Finding Inspiration while Running

No, this blog is not about my 2014 racing season. It's about finding inspiration for my art while [attempting] running. The other day, I dug out my trail shoes and went for a run after a soaking rain. The trail was lonely, but I was moved by all the footprints and bike tire prints in the mud, despite the bleak landscape created by winter rain in Cleveland. I tried to capture it in my latest print, titled "Scenes from the Towpath: Signs of Life" (this one is much bigger than all my others - it's 8 in x10 in, and it's the largest I've ever printed with my tiny etching press). It took about three evenings of work to produce - using an acrylic plate and only my drypoint needle:

Hello 2014.

Meet my little etching press.

I've been dwelling on a new blog post for so long that I can't remember when my last one happened or what it was about. But I feel a brain-dump coming on so I'll just start writing.

Several times since creating this blog, my first post of the new year has been a recommitment to personal athletic goals. It usually comes after the realization that spending most of my time trying to please others (family, friends, peers, bosses) is a losing battle, that hard work rarely pays off in the workplace, and that I am crap at office politics (well,.. politics in general). After the realization, I crawl in a hole and bash myself to pieces, then crawl out, stand up (slowly), and recommit myself to a new season of running or triathlon. This has been the only thing that depends entirely on me.. and the one way for me to reap the benefits of goal-setting and hard work.

This year, part of me so desperately wants to write that athletic recommitment blog, but I can't. I can't put my "all" into training when I know damn well that my hamstring tendon is still injured. Lately I've had to remove myself from social media because most friends and those I follow are runners and triathletes. After reading and celebrating everyone else's successes for the last few months, I now find myself, not inspired by them, but feeling like a bigger loser, viewing my 2013 season as a huge fail, and declaring my 2014 season a failure before it even happens.

Before racing in London, I had the injury diagnosis. And after returning, I was forced to take time off and focus on healing. Then I survived a car accident. Then I survived buying a new car - which was, perhaps, more stressful than the accident. To avoid going insane, I started compulsively drawing again.

And then came an unexpected light at the end of the tunnel that had nothing to do with training. Somewhere in the mess of the interwebs, I landed upon several artists' websites describing intaglio printmaking with an acrylic plate. I was instantly hooked. My etching press (bought to expedite the process of making Christmas cards) would no longer have to sit in a corner unused for eleven months out of the year. Almost immediately, I was digging out tools, impulse-buying plastic plates and ink, and pulling my old printmaking studio books off the shelf.

This was mid-November - in the midst of the pre-holiday rush. Still hanging over my head was my yearly "other" creative endeavor: block-printing my 2013 card (which due to my procrastination, became its own fiasco of a time crunch). But, I don't f*ck with inspiration. Especially when it is artistic inspiration. I must drop everything and follow it.

And now, after a couple months, I am able to relax a bit and write about it.

For my first prints, I used random photographs I shot on my iPhone. And I couldn't even wait for the purchased materials to arrive. In desperation to get started, I scrounged up some old scraps of plexiglass from an old picture frame and secretly cut it into rectangles at 5:00 a.m. in the farthest corner of the basement to avoid waking up my husband Jim. (If you've ever scored and cut plexiglass, you already know it sounds like a gunshot.)

My first print was average at best, and more impulse purchases were required to find the right ink and all the right tools. I'm still developing my techniques, but I'm seeing improvement (there's that hard-work thing again...). In the even that I never race again, I hope I've found something that keeps me creatively and energetically engaged and has future development and growth potential.

2014 now seems like a new direction. I have some new art and I'm hopeful about my future artistic possibilities for the first time in about ten years. Creating stuff is giving me a sense of internal fulfillment, and if I can no longer compete at the level I'd like to as an athlete, all does not seem lost.

Anyway.. below are a few of the new intaglio prints - starting with the first one - made from a photo of my headlights while I was driving at night. The method I'm using is called "drypoint" - scratching the image into the plate directly instead of etching it with acid (and thus avoiding the hazardous-materials-in-the-house issue). In the future, I would like to switch the imagery and use some of my drawings for inspiration, but my photos are giving me ideas for now.

