stopped by the DMV to re-register the car.  Anticipated hours in line, only to be in and out in under 10 minutes.  Gotta love that.

Stopped by the LBS since it was just a block away.  The LBS is far enough away that I always stop by if I’m in the neighborhood, mostly just because.  But also I wanted to see what their turn-around time was for an overhaul, which I’d like to get before my IM-distance race in three weeks time.

While talking to the owner about turn-around times, he mentioned that they were backed up due to tomorrow’s ride.  “Tomorrow’s ride?” I asked.  He said yeah, check this out, as he handed me a brochure.

Looks like I know what I’m doing tomorrow as part of my 6-hour brick.

So the bike’s all decked out in full race regalia, just to make sure everything’s dialed in.

Then it’s taper time…

What a week(end)!

Catching up, although that will take a few days.

Busy last week juggling the first week of my last Build cycle before I start my race taper with moving, work and live in general. Work prevented a couple of workouts due to unscheduled meetings, but that’s life. I tacked on some extra time on my rides to make up for some of the “lost” time, but I made sure I didn’t overextend on those rides.

The big event was this weekend. We drove up to Madison, Wisconsin to celebrate my cousin’s marriage. What made it really special is that the last time I saw her, she was the flower girl in my sister’s wedding. Eighteen years ago.

A lot has transpired since then. Family dramas, family moves, deaths, births and just life in general. Yet we somehow managed to keep in touch. And it was great to see her (and her brother) again.

Madison’s a wonderful town. Our first visit there. Likely not our last. It sure seemed as if every car had a bike or kayak rack (or both) on it.

Saturday morning, the alarm went off at 4:30am. Time to squeeze in a long run before the wedding. My cousin was kind enough to talk to some friends who recommended a lovely loop around Lake Wingra, based at the UW Arboretum. Since I was to leave the family sleeping comfortably in the hotel room, the six mile loop was perfect for an unsupported run. My goal was three hours, which I figured would be three loops, with perhaps an extra out and back at the end if I was ahead of schedule.

I started running at 6 a.m. Gorgeous weather. Although my cousin apologized for it being “humid”, compared to Kentucky/Tennessee it was beautifully dry. High clouds blocked the sun, so the whole run was at a comfortable 74 degrees.

Running in Madison was a world of difference from KY/TN. Instead of the redneck refrain of “Get off the road, fag”, I was greeted with a constant stream of “Good morning” and “How ya doin’?”. It was great. Cyclists and runners everywhere.

Dodging deer. Dodging wild turkey (no, not the drink. But a lovely glass of Glenlivet the night before was a great nightcap). Dodging geese. Even giving thumbs up to the folks that were kind enough to not only put up a sign, but actually plumbed a drinking fountain in their front yard for “joggers, bicyclists, dogs, cats and anyone else who wants some water”. What a service!

Anyway, back to the run. The first loop was a steady effort at a nice steady 9:16 pace. Nothing speedy. I carried water and fuel with me, thanks to my water bottles and Fuel Belt. I needed to best replicate the availability of water and fuel on race day, so waiting until the end of each 6-mile loop wasn’t sufficient. Plus, I’m a heavy, heavy sweater so having the fluid available is a good thing.

Second loop was almost identical to the first, at a 9:22 pace. I was still feeling strong at the end of the loop, although I had to stop and put on some extra Body Glide under the ball of my left foot. Wringing out the sock was entertaining, since it was soaked through. Matter of fact, by this point I couldn’t sneak up on anyone to save my life, since the steady squish-squish-squish of my socks and shoes announced my approach. Like I said, I’m a heavy sweater.

Third loop started off great. Still holding a 9:20-ish pace. At mile 15 the legs just stopped. In a funny way. It’s as if a switch was flipped. It wasn’t a steady deterioration, just a stop. I ended up practicing my walk/run strategy. I could hold a good 9:00-9:15 pace for 4-5 minutes, then have to walk for a minute or two. Then right back into the same pace. It worked fine for me and was interesting to work through. I know it’s what I’ll do during the race.

Overall time for the 18 miles ended up being 2:56:22, which works out to an average 9:47 pace. I’ll take it.

