boywonder.com

Free at last, Free at last. I return to the flock, older and wiser.

My father came home for summer vacation the year I finished 5th grade with a Commodor PET thus beginning my first of many summers playing with a new technology called a “Computer.” The following year my 6th grade class had access to two of these miraculous machines which seemed to be powered by strange techno remixes on audio tape. A couple years later my friend Brian got a “Commodor 64″ which represented a 16x increase in core system memory (RAM). Around that same time my father showed up at home with a new machine, one which would represent my baptism if you will into one of the great religious battles of our time. It was called the “IIe” and it was made by a company I had never heard before, although I was used to computers with strange names due to my experience with the “PET.” This new machine was made a company called Apple.

The Apple IIe was ours to keep. Not just a loaner from the School District to get the new computer teacher up to speed on…computers. This was ours, to use, to mod (We added an 80 column card soon after so we could see twice the number of characters across the screen), to play games on, to pray too. I spent whole summers playing Loadrunner before I took up the much more physically demanding routine of staring at a black line for hours trying to keep my heart rate at my aerobic threshold while flailing my arms and legs around. Ultimately These two past times would ultimately guide my life. The later paid for college and the former paid for everything else. When everyone else was still enamored with Paper Mate erasable pens for writing book reports I was using a Dot matrix printer and “Bank Street Writer” one of the early consumer word processors. It even had spell check.

In 1986 as I entered High school We acquired a new machine. It was beautiful, compact and a custom after market job too boot. It was a new “Macintosh SE” it was one unit, it had a 9″ black and white screen Two builtin 3.5″ floppy drives and (the custom aftermarket) 40 MB internal hard drive. It also had 512K of RAM which I think we upgraded to a whole Megabyte for real speed. The Mac SE had a graphics program called “Superpaint” which was a Pixel and a Vector program all in one (CS3 eat your heart out). It also supported a new concept called “Desktop Publishing” powered by the double barred action of the new Apple Laser Writer and a program called Page Maker by a small Seattle company called Aldus.

The Mac SE lasted me well into college. It produced hundreds, if not thousands of papers, documents, reports, images, invitations, letters from the president excusing me from school, you name it. It was my first Mac, and it was amazing. The summer before my Jr year at UW (1992) I read a book called “Neuromancer” a couple weeks later I saw a magazine called Mondo 2000 that had an interview with the Author. I picked it up. When I got back to school I had a new mission. I was going to get on “the Internet” I didn’t know what it was or where to go, but I was going to find out. I wanted to know what these “MUDs” and “MUCKs” and “MUSHs” and email and Fido and Gopher and FTP were all about. I spent a lot of time on the university machines both using their extensive Mac labs and later ther “X terminals.” I had never even touched a PC.

By my senior year I was playing a couple of MUDs pretty consistently and actually starting to write school papers about them. At Washington I studied Cultural Anthropology and many of my papers for the upper level classes had to be about a culture of my choosing. I choose the net. My professors didn’t even know what to make of it. They didn’t even have email addresses. I doubt they would have accepted the papers were it not for the PhD thesis from students at MIT and papers published by XEROX PARC on the same topics that I cited in my work. The teachers in the department didn’t have email addresses, they kept asking me how I found these papers.

“They are on the universities Anonymous FTP servers”

My Sr year in College I made my first major purchase of my life. I financed it through the University book store. It was about $3000. I bought a first generation Macintosh PowerPC 7100. It had 8 Megs of RAM on the motherboard and slots for TWO MORE! it was a 66mhz machine, later to be overclocked to 80. Being that I had already been online for two years, I knew I could find a way better deal on ram on Usenet than at the local store. I searched for about a week and eventually found someone selling 2×8mb 72pin SIMMs for $250 each. I exchanged a couple of emails with them to determine shipping and then they shipped me a box COD. When UPS showed up I opened the box, check that the RAM was inside and gave him a cashiers check. Then I took it inside and put it in my machine. No eBay, no Paypal, no Ratings. No Scammers.

This was the end of 1994. In November I was in one of the school labs and saw a new program on one of the machines that a friend had told me about. It was called Mosaic, it was made by some guys at NCSA. I double clicked on it and my jaw dropped. Text and hyperlinks. Wow! this was going to make it so my mom could use the Internet. Holy shit. This is going to change everything….