"Headlights on Boston Mills Road"

"Riverfront Trail Scene 2"

"Le Canal"

"Scenes from the Towpath I"

"Afternoon Near Corn Hill"

On Artistic Inspiration, H. R. Giger, and Dr. Seuss

For most of my life, I've intermittently asked myself the question: how can I make it as an artist? The answer always comes back quickly: I can't.

But before you string me up by my toes for being "negative," hear me out. I do NOT believe it's impossible to "make it" as an artist. As the eternal idealist, I feel quite quite the opposite - I believe that if I work hard enough, I actually COULD make it as an artist - and by "make it," I mean, generate enough income to be self-sufficient.

Unfortunately, defining success this way and making it a goal is self-defeating in a field as subjective as visual art (except in rare cases like that of Andy Warhol). For many artists, including me, expression comes from within and rarely serves the masses (again, with the exception of rare cases such as Michelangelo or Jacques-Louis David who produced incredible inspired commissioned work). And feel free to debate "what IS art?" for the rest of your years, but when it comes to creating art, let me simply quote Albert Pinkham Ryder: "The artist needs but a roof, a crust of bread, and his easel, and all the rest God gives him in abundance. He must live to paint and not paint to live."

Mind you, few artists have the ability to live according to Pinkham Ryder's ideal. My personal artistic inspiration is a very powerful feeling. It can make me deliriously happy. But sometimes I think it will drive me insane. If I deny it, I will start to feel sick. I won't be able to sleep. Or eat. Or focus on anything else. But then, it comes and goes. And when it goes, it leaves me with gobs of unfinished work, curled up in a heap on the floor, depressed, hating myself, crying, and confused. It's quite a vicious thing. Especially because I'm not even trying to make a living with my art.

Recently, I've been riding a new wave of inspiration - both to draw and to explore various printmaking techniques - notably, intaglio with plastic (acrylic) plates. I'll write about that in a subsequent blog. But what I really wanted to write about is my latest drawing and the story from which it came - involving a long-ago search for elusive inspiration.

It was back when I was in college - studying engineering. I was a die-hard sci-fi buff, and I saw a contest in a magazine to create an image for something called "the supreme intelligence" from the upcoming remake of "Invaders from Mars." Until that day (and well after, I might add), all of my art fit into the category of realism. But part of me longed to draw something mind-bogglingly creative. Something that had very little resemblance to earth or human or animal. You know, something like H. R. Giger's Alien... yes, that's it, I wanted to design something totally unique, yet horrific, and I was haunted by this one thought for many days.

Drawing a mental blank, I had almost completely given up hope while mulling it over before bed one night. That night, I had my scariest nightmare to this day. I was in a cave, and something terrifying crawled out of a hole in the ground in front of me. Something completely unreal and unearthly. And within a matter of seconds, this unfathomable horror was out of the ground and racing toward me at breakneck speed. It had no legs and I couldn't figure out how it moved forward, it just did. Unable to get away, I woke myself up instead - with a scream on my lips. I didn't sleep the rest of the night. And I chose never to draw it. I was too frightened.

Until this year.

My first attempt has already been posted (without explanation) in one of my drawing-a-day blogs, but here it is again. It was way too cartoony and almost comical - nothing like the horror in my dream. My physical therapist would describe it "like something from Dr. Seuss." (He says most of my drawings look like scary Dr. Seuss.)

This weekend, I tried to draw it for the second time. This one is a much more accurate depiction of it. I'm still baffled as to how it moved in the dream.. maybe I'll figure that out in another drawing:

Seven Weeks, Running is Go

Finishing (and winning) the
Sylvania Tri in 2010 may be the last
time I wasn't in pain running

It's been seven weeks since my PRP injection. During this time, the thing I've longed for most is the feeling I get when I'm out on the pavement with only my heartbeat, my running shoes, and my thoughts. I solve problems when I'm running. It's the only time I can let go of the damaging self-critic. It's the only time I can be myself without being terrified of what everyone else thinks. I need to run.