I doubt I’ll do such a long run again between now and race time. For me it takes too long to recover from those runs, which ends up impacting the rest of my workouts. Granted, the 10 hours in the car yesterday did nothing for me. Even with the seat heater going (and the AC full-blast) I steadily tightened up . By the time we got home I was gimping pretty hard. This morning’s easy 3-mile run felt OK, but nothing to get excited about.

However, I do have a six hour and then an eight hour brick scheduled for the next two weekends. I think I’ll drop the bike back a bit and extend the runs some. Although on that eight hour I’ll have to keep enough energy to take my lovely bride to see Allison Krauss that night. We can’t wait.

Anyway, the wedding that afternoon was wonderful.  I took my camera gear for my own pictures.  They had two photographers there working the event, so I did my best to stay out of their way.  I took almost 300 pictures (digits are cheap), so I’ll be processing those and posting them for friends and family.  My lovely bride even asked if I’d consider shooting weddings, which I said “No!”.  Too much pressure.  I’d rather be the odd guy off to the side and shoot to my satisfaction, not worried about whether or not the bride and groom will appreciate my eye.

Watch the side bar in the future – I may post a shot or two over there.

In the meantime, it’s work and catching up with school work, which the move put me behind. And I’ve got my final next week, so that should prove to be interesting.

Hope all’s well with you!

A break from the Steambath

Gorgeous weather finally here in Southern Kentucky. I hope that it rolls through again for the folks who are competing in Ironman Louisville in August and then I really hope it rolls through again for my IM-distance race in late September.

80 degrees, 40 percent humidity, light northerly breeze.

Perfect weather for my 5-hour brick.

A nice 75-mile ride, punctuated by charging dogs, waving farmers and a stop, then detour to get around a wonderful small-town parade, full of old Effies, Chevy’s and classic tractors. One kind sheriff told me how to get across town without having to go down the parade route, which was on the US Highway. The detour got me most of the way, at least within 100-yards of the end of the route. After talking to the sheriff at the intersection that I ended up stopped at, she was kind enough to let me work my way along the route and keep on my ride. I thanked both again as I came back through town on my way home; luckily the parade was over by then and they just had to direct the heavy traffic.

A wonderful 6-mile run after that, through the corn fields and over the hills. The dry breeze really felt great.

Today was one of those workouts.

I love doing this.

Six Months Down

I quit posting weekly and monthly numbers, mainly because other than numbers, I wasn’t adding much to them. And I sure hate to bore the two or three of you that read this. But I was curious about how the first six months of this year added up, so I was looking at them over the weekend. I hemmed and hawed about how to present them, then saw JP’s tally today.

So with apologies to JP, and certainly no comparisons, here they are:

15 January – 30 June 2007

• Total miles: 1,982.8
  • Total Swim: 65.87 miles (115,931 yards)
  • Total Bike: 1,433.7 miles
  • Total Run: 405.6 miles
• Total time: 226 hours, 37 minutes
  • Total Swim: 43 hours, 4 minutes (19%)
  • Total Bike: 82 hours, 32 minutes (36%)
  • Total Run: 67 hours, 53 minutes (30%)
  • Strength, etc.: 33 hours, 8 minutes (15%)
• Number of rest days: 33
• Average hours per week: 9 hours, 28 minutes
• Shortest training weeks: ZERO (active recovery week after my ½, with no planned workouts)
• Longest training week: 15 hours, 20 minutes
• Longest swim: 2.73 miles (4,800 yards)
• Longest bike: 73.53 miles
• Longest run (not counting race miles): 10.5 miles
• Rides that have finished with “Honey, can you come pick me up?”: 1
• Number of races: 1
  • Length of race: 70.3 miles
  • Time of race: 6 hours, 6 minutes
• Weight change: - 21.2 lbs
• Body Fat percentage change: – 4.7 % (according to my uncalibrated Tanita home scale)

There are some interesting numbers in there. The ones that I’m most proud of are the bottom three bullets (race, weight, BF). The last two came from training for the first. And that 70.3 was my first at that distance.

As I looked at the percentage of time spent in each discipline, it confirmed what I already knew and that was that I’ve been spending too much time swimming and not enough time on the bike and run. So the focus has started changing. However, I’ve found that my relatively sudden increase in run time wipes me out mid-way through the week and I start skipping workouts because I know I can’t perform with the correct form. So it’s been a juggle.