Little did I know just how much. A couple months later as Graduation was approaching I landed an internship at a internet marketing company called “fineDOTcom” what a weird name. I had only started seeing domain names recently, usually stuff i visited was by IP address. But it certainly was easier to remember. I got the gig, and for the first time in my life I had to use a PC. OH MY GOD. I lived on a PC, It was running Windows 3.11 and it felt like I was using my Apple IIe again, only not as good. The interface felt like it was designed by 3 year olds. Fortunately as summer rolled in we started getting betas of windows 95. “Oh! they are trying to make it work like a Mac” cool too bad their idea of beta is “it compiled” By August when Window 95 officially launched I was using a PC 10-16 hours a day at work and the Mac that I had spent so much for a year earlier was starting to see neglect. I still used it to surf, but the browser differences were annoying. Windows had some great networking features. My company started to pay for me to take windows classes to become an “MCSE” I took lots of classes. I learned about networking.

Microsoft came out with NT 4.0 and I was pretty much sold. My boss had told me Apple was dead, but I still didn’t believe him. I knew they had tons of Cash and could last for a decade, but Jobs was leaving the internet was raging. I would have totally lost faith were it not for another little game called Marathon. Made by a little known company called Bungie. I had started playing Marathon in college, and it was fantastic. It had incredible graphics a great storyline but the best was “deathmatch” you could play with up to eight other computers all and shoot at each other for hours. The newspaper at the UW had lots of Macs in the same room, and after 4pm when the paper had gone to press we would play. When I started working I used to play with a couple guys who leased a room in the back of the office for thier Drum Scanner. They did photo manipulation for advertising agencies but most of the day they just played games. A couple times we went to one of the agencies on the weekend to play with a bunch of the digital artist. It was they same type of geeks I had played with in college.

Eventually I got a job at one of these advertising agencies through an introduction from a guy I played Marathon with. I still used a PC everyday. In my new job I would actually be managing a whole server farm for some rather big companies (way out of my league in fact) but I was now a PC user. When It was time to buy a machine in 1997 I bought a Micron with NT 4. As the next couple of jobs went buy I got rid of my mac, bought a couple of Dells, both laptops and desktops. Started using Windows 2000, and eventually Windows XP professional. I really liked these OSs as long as I didn’t have to install them which was a royal pain in the ass. They were buggy, software crashed, but for the most part I kept them in good shape and all was well. The internet started to help out a lot since there were lots of people who had experienced and solved just about every problem imaginable.

A couple years ago I started a new job again. Steve Jobs was back at Apple and he was on a tear. The iPod was an obscene success and Apple was making some slick hardware. My dells looked and felt like flimsy pieces of plastic crap. (With the exception of some bloodwood wrist panels I made for my laptop, but alas the whole thing was stolen). I was starting to have hardware envy, but I just couldn’t get away from my need for MS office, and IE. Mind you this whole time my Parents have always been Mac people. But things were starting to change.

People at work (executives) were starting to grumble about Macs, they wanted them too. PCs were old. The web was becoming standardized. XML and web services were making the net a much more heterogeneous place. Vista was delayed one to many times and for what? Last years Apple UI? No the time was comming, I could sense it. In March I bough Angie a Macbook so she could start blogging, but secretly it was just so I could touch an Apple product in the comfort of my own home again. The Came the iPhone! I couldn’t believe they actually built something that looked, acted and felt like it was from the 21st century! I had spent 2 years in the mobile industry and had access to literally every single handset in the US market. Compared to the PC world cell phones and their hardware/software packages were like banging on sticks to make fire. After my time in mobile I was always amazed that I could even make a call (and so should you be).

Finally the stars started to Align, everyone up the food chain from me at work went Apple. My boss, his boss, the CEO. I’m even on “a list” so to speak of the next tier of folks slated for Macs. Certain new people are getting them when they are hired.

When Leopard came out my parents and I split a family pack and I put it on Angie’s machine. Then last weekend it finally happened. My Dell died. Dead. Drives spin up but it won’t eve get to the BIOS menu. (no F2 option even). I was pissed since it was going to be a huge pain to replace a system at the holidays, getting busy at work, and lots of social stuff going on, not to mention all the files and software. That XP machine had run for 5 years, almost continuously and was never rebuilt! Sure it had been rebooted lots of times and went thought about of the spywarez but it came through.

