My friend (and site designer) Fuzzy Gerdes completed the Madison Iron Man last weekend and I had lots of questions for him about it. We chatted about peeing in lakes, eating waffles on a bike and whether you're weak if you actually manage to run across the finish line as opposed to crawling across it. (And hey, since this is a running post, let me please remind you that I am running two races that could use your donations, please!)

me:  So let's start with: why an Iron Man and not, say, a "regular" marathon or long bike race or ultrarathon or some such? When did you decide to do it?

Fuzzy:  I was always just lightly active--ride my bike to work sometimes, etc--until 2007 when I could see my 40th birthday looming and I thought I'd try to do a marathon. So that year I found an online training schedule (Hal Higdon's) and trained up to run the Chicago Marathon. It was a little bit aggressive starting from 0 miles of running and I hurt my IT bands, and then missed a bunch of the long runs, and so when the marathon rolled around I wasn't really ready. That was also the year that October was unexpectedly hot and the marathon ran out of water, so they called it off. I was about 16 miles in at that point and probably wasn't going to finish anyway.

So that experience sort of soured me on long distance running and I said I'd never do a marathon. I also then took 2008 pretty much off of activity because of some family stuff. But then in 2009 my friend Shaun Himmerick convinced me that we should do the Chicago Triathlon. I've always loved biking and I know from my marathon training that I could handle 6 miles no problem.

And that supposition proved correct--I love triathlons. The variety within the sport really works with my brain--just when I'm sick of swimming, we're out of the water. Just when I'm sick of biking, it's time to run.

My first year, I finished the triathlon, but was in a lot of pain. The next year, my goal was a pain-free triathlon and I trained enough to make that happen. The next year, I hardly trained at all and finished in about the same amount of time as the year before, so I decided it was time to step up the challenge a little. The Chicago Triathlon runs three distances over the course of a weekend--the full International/Olympic distance, a Sprint (1/2 those distances), and a SuperSprint (1/2 again). You can do what they call the Triple Challenge and do all three.

So I did that last year. It feels pretty hardcore -- only about 100 people did it last year, out of the 10s of thousands who do the Chicago Triathlon. So when I was done with that, I was kind of like "what's next?"

So I signed up for Ironman Wisconsin and then, in contradiction of my earlier convictions, immediately signed up for the New Orleans Marathon, in February, to knock out a marathon before I started my real Ironman training -- to erase that earlier failure from my mind before I started this huge journey.

And... a confession. Shaun is my best friend and training partner and he did an Ironman back in 2010 and then got a big tattoo of the Ironman "m-dot" logo on his right forearm. I knew I'd be looking at that thing for the rest of my life. He's not the kind of guy to lord it over me or anything, but I knew that I'd always wonder what it would be like to complete that distance. So the smart thing to do would have been to do a 70.3 ("half-Ironman") but I always figured I'm not getting any younger and so why not go for it.

me:  Did Shaun ever know about that aspect of it? The friendly competition?

Fuzzy:  I think I complained about his tattoo before I even really thought about doing an Ironman for real. We're classic "guys" in a lot of ways -- very supportive of each other and also critical.

me:  When did you begin training seriously and what plan did you follow?

Fuzzy:  I used a training plan from beginnertriathlete.com to train for the Ironman -- it's a 20 week program, so that was April or so, that I started it. That program sort of assumes that you're ready to do an Olympic-length triathlon on day 1. My lead-in to it was training for the New Orleans marathon, for which I again used a Hal Higdon program. I think that was a 16-week program. So I was training under some formal structure since October last year.

me:  What was the bare minimum hours you spent per week training and how much of that time did you typically spend training with Shaun?

Fuzzy:  The Ironman program I used starts at 8 hours a week and works up to a maximum of 20 hours. It does become habit, though, I was proud of myself that by the end of the program I was finally just getting up at 5:30  and going for a solo bike ride. It's a habit I'm trying not to lose, post-race.

I'd say that Shaun and I did about half of our workouts together. It's so valuable to have someone else at least going through parallel workouts. There were plenty of mornings where I probably wouldn't have gotten up if I didn't know that Shaun was going to be waiting for me to go for a swim (and Shaun has said the same). And then even workouts that we did separately we'd always check in the next session which "how was that 20-mile bike for you, did you try a new route?" and such.

me:  I think it's pretty amazing that your friendship and foundation is that solid that you guys could spend that much time together without getting sick of each other.