Today is R-82 days (or 11.7 weeks) and counting until my full Iron-distance race. I’m starting to worry that I’m falling behind on building the deeper base necessary for the full race. But I also suspect that part of it is mental, since I haven’t committed to the race by paying for it. Guess I need to get off my butt and do that, since there aren’t too many full 140.6 mile races available where I can sleep in my own bed before and after.

Looking toward the rest of summer, time is tight. With a wedding to attend, a move of the family across town, my college class and several work projects looming, it’ll be tough.

But who said it’s supposed to be easy?

Take care,

Bill

Taylorsville Race Report

Bottom line – I finished!

My planned time, not my goal, was 6 hours. I based on that total time on where I expected to be based on my training so far. Here’s how it panned out:

Swim (1.2 miles): 35:19 (4th of 22 in my Age Group)
T1: 1:30
Bike (56 miles): 2:55:14 (5 of 22)
T2: 1:52
Run (13.1 miles): 2:32:04 (19th of 22)
Total: 70.3 miles in 6:05:38 (12th of 22)
or 49th of 73 total finishers

So I hit my planned time pretty close. My number one goal was to simply finish. Everything else was gravy.

I didn’t do too good of a job researching the race beforehand, only to find out last week that I was facing over 5400 feet of climbing during the ride. Since I don’t have too many significant hills in my area, this was a shock. And since I’m a heavy rider, I knew that it was going to be quite an experience.

The quick recap -Wait, wait, wait; start, swim, swim, swim, splash, swim, swim, swim; run, peel, run, peel, pedal, pedal, pedal, coast, pedal, pedal; run, run, run, walk, run, walk, walk, walk, run, walk, run, Finish!

The long recap:

Thanks to a very cool night (47F) and a warm 71F lake, visibilility was zero. Apparently this isn’t the first time it has happened for this race, so the start was pushed back 30 minutes to start at 8:30am.

Swim – Very comfortable. I didn’t push the pace and kept right at a 1:40/100 yard pace, which is my normal pace during my long pool intervals. I know I could have gone harder, but didn’t want to since I didn’t know how the rest of the day was going to play out. So I was quite surprised today to see that my swim was 4th in my age group.

With only about 100 people in the water (there was an AquaBike event at the same time), the jostling was fairly non-existent, although there was one jerk who decided he needed to swim over me hundred yards or so into the swim even though there wasn’t anyone else withing 10 feet of us; a couple of well-placed elbows got him to move along.

The course had buoys set up in a curved line, with the turn-around buoy about 1/3 mile out; we had to do two laps of the course. Since the buoy line curved to the right during the out leg, I’d end up a bit wide and have to correct, but nothing serious. What I couldn’t understand was that on the return leg, folks were sticking right next to the buoys instead of taking the straight shot from the turnaround back to the start buoy. But everyone has to swim their own race, right?

Transition 1 (T1) – With a 100 yard run up the boat ramp into the transition area, the wetsuit came off quick with no problems. I set up on the far end of the transition in the very first rack, so I had the furthest to run, but only feet to carry my bike out and back in. Wetsuit off, gel in pocket, helmet on and bike off the rack. Done in under 2 minutes.

Bike – Straight out of the transition is about 150 yards of gradual uphill in the parking lot, then a steep climb of 120 feet in about 1/10 mile. What a nice way to wake the legs up after swimming. Like I said above, 5400+ feet of climbing to come in the next 56 miles and the start was one of the worst. Not the worst, but one of the worst.

The worst was at the 25.5 mile point, where we climbed about 150 feet in 1/10 mile. With my wide load, I was passed by six guys on that climb. It took me the better part of the next 20 miles to catch half of them.

For me, the best part of the hills is down. I’ve got enough extra weight that gravity is my friend. And in the flats and small rolling hills, I’m a locomotive. It’s just the short and steeps uphills that really knock me down. Luckily those were few. I passed about as many as passed me and heading out to the the turnaround point on an out-and-back leg, I counted that I was in 12th place overall. But that was right before that steep hill at 25.5 miles.

Finishing the bike leg was welcome. I still felt quite strong, but could feel the onset of fatigue. At this point, I was 3:30 into the race. I was pleasantly surprised to see that if I ran my expected 2:00 half marathon, I’d finish right around 5:30, which would be great for my first 1/2 IM distance race.