But now I am born again. free at last! free at last!

I have a new 24″ iMac (reminds me of my first Mac SE). One beautiful case. Jesus that is a big piece of CNC’d aluminum! The new keyboard is a dream. It even indulges a guilty pleasure from the PC world. a “delete” key. Yea you know what I mean, as in the opposite of “backspace.” But I have to say, I just feel home. I installed VMware Fusion and have a Virtual Windows XP machine for some residual work stuff but now that people are starting to use Macs at work I can actually send people Keynote decks and Pages docs! But Fusion is sickly cool. When you run it full screen and use it with Leopard’s “Spaces” my god. I have never felt so free to do anything on a computer before. So here to kick off my return to the one true faith. Is my born again blog.

We suck at remembering things. We rely on any number of devices that aid in this process. My wife remembers to send thank you cards, RSVPs, and even invitations to key events like my son’s 3 birthday party. I rely on her for this memory. I remember to get the oil changed, get new tires, and change the water filter in the fridge. Its great, division of labor. Up until very recently we largely either wrote stuff down (and then remembered where we wrote it or even to re-read what we wrote) or we told people who would remember it for us. In many organizations, how we do things are stored the same way. It might be written down somewhere, but no one remembers where. Most of what is needed to run a company is stored as “Tribal Knowledge.” If I don’t know how to do somthing, I just have to remember a few key people to ask. My boss, that guy who has been here for 20 years, the IT manger, and the Office manger pretty much cover most major things. It doesn’t seem to matter how sophisticated an intranet the company has, how rich its new Wiki is, or what tribal knowledge has been Blogged and commented ad nauseum. I still lose track of stuff, and forget things I knew only a short time ago. Whats worse, is that I forget that I ever knew them in the first place. Fortunately I don’t think this is some horible mental affliction I suffer (unlike my spelling skills), I believe that it is a symptom of needing to keep track of way too much stuff all the time.

Where am I going with this you might ask? Well I want to understand how we might wean our selves of our Australopithecus memory system and move on to something a bit more modern. Something like say, Google Desktop. Now I have Google desktop on my laptop (which is funny by itself) but I don’t use it. I haven’t evolved to the point where I remember to ask the same app for everything I need. I havn’t move on to “Network Knowledge” Sure for some things its a no brainer. IMDB, CDDB, Wikipedia, and Google all get me 90% of the info I need. but How do I know when it will be faster to ask google than our Office Manger? How do I know when I don’t know something that I have never known or simply have forgotten that I knew it?

I work for a software company that makes project management and collaborative tools that are based on the internet and available from anywhere in the world. We (the empoyees of this company) use the software that we build to do our daily jobs (some will call this dog fooding). But I still get requests for information from people that I know have been given that information, have soft copies of that information, and have been told where in the system that information is kept up to date. It is the classic example of documentation, no one ever reads it.

So here is where google comes in. regardless of what you think they are up to as far as corporate strategey goes, web based spreadsheets or their 450, 000 node google grid. Their real value comes in giving us a brand that we have begun to trust more than our own memories and more importantly a brand that we trust more than our tribal knowledge. If they can manage to become the “First Place” we look it will be very hard to take that away, no mater how man longhorns you throw at them.

Of course my real question is why is it so hard for us to move from tribal knowledge to network knowledge and is making sure you are the first person in line when someone aks for somthing the only business model that will work here? Can we build knowledge management that doesn’t require the brand identity of google to work properly.

Gisele Renee Sherwood
January 6th 2:26pm, 7lbs 8.2 oz 21.25″ tall!

I want to share,
You cannot compare
My insightful monolog.

I garner a laugh
In every track back
I blog, blog, blog!

I blog,
I blog,
My viewpoint is really quite good.

I blog,
I blog,
If only you understood.

Everyone reads my blog,
You’re gonna love my blog.

just popped into my head over a dinner of generic safeway mac-n-cheese

I know that it has been a few days since I posted the first two legs of Ironman but I think I needed more time to understand what happened during the run. That is to say, what didn’t happen during the run was much running. I have thought about it most of the week, sulking about the house trying to distract myself with the internet but mostly just ignoring everyone and everything.