Unlike before, this time off from running has been one of inner reflection and fighting demons. Because I wasn't sure I would be able to run again. That fear was always there. What will I do if I can't run? I turned to introspective stream-of-consciousness drawing - the only other thing that gives me similar peace. But the fear continued. What will I do if I can't run? My physical therapist quoted the medical report ".. you have SEVERE tendinosis .. seriously NOT good" (as though I didn't fully grasp the severity of the injury). He said my hamstring tendon was "breaking down" - made it sound like it was actually disolving. The fear grew. Seriously. What. will. I. do. if. I. can't. run?

The fear made me ok with taking seven weeks off without a single step in a running gait. Sure, I was an emotional wreck (further compounded by a car accident). I became religious about my physical therapy. Heck, I became religious. I prayed. But I never stopped worrying. I frantically searched the internet for hamstring PRP success stories. Six weeks went by with not much improvement. And I had pretty much given up hope.

Then, in what seemed like an overnight miracle, this week the familiar always-there pain faded. And today I got the go-ahead. To run. It's been a rough year so I'm not celebrating just yet. But I will run. And it will not be far. It will not be fast. But there is running in my future. And unfinished business - with a finish line.

All I can do to explain is offer this (and stifle the tears):

The Rain is not Forever (Saved Again by Music)

Singer/songwriter Mark Dignam
at the Barking Spider Tavern

Once again, I shift gears to write about music. And once again, where I usually discuss running, swimming, biking, and less frequently, visual art and technology, writing about music will be very uncomfortable. It's not necessarily something want to do, but today, it's something I am inspired to do.

You may already know through social media that I've been muddling through a really bad year. A hamstring injury continues to threaten (and potentially end) my ability to train and compete in a sport that I not only love but one to which I've dedicated many many years. And in disaster-magnet fashion, a few weeks ago I was in a car accident. I was rear-ended by another driver, my 14-year-old car was totaled, I suffered additional injuries, and my emotional well-being, already hanging by a thread, was further pushed to the limit by being given only three days of a rental vehicle by the other driver's insurance company. Stressed out with new aches and pains, frantically searching for a new (or used) car or come up with alternate work transportation, I found myself crying a lot and drawing for mental relief (having lost the stress-reducing factor of running that I've so relied on in the past).

So what does this have to do with music, you ask? Well, although it shouldn't happen this way, last night I had to be reminded of one of the great uplifting, anxiety-relieving things in this world - something I can get lost in that gives me hope and makes me want to get up the next day - something that gives me an appreciation of beauty and good in the world. That thing is music.

The musician is Dublin-born, Pittsburg-based Mark Dignam. The first time I heard him was in 2010 supporting the Swell Season at The House of Blues in Cleveland. He has a storied history having grown up busking on the streets of Dublin with the likes of Glen Hansard. And like Hansard, he truly embodies the spirit of the singer-songwriter. If you want to know more, Google him like I did the first time I heard his music. I watched every video I could find... the more I found, the more I wanted to kick myself for not having heard of him earlier than 2010 (seriously, it was embarrassing). But the most amazing thing about Mark Dignam is that he IS his music. When he performs, it seems like every molecule of his body is belting out the song. (Note: I stole this description from my friend Andy - an artist and occasional musician - who seems to have made it his mission to turn me onto good music. In the past, he's described some of his favorite musicians in this way - they "are their music.")

Mark Dignam is one of those musicians. Watching and listening to him, I can't imagine he could ever have done anything else with his life. It's an all-incompassing talent that I would proverbially give an arm and a leg to have (especially in my art). It's a talent that rarely sees the light of day in this world - a world in which we have American Idols crammed down our throats and are force-fed monotonous pop "music" via uninspired corporate-owned radio stations.