Transition 2 (T2) - A quick dismount and then scattering to grab my water bottle that I kicked off the back of my seat. Since I had the first rack, it was just a few feet to my area. I had planned on standing and putting on my socks and shoes, but ended up on my butt, which took extra time. No big deal. I was still out in under 2 minutes.

Run - No problem getting the legs moving. I never do after a long hard ride. Up the parking lot and straight back up that steep 120 foot climb. Now that didn’t feel good. Not at all. I started to feel some pain in my stomach, which is odd, since I never had problems with my food during training and I hadn’t introduced anything new. Midway up the hill, a lady passed and asked how many times we had to go up – “Luckily only once”. She took off and blazed her way to a 1:33 half-marathon and Overall Female win.

At the top of the hill, my lovely bride and son had jumped in to help out at the aid station. That’s where they caught me, still looking fairly strong. As you can see in the background, that’s Taylorsville Lake and the spot in this picture isn’t but a 1/2 mile away; that’ll give you an idea of the climb. Luckily they didn’t take any more pictures until the finish, because soon after this is when it got quite ugly.

My normal pace after a long, hard 80 mile ride is a comfortable 9:00-mile. A 10:00-mile is my “go all day long” pace. If you do the math above, my average for the 13.1 miles is 11:36.

With my stomach giving me fits, I knew to slow down and let it work itself out. It took until the 4.5 mile point before I was comfortable enough to take in some water. 2 miles later at the next aid station, I took in some Heed and some water. I kept running, but the pace was slow and I knew it. But I kept working through it and never got discouraged.

By the 8 mile point, I gave up any plans of a 5:30 finish. I was still confident on a 6:00 finish, but that confidence was waning with each stride. By the 9 mile point, I realized that I could walk faster than my shuffle was moving me. But I didn’t let myself walk long, more for the mental aspect. By the time I hit the aid station at 10 miles, I knew that I was well on my way to finishing and hoped that knowing that would boost my pace. It didn’t. I walked the first 1/4 mile after the aid station and got to shuffling again.

A couple of more walking bouts and a few more shuffles and I got to the final aid station at 12.5 miles, only to find that my lovely bride and son had left to meet me at the finish. Normally you’d think that would get the legs moving, but mine wouldn’t have any of that. Luckily the steep downhill was coming and that got the legs moving. A sweeping left turn into the parking lot and a long gradual downhill to the finish and I was done. Not far off of my original estimation of total time – 6 hours, 5 minutes, 38 seconds.

Post mortem – In hindsight, the bike leg was my downfall. I felt good throughout that leg, but I wasn’t hammering hard. I kept my heart rate under control and never overexerted myself. But the total climbing was a good 4,000 feet more than any other ride that I did during training. But that wasn’t the whole story.

During the ride, when it’s easiest and best to fuel, I only took in a total of 800 calories! I thought I was doing a good job of keeping on top of my fuel and feeding consistently, but when I’m burning 800+ calories an hour, taking in only 800 during the 3-hour ride certainly wasn’t going to be sufficient to get me through the 1/2 marathon at the end. By comparison, during a 4-hour bike/run training session I’d typically take in 1300 calories, and that’s with 4,000 less feet of climbing on the bike.

And with the stomach issues that I had on the run, that just served to push me deeper in the hole. Once I was able to drink some HEED, the small cups only gave me, at best, 50 calories each. By the 8 mile aid station, I grabbed a single Fig Newton, but that certainly didn’t do much for me.

I made it across the finish without getting wobbly, so I can’t say that I completely bonked. But I was almost there. Once back at the hotel, I weighed myself and I was 5 pounds lighter than I was before the race that morning. So it definitely took it out of me.

But I crossed the finish line with a smile on my face. And that’s all that mattered.

Now I’ve got this week to rest and then start up again. In just four months I’ll be tackling a full Ironman-distance race (2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, 26.2-mile run). And I’m ready for it.

Learn to read the water!

In about 60 hours the gun will go off and I’ll start splashing my way through my first 1/2 IM-distance race. I’m definitely looking forward to it, I know I’m ready and I know I’m capable. So it’s just a matter of putting everything together at the right time in the right way. Easy, eh?