For those of you wondering why I’m not simply recounting struggling through the run here are a couple facts for consideration. Two years ago during the exact same race I ran a 4:35 on the run. Twice this year I have run 3:59 marathons. Ironman lore says that one should be able to run between 25-40 minutes off of their best stand alone marathon time. My marathon at Ironman was 6:15. Now there are lots of valid issues with the marathon this year that make it different than two years ago. I was done with the swim and bike legs more than 30 minutes faster than last time so I may have pushed too hard. I have been nursing an Achilles injury for the last 5 weeks seeing both my sports medicine Dr. and my Physical therapist leading to the race. I even DNF’d a Half Ironman 3 weeks prior in order to “save my Achilles for the big race.” Finally the race conditions were less than ideal. The tailwind which I had been praising on the bike was now in my face and the sun having been uncontested all day was now pushing the mercury north of 90 degrees Fahrenheit. But none of these were the real reason.

I think the root lies in goals. Being a competitive person I like to set goals for myself. Sometimes they are accomplishments sometimes they are race times sometime they are both. As I exited T2 the clock said 6:45, by all accounts I should be on pace for a spectacular finish. In a perfect world all the long runs I have been doing (a dozen 16+ milers in the last 3 months) pay off and I run close to 4 hours. This puts me under 11 hours and in striking distance of a Hawaii qualifying finish within the next year. Even a conservative scenario has me doing exactly the same run as last time and finishing in a very respectable 11:15 or so. So what went wrong? Two years ago I simply wanted to finish Ironman and the sooner I crossed the line the sooner I became an Ironman. This year I had already decided that I would take a few years off of the Iron distance due to the extreme amount of training involved. I had no time goal associated with the day. I had one goal. Finish with a smile on my face. I did. I ran across the finish line in 13:00:35 with my pregnant wife and 2 year old son. It was one of the greatest things we have done as a family, together. It represented my training as well as their sacrifice. They deserved to be next to me just as much as I deserved to cross the line. Mission accomplished.

The frown developed on my face in the days that followed. Yes the day was hot. Yes, world class athletes were puking their guts out on the side of the road. But I just kept walking along. I have been an athlete most of my life. I was a competitive swimmer form age 11 and after high school received a 4 year scholarship to the University of Washington. Two years ago when I got off of the bike, I knew in my heart that I would cross the finish line. I could see the end and that alone was enough to keep me going. This year when I got off of the bike I knew this as well. I knew I would finish and in a way I started to act like I was already done. To make matters worse I was ready for my season to be over. When my abdominal muscles started to cramp I started walking. I should have powered through it. They would have gone away. I gave up. I knew I could walk. I knew I wouldn’t have to race again for a while. I knew walking wouldn’t risk injuring my Achilles. I knew lots of things. What I didn’t know was how it would make me feel later. Having one of the faster Swim/Bike splits out of most of my friends I got to see everyone during the run. They all came by, spent a few minutes with me and moved on. Some were first timers, some were going on to win their age groups. It was great to see everyone They all had wonderful words of encouragement. As the day went on, I realized that not only was I letting myself down but I might be letting them down as well. The point of Ironman is that we suffer. We all suffer equally. I have told several novice Triathletes that it doesn’t matter how fast you get it still hurts just as bad. I cheated at that rule. Sure my feet hurt and it was hot but I should have done better. I am capable of more.

I would like to think that I got bored with the run, or it was just a bad day, but it wasn’t, It was a great day. It left me wanting in a way the first one didn’t. Maybe Dean is right, maybe you learn more about yourself on the bad days then on the good ones. In the long run (no pun intended) that may be true. Dean, incidentally was pulled from the course 6 miles from completing his 10th Ironman (9th on this course) He was peeing blood. An hour later in the medical tent he passed a kidney stone. And I started walking because of some mild cramping….

Congratulations to all the people who crossed the line this year. It was truly an amazing year training and connecting with all of you. Congratulations too to Ben, Cindy and Logan for qualifying for the Ironman World Triathlon Championships in Kona.

I will attempt here to recount what was a very long day. I’m sure that those of you who were there will point out that I missed some things, or that I remembered them completely incorrectly. Please feel free to add comments as to your own versions or just chime in, in agreement.

