It was cloudy, rainy, cool, and generally shitty today again here in the Northwest. Seattle isn't known for it's great weather, but many of us put up with months and months on end of dreary drizzle for the incredible summers we, uh, sometimes have here. Except we didn't really get one last year, then had an especially cold and wet winter, snow in April, and mid-50s and raining since then. I counted 5 days over 70 so far this year, and 4 of those came in a chunk. Normally the good weather doesn't really break until July 5th, but this is getting really old. Deb said it best when we were in Del Mar for the marathon in January: "umm, why don't we live here?" Sigh.
One thing I wonder about is how much of it is perception. Maybe every year is generally crappy, but the big difference is that now I'm out in it barely dressed for 15-20 hours a week? Fortunately I'm surrounded by a control group of normal people who've noticed the same thing. And I guess the berry farmers are having troubles because the berries aren't growing like normal due to the cold temperatures. Ah ha! Proof!
Update: I'm not imagining it. Coldest spring since 1917.
There's a point to all of this. Ironman Coeur d'Alene is two weeks from tomorrow, and the scuttlebutt around the Ironcooler in these parts is good old Lake Coeur d'Alene and how it's faring due to the (1) above-average snow pack in the mountains, and (2) lack of sunshine to warm it up. So the water's going to be colder than normal, but there's a lot of folks around here in a full-on panic. Yes, the water is going to be cold, people. If nothing else, it's gotten everyone out into the lakes around here a bit earlier. My buddy Scott talked me into doing the end of our long swim yesterday in Lake Samammish sans wetsuit. It sounded crazy, not only to me but to the people standing on the beach watching us do it. But it wasn't so bad really. The hardest part was not having a wetsuit on after floating around in one after an hour. I felt like Sinky McBrick.
Honestly, my bigger concern for IMCDA is that the weather is going to turn around and get really warm without a chance for acclimation. Both times I've been at camp in Palm Springs, that first run off the bike in the sun is a real eye-opener. This year the schedule was for a 40 minute run off the bike. It was mid-90s. I don't know if any of us made it much longer than 30 minutes, I sure didn't. If that happened on race day, that would be bad news. It did in 2006.
So we'll see. The long range forecast shows it getting almost to 70 about a week out from the race, so I guess it could go either way. There's lots of things that are out of ones control on race day, and this is just one of those things. I'll do what I can to prepare.
I'm well into my taper now but I'm still only vaguely aware that race day is almost upon me. It's weird, I think I was in full-on-OCD mode two weeks out from my races last year. I'm sure that by next weekend I'll be spending more time thinking about logistics and stuff like that. Or maybe not.