The Starting Line

The Starting Line

                The volunteers look like dark shadows in the night as they direct the athletes to the parking lot.  They are waiting to put the body markings on all of the triathletes and that includes your race number and your age.  The elite racers get the low numbers, usually just three digits, but I am so slow that my number is in the high 2000s.  When the lady who marked me asked how old I am I told her that I am in the 50 to dead age group.  She pointed out that the guy that she just marked is 77 years old.  I hadn’t met this mutant before but I was dying to talk to the guy who could do this race at that advanced age.  But not now.  The thing to do was to find my place in line, lie down to rest, stretch as much as possible, and watch the other triathletes arrive.

                I arrived over two hours before the race is to begin.  We have to finish the race before midnight and if I am going to make the cut off then I need to be one of the first triathletes in the water.  This means that I have to sit on the cold concrete for over two hours while trying to stay loose mentally and physically.  To pass the time away I try to find someone to talk to.  For the most part, I try to avoid talking to the young and inexperienced triathletes because they don’t know anything and are asking basic questions about the race.  I prefer the company of an older and more experienced triathlete because she knows what the rigors of the day will bring to us.  For example, Susan from Jacksonville and she had done 88 Ironman races so far and she was confident about completing the race in Louisville in under ten hours.  Her friend, Luis from Mexico, had done over 130 races.  He had competed in every race around the world and was so wealthy that he flew his Lear jet from Minorca to Cabo San Lucas to do two races in one weekend. 

               The guy who made the greatest impression on me was a triathlete who had once been a competitor at Kona in Hawaii and had been racing for twenty years.  He sported a tattoo of a hawk on his right forearm and an eagle on his left upper arm.  When I asked him why he tattooed birds onto his arms he said that his grandmother was a shaman who taught him that the energy of the wildlife was everywhere.  I thought that this was a ridiculous reason to tattoo birds into your skin and suspected that there must be another motive.  I suggested that I thought that he could harness the energy of the wildlife through his tattoos to help him race fast.  The tattooed former standout triathlete looked at me in disgust.  How could I lower his spirituality to the point of completing a race?  I returned his disappointed look with one of confusion as to how a tattoo of birds could be of any help to anyone and the two of us sat in awkward silence until we were called to race.

               On the morning of the race I took great pains not to do anything different than I would have done on a long training day.  I eat the same huge bowl of oatmeal, wear the same sweat suit that I always wear, and try to fool myself into believing that nothing unusual was happening on Ironman Day.  If that sounds silly then let me tell you about Brent, the guy that I waited in line with to start the swim.  Brent is from Chicago and wants to do an Ironman on every continent and has already booked his ticket to participate in one in Antarctica.  And yet for all of his sophistication all that he could say before we entered the water was "I haven't pooped yet.  I should go and poop.  Hopefully I can poop on the course."  He said this several times and he wasn't trying to be funny.  For some reasons he was out of his regular cycle and he was really worried about it.  This story is important because it shows how the little things can go wrong, even for an experienced triathlete, and so I cling to my rituals even to the point of parking in the exact some spot every year.

                The race officials tell us that it is time to stand up now and make our way down the ramp to the water.  This takes a long time to do and they make us stand for a half hour before we enter the water.  Like the army, which abides by the principle of hurry up and wait, they drive us down to the starting area only to have us mill around impatiently.  While standing and waiting I take the measure of the people around me.  Gazing over the heads of the triathletes because I am taller than most of them, I can see the look of fear in some of their eyes.  Or rather maybe it is not fear after all, maybe it is the pure anxiety created by the anticipation of the beginning of the ordeal that we have all signed up for and paid a lot of money to do.  It all comes down to this moment and if you have the confidence to show up at the starting line then that is half of the battle.  This confidence shows that you are prepared for race day and I feel like I am ready.

              Sometime before 7:00 the announcer gives the official call to the post.  It is time to put on my wetsuit and begin the long walk to the starting line.  Meanwhile, the DJ is playing songs to get the crowd pumped up for the race, but I am trying to calm myself down before getting into the water.  I close my eyes, try to envision the race, and practice biofeedback to slow down my heart rate.  The whole time I am in line I am stretching my muscles to help prepare my arms and legs for the abuse that I am about ready to heap upon them and I think about the preparations that I have endured to complete the race.  Mentally, I know that it will be tough, but I am ready to embrace the suck.  After all, I rode my bike all through the winter when the temperature dipped to twenty-five degrees, I ran in the cold and the heat and the rain for long distances.  Still, you never know how your body is going to perform on race day and so I have to keep telling myself that I am ready. 

              Thoughts of doubts, pain, hunger, thirst, failure, and loss continue to eat away at my confidence.  There will be suffering.  My legs will cramp, my stomach will become nauseated, and my joints will hurt..  But I will not stop.  Physically the thing for me to do is to keep moving and drink as much as possible on the bike so that I don't become dehydrated during the course of the day.  Mentally, I need to break up the course into small pieces and visualize the end of the race when they proclaim me an Ironman and put a medal around my neck.  One way or another it will be over before midnight and whether I finish it or not I know that I have prepared for the race to the best of my abilities and I am ready to give it my best shot.  Either I finish it or I don't but it is time to pull the trigger, to stop thinking about it and do it.  I am ready.

               A canon is fired off to begin the race and the crowd starts cheering.  I am still some distance from the starting line and I can see the first of the triathletes begin the swim.  I have been in my own little world and I didn’t even notice the guy standing next to me.  Suddenly, and with no prompting by me, he reached out to shake my hand.  We were both clearly nervous and, in that moment of anxiety and fear, we both reached out to the guy who happened to be standing next to us, looking for some affirmation.  We exchanged a quick “Good Luck Today” and then say a silent prayer before getting into the water.  I imagine that this is what it is like to go into battle; you want some reassurance and the approval of the guy standing next to you before you face the baptism by fire.  The only difference is that the enemy is within ourselves.   

Sent from Mail for Wi