The only thing about it that makes me sad is that Jim and I were two of only about ten people there to witness Mark's performance in Cleveland, a city that claims to have great cultural institutions. It would have been easy to pack the place - a small bar called the Barking Spider - because it was a free gig right smack in the middle of a big university (Case Western Reserve). Unfortunately (in fact, it was a damn shame) only a few people were there to see it. A very lucky few, but in the end, only a few.

I am sure Mark Dignam made fans out of everyone sitting in the audience last night. One customer - engaged in conversation with him when we arrived - had no idea he spent the better half of his time at the bar talking to the performer. Having to leave half way through the set, the still-shocked new fan walked up mid-gig and asked to buy Mark's one CD. (Note that upon finding out he brought only one CD to Cleveland, this was the one I had set my heart on leaving with.) My point is, it's hard not to be blown away seeing Mark Dignam live. And if you didn't already know about it, he will introduce you to the catharsis of the sing-along. I don't know about you, but it's hugely fun (and stress-busting) singing out loud with (not quite) a roomful of people.

As we did last night. And hopefully will again. And again.

So, because I sometimes make it my mission to turn people on to good music, I have to share some of it. The title of this post is a line from this, one of his more well-known songs, "Stormy Summer" (since I had a pretty bad summer, hearing this live was my personal catharsis). Here's the video I took of it (with his permission):



And here's another song from last night - this one is called "Build":

Daily Drawing - I'm Drawing Daily... Again

Here are some new daily drawings.

5 October 2013:

6 October 2013:

7 October 2013:

8 October 2013:

9 October 2013:

10 October 2013, I actually titled this one, "Negative Space":

That's all I got for today.

With Pain Comes New Drawings

Here are my latest two drawings - the first one was made on the airplane to London. The second one was made yesterday (because it was the first block of time I had to draw since getting back from London).

We ARE Here

Turin Brakes' Olly Knights
16 September 2013

Every once in a while, I have to stop writing about my training and racing to write about my favorite musicians, Turin Brakes. It's not something I WANT to do, it's something I HAVE to do. Their music affects me in a way that it has become impossible for someone to know me and to NOT know about Turin Brakes.

Yes, I understand that music is subjective. My musical taste is not necessarily the same as yours. I get it. But I'm passionate about the music I like (just like I am about triathlon). And isn't that what's great about art? If you don't like it, you don't have to listen to it (or look at it).

What I DO have a problem with is the music "industry," and how we are force-fed music through all channels - radio, tv, internet - and told what is good and what is not good based on some kind of corporate money exchange. In the current radio climate, bands like Turin Brakes suffer greatly because they rarely get airplay - the only way to hear them is via non-traditional channels. And the non-traditional channels have become jam-packed with every single aspiring musician there is. Not that there's anything wrong with that.. it just makes it extremely hard for people to find the music that appeals to them. Thank heavens for services like Spotify in making honest attempts to suggest music similar to what you already like.

But, let me tell you about "this band I like" for one moment. I'll be brief.

Turin Brakes' Gale Paridjanian
16 September 2013

Turin Brakes released a new album on Monday (to be released in the US on October 8). It's their sixth studio album. People are saying (yes, by "people" I mean I read Twitter) it's their best album since their first - the Mercury-Prize-nominated The Optimist Lp. There's a LOT of buzz surrounding it. But my biggest fear is it will never be heard by the people who need to hear it in THIS country. If it makes it to the airwaves, it will be in two places: public radio stations KCRW in Santa Monica and WXPN in Philadelphia. And that's a BIG "if." I am almost positive it won't be heard on my favorite local FM public radio station, The Summit, 91.3 in Akron - or in other local markets --thus banning it to oblivion in the U.S.

So, I'm here to tell you about it.

The album is called "We Were Here." In the words and music, I hear a group of musicians saying to us exactly that: We. Were. Here. We made this. This is US. This is our expression that we offer up to music history in hopes that someone will take notice. It's downright heart-wrenching to hear singer Olly Knights actually sing that phrase in more than one song on the album - especially in the song "No Mercy," one of the most melancholy songs he has ever written.