I didn’t sleep well. I never do before a race, few people do. It’s somewhere between execution like terror and giddy Christmas Eve excitement. I’m not sure which is more powerful, but for your sleep it is irrelevant. After hours of tossing and turning I arose at about 4:30am. It was cool and cloudless and dark. I made some oatmeal and coffee in the dark in a feeble attempt to let my sister and wife get a few extra minutes of sleep. After eating I went over to Dean and Jose’s room to see how they were doing, we talked for a bit and were all looking forward to the day.

After walking around for a bit making sure I had everything twice (most of my gear had been checked in the day prior) I went to my parents room, Kissed my Mom, Dad and sleeping Harrison for luck and headed out with Angie for the transition area with my remaining gear and “Special Needs bags” These are essentially bags of stuff you think you might need half way through the bike and run. Stuff other than gatorate/water/powerbars which is mostly what they have on the course. Some people put turkey sandwiches in their bags, others don’t use them at all.

After a short 5-6 minute walk down lake shore drive we arrive at the transition area. This is also where they now have bleachers set up as well as the Finish Line. I stop at “body marking” to have my race numbers and age written on my arms and legs, drop of my special needs bags and kiss my wife, taking her good luck with me in to the area restricted for athletes and volunteers.

Ironman Canada is unique in sporting events in the nature of its support. They attract over 5000 volunteers for 2200-2300 Competitors. It is truly the best run, best supported race I (or anyone I have ever talked about it) have ever seen, anywhere in the world. There are two+ people helping for every person racing.

The transition area is huge. It must be half a football field in size, at the North side is the lake and “T1” bags these are your bike shoes, shorts, helmet etc. in the middle are rows and rows of bikes ordered by race number. It is not like a sprint Tri, where you can put your bike anywhere on the rack assigned to you. There is a spot on the Rack with your Name printed on it. That is where you bike is. To the South are the T2 bags with your running shoes etc. The East and west sides house the Changing tents and medical tent respectively. I make some last minute changes to my gear bags, make one last trip to the porta-potty and put my wetsuit on. While in the Transition area, I see many people I know. It seems to grow every year. The Swansons are all there, My Seattle training crew is there, the guys from Miami, San Diego and LA. As I’m making a last check of my bike (did I pump the tires? Is it in a reasonable gear?) I run into Chris Dickenson. So we chat and walk over to the swim start together.

His wife sees us on the walk and imparts us with some last words of encouragement. Chris gets a couple added encouraging kisses to boot. Once inside the swim start area I sorta lose everyone. I can’t see a single person I know. I just wander around looking for a good place to get a line on the buoys. This is the most surreal point of the day. It seems to happen in slow motion. I find my way into the water and look for a spot near the front centered on the buoy line. There are some generic words of luck to the people around you and everyone is tense, but trying very hard to relax. The water doesn’t seem as cool as previous days and I’m worrying about getting too hot on the swim. (I have a full sleeve wetsuit) The music starts, “Oh Canada” and then there is a painfully long pause and series of unintelligible announcements made over the PA. BOOM! The cannon goes off.

I’m sprinting past as many people as I can, trying to get a look at the buoy line whenever possible. Its quite a challenge considering all 2300 of us just started at exactly the same time. Having chosen the most direct line to the first buoy I’m also getting approached from both sides as the pack “centers” itself. It’s like having an avalanche coming at you from both sides and you need to out run them both. After the initial chaos, I try to settle into a rhythm, but I don’t really feel smooth. I’m a bit warm but overall the swim is not bad. After the first leg we turn into the sun, at which point I’m glad there are people in front of me since I can’t even remotely see the next buoy.

As I exit the water I get attacked by strippers. Well, wetsuit strippers anyway. They tell me to lay down on the ground and they pull my wetsuit off for me. Then I jump up and run town the isles of racks with the T1 bags. Someone hands me mine, and I’ off to the changing tent. There another person (I’m pretty sure it was a guy) stands by and waits for me to finish putting my bike clothes on. He takes all my stuff and puts it back in the bag and off I run (in bike shoes) Once I get my bike I head out on the course.

Clock time now says 1 hour give or take a couple seconds. The bike starts with a short out and back on lake shore drive. This is now lined with thousands of screaming people (my family and other friends families included) This is the last time I will see them for almost 6 hours. As I ride out of town I try also to settle into a good pace. Don’t want to go to fast early on or the mountains will be brutal. The first 40 miles are pretty flat so it is easy to over do it. I’m feeling great til on a short down hill I feel something hit my chest. OUCH! That couldn’t have been a… OUCH! SHIT!!!! Now I have two distinct points on my chest/stomach that are throbbing due to what must be a wasp. Great. Only 87 miles to go.

