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.   

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The Gloves and the Little Girl

 

                                    The Gloves and the Little Girl

 

There were no dark clouds foreshadowing doom before I began the bike portion of the Ironman race.  I had been tapering for two weeks prior to race day, had biked 112 miles three times before the event, and was better prepared for the big day than I had ever been before.  And yet by mile 70 the 100 degree heat was getting to me and I had to get off of my bike and lay down because my legs were shaking and my stomach had cramped up.  It was either get off the bike on my own volition or risk passing out and falling off the bike.  I laid in the grass for 20 minutes and, only when my head wasn't spinning any more, did I pick up my bike and try to ride again.  I was so exhausted that for the rest of the race whenever I hit a steep hill I had to walk up it.  This, by the way, is anathema to any triathlete.  You should not dismount from your bike until your 112 miles are up.  By the time that I had reached the aid station at mile 80 I had to lay down again and, as I did, I could see my dreams of finishing the race beginning to fade.  I wallowed in self-pity for a while and then rolled over on my stomach, forcing my way up onto my hands and knees, finally getting back onto my feet in the most ungraceful and humiliating of ways.  The volunteers at the aid station had set up food and drink for the triathletes and so I asked for a cup of ice water, poured it over my head to give myself some temporary relief from the heat, and then remounted my bike to slog on.  Even after this episode of self-inflicted torture was over I still felt like I could finish the race.

And then, at about mile 90, I felt my tongue swelling up.  The back of my throat was so dry that it felt like it was collapsing or constricting so that I was having some difficulty breathing.  The 100 degree heat was relentless and I had to stop the bike again.  There is a gazebo at the front of this small neighborhood called Old Taylor Place and, because I had done my training on the Ironman course, I knew that this was a safe place for me to go and lie down for a while.  After passing out for about a half hour I woke up and willed myself to walk back to the road.  A family was there watching the bicyclists ride by and their little girl had drifted behind the distracted adults. The little girl noticed me as I walked by and she waved at me.  Now I am a big guy and scary looking even when I am not covered with sweat and my face bright red from the exertions of the day.  The sunglasses and helmet make me look even more intimidating and so I was impressed with the bravado of the little girl who was unafraid of the scary looking Ironman. I self-consciously waved back at her.  Then she asked, with the innocence of a five-year-old, ‘did you have a nice nap?’  It was the cutest thing that I have ever seen and the question lightened my spirits.  The little girl then gave me a Popsicle from her own stash of treats.  I took it, grateful for the combination of ice and sugar, and eagerly ate it, full in the knowledge that the race organizers would penalize me for receiving outside help while on the course if they found out.  I didn’t really care if I was penalized because I knew that there was no way that I was going to be able to run a marathon after this horrible bike ride and so I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to finish the race.  After thanking the little girl and her mother for the Popsicle I got back on my bike and made my way back to Louisville.

Once I got back to the transition area I went to the medical tent to get an IV.  Even after laying on the cot for an hour I still wasn't feeling well and so the nurse put a second bag of saline water into me.  Finally I started to feel better and, after another half hour went by, I was fully hydrated and the nurse took the needle out of my arm.  I left the medical tent to begin the long walk back to pick up my bike and my other stuff and made my way back to my car.  There was no way that I was going to let my triathlon career end on such a sour note and so I decided, even before I got home, that I was going to give the Ironman another throw in the following year.  And I was dedicating my race to the brave little girl who wasn’t afraid to help the scary looking man who was in distress.

While training over the winter I had time to reflect on the horrors of the heat on Ironman Day but I also remembered the angel who had helped me. I decided that if I saw the little girl and her mother again then I was going to stop biking for a few minutes and give her a present.  There isn’t a lot of room on a racing bike for gifts, and I wasn’t sure that I would even see the little girl on the course again, and so the only thing that I could think of to give her if I saw her was my riding gloves.  I had ordered these expensive gloves especially for race day.  They had the word ‘Ironman” stitched onto the side and that alone made them unusual.  Sure enough, mother and daughter were out on the course, again in front of their house on Old Taylor Place.  They didn’t recognize me at first and so I introduced myself while taking off my official looking Ironman gloves.  As I handed my gloves to the little girl I thanked her again for the Popsicle and the mother said that they had Popsicle’s again this year.  I responded with “Thanks, but I don’t need help this year because I am feeling pretty good.”  With that I remounted my bike and continued on to Louisville so that I could begin the marathon.