But, don't get me wrong - Turin Brakes is not a melancholy band. They're full of life, and full of ideas - both musical and visual, and I, for one, never get tired of it. My husband Jim and I have attended many concerts of popular-in-the-UK-but-relatively-unknown-in-the-States bands like Elbow, Travis, and Athlete. We've had the opportunity to meet many of them after gigs -- and, like a broken record, I usually mention Turin Brakes. Wouldn't you know - most of them have the utmost respect for Turin Brakes, using terms like "massive" and "epic." No, I'm not making this up. I've heard it from their own mouths. Turin Brakes is a band that OTHER bands talk about. And I think it has to do with recognition of sheer talent. These guys have it. They deserve to be heard by a wider audience. (Listen to We Were Here online - the whole album is streaming at Paste Magazine.)

I've been lucky to have had the opportunity to see and hear Turin Brakes play on many occasions, both here and in the UK. And, as karma would have it, they played an exclusive gig showcasing the new songs the day after I raced in the London ITU World Championship. Jim and I were also extremely fortunate (and grateful) to have been invited to attend. That night, duo Olly Knights and Gale Paridjanian were accompanied by their long-time collaborators, drummer Rob Allum and bassist Eddie Myer. I took some videos just for myself to remember it by, but I wanted to share a couple of them with you - hopefully you will find something you like about them too. (Forgive my crappy video-taping.. there were professionals taping that night also, so my little Panasonic is embarrassing compared to the footage they got - you can see it at http://www.dailymotion.com/thehospitalclub#video=x14w7r7).

The first one is a showcase of guitarist Gale Paridjanian's "massive" (or is it "epic"?) slide guitar, reminiscent of Pink Floyd - it's called "Blindsided Again":



And this is the song "Stop the World" and it has a really hilarious intro about where the song came from:



Thanks for listening. Or reading.

Undoing Disasters: The Injury Rehab

This past Friday was the official beginning of my injury rehab. It's both a relief and agony to finally know exactly what was wrong after three years of gradually-increasing-but-never-bad-enough-to-stop-training pain. It's a relief because I can start to fix it. It's agony because I have to fix it (and therefore take more time off).

After the phone call the day I left for London, I was sure that the pain was coming from two different sources - the findings on my left hip MRI: (1) a labral tear and (2) a hamstring tear. This would most definitely explain why I was getting pain in so many places and at times would hurt all the way down to my ankle. But I found out last week that I was likely wrong. I was wrong about which "tear" was actually causing my pain. My Orthopod, Dr. Patterson and I discussed this in my first visit after returning from London.

It went something like this...

Dr. P: You are seriously messed up.

Me: Tell me something I DON'T know.

Dr. P: (explains how MRI images were taken and then shows me the longitudinal slice images from the outside of my hip inward). The good news is there is no problem with the ball joint, the bone.... (points out the labral tear) and here's the labral tear - it's in the front

Me: But I have no pain in the front...

Dr. P: (continues the slide show)

Me: EEEK! What's that?

I knew there was something seriously wrong with it as soon as I saw what turned out to be my hamstring tendon - the tendon that connects your hamstring to the sit-bone.

The diagnosis was severe tendinosis (I've never heard of that either) and partial-thickness tear of the tendon. It was a chronic condition likely the result of never rehab-ing the first hamstring tendon injury (and who knows how long ago that was?). It had gotten so bad that it would probably not heal on its own. In olden times, surgery would have been my option. But these days, there's a new therapy available: a PRP (Platelet-rich plasma) injection to force the healing components of blood into damaged (connective) tissue. Google it if you're interested in ways doctors are using PRP - it's a pretty promising therapy.

Here's how it works. My own blood would be extracted, then spun in centrifuge to obtain mostly platelets, then injected into my tendon. Because it's my own blood, my body will recognize it, and because it's platelets, it has a high concentration of growth factors. It should start rebuilding my tendon tissue as soon as it gets in there. The post-procedure protocol would have me in physical therapy and back to training in about 4-6 weeks.

There are several issues I can now report on - because I had this done three days ago.

