9/11 heartache all over again

I just put down a 45+ page document on the 9/11 commission's record of events for the morning of 9/11. It's part of one of my Psychology class assignments for the week and to be honest, I don't remember what we were supposed to do with this after we read it. The rest of the assignment will have to wait until tomorrow.

My heart is just aching all over again and I've been fighting back tears reading through it. I failed several times and had to walk away for a few minutes before picking it up to finish it.

I remember that day like it was yesterday. It's amazing how raw it can still be, even after nearly 8 years. I was a dispatcher for TWA, which had been taken over by American not 6 months before. I was working the international desk watching and taking care of our flights coming back from Europe and the Middle East. It was the peak of storm season so I knew my "guys" in the squadron were down in the Caribbean doing who knows what.

I remember hearing about the first plane hitting the World Trade Center so someone flipped on the TV in our office. Aviation junkies do that sort of thing, always hoping that it wasn't your flight; speculating on what could've gone wrong. We kept doing our jobs, but listening to the commentary from the Today Show out the corner of our ears. Our ATC guy was listening in to the daily shift conference call with ATC.

The second plane hit and collectively, our hackles went up. It didn't take long before either someone in the office told us or we all started reacting to calling our flights to land wherever they could. It was pure chaos. As we watched the towers smoldering, the Pentagon was hit.

Most of my crews were past the 40' longitude line which meant I had to start getting them into Canadian stations wherever we could land them. Canadian controllers were difficult to reach to have them radio the word to land asap. I struggled with trying to figure out how much to tell the crews. Too much and they might be focused more on the potential than flying; not enough and they could have just as many issues.

One of the guys in the back office, navigation I believe, started calling some of the cities in Canada and securing rooms for our crews with his own credit card. We didnt' know how we were going to get the crews to the hotels, we just knew we had rooms possible for them and we'd work out the details later.

The ASD screen, which shows the position of all aircraft at any given time, was slowly going blank as all the planes in the country quickly landed wherever they could. In St Louis, we had planes from companies we hadn't seen there before and even a few planes we hadn't seen in ages. A 747 sat outside our operations office parked quietly for the next week until it could leave.

Over the ATC conference call, I overheard NORAD on the call telling controllers on the west coast to tell flights that if they didn't turn around, they'd be shot down. One was a Korean Air flight off of LA somewhere; another was somewhere either on the way to Alaska or near Alaska. It sunk in that we were in some serious shit. Thankfully, both aircraft complied.

We were stunned and tried to figure out what to do next. Our planes had all landed. Now what?

With the relief that our planes were on the ground, the head turned off and raw emotion kicked in. The enormity of the situation was terrifying and suddenly, nothing felt safe.

It took several years to not get weepy at the thought of the events that day. Reading this commission report for an assignment really brought back the events of the day and many of the emotions.

Thank God there wasn't more.

Random musings 6/14

I love, love, love the new Adiorondak chairs my dear friends Greg and Deeann made for me! I sat out front this morning in one of them, reading the newspaper and enjoying the quiet calm of the neighborhood before it woke up. Kitty even sat on one of the giant arms for a while mooching neck scratches.

Last week, I'd started mulling the thought of doing a half Ironman triathlon sometime next year. Saturday, I rode 55 miles in some nasty heat and humidity and at the end couldn't imagine running a half marathon after that. I swore, "No way!". Later that evening I was driving home from a friend's party and thought again, "Well hell, I've already got the mileage for the swim and the bike down, now all I have to do is work on the run." Hmmm...sounds like more thinking is in order.

I'm excited to start my latest class, Marketing. I was reading the first chapter this morning and all of a sudden got some new ideas about an issue at work. I forgot how much I loved school.

How many white shirts can one girl have? I bought 4 new tops today, but at least they were on sale. I go through them pretty quickly though as I'm not very graceful.

My neighbors rock! How many of your neighbors can you call good friends and tell 'em you love 'em as you walk out the door?

And then I looked at the calendar...

I had a big "oh shit" moment yesterday.

Now that the Danskin tri is behind me, I knew it was time to hit the roads and just work on cycling for RAGBRAI which is coming up in less than 6 weeks now.

Then I looked at my activity calendar!

2 weeks after I get back from RAGBRAI is my next triathlon! Oh shit! I was hoping to be able to just do minimal training with the swim/run, but now I see I need to keep it up and probably, judging from my run time at Danskin, need to step up the running a bit.

Sigh... No biggie, but it sure takes away from the pure cycling focus.

Hit the pool today and enjoyed it. 2000yds.

100 warmup
5x100 at 2 mins
250 kickboard
2x500 at 10 mins (did 'em right at 8 mins)
150 cooldown

Danskin Triathlon - Austin race report

What a perfect day! The early morning temps hovered around 70, the water temp was perfect and the winds stayed down until after we were all finished. You can't ask for a better day.

This year, I was excited, but not nearly as nervous as last year. I felt like an old pro and even Deeann seemed to be much more serene than last year at this time. We got to the race site, saw the line for the shuttles and decided that hoofing it just over a mile would be a lot less stressful than waiting amongst the squirming, squealing masses. It turned out to be a good decision. The moon and early morning sunrise kept the road light and calmed our souls.

After setting up our transitions, we wandered back to our favorite base of operations under a huge oak tree near the swim start. Just before 7am, we could hear the guys over the loudspeaker getting everyone ampped up and ready to go. The waves, spaced 3 minutes apart, started right on time and kept moving. I was in the 7th wave, one of two for the 40-44 year olds. Last year at this time, I hadn't done an open water swim before and was a nervous wreck, almost to the point of crying. This year, serious focus mode kicked in and I tried to weasel my way up towards the front of the wave. The gun went off and game on! No panic. No fear!