10 miles later I see my Physical Therapist on the side of the road taking her wheel off. I’m thinking “Damn! She beat me on the swim! And shit that sucks she got a flat, and she is trying to qualify for Hawaii” I keep going, now watching the road more carefully. I only have one spare and I have never changed this type of tire on the road before.

About 5K from the turn up into the mountains I start to feel a headwind but I’m somewhat happy for it because I know I’m about to do a 180 and head up hill at which point it will be a tail wind. This is exactly what happens and as I head up Richtor pass I try to keep my cadence light and not work to hard. By the time I get past Richtor, the wind has gotten stronger and as I enter the rolling hills beyond I notice something remarkable…I’m averaging 20+ mph. That is to say, I’m 50miles into the bike and I have only been riding for just under 2:30. The wind is so great at this point that on one of the small down hills I hit 52mph (a new personal record).

After the rollers there is a 10 mile out and back with the special needs bags at the end.. As I enter it, I start to count from the first person I see until I get to the guy in front of me. I’m about 250th at this point, another great feeling. “Wow, I’m having a killer ride, and I don’t feel like I’m working that hard.” In fact I’m feeling pretty fresh and starting to think my nutrition plan is working really well.

When I approach Yellow Lake (the second and final Mt. pass I’m actually looking forward too it! I know that I feel good enough to actually work a little bit. Yellow lake starts at mile 90. Its not really that steep but it is hot now, it must be in the 80s and when you climb and slow down you really feel the heat. But still it doesn’t seem that bad. In fact it was kind of a nice climb that day. Yellow lake is also the best supported section of the bike. There are hundreds of people lining the road cheering. The road it chalked with encouraging words and everyone is screaming and playing music and generally having a good time (If they aren’t on a bike).

Once you get past Y.L the true intensity of the wind hits me. Literally. I am now perpendicular to it going down hill at well over 40mph. At one point I have to sit up out of the aero bard because I can’t keep the front wheel stable. It’s the scariest decent I have ever done on a bike.. (but I’m still going 40).

As I come down out of the mountains and back on to the main highway I can see the whitecaps on the lake. The wind is whipping along. I’m doing 35 with a tail wind and hardly pedaling at all. The wind takes one more swipe at me in town as I cruise down Main Street. I thought I was going to bite it in front of the thousands of people that are now lining the streets cheering people on. The bike is done. I can’t believe how fast it was. I cross the line and the clock says 6:42 something. “Damn, that’s a full 30 minutes faster than last time! And I feel great!”

I’m not writing much tonight since I have to be up at 4:30am to get ready. I checked in my bike today, with my gear bags, had dinner (twice) and spent the rest of the day trying not to think about tomorrow. I’m excited and nervous but ready. I just finnished putting all my food together for tomorrow. Ironman seems to bring out the OCD in everyone so I have gone over my nutrition about 10 times now. Here is a quick run down.

Breakfast:
Oatmeal with Brownsugar and Cinnamon, Banana, Coffee, OJ 4:45am
Bagel and 24oz. Accelerade sport drink 5:30-6

Bike:
1x 24oz. Sport Drink/Hour (~200 Cal)
2x Reeces PB Cup (80 Cal) OR 2x Fig Newton (110 Cal)/Hr

After 3 hours total begin:
2x Endurlyte Capsules (Electrolyte Supplement)
1x Amino 1800 (Amino Acid Supplement) do this through the run as well

Run:
Hammer Gel Flask 2x 5oz (~70 Cal/Oz) Take shot every 30 min.
Drink 4-6 cups of Gatorade or Water
After 13.1 Miles begin drinking Coke at every aid station.
Take rollaids for upset stomach.

Brought Oral B “Brush-Ups” for getting all the sugar off my teeth so I can keep eating.

Ater race. Pizza, Water, fruit, whatever I can get down.

Back at the hotel: 400mg Vicoden + 800mg Ibuprophen lots of water. A beer and Sleep.