First. IT HURTS!!! Like white hot pain for an instant and then imagine the worst pain that you had from the injury and triple it. The doctor who performed the procedure also confirmed via ultrasound that: "yeah, your tendon is seriously messed up" just as he stuck the needle full of fluid right into it. In his defense, he SAID it would hurt.

His next question was: "does it hurt like the injury did?"

"You bet your sweet bippy it does!"

He said: "good, that's what we want." It was the exact pain I'd been experiencing while running -- except I wasn't doing anything to induce it.

Second. It gets worse before it gets better. By that night, although the initial white-hotness had gone away, I couldn't walk or stand without pain, and I felt like I was sitting on a rock for many hours to come - through the next day, in fact - before things settled down and I wasn't hobbling around. This is supposed to happen.

Third. You must grin and bear it because YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING FOR THE PAIN. No ice. No NSAIDs. Oh, yeah, Tylenol is ok (like Tylenol works - come on!) Why? Becasue the inflammation is necessary for the healing process. I always prided myself on my ability to tolerate pain, so now it was time to walk the walk.

Three days later, the aching pain has subsided, and I only get pain if I sit on my sit-bone. I've happily become a couch potato in hope that healing is underway. Heck, what I was doing wasn't working. I'm ready to try anything that might mean a pain-free run in my future. It's been way too long.

Finding the Fun: 2013 ITU World Championships in London

It's over. My triathlon season, that is. It ended with a race in my favorite urban green space: Hyde Park in London, England.

It wasn't the fairy tale ending I dreamed about last year when I qualified to race in London. In fact, on another day in another time, I would have considered it a disaster. But based on the situation I found myself in race morning, my last event of the season was actually bittersweet.

The bitter part came in the form of my thoughts of what could have been. What could have been if I wasn't training and racing injured all year. What could have been if they hadn't shortened the swim leg. What could have been if our travel had gone smoother with less stress. And, most importantly, what could have been if I had known in October what I found out the day we left for London: an MRI showed a labral tear in my left hip and a chronic torn hamstring. Had I known THAT, things might have been different in London.

But after I spew out all the things that conspired against me in London, none of them would take from me the thing I was determined to take back - my love for my sport and my love for the city of London - specifically my very favorite running spot in the whole world: Hyde Park. This was the "sweet."

I can't count how many times I've wished to swim in the Serpentine. Or how many times I've run circles in the park and wondered what it would be like to race there. When I watched the Olympics in 2012, biking along the approach to Buckingham Palace looked almost too good to be true. When I got my chance to race in London, I would take it all in and enjoy it - seriously, this WAS a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

I will say that it was easy to adopt that attitude with an injury. My physical therapist said I should have no expectations besides "just finishing." Of course I had expectations. I haven't been working hard while injured for nothing. I hoped for miracle podium finishes just like anyone else out there. And I have friends in England to impress. I also wanted to race well for my team - Team USA.

In the end, I had to settle for smiles and small victories.

It was my first time racing an ITU race. There were endless rules and rigamarole to follow. Uniform rules. Bike helmet rules. Bike racking rules. Transition area rules. Even wetsuit rules. Bike check-in for me was Saturday at 6pm where they read us all the aforementioned rules and went over the transition area layout.

The transitions included 1.8K of running - this was an official measurement made by someone on the Canadian team. We were told not to do anything stupid - i.e., get hurt or injure someone else just for an extra ten seconds - that we would NOT get a personal best time on this course. We were informed of crashes and where to slow down on the bike course. Slippery spots in transition were pointed out - including the place where a competitor fell and broke his hip the day before.

In my mind, the biggest issue facing us was the weather. Several days of rain wreaked havoc on the sprint race (20 people ended up in the hospital from bike crashes) and the women's pro race (top contender Gwen Jorgensen crashed and had to withdraw). In addition to the rain, we would also have to endure the cold (air temperatures in the 40s and water near 60 degrees F). Thank heavens the USA uniform included an ITU-approved jacket (the uniform rules are very strict).

