Mountain Man follow up

I got an e-mail from John, a true training partner, mental giant and inspiration to me. He finished this years IMAZ in 16:36 while doing a walk/jog for the entire marathon with 16:30 minute miles, which by the way he calculated in his head after getting on the run course. He is not a runner but makes up for it being a strong swimmer and capable cyclist.

Usually John crushes Hardocre Mike and I in the water, holds us off on the bike while we hammer to catch up and then we will pass him about a mile into the run. John handed me a smack down at Mountain Man, only seeing each other in passing near the run turnaround.

John's e-mail:

Hey some good news and bad news( for me) neither of us finished dead last and even with your bum leg you still beat me on the run. Dang I suck.

Well John you don't suck. Ever since my shin went bad I think of your courage to race Ironman at your ability level and not get sucked up into ego and pride. You earned your Ironman by racing your own race and I pray I have the strength to do the same.

Hardcore Mike, my oft mentioned training partner who is essentially a walking injury waiting to happen, is a fair swimmer and capable cyclist and becoming a really strong runner this year. He had a great race and took pride in telling everyone he finally, after two years, beat John off the bike and into T2. Oh yeah then he will tell you he set his PR at olympic distance. In true triathlete form he has his priorities straight, beat your team mate first, best your time second.

The Machine, hardly putting out any effort finished well under three hours, holding off another team mate (both Polar and AzTriClub) Tai by only five minutes.

Andy #2, a new addition to the team (hence why he is not Andy #1) who drove to the race site that night and got there at 2:00 a.m., slept in his car for a few hours then had a strong swim and bike then flat out hauled ass like only a former 10k state champ can haul ass, passing The Machine in just the last mile, setting his own new olympic PR.

Karl, a mulitple Ironman finisher and Polar team mate, took the second place medal in his AG. A little side note on this Ironman. This past January he aggresively ran the PF Chang half marathon with a broken neck, with his metal framed halo still screwed into his upper torso. Talk about sick puppy for enduracne events. He just returned from the Hono 70.3 a few weeks ago.

The Machine had some training clients who did their first sprint distance triathlon at Mountain Man and I could tell by the smiles on their faces that we have new converts to the tri-family.

Good job to my Polar team mates and good job to my training partners at AzTriClub...

...and John, yes Mike beat you into T2, but he'll never beat you to a workout.