I’m still out in Missouri where the calendars run slow. That means I won’t be back in time to ride in the Freakbike Militia’s Choppernite XXV Halloween Cruise tonight, Oct. 28.
I thought it was later in the month and I’d have a shot of being home for it. Maybe I can convince Son Adam or Son Matt to cover it for me.
Here are the details straight from the FBM web site:
It will be on Wednesday, October 28, 2009, 7:00pm at the corner of Southern and Flagler. Of course this will be a Halloween cruise but this one will be not retro, but our own generation’s horrors!
Werewolves, Dracula, and ghosts are encouraged, but think BLOOD, Severed HEADS, scalp hunting aliens, skeletal bridge trolls who eat slow children! This can be metal like Eddie from Iron Maiden, Sci Fi like Ripley, plastic hockey mask like Michael Meyers, or plastic black man mask like Michael Jackson!
Meeting at 7:00pm and leaving at 7:30pm sharp.
Headlight and taillight are required
Headlight and taillight are mandatory, the sun will be DOWN, helmets are encouraged, mandatory (by Fl. law) for the kiddies 15 and under.
This is an unsupervised, ride at your own risk deal; we need to police ourselves to keep this ride going, if you see someone being a gnomer, call them on it and tell ’em why.
Bike of the night prize
Just to prep you, our minigames will be, of course, giving away the Freak Bike Cup to the Bike of the Night!, Best helmet costume, and two more that will be a surprise! Think screaming AND ZOMBIES!!!
This will be the original route, through City place, down Clematis to the Fountain, and returning the same route.
C’mon out and get your ghoulie on with the Freak Bike Morticians!
Bigger than Summer of Love
I thought the Summer of Love Ride was the most funnest group ride I’d ever been on. The Freakbikers swear that Halloween Choppernite is even better.Despite their crazy outfits, they’re a fine bunch of folks who welcome newcomers. Don’t be hesitant to join the ride.
Editor’s note: I’m a non-competitive cyclist. Swimming is what you do when your boat sinks. Running is what you do when someone is chasing you (and I firmly believe that even then it’s not necessary to be the fastest runner: you only have to be faster than someone who is slower).
Scott Maulsby, who works with Son Adam, is one of those guys who turns into a contest. After deciding that individual events weren’t enough of a challenge, he branched out into triathlons. When they got too easy, he signed up for his first Ironman competition. That’s 140.6 miles of biking, swimming and running.
Here’s his account of the ordeal, a video Son Adam shot and some random pictures I’ve taken of Scott at other events.
Here’s how he remembers it
It’s a post race tradition to write a summary of the race for other athletes.
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Clermont hosts The Great Floridian (Ironman Distance) triathlon. It’s not owned by WTC so it’s not an M dot… It’s still 140.6 miles… 265 started. 199 finished.
The only ‘non race’ story comes from the practice swim. Waited for some partners to swim with. An engaged couple showed up and we swam in the lake for a while. When we were done, they invited me to their wedding. Seriously. They were getting married on race day an hour before start time in their wetsuits. The RSVP card gave a few menu options. Gu or Cliff Shots. Sure enough, they got married. I think they were divorced by lap 2 of the run…
Don’t Quit
The day before the race I spent most of my time in the fetal position sucking my thumb in the hotel room. Finally went to a movie to get out of my head for a while. Then dinner with the coach and another one of his athletes. I was hoping he would bring the magic pill. He forgot to bring it. The dinner helped. Shared all my fears and by simply letting me know he had gone through the same thing before, I slept like a baby. His final words of advice: ‘Don’t quit’. That came in handy the next day.
Race morning I felt like a million bucks. It was 90 degrees but who cares. The swim was fantastic and exiting the water I was focused and strong. Saw coach in between lap 1 and 2 in the lake and that helped the mental state. The bike was a different story.
Bike course was “pure evil”
One of the few flat spots was the mounting area. That was 50 yards long and then it was up hill. All day… In the first 0.5 miles I saw at least 10 athletes fixing their bikes. Ouch. Not sure why, but I got emotional in the first mile of the bike. Tears streamed down my face. The bike course was pure evil. The wind was not our friend but every course has wind. It was the Himalayas they trucked in that hurt. They were as relentless as the clock. Not to mention that 5 miles outside of town it was like riding on I95. Cars and 18 wheelers everywhere. One nice young man was hanging out of the passenger window giving us ‘the bird’ and dropping F bombs. We all decided he was on his way to therapy.
Hard to find a rhythm
The first bike loop was rough but I was in it mentally. After the half way point I stopped at an aid station. Spent a few minutes in the Port O Sauna, lathered up with some sun block, drank some cold water and dumped some ice down my back. Leaving the aid station it felt like leaving the parking lot of The Breakers after a day at the spa. Back to the hills. Yes, it was tough going up and fun going down. The challenge was finding a cadence or a rhythm. There was none. Constantly going up or down and shifting gears. It’s tough mentally to pedal with all you have and look down to see 6.1 on the speedometer… The person that set up this course was certainly not going to win the election for Clermont Mayor.
