The Long Walk Home

I finally finished the Ironman.  The race itself is over but that isn’t the end of the day.  After making my way through the gate I have to go and pick up my bag that I had dropped off with my morning clothes. A volunteer allowed me to drape my arm around her for support and then she gave me my finisher’s shirt and medal.  She pointed out where to pick up my morning bag from the convention center and told me that there was free pizza and soft drinks for the finishers.  Of course, I ate my fill of free pizza as a reward for all that I had been through that day, and then I began the long walk to the area where our bikes are parked.  It is about a mile walk to the bikes and this is after competing in the race for fifteen and a half hours.  I don’t want to make the walk but I don’t want my bike to stay out in the open overnight and I certainly didn’t want to come back to the transition area early the next morning to pick it up.  After I get my bike and two more bags, one with my bike kit in it and the other with my wetsuit, I have to walk another mile back to my car.  It is an anti-climactic and painful way to end the day but it has to be done. 

On the walk back to the car I check myself to see if there is anything that will cause me long-term pain.  Fortunately, I get away from race day relatively unscathed.  Along with the usual muscle cramps and sore back, I find that I am missing two toe nails.  This is one of the open secrets about being an Ironman; toe nails have a tendency to fall off and, when they grow back, they are often times misshapen.    

 After arriving at my house at about 2:30 in the morning, I decide that I will sleep in and have already taken a personal day so I won’t be going into work.  The responsible thing to do is to clean my equipment to make it ready for more training, so I oil down my bike and wash out the urine from my wetsuit.  Now that I have finished the race, I decide that I am going to reward myself with a tattoo.  I have it all planned out.  It is the Ironman logo within a laurel wreath, which symbolizes victory.  At the bottom of the logo I have the included the Roman numerals for 140.6 or the sum total of miles that are on the Ironman course.  This tattoo is my way of bragging that I finished the race but it is also a chip on my shoulder in that I will have to keep earning the tattoo or it will become a joke.  If I get fat, those people who see it will tell me that it is ironic that I have an Ironman tattoo, so I have to stay fit.  This tattoo is more than body art, it is a way to motivate myself to train and represents my commitment to triathlon.  It is a reminder to myself and anyone else who sees it that I am an Ironman.

Half Marathon to Prep for the Ironman

The Half Marathon as a Prep Race

            To prepare for the Ironman I like to run in the half marathon that is held in April in our city every year.  I like to run as fast as possible during the half marathon just to test myself because I know that during the Ironman I will not be going fast at all after the swim and the bike.  And yet my time this year was about four minutes slower than last year.  It wasn’t my time that bothered me so much, it was just that I had a lousy run.  My muscles ached and my hips hurt and I just wasn’t into it.  That was a blow to my ego because I thought that I was past the painful part of running a 13.1 mile race but apparently I have to keep learning the same lesson.  Races are painful.  Training is painful.  The Ironman is just a few months away and, if my effort of the half marathon is any gauge, I don’t know if I can be ready.  My racing days are about over and, although I didn’t expect for the mini marathon to be easy, I certainly didn’t think that it was going to be this hard.  The thought occurred to me once again that maybe I should find another sport because this one just hurts too much.

After I finished the half marathon and collected my medal I drove home and parked the car in the garage and just sat there.  I was so physically drained that I knew if I tried to stand then I would pass out on the concrete floor next to the car.  And yet I could feel the diarrhea working its way through my intestines.  After every fast run I have GI problems because I have jarred my system but this time I couldn’t make it to the toilet on time.  My choice was to get out of the car and pass out on the floor or stay in the car and shit myself and so I shit myself as I laid my head back and drifted in and out of consciousness.  I broke out into a cold sweat and started to shiver even though it felt like it was ninety degrees on the inside of my car.  I was a prisoner of my own devices and, try as I may, I could not force myself out of my seat.  As I was sitting in the car I became nauseated by the heat and the smell of the excrement collecting in my pants.  I grabbed the swag bag full of ads and promotions that the race organizers have provided for us and prepared to throw up into it.  Usually after a big race I get the dry heaves but this time I didn’t even have the energy to do that.

            After an hour and a half in the car I thought that I could safely walk to my apartment without passing out.  As soon as I stood up all of that diarrhea that had been kept up inside of my body due to the pressure of my sitting on the car seat, came flooding out.  As I got into the elevator I saw that an old man was already in there.  He asked me how the race went, knowing that I had just returned from the half-marathon because I still had my bib number on and was wearing my racing kit.  I said that it was a rough race and yet I still managed to finish it in an hour and forty-nine minutes, all the while praying that the excrement didn’t leak out of my shorts and dribble down my leg.

            Mercifully I made it back to the apartment without any other encounters.  I stepped into the shower with all of my clothes on but, before I turned on the water, I took off my shorts and the shit just went everywhere.  I struggled to get the rest of my clothes of and then rinsed the excrement off of my legs, out of my shorts, and then off of the floor of the shower room.  I toweled myself off and hobbled my way to my bed and slid in between the sheets without any clothes on because I didn’t have the energy to put on even a pair of underwear.  I was still shaking from the effort of the race and I wanted to do was to sleep.  My whole body hurt; hips, ankles, back and knees.  My G.I. track was still acting up and it was not done revolting against me for the pressure that I had put upon it during the race. Three hours later I got up, ate some dinner, and then went back to bed.

            The thing is that it was a pretty good race for me.  I prepared well, even though I didn’t put enough running miles on the road, and watched my nutrition.  While I was waiting at the starting line I massaged my leg muscles to loosen up.  On the course my abdominal muscles cramped up twice and I had to walk awhile.  On two other occasions my G.I. track started to act up but I thought that I could walk it off before the conclusion of the race because my GI track felt like it was on fire.  With a total of four stops I suppose that I should feel lucky that I finished in less than two hours.