In transition, we were not allowed to have anything except race equipment. All towels and transition mats (including rags to wipe your feet) are outlawed in ITU racing because they are regarded as "markers" for your location. This was hardcore stuff - no unfair advantages allowed.

I racked my bike, walked through the transition routes, and then my husband Jim and I made our way back to our hotel. I didn't get much sleep - travel woes and jet lag were screwing up my entire system. In what seemed like a few moments, we found ourselves hustling to make the half-hour jaunt in the dark down to transition on race morning. Transition closed promptly at 6:30 am for waves starts at 7:00. With about 2.5 hours to wait for my start, the key would be keeping warm as I foolishly forgot gloves and a winter hat. Many athletes were donning their wetsuits early to stay warm.

Keeping warm pre-race

While we waited, we found out the swim leg had been shortened to 750m because of cold water and concerns for hypothermia, and wetsuits were no longer optional. After an icy swim in the serpentine the day before, I was not looking forward to even colder water. But this year, swimming has been my strongest leg, and the shortened swim would likely cost me several places.

By the time my wave was called, I had given up trying to wake up my digestive system in the (flushable with sinks and soap and an endless supply of toilet paper) porta-johns. I grabbed a shower room (did I mention they had portable showers on-site?) to squeezed my huge body into my abnormally-small womens-medium-size Tyr Team-USA tri-suit. On the flip-side, because it was cold, I didn't have to struggle with a sweaty body getting into my wetsuit.

Jim and I said our goodbyes, he told me to have fun, and I joined my age group in the queue.

Time gaps between waves were very generous, but we were able to pass the time by watching finishers (the race was over for some before it even started for others) and talking about how it was "warming up." Miraculously, the sun had stayed out and it was burning bright in a clear sky... in London! We were hustled onto the start dock in what I later learned was (in proper English lingo) "two shakes of a donkey's tail." The in-water start was as fair as could be - everyone held onto the dock until we got the horn.

"Queuing"

I started my watch with "take your mark," and we were off. As soon as I started swimming, it felt just like every other Olympic-distance race - i.e., everyone was relatively civil (unlike Ironman where I get viciously clobbered by non-swimmers). Except something wasn't right - I felt the athlete wristband wrapping around the "heel" of my left hand. The same wristband had been on the opposite side of my watch about ten seconds earlier (when I hit the start button).

Trying not to get distracted, I assumed my watch had slipped a notch and slid down. I felt good in the water (surprisingly the cold was a non-issue) and was mostly alone with no feet to draft. Spotting the very tall buoys was easy even with the sun in our eyes for the longest stretch of water. When I rounded the second-to-last buoy, I almost slammed into the stragglers from the previous wave. I took a second of breaststroke to regroup - and used that second to inspect my left wrist.

Swim exit, sans watch

Horrified, I noticed my watch was gone. In true Disaster Magnet fashion, my new touch-screen watch - a birthday present from Jim - had become a victim of the Serpentine. (My extreme reaction would have much more light-hearted had I known the watch sacrifice would become a running joke for everyone in my circle of English friends for days to come.)

The swim exit was about 20 yards away and there was nothing I could do - short of panic. On the long run to T1, I heard Jim yell "nice swim," to which I replied "I LOST MY WATCH!" Like he could do anything about it.

I kept running. And running. And running. I had no idea what my swim time was, but I found solace in the fact that my bike time didn't require the watch as it would be firmly registered on my bike computer. My wetsuit came off in record time, and I saved more time by deciding it was warm enough to ride without my jacket. Then I foolishly lost time to OCD while trying to tidy up my ground space. The run to bike-out was thankfully short.

The two-loop 40K bike course was nothing short of spectacular. It did a quick out and back through Hyde Park then exited via Hyde Park corner, through Green Park, past Buckingham Palace, along St. James Park, then loosely followed the Thames river to a turnaround near the Tower of London. It was flat as an English pancake (more like a crepe), and the only thing that slowed us down was the wind that kicked up on the second loop.