Fuzzy:  I did notice that Shaun and I have about and hour and a half of stuff to talk about in any one day. If we run for an hour, we're talking to the end. If we run for two, the last half hour is spent in silence. But we're pretty good at just hanging out in silence, so that's OK, too.

me:  That's funny how that's half the battle of having a good training partner. I don't like running with Steve because we just don't really have things to talk about at that time (also he hates it.) OK let's talk about the race itself for a bit. Two really practical and silly things I want to know is when during the race did you get to eat meals and go to the bathroom?

Fuzzy:  OK, so the bike is the chance, in any triathlon, to really fuel and hydrate up for the run. During training Shaun kept reminding me that you don't need to just finish the bike and not collapse, you need to finish the bike and be as hydrated as you should be at the start of a marathon.

My goal was to eat about 100 calories every 45 minutes and to finish a bottle of water every hour.

me:  eat 100 calories of what? mostly racey stuff like GU?

Fuzzy:  I under-hydrated a little, because it was a temperate day, so I kept forgetting to drink. I ate plenty though -- I carried "stroopie waffles" on the bike as well as normal sports gels. And half-way though I treated myself to a Snickers Dark ([my wife] Erica says they should sponsor me). And to tie into your other question, I did stop a couple of times at aid stations and pee and would then also pick up a banana chunk or something.

The Ironman is really well supported with aid stations and volunteers who are really happy to help you get whatever you need -- it feels like a racing car pit stop. So, yes, I went to the bathroom all the time During the marathon part I was trying to get re-hydrated and there are, like, 14 aid stations on an out-and-back loop, so 28 stations for 26 miles -- so I was drinking a ton (including chicken broth, which sounds weird, but was a great break from all the sweet energy drinks) and so stopped several more times to pee.

me:  Erica told me that you couldn't use any sort of headphones or anything throughout the race--was that difficult at all? What did you THINK about?

Fuzzy:  I'm a super in-my-head kind of guy, a classic overthinker and I was a little worried about that. Swimming workouts are, for me, hard sometimes because I have so much time to think.

But race day it really wasn't a problem because I was so focused at every step of making sure my form and efficiency and so on was just-so to keep me moving along to the next mile. The swim was a little unexpectedly hard, because of choppy water and a head-wind on the longest leg. And the bike was expectedly-hard, because of the Wisconsin hills. So through both those legs I was very focussed on technique and hydrating and eating and so on, that there was not really much time to think about anything else.

There was also, on both the bike and marathon legs, SO many people out to support the athletes that that was a welcome distraction in the few moments I might have had to think. Ironman Wisconsin is very fan-supported, I think they said 40,000 people come out to spectate.

me:  did you pee in the lake?

Fuzzy:  No, I did not pee in the lake. I'm not morally opposed to it or anything, but the timing never worked out. I did hit a port-a-potty before I got on the bike, though.

me:  So what I really want to know is-- whenever I think of the Iron Man I think of those disturbing finish line videos where people seem almost sub-human as they crawl across the finish, beyond spent. Did you see any of those people?

Fuzzy:  I did. There's a guy called "Fireman Rob" who runs these things in a full Fireman's outfit. I saw him on the marathon and he looked pretty spent at mile 18 or so. A lot of people are walking by that point, but he looked beat. At the same time as I saw him, there was a woman who was bent over in this weird contorted way, because she just couldn't stand up straight. A friend was watching her from a bike, but she was walking at an amazing clip--she even passed Fireman Rob. And there were plenty of people who reach the finish line and just fall over.

me:  What goes through your mind when you see people like that? Fear that that could be you? Gratitude that you paced/fuelled enough to avoid that?

Fuzzy:  I ran a very measured and careful marathon, which was very smart (I tell myself) because my goal was just to finish and pushing it early in the marathon could have endangered that. But it was actually messing with my head a little that I finished the marathon and I wasn't exhausted -- there's that expectation that you should push it so hard that you have nothing left.

I think when I saw those people who were really messed up, I just first had enormous sympathy. I've been there--like in my first marathon and my first triathlon--and it's not fun.

me:  That's rather nuts--like you only did it right if you basically injured yourself.

Fuzzy:  That is, and I've been trying to remind myself that finishing well is good and smart. Like, the pros don't collapse.

me:  Right and also you have a life to live--the glory of killing yourself at the finish line might not seem so great when you're spending $$$$ in the hospital or wasting a week on the couch. What did you eat afterwards?

Fuzzy:  We stayed at a very nice bed and breakfast (the Hotel Ruby Marie - 5 stars!) and they had a free buffet breakfast the next morning that we did a pretty good job on. Some very nice pastries.

me: Did you actually sleep afterwards or were you too keyed up?