The swim felt fantastic, other than trying to quickly work around the slower people in my wave. The first bouy was nearly impossible to see, but kept following the wave in front of me and staying away from the kayaks. That didn't work, though as I ran into a kayak while trying to pass another swimmer. Damn! I found myself quickly into the wave in front of us, dodging women who were chatting with their friends. Seriously! Chat later and race, dammit! I rounded the first bouy and found myself with only a few light blue caps in front of me, which were other girls in my wave. Sweet! That made me want to push just a bit more. I saw one girl in my wave and tried to get in her wake but soon found myself passing her and moved on. As I neared the second bouy, I was then well into the group 2 waves ahead of me and passing many of them. It was very exciting! I could see the exit, found a chunk of unused water and powered through it. Sure enough, I checked my watch as I got out of the water and I was right on schedule with right at 17 minutes! Woo hoo! It gave me a new boost of energy to run up a small hill to the transition zone.

I was very lucky that my TA spot was right on the main aisle for all the events. It was quick, easy in and out. I'd forgotten a towel to dry my feet off, but it wasn't a big deal. I grabbed my bike sandals, threw them on and ran to the exit. As I ran, I ate 3 Clif Blox to get prepped and put the rest of the sleeve in a pocket. As a side note, the design of the Clif Blox packaging is great! They now come in a long sleeve of blocks so it makes it so much easier to open and put a few in your mouth with one hand. Love 'em.

My heart was racing after the swim and transition. It took a good 5 minutes on the bike for the heart to settle down and get into a better range. I had to keep telling myself to settle because I was so excited. Oh, I saw Doc and Hunter (Dusty's family) as they were walking into the race site. Yay! The bike ride was better than last year. I had hoped to average about 16.0 to improve over last year (15.5), but a few of the hills kicked my butt. On the flats and downhills, I was in the fastest gear I could go, so that helped the average. At the 6 mile point, I grabbed the last 3 Blox to start prepping for the run. As I rode, I didn't see many in my age group either passing me or me passing them. I thought I had a pretty good speed going. Though my bike calculator said I'd averaged 16.2, the official times showed it at 16.9. Nice! I'd taken some time off of last year as well. Yay!

I rounded the corner to head back into the transition area and was feeling really good. I downshifted to start getting weight back on my legs, then ran to my rack. The shoe transition wasn't as smooth as it could be, but as it turns out, the TA time was better than I thought. Though I was feeling good, I decided to grab another sleeve of the Blox in case I thought it might be good to get some last calories in during the early part of the run. I think it was a smart decision.

The run was what I'd expected, and maybe a bit better feeling. I hadn't focused on running hardly at all this year, so I figured I'd just muddle through it again. Last year was miserable and I walked a lot. This year, I told myself that I'd run to the big hill at the end for sure. Though it was tempting to slow down and walk, I kept to that promise. I felt much better than last year and was plugging right along. Several ladies in my age group passed me on this leg and I lost a lot of ground. That damn hill got me again this time, though not quite as bad as last year. This hill is one of those slow rollers that just seems to go on forever, though really it's probably less than 1/2 mile. It's at the end of the race, so you really have to dig deep to get up it. I admit to walking about 1/2 of it, but in spurts. I'd jog to a point, then pick a point to start running again. Finally once I hit the top of this bastard, I knew we were less than 1/4 mile to the finish. I looked at my watch and saw that my goal time of 1:36 was very do-able and kicked it in gear.

I crossed the finish line with a huge grin on my face! I could hear Greg on the sidelines and he greeted me at the end! Yay! I looked at my time and had nailed it! What a great finish! 11 minutes faster than last year and felt so much better! It was short lived though because both of us wanted to make sure we saw Deeann on the run. As it turned out, we missed her on the run, but barely caught her finishing thanks to Kait finding us and yelling at us that she was finishing. She had taken nearly 45 minutes off her time and we were thrilled!

Good:
Food and fluid management worked out really well. I ate a full sleeve of the Blox during the bike, then took another half early in the run. I drank early and often on the bike (and half the of the lake, I think) mainly on the downhills and flats, which helped keep me hydrated on the run. During the run, I only grabbed a sip of water at about the 2 mile point which was perfect.

Running without socks for 3 miles was fine. No blisters or hot spots. Any more mileage than that, I'd use socks.

Improvements:
The swim went really well, though I need to remember to spot an object on the horizon rather than looking for the bouy early on. I've read that and completely forgotten it.

I think I could push just a bit harder on the swim and the bike. Still new to the sport, I was holding back just a little worried about the run. I think I can go out a bit more next time.

I need to figure out a better way of changing into my running shoes. It felt slower than I'd hoped.


Overall, it was a good race. You can see in the post below this the times and placings. Next year, I'd like to shoot for top 10 in my age group, not just top 10%. That's a long ways away, but you never know, right?

Quick Danskin Tri update

I don't have time for a full race report today, but wanted to just grin a bit. Check this out...

About a month ago, I threw out the times I thought I'd do on this race: http://www.blogger.com/posts.g?blogID=4264519818016288018

Swim 17 T1 2:30 (different/faster to put on shoes this year)
Bike 43 T2 2:00
Run 31:30 Final 1:36:00

And here's how it turned out:
Swim 17:52
T1 2:37
Bike 42:26
T2 1:40
Run 32:12
Final 1:36:49

Finished 191 out of 1976 in the field and 27th out of 281 ladies in my age group.

Holy crap, that's pretty spot on, huh? Needless to say I'm pretty exstatic. The rest of the girls in our group did well also. Deeann smoked the race and knocked 43 (YES 43!) minutes off her time from last year and probably is still grinning!

More updates to come.