For live coveage of my all day buffet check out www.ironmanlive.com

Last night Dean threw his 3rd annual BBQ for everyone we know at Ironman Canada. I wish that I had taken the camera over sooner since there were quite a few people who showed up. I would estimate there were 60+ this year. That being said they didn’t manage to eat all the food or drink all the beer. (What are they worried about their weight?) I made up for it by having a couple extra beers and 2 extra peices of carrot cake. This was after pasta salad, homemade Guacamole (Thanks Bettie), and the best homeade Cevivche (4 Gallons) I have ever had (Thanks Stan and all who helped in the prep). Oh and I did I mention all the marinated chicken (20+lbs) and the flank steak? Jose dutifully manned the BBQ most of the night and cooked some amazing meat. Tamara, Janet, Bettie, Stan, my Dad, Big Walter, Kim and Wally all worked on food prep and Shopping. Here a couple photos from the party.

This is a global group, Most of these kids are from Miami, but LA, San Diego and UK are represented as well. The four guys on the left are all IMC and BBQ vetrans. The rest are new this year.

Steve, Cindy, Ben and one of the Swanson Posse enjoying the deck and the view of the lake.

After the party died down around midnight I wondered back to my bed, only to have trouble sleeping (I’m not supposed to be nervous til Saturday but what can you do). I woke up about 5:30 and managed to lay in bed for an hour and a half before I got up ate and got ready to meet some of my Seattle training crew for an easy ride on the marathon course.

This mornings ride was plesantly uneventful. Jason stopped to help a guy inflate his tires. (Apparently purchasing an $1800 wheelset does include CO2 to fill up the tires if you get a flat) Jason, John and Tyler (from left to right in the pic) all rowed for University of Washington so generating enough leg power to push a 18lb peice of Aluminium or Carbon isn’t a real challenge for them. The marathon course that we were riding on winds along the shore of Skaha lake just South of Penticton. Its nice the water is there but its also very exposed. Hopefully we will have a bit of clouds on race day.

After the ride I went for about a mile swim, came back to the beach, played in the water with Harrison, Nana and Grampa for a few minutes before meeting up with Angie and my sister to go to lunch. We went to Salty’s, again, and maybe for the last time. I have decided that just because the waitresses are cute is no reason to wait an hour for a ham sandwich. On the way to Salty’s we met up with Tyler and Henrietta (his wife) and Peter (his brother). It was then I remembered we were all supposed to go to lunch together, so its a good thing we were going to the same place…

We got to Salty’s to find most of the westside Seattle crew waiting for us. There are plenty of people from Seattle here but if they live on the other side of the lake I rarely train with them. Just the way it is. Clockwise from bottom left: Shauna, Brett, Jason, Henri, Peter, Tyler, Emily, Angie, John, Cindy, Kyle. Lunch was fine, but really really slow. Oh well the company was good.

After luch Angie, Emily and I went back and took a good long nap. Then we met my folks and Harrison for Dinner. We had reservations for Salty’s but decided enough was enough and went to the mexican resturant next door. Good food if you could get past the flour tortillas on the enchiladas. We followed up dinner with some icecream and called it a night.

It was a nice long uneventful day. Got to hang out with lots of good friends and just relax. Now If i can just get a good nights sleep…I have a swim at 8am and tomorrow and I will have to turn in my bike and gear bags. 38hours to go. Tic. Toc.

Today I got up, met some friends and decided to go for a short ride down the run course. There is a large group of folks staying at my motel that all know each other. The ring leader of this little group is Dean Warhaft, a good friend who intentionally recrutied me to Ironman shortly after meeting me back in 2000. This will be Deans 9th Ironman Canada and his 10th total. Dean actively recruits all kinds of people to this sport. I’m just glad he wasn’t into Amway when I met him.

So this morning we all went out for a nice easy ride along the marathon course with his new Ironman recruits from Miami. It was nice, we had a great tailwind heading out and the weather was in the low 70’s. As we were crusing back to our hotel we came down main street in Penticton and stopped at the light in front of a new Starbucks. (Wich incedently took over a space formerly held by a small sandwich shop wich was the defacto Ironman headquarters–I’m kinda bitter about that but thats another story). As we crossed the street my rear wheel locked up!!! I nearly fell over in the intersection but was able to unclip and carry my bike to the sidewalk.