During the bike leg, several near-crashes kept me alert. A wind gust reminiscent of Kona nearly blew my bike out from under me near Hyde Park Corner, and when I swerved to avoid another competitor who cut me off in Hyde Park, my back wheel caught air. There was also woman with a death wish who disregarded a crossing and had to be pulled out of the way by a crossing guard just in the nick of time - with two female cyclists traveling 25 mph bearing down on her and screaming for her to get out of the way (I was one of them).

Yeah, I'd have to say she was drafting.

A funny thing that happened on the bike was when another competitor passed me near the end of the leg and turned around to yell to a German woman behind me to stop hanging in my slipstream... then she said "you're cheating" in a very matter-of-fact tone. What cracked me up was how politely she said it. I think I might like this ITU thing after all.

The bike course was awesome for spectators - I saw Jim no less than three times, and he never had to leave Hyde Park. It's also worth mentioning that crowd support was phenomenal on the streets of London. The throngs lining the streets cheering was comparable to those of the New York City Marathon.

My bike time was slower than expected - based on speeds I was clocking - but I felt I rode as hard as I could without aggravating my hip. A couple of severe twinges of pain made me step back a bit so that I could (hopefully) run without limping.

I pulled into T2 slightly downtrodden at my slowness but happy only a 10K remained between me and the pub. Again, the run was quite long to the bike racks, and by the time I reached mine, I understood my earlier OCD folly. The transition zone had become a war zone, with equipment carnage everywhere. My running shoes were not where I left them - thankfully they were close by. I was able to get into them despite having muddy frozen blocks of ice where my feet used to be.

During the long trek to run-out, I gave the slip to the draft-guilty German girl - she obviously didn't pay attention to the course talk about the hairpin turn in T2 and tried to cut the course by exiting at bike-out. Some people never learn!

The 10K run was comprised of three loops completely within Hyde Park. The crowd support would blow my mind - people were constantly yelling my name and "U-S-A!" It didn't matter what country we were from - we got cheered.

Now came the real problem of being without my watch - taking run splits. Jim to the rescue! On the back stretch of the first loop, he held out HIS watch and I grabbed it. I was feeling relatively good compared to other races this year. But it was almost useless because there were no distance markers on the run course. Without mile markers, I was forced to do math - I assumed a loop was about two miles, and after the first loop, I started the watch.

The run passed the finish line three times

On the second loop, I stopped trying to figure out who was in my age group - no body marking and numbers worn on front. A British woman who looked about my age passed me at a decent pace, and I decided to hang behind her.

I struggled to stay with her and took a split at the second loop - 14:44. I was doing 7:20s. Not great, but my hip was still working and I actually still felt pretty strong. So I decided I wanted to run down the British chick.

Half way through the second lap I caught her on an uphill and maintained my lead for about 30 seconds, then she re-passed me. I noticed her breathing was more labored than mine, so I hung back for a minute and then made my move. With about a mile to go, the mantra of an old running friend came back to spur me on. He used to tell himself: "You can do anything for a mile.. you can hop on one leg for a mile if you have to."

It was the final mile of my final race, and if I had to go down, I would go down fighting. I passed the Brit and ran with everything I had. I never saw her again. I completely forgot about my time, and as I came to the turn into the finish chute, I was handed an American flag from a spectator. I sprinted for the finish line.

My first race on international soil had ended. It wasn't my best. It wasn't my worst. But it WAS the most fun I've had in years.

By the time I found Jim, the weather had turned foul (rain, cold, and wind), and I quickly packed up my stuff as soon as we could get into transition. Then Jim bought me the coolest new Timex watch ever - it's white with the Union Jack on it.

Monday night we attended an intimate gig with my favorite musicians: Turin Brakes. After they played a brilliant gig showcasing their amazing new album (check 'em out at turinbrakes.com), we spent time catching up. It's been an agonizingly-long three years. The biggest story of the night? How hilarious it was that I would be leaving my watch in London at the bottom of the Serpentine.