I did finish the race but I had been disappointed that the little girl didn’t seem to appreciate my gift of the special gloves.  The gloves were worn and sweaty and maybe it wasn’t as cool as I thought it was to receive them as a gift.  In my view, the men and women who compete in the race are warriors and I thought that any piece of equipment that we used on Ironman Day would be treasured. Apparently the little girl didn’t react because she was naturally reserved but her mother found me on Facebook the following week and told she told me that her daughter was so proud to own the gloves of an Ironman that she brought them to school the very next day for show and tell.  It made me feel good that I could return her act of kindness and that the gift of the gloves was truly appreciated.

Bike Accident

                The best time for me to ride my bike is before dawn.  Although it is still dark I have put three blinking lights on my bicycle and so if a motorist doesn’t see me it is because he is willfully trying not to see me.  There are few cars on the road before dawn and I like my chances much better that riding in the afternoon when there are a string of cars tailing me.  Although the first car sees me there is no guarantee that the second, third, or fourth car will see me.  Between the lights on my bike, and the reflector jacket that I wear, I feel comparatively safe biking in the morning as opposed to the afternoon.

Unfortunately there is more to worry about on the road than cars.  One morning I was thrown from my bike while doing my usual route.  I hit a small animal on the road and, while the bike stopped suddenly, my body kept going and I hurdled over the handle bars.  I don’t even know what I hit because it happened so quickly and it was still dark outside.  All I know is that there was a dark shadow under my wheel, and that was all.  I knew that I was hurt badly and I writhed in pain while lying on the street.  Slowly I worked up the strength to pull my bike off of the road.  Hoping that the accident was just a temporary inconvenience, for I had been thrown from my bike before and had cracked a couple of ribs, this time I knew that it was more serious.  The pain would not go away because I had pulled my ACL muscle away from my shoulder.  I needed surgery to sew my arm back into place.

As a result of being thrown from my bike I had a third degree dislocation of my shoulder and my ribs have been bruised.  It hurt when I breathed deeply and sneezing threw me into intense seizures of pain.  I had scabs on my elbow, knee, and lower leg from where I hit the pavement and skidded to a stop.  My clavicle bone has been separated from my shoulder because the ligaments that hold the two together had been severed.  For two weeks I couldn’t tie my own shoes or put on my own shirt because it put me in too much pain to stretch my arm and shoulders to complete these simple tasks.  My wife, to whom I owe all of my success for the relentless support that she has given me, helped me get dressed every morning so that I could go to work.

After laying in the grass for a while I finally picked up my bike and started to walk home.  The first two times that I tried to walk I became light headed and had to lie back down in the grass again.  Only on the third try did I successfully work up the strength to make the long walk home.  My daughter drove me to the hospital but I couldn’t bend down to get into the car and so I had to lie down in the back.  Once at the emergency room the nurses had to cut off my shirt to take x-rays and then they pumped me full of painkillers and muscle relaxers.  The next four days were filled with nothing but sleeping and watching television and that was difficult for me since I am hyperactive and always like to be moving.

Here is the crazy part.  I decided to do the Ironman again that year in spite of being hurt.  This is not a sport for well people and I proved that by getting back on my bike within a week of the accident.  At first I rode with one arm and, over the course of the next three months when the race would be held, I found I could push down on the handlebars of my bike without pain.  If I tried to pick anything up that was heavier than two textbooks then I simply cannot do it.  But I could still bike and run.

On race day I did the dog paddle with my right arm and powered through with my left arm and my legs.  It took me two hours to finish the swim but I did it.  The sick thing was that while I was in line to get in the water I tried to hide my shoulder from the race officials.  If they saw that my clavicle was sticking up away from my shoulder, in a position that is not natural, then they would not allow me to participate.  I got on the bike all right but couldn’t finish the whole 112 miles.  The two hour swim had taken too much out of me.  When I stopped biking after 70 miles and gave up my chip at the medical tent I told the doctor that my clavicle was separated from my shoulder.  He said that he was surprised that I had made it this far..  I thought so too and was pleased with my effort even though I didn’t finish the race that year.  The story of my accident and my one-armed swim in the Ohio River would be one that I would tell over and over through the years because I was so proud of taking the pain.  

The doctor who performed my corrective surgery two weeks after the Ironman said that rehab was going to be painful but that I shouldn’t be too worried about it as I had waited three months to have the operation.  The pain that I would feel wouldn’t be any worse that what I had just been through.  He said it with a tinge of admiration but the doctor also gave me a couple of side glances, trying to figure just who did I think I was, delaying major surgery so that I could participate in the world’s most difficult sport.  The he reattached my clavicle to my shoulder using cadaver ligaments to keep the whole thing in place.  I went through physical therapy with the help of a nurse at first but then thought that I knew better how to get my body into shape.  I stopped going to the clinic and instead went back to the gym.  The next Ironman Louisville was less than a year away and I wanted to start training for it.

               

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