There were no foreboding dark clouds on the horizon for the weeks leading up to Ironman Day to warn me about how grueling this experience was going to be. I had prepared for race day by swimming the full 2 1/2 mile swim several times, running 18 miles twice along with many other long distance runs, and I had done several centuries on the bike. The last time that I rode over a 100 miles I had to stop at mile 108 because I had heat exhaustion but I thought that was a good sign because I had suffered for my sport and had earned the right to put my feet on the starting line. In short, I had done everything right; I was mentally prepared, my training and diet went well, my weight was down to 178 (the lightest that I had been since high school), and I had a good taper.
My last workout was the Wednesday before Ironman Sunday, so I had a couple of days to distract myself before the big event. This is more difficult than you might think because I am used to always being on the go, either working or training, and it is hard for me to relax. The banquet was on Friday, the bike check in on Saturday, and the excess time was filled with reading or the movies. The night before Ironman Day I like to sequester myself in the bedroom at around 4:00 and then go to bed early. This way I can obsess about the big day without inflicting myself on the other members of my family. What I was the most worried about was the swim because as soon as I got into the water last year I had a panic attack when the cold water washed over me. Also, I worried about the rain and how all of my gear was getting wet but then it occurred to me that everything that I have is disposable, even the bike, and the only reason why I had it in the first place was for race day.
Arriving at the swim line before 6:00 am because I like to drink in the energy of the other triathletes before the race begins, I stripped down to my wetsuit at 7:15 to get ready for the walk down to the starting line. We knew that there were issues with the swim when the line didn't move down to the docks. The announcer got on the intercom to tell us that the race would be delayed while they made a decision about the swim. He came on a second time, quite awhile later, to tell us that the current was too strong to swim upstream so the swim was cut to .9 miles and we would only be swimming with the current downstream. There was a collective groan throughout the line as the triathletes realized that they may not be able to call themselves Ironmen if they didn't go the whole distance. My thought was that this was a bad break but there was nothing that I could do about it so I sat down and watched my bare feet turn purple while I sat on the cold cement.
As had happened last year, as soon as I jumped into the water, I had heart palpitations. They weren't as bad as they were last year but they were continuous and lasted for the whole swim. The race officials had us jump in out of one line, instead of the usual two, and we were to straight out to the buoys in the Ohio River but the current was so strong that we were swept away before we could swim out that far. I could have laid on my back and not moved my limbs and still have a PR time because the river was moving so fast. Making my way to the exit, I took care that the current didn't sweep me past the stairs, as we had been warned that many triathletes overshot the exit during the practice swim. After the strippers took off my wetsuit I ran to the T1 transition tent to open my bike bags. My kit managed to stay reasonable dry even after it had spent all night in the rain and I changed clothes, mounted my bike, and began the most grueling ride of my life.
There was not one moment when the bike was enjoyable. In fact, if I hadn't been cheered on by my wife and children, then the whole day would have been pure misery. The temperature was in the low 40s and I simply could not get warm. The wind and the rain hit us intermittently all day as we froze. My sunglasses were streaming with rain water and they fogged up so that I couldn't see; they were useless to block out the sun because I never saw the sun for the whole 8 1/2 hours when I was on the bike. Also, I was having chest pains on the bike, a certain tightness on the insides of my ribs, and I was worried about having a heart attack. My only thought during the course of the day was that I was miserable and that I was never going to do this again. The plan was to get back to the T2 tent, drop off my bike kit, and then go to the medical tent to lie down and get warm. Only then would I decide if I was going to give the run a throw.
Once I actually got to the tent I was inspired by the other triathletes who changing into their running clothes that I decided not to stop. I had been so traumatized by the bike that I had difficulty concentrating on the task of changing clothes. The mere act of putting on a new shirt had to be broken down into small tasks. This done, I exited the test without taking a break, for I knew what was coming and I needed all of the time that I could get to finish the run. It was a death march from the beginning to the end. I paced myself well, stopped when I felt dizzy, and ate cookies and drank chicken broth to sustain myself. After the first loop I had a hard time picking up my feet and tripped on a small break in the pavement on Winkler Avenue. I landed hard, taking a body blow to my rib cage, and my knees and elbows were bleeding from the force of the fall. Writhing in pain, trying to do a body check to see how bad I really was, two Louisville police officers ran up to me and picked me up from the ground. This was just one in many instances were the officers on duty, and the volunteers throughout the day, made a miserable experience a little tolerable. My body was so sore after the fall that I couldn't bend over to tie my own shoes. Still, I soldiered on, a little full of myself as I passed through second Iroquois, because I was sure that I had enough gas in the tank to complete the whole race.
Suddenly, my race was over. The ACL in both of my knees had been bothering me since Sligo on the bike. Now, on the run, at Churchill Downs, both knees locked up. I literally could not walk any more, much less run, and had to stop my race at Cardinal Boulevard. I only had three miles to go and would have crawled them if I had more time. Spotting a police officer at the intersection, i asked her to call for the pick up van, and I turned in my chip. It is so tough to have done all of that training, and to have endured all of the hardships of the day, only to be felled by a strained ACL, an injury that I hadn't prepared for because I had no idea that it was going to be an issue.
Wort, an unusual name for the big man who drove the pick up van, gave me a ride to the medical tent. I cried out in pain when I had to bend my knee to get out of the van because any strain on the ACL put me in a world of hurt. Once I cried out the first time, I continued to cry because of the frustration and disappointment that I was feeling. My arm was draped around Wort' shoulder and he passed me onto two nurses, clearing uncomfortable carrying this emotional triathlete, who helped me lie down on the cot because I could not bend my body. Everything hurt. Once down I couldn't get back up, even to drink some Sprite or eat a cookie, and I passed in and out of consciousness, wondering why in the hell do I do this to myself.
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