            Why do I do this to myself?  That is the question that I constantly ask myself.  A full day after the race I could still feel my G.I. issues coming on and I was still shaking a little bit.  The real reason why I do this is that I have no idea.  I humiliated myself by shitting on myself and I have wasted a whole day sleeping it off.  And this was just a half marathon; it takes me about a month to fully recover from the Ironman.  I promise myself that I will never do this to myself again.  And yet, as the pain fades away and the shaking stops, I know that I will sign up for the mini-marathon again just like I’ll sign up for the Ironman again until something makes me stop this foolishness.

The Finish Line

                                                                      The Finish Line

Louisville is known for having the best finish line of all of the Ironman competitions.  There is a historic street downtown which has been closed off and the city put a roof over to make it into a restaurant and shopping district.  It is called 4th Street Live and it is known in the triathlon circles having the most dramatic endings of any race.  The finish line is on the first floor and there is a second floor where the fans can cheer on their favorite triathletes.  The roof covering 4^thStreet Live seals in all of the noise coming from the amplifiers and from the cheering crown so the whole block is reverberating, almost like being on the inside of a drum.  The finish line is roped off so that the triathletes enter a chute that leads to a huge gate with a clock on top so that the triathlete can have his or her picture taken with the official time above his head.

                It was a dramatic finish for me.  This year I had finished the swim and bike in record time but, even though I had tried several times to run fast on the second half of the marathon, I just didn’t have the legs.  My thought was that if I could just keep moving forward then I could finish the run in the time that was allotted to me.  All that I wanted to do was to finish the race but in order to do that I needed to stay hydrated.  My body needed water and salt and so I drank the chicken broth that is given to the triathletes at the aid stations.  I drank too much of it too quickly and ended up throwing up a lot of what I just drank in front of a little girl.  The kid asked me several times if I was alright and I kept heaving up the broth while bending over in front of her.  That wasn’t even the most humiliating thing that happened to me that day.  I became cold on the run and had to ask a volunteer for a garbage bag to wear for the second half of the marathon to try to keep my body warm.  It is an image of myself that I do not like to recall; intermittently walking and jogging with a big black bag pluming over most of my body and feeling horrible.  I looked weak and sickly and anything but heroic.  

        Then, with just one block left, the adrenaline kicked in and I stripped off the garbage bag and started to run to the finish line.  Apparently the legs that would not work for me for the past twelve miles had one more block in them.  Also, when I heard the crowd cheering and the music thumping and the lights blinding me, I could no longer feel the pain.  Instead, there was a weird floating sensation, almost like I was experiencing someone else’s memory of passing through the finisher’s chute.  It was surreal, like I was running to heaven by running towards the lights.  All around me was darkness but straight ahead it was light and I could hear the crowd cheering on the finishers.  I started to cry because I needed the release but stopped myself because I didn’t want my finisher’s picture to be about an ugly face.  Instead, I high-fived the fans and raised my hand into a clenched fist for victory.  Suddenly I looked up, expecting to see the Jumbo Tron but instead seeing the American flag that was draped over the finish line and I was struck by how pretty it was.  Having never served in the military I hadn’t had the experience of seeing the flag in battle but this was pretty close and I now have a better understanding of the intense patriotism of the people who are in uniform.  That flag was my last memory of the finish line.

After crossing the finish line the Ironmen are given their medal and t-shirt wrapped in a hat as a reward for all of their efforts.  Then we are escorted off to the side where a photographer takes our picture.  That photograph pretty much tells the whole story of race day.  My face is thin and bloodless, my eyes are hollow, and there are tinges of yellow all over my skin.  I look like a lunatic in my official picture, the stress of the day showing in my face, but I didn’t care.  It was such a relief to have finally finished this race, to make the physical pain of the day stop, and to feel the release of the emotions that have been welling up in me all day.  The moment of crossing the finish line after a whole year’s worth of training was overwhelming. It took me seventeen hours to do it but I completed the Ironman.  It was a long and grueling day but it was worth it to hear the announcer say "Jeff Frazier, you are an Ironman!"   It feels so good to get that monkey off of my back because I haven't finished the race in the previous three years.   

It was one of the greatest achievements in my whole life and completing it meant so much more to me because my family was there to support me. Tracey and my daughters came down to the finish line and waited for over an hour and a half to watch me cross the finish line.  They didn’t see me until the last minute and so I didn’t hear them cheer but when I made my way through the chute to the exit they had leaned over the fencing to get my attention.  I kissed my wife and hugged my daughters and thanked them for all of their support for all of these years.  

When I went to school the next day the whole administration came out of their offices to say congratulations and then they made an announcement over the intercom.  My father-in-law and son-in-law came out to the race to cheer me on.  In terms of support it just could not have been a more perfect event for me..  The only thing that would have made it better would be if my parents were still alive to see me cross the finish line.  My mother and father would never have said it to my face but I know that they would be proud of me.

And finally, what was really memorable about the day were the crowds.  People cheered us on as we jumped into the river and again when we got out of the water.  As we clipped on our shoes to start the bike portion of the day there was a large crowd cheering for us.  At some of the major intersections throughout the bike ride and on the run there were people yelling encouragements to us.  I felt like a hero with all of those people cheering me on and I thanked them and high fived them as much as possible.  How can I give that up?  When I think of the cheering of the fans and the adulation of the little kids I begin to think that maybe I have one more Ironman in me.  I’ll take a couple of days off and then I will start training for next year.

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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