With this race week, the workouts have been short with bursts up to race pace, just to keep the muscles aware of what I’ll be expecting of them.

Since the water at the race will still likely be cool, I rented a wetsuit from, are you ready for this? WetsuitRental.com. What a deal. For $35, they Fed-Ex out a wetsuit about 10 days prior to your race, which is enough time to give it a few tries. So that’s what I’ve been doing this week, giving the Orca Evo a try. Quite a nice wetsuit, much different from the wetsuits I’ve worn in the past for surfing and bodyboarding.

Based on my height and weight, I ordered the Medium Large, which actually turned out to be a bit small in the shoulders. I can definitely feel my shoulders after a few minutes of freestyle. Now I find that tri-shops like All3Sports recommend sizing up since the suits run a touch tight. Like the best line in The Wedding Singer – “Gee, you know that information…really would’ve been more useful to me YESTERDAY!”.

Hehe. No worries. The added resistance isn’t that big of a deal.

Anyway, in order to make sure it was comfortable to swim in, my lovely bride and I drove out Monday morning to the site where my IM-distance race will be held in September. But wouldn’t you know it, the beach is closed for the season, waiting for warmer weather and tourists. So I had to poach a swim by hiking through the woods down to the water and then swimming across an inlet. The water was warm, almost too warm for the wetsuit.

Since I didn’t want to drive the 75 minutes out there again today, I decided to drive downtown and jump in the Cumberland River, which feeds the lake that I swam in on Monday. I planned on swimming upstream, against the current for a while, then turning around and cruising back to my start point.

Waking up this morning, I knew the river would be a bit more entertaining that usual, since we had a few hours of torrential rain last night. Somewhere between 1.5″ and 2.25″ during that time. I didn’t know how high that would push the river and what sort of stuff would be floating in it, but I wasn’t going to let that deter me.

After some morning errands, we got out there just before lunchtime, stopped in the City Park and immediately saw the “No Swimming” signs. Ah well. I’ll just walk down outside of the park and jump in. I definitely got some odd looks as we walked past the playground, me with the wetsuit pulled up around my waist.

We sat and watched the water for a bit and what we saw confirmed that my planned route would take me upstream for the out leg, which would be north. Everything on the surface was moving south and at not too quick of a clip, so I was good to go.

I jumped in and gasped since the water was cold. Not as cold as that first rush of cold water down the back of the wetsuit after duck-diving under that first wave during a January dawn patrol in California, but it was cold, thanks to the rain last night. I started swimming along the bank, making sure to stay out of the middle of the river, since it’s a working river full of barges and tugs.

I got down to my turnaround point fairly quickly, thanks to a couple of surges to race pace along the way. I then started my swim back. That’s when I realized I’d made a mistake. The northerly wind was blowing everything on the surface towards the south, disguising the fact that I was now destined to swim upstream for the return leg.

Immediately the “Oh, shit” portion of my mind got to work, but luckily I soon realized that I was making headway against the current. At least I was getting a good workout. Time to make the best of it. The return leg took about 5 minutes longer than the out leg. Not too bad. But I’m sure glad that the current wasn’t any stronger.

That made me realize that I can’t read big rivers. I can drive up to a beach that I’ve never seen before, sit for 10 minutes, watch the water and have a darn good understanding of the currents, the contour of the bottom and the way the waves are breaking. I can walk up to a river in the Rockies or the Sierras, stand for a few minutes and see exactly what seams I need to cast my fly into or which rocks to drift the fly past.

But big, wide, slow-moving rivers? Apparently I’ve got a bit to learn…

Next post – Race Report.

Tapering, Pouring and Tix

Well, the taper continues. After last Saturday’s meltdown, I took Sunday off, which is my normally scheduled rest day.

Monday started with an easy run and then a swim at lunch. Both were very poor, at best. I just didn’t have anything in me, even though they were both recovery sessions. Tuesday morning I sat on the stationary cycle and spun for about 30 minutes, which was poor as well. After that, I decided to take time off completely. Glad I did.

Thursday I joined an organized workout session that was mostly strength and plyometrics. But between 10 minute focus sessions, we ran 1/2 mile. The first 1/2 felt good, the second 10 minutes later felt better, then I was able to smoke the last two 1/2 miles. Back on track for the remainder of this recovery week/taper.