This was when I discovered the real reason my bike had been making a funny noise all morning. Earlier I had put the chain back on after transporting it in a baggie in the car (so it wouldn’t get grease all over my parents new van) Well being the rocket scientist that I was I threaded it wrong through the rear dérailleur (this is the part in the back that shifts the gears) The result was that when I road it made a clicking sound. That was the chains way of telling me it was wrong. When that didn’t work the chain decided to take more drastic measures. As we turn in front of starbuck it [the chain] caught on a little metal tab on the dérailleur and pulled the whole shifting mechanism around with it. Needless to say this was bad. Bad for the dérailleur, bad for the peice of the frame it was bolted to and fatal for the chain.

“Oh Shit,” was not the first nor the last explitive to go through my brain. I have trained for a year. spend untold dollars (to my wife anyway) on the bike and equipment and now 3 days before my race I just seriously f***ed up my bike. So there on the corner I pop out a chain breaker and get the chain off. Now at leat the bike will roll. So I say good by to Dean and his team from Miami and head to BIKE BARN.

Bike barn is the biggest shop in penticton, they probably do enough business the week of Ironman to fund their whole year. I quickly and nervously exlpain my situation to the first guy who looks at me. He is kind enough to make up a better story too tell the the mechanic. After a short but astute analysis by Chris he decided the chain is totally dead, the dérailleur is a little bit bent, but If I’m not interested in shelling out another $150US right now it will probably work. The real joy is what it did to the “Drop.”

A bike is two triangles stuck together, the back one holds the rear wheel and the rear dérailleur. The point where the dérailleur bolts onto the frame is call the Dropout at the base of this is a dérailleur hanger, where the dérailleur bolts to the frame. It is usually made of aircraft quality, cast and milled aluminum or steel. (I can’t affort Ti bikes but I would assume those use Ti) On many bikes the Drop is part of the frame, welded to the tubing that supports the seat. Mine is bent… and not just bent, Its cracked where the bend is. Now the nice thing about Cervelo (well one of many) is that the Drop is bolted on. So Great! all i have to do is get another part and we ar good! but bike barn doesn’t have that part, and they have alot of parts. They had a box with dozens of drops, but none for my frame. So we just trow it in the vice and bend it back. Put the dérailleur back on, and a new chain. All said I’m out a new Ultegra chain ($50 CND) and $20 labour (not bad but I still have a crack in a very critical part of my frame).

Onto my cellphone I go, calling anyone I can think of who might a)have the part and b)on their way to Canada for Ironman in the next oh, day. Actually both of the Cervelo Dealerships in Seattle had the part. Samamish Valley Cycle (where I bought my bike) and Speedy Reedy. By “have the part” I should say were willing to take it off of a frame in their shop so I could do the race. Speedy Reedy had the added benefit of Brooke and Reed, who are diehard Ironman Canada athletes themsleves. Every year they come up, do the race and enjoy the scene. Thanks to a quick tip from my buddy Tyler I managed to get a hold of Brooke 30mins before they left the shop in Seattle. So if all thing go well, she is on her way here as my personal savior of the day (maybe even the week if things go well).

Now I have to run, Dean is throwing his annual BBQ and there should be about 100 people here. Also my Sister is about to suprise me by showing up from New York. I’m not supposed to know but I’ll still be excited to see her.

OK, So I’m in Penticton B.C. for the fourth year straight to experience Ironman Canada. This is the second year I’m competing and since, upon ariving, I discovered that my hotel has added WiFi this year, I decided to get off my lazy butt and learn to blog. So, after several hours of messing around with Movable Type, only to find out my host doesn’t properly support PERL I switched to Wordpress (Thanks for the tip Schwan) true to its claim it went up in about 5 minutes.

Back to Ironman. This is quite possibly the single most inspiring place to be all year. People are just friendly at Ironman. Its like for one week everyone decides to stop living thier normal lives and come here to support thier friends and fellow atheletes. Forget the competition, forget the egos. 99.999% of the people here hope YOU and everyone else have a great race or a great time watching the race.

The whole town transforms itself into one big support group for people crazy enough to swim 2.4 miles, ride 112 miles and then finish up with a marathon. This picture, taken near my hotel, is very representative of everyone here. I noticed this last night while we were eating at Salty’s last night.

So… I think this is good for a “First Blog Post Ever” when I get more motivate I will change the boywonder home page and the template for these pages to make it a bit more interesting. Baby steps…