E.T., Phone Home
On lap 2 of the bike, people started losing it. Physically and mentally. Watched people zig zagging all over the road. Walking up hills. When I passed one guy and said ‘How you doing?’ he replied: ‘E.T. phone home’. I wished him luck and thanked my coach for a flawless nutrition plan. Got tired of saying ‘nice job’ every time I passed someone so I started saying ‘Who’s idea was this?’. It caught on and by the first run lap everyone was saying it.
Happy to be off the bike and way behind on my time expectation, the run started. First lap was hot. Heart rate was high and legs were sore. Actually, the legs were still out on the bike course. No matter how fast I tried to go, the legs had met their limit. The muscles just wouldn’t fire any faster. What do you do? Adapt and re-focus. Adversity.
At the end of lap 1 on the run, I heard someone yelling my name. It was my boss and his wife. They drove up that morning and surprised me. It was really special. Didn’t anticipate seeing anyone I knew in the crowd.
Clermont’s 175th Birthday
Lap 2 it cooled off as the sun started setting. Stuck to the nutrition plan and kept the legs going. The volunteers were awesome. And the generic cola… Pure heaven although it wasn’t in the nutrition plan. Sorry coach. The chicken broth sounded good but didn’t sit well with my stomach. Eventually it got dark and lonely. There was no crowd. It happened to be the 125th anniversary of Clermont and there was a big carnival going on but once you passed through the area with the rides and the funnel cakes there was no one. Boy did a funnel cake sound good.
Wanted to cash in Obama Stimulus Miles
In the middle of the 2nd lap I had convinced myself that I could use some of Obama’s stimulus miles and skip the 3rd lap. That was the only time I started to lose mental focus. Remember what coach said. ‘Don’t quit’. From that point on, not a single negative thought. Kept the legs going. Slower than I wanted, but kept on running. Passing lots of people is unusual for me. For today though, nothing was stopping me.
The finish was uneventful. No crazy body movements across the finish line. I vaguely heard them say my name but I was already in the medical tent. The medal, ohhhh the medal. That is when it hit me. I was an Ironman. The banana at the finish line was the best banana in the history of the world. And the doctor asks you ‘how are you feeling?’ The correct answer is ‘good, thanks for asking’. The right answer was ‘ever see Tom Hanks in Castaway?’ They weigh you on some fancy scale before and after the race. I lost 0.8 pounds and 2% body fat. Validates the nutrition plan but a few burgers and some pizza will fix that…
They shouldn’t let you drive home
They should not let you drive home from an IM. I have no idea how I made it back to the hotel. Realized in the hotel parking lot that my lights were off the whole way home. Cops easily could have given me a DUIM. And yes, I stopped at McDonald’s and got a big fat burger.
I slept with the medal
At the end of the day (well, night) I wanted to kill coach as I slept with my medal. Also very confident that if the jury of my peers were all Triathletes, they would have acquitted me. On a serious note, this would not have been possible without Rich Nixon. He gets all the credit. Speaking of killing people, the bike course inventor was nowhere to be found. Someone said he was sent to Gitmo for interrogation but it wasn’t confirmed.
Maybe “one more” Ironman
Everyone keeps saying, ‘good job for your 1st Ironman’. First? Who said anything about a 2nd? Never again! Well, maybe 1 more…
The journey began 8 months ago with a dream I never thought was possible. I used to think Triathlon was an individual sport. Boy was I wrong. In no particular order I’d like to thank those that helped along the way: God, Fit2Tri, RSR, PBRR, Foxy and Co, Cycle Science, EM, LC, AB, JP, PKP, Dr. D, Dr. L, Dr. B, The Steinhoffs, Tyler, B&S, and NPB Pool Staff.
I stopped by Port Cape Girardeau to see an artist about having some business cards designed and to see if anything was happening along the Mississippi River.
Port Cape Girardeau and Common Pleas Courthouse
Someone in the bar mentioned that the local paper had a story that today was the 100th anniversary of the day President Taft and a flotilla of boats visited Cape Girardeau.
In fact, if I’d step outside, that very occasion was depicted in a mural on the floodwall right in front of us.
Indeed, there was President Taft
If you go to the historical pictures in The Southeast Missourian story, you’ll see that the townsfolk built an arch over the street that looks a lot like the one in the mural.
I apologize for the quality. It was taken at night under marginal lighting.
I visit Cape Girardeau more than Taft
I’m miffed. Taft shows up once in 100 years and it’s a big deal with a special painting on the floodwall. I show up at least once every year and nobody even throws me a parade.
Coast Guard buoy tender keeps boaters safe
A Coast Guard buoy tender was moored at the waterfront on the other side of President Taft. They’re the guys who maintain the red and green buoys that tell barge pilots where the shifting Mississippi River channel is safe to run.
Captains have a lot more toys than in the Mark Twain days, but the Mississippi River, which is rising rapidly with all the recent rains, is still an unpredictable place.
Reader Michael Getzie commented, “I really enjoy your site, just wanted to say thanks for all of the great info you provide. check out my ride on youtube, search for; frozenpeasandcorn, hope you like.”
The YouTube description says, “Covered my bicycle with 480 LED Halloween lights, Powered by 3 Sealed Lead Acid 8.5AH batteries and a 175 watt inverter.”
That’s a lot of juice. About one notch below an Iranian nuclear reactor.
I am humbled
I thought I was the brightest manmade object on the globe (we’re talking lights, not IQ).