Fuzzy:  So, I had read this advice that seemed to make sense, to take a week or two off of caffeine before the race so that you could use gels-with-caffeine and have them really work when you needed them during the race. I had a "double espresso" gel at about 9:30 pm and I think it was really hitting about the time I finished. So I was a little keyed up, both from the finish and the caffeine. Our hotel room had a Jacuzzi tub, so I took a soak when we got back and was yammering at Erica about the race until she said that she was exhausted and needed to sleep. My quads were pretty sore and that kept me tossing and turning until I finally gave in and took an Ibuprofen (I try to avoid it) and then sleep for a few hours. But them I was up to start blogging about the race at about 7.

me:  Now that the race is over, what are you doing for exercise? Does it feel scary or liberating to be free of the training? And is there a bit of a post-race letdown?

Fuzzy:  I did some scheduled post-race recovery workouts last week - an easy swim on Wednesday, a bike on Thursday, and then the Bucktown 5K on Sunday. And I have a few more races scheduled for the fall, just to guarantee I don't slip out of exercise completely. But it really is so easy to slip out of it when I don't have a schedule up on the fridge -- I meant to go for a run this morning, but totally forgot about it when I got up this morning and just made a big breakfast instead. I'm in, frankly, the best shape of my life at this point and I really want to figure out how to maintain it, but without having it be 20 hours of workouts a week.

me:  I find that strangely reassuring though, at least as a girl with some de rigueur body issues, that you can BE in fabulous shape--it's just basically a part-time job.

Fuzzy:  Right after the race, I was little numb. Everyone kept saying how impressed they were, and I felt kind of like a fraud. I mean, again, I didn't collapse, so how hard could it have been. I think over the last week and a half I've been waking up a little and remembering how much work went into this. And last night I wore my medal over to a friend's house to brag, so I guess I'm feeling a little proud.

me: when/where (as in what shop) are you getting the tattoo?

Fuzzy:  Good question. The person I really want to get it from is booked up through 2013, so I have to decide if I have patience.

me: would you do anything differently?

Fuzzy:  There are a couple of things I would do differently, were I to train for any Ironman again, and especially for Ironman Wisconsin. My biggest mistake, I think, was that I half-assed some of the early bike workouts. When I started triathlons, biking was my strongest of the three sports, and so I could always count on that. I was working from home this year, and so wasn't out on my bike as much just day-to-day and so for some of the one hour workouts, I didn't treat it as a "workout" but would just go run errands on my bike for an hour and check off the workout. That was dumb.

The other biggie, for Ironman Wisconsin, is that the Madison area is so hilly and Chicago is so not, but I only went up there and rode the course twice. Really late in my training I started Googling and realized that there are all sorts of organized groups that will take you a guided workout on the Ironman course. Madison is not that far and it would have been smart to get up there for some of those. My first trip up there, I went solo and I kept getting lost trying to follow the route, so I didn't even get a complete circuit of the 40-mile loop done.

But otherwise, this year went as well as could be. I have the most supportive spouse. I lost my day job and gained some great freelance clients at just the right time to be able to support myself flexibly around the workout schedules.

me:  Do you think you'd do it again or is once enough?

Fuzzy:  It's going to take me a couple of years to forget how hard those hills were on the bike course to want to do Madison again. But there's a new Ironman down in Muncie, Indiana that has a really flat bike course. And I want to try a 70.3, since that's a distance I skipped on my way to the Ironman. And I noticed at this year's Chicago Triathlon (Erica did it this year and I just cheered) that I was really jealous of the people doing the Triple Challenge). So, I guess I'm hooked and I just need to do some realistic planning of how many races I can fit into a year.

me:  Two final questions:

1.) did any particular songs power you through your training?

and

2.) What were some of the most beautiful or interesting things you saw during all those hours of training?

Fuzzy:  1) I actually usually listen to podcasts or audiobooks on my long workouts. Born to Run was a great listen. But my secret power-album for a really hard workout is Wugazi, the mash-up album of Wu-Tang Clan and Fugazi.

2) There was one bike workout where I really wanted to check-off the milestone of biking down to Indiana. I had actually biked farther on an earlier workout, but had managed to stay inside the Illinois state line the whole time. So I figured out where the closest spot of the border was and biked down to there. It's kind of this shitty little on-rp to the highway next to a McDonald's, but I did get up onto the median and touched the "Welcome to Indiana" sign. But the best sight, I think, of the whole summer was one bike workout that I kind of goofed up scheduling and so I ended up biking into the night. Coming up the lake path on the South side, all of downtown as lit up with gorgeous purple clouds behind it. Postcard stuff.

Oh, and the little white fluffy dog who stood up in a shopping while her little-old-lady owner jogged in a big floppy hat. Also magical.

If you want to read Fuzzy's whole story of the nearly 16-hour adventure, check out his recap here.