Friday night we drove down to Nashville to enjoy some music and food at the “First Annual” Riverfront Park Crawfish Boil. Which brings up a point – how can something be the “First Annual”, since there’s no guarantee that they’ll actually have it every year after the first? Shouldn’t “Annual” be reserved for the second and subsequent events?

The scheduled music lineup was good, with Soul Asylum opening at 5pm, followed by Fuel, Cheap Trick, Papa Roach and finally Hinder. Not that I’m a huge fan of any of those bands, but each is good enough to get the toe tapping and the head bobbing. And for $25 at the gate, plus the promise of a huge mess of crawdads to eat while drinking beer and listening to live music, how could I refuse?

And for those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of a crawfish boil, here’s what a huge mess of crawdads should look like, complete with potato and corn-on-the-cob:

Definitely some good, good stuff.

So we got down there just a few minutes after Soul Asylum took the stage, found an area on the hill to spread our our blanket, got some beers and sat back to enjoy the show. Soul Asylum gave what I would consider to be a pretty pedestrian show – good but nothing I haven’t seen out of a good bar band.

During their set, I was looking across the river at LP Stadium, which is where the Tennessee Titans play, snickering and telling my 15-year-old son that when I was his age, I saw Cheap Trick in San Diego’s Jack Murphy (later to become Qualcomm) Stadium, which was about the same size as the stadium we were looking at. He was trying to make the connection between going from playing stadiums to small venues like the one we were sitting in. As a budding bassist, he at least understood continuing to play because one loves it, regardless of the size of the crowd or venue.

And the stadium got me thinking back to all of the shows I saw there. 101KGB always put on good summer concerts, where we got to see acts like Motley Crue (long before their rapid downward spiral with the release of “Theater of Pain”), Def Leppard, Chuck Berry and The Who (after which I actually met Roger Daltrey). Good times.

But enough reminiscing. Fuel took the stage. That was more like it. Energetic, loud and electric. Literally.

As they continued to play their set, the sky kept getting darker. And darker. And then tinges of green in the clouds. And for those of you who have lived here in the Midwest, green in the storm clouds means only one thing – hail. Fuel kept playing, the rain started and a few rumbles were heard. Nothing to worry about. Yet.

Then the downpour, followed by dime-sized hail, which never feels good on the noggin. That’s when everyone broke for cover. By the time we got under cover, we were all soaked completely to the bone. Ah well, it’s all part of the experience.

As the rain continued, the drunk and otherwise influenced crowd decided to keep themselves entertained by sliding down the wet grassy hill. The only problem with that was that after a few grassy ledges and drops, the grass gives way to concrete steps. A few bodies went launching over the concrete, but I don’t think any of them could feel what they were doing to themselves. I suspect this morning is a different story.

Of course, the downside to being soaking wet as the sun goes down is that you can get cold. And with my newer, slimmer physique thanks to all of this tri training, I don’t have the insulation that I did just four months ago. Shivering became my newest physical activity as we waited for the rain to stop. Even taking my shirt off was warmer, but didn’t help much. Others had the same idea, and for some of them we wish they hadn’t.

Anyway, we sat and waited out the storm. And waited. And waited. And waited. The promoters had done the right thing and cut the power to the stage. The downside to that is that the crowd was pretty restless after a while. Some guys up on stage worked hard to keep the crowd in front of the stage entertained by doing silly things like spraying them with water. Methinks they were wet enough.

After two hours and me continuing to shiver, we decided to bag the rest of the night. It was already halfway through the time that Papa Roach would have been on stage. That meant we had missed out on half of Fuel’s set, all of Cheap Trick’s set and it looked like all of Papa Roach’s set. And with me being concerned about getting sick just a week out from my 1/2 IM, heading home was the best thing to do.

Not 10 miles up the road, everything was as dry as a bone. But even after driving the hour home, I checked the radar and it was still raining down over downtown Nashville. So I don’t think the crowd even got to see Hinder. That wasn’t a big loss for us, since we were going to leave right after they started playing anyway.

So after the crawdads and beer, this cartoon this morning made me laugh:

And it’s all not a loss. I got home, checked my e-mail and got my daily music update. Thanks to that, we just scored tickets to see Tool up in Evansville next month, coinciding with my beautiful bride’s birthday.

Hope all is well with you.