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| Ironman Wisconsin according to my kids |
As I stare at the computer, putting words to paper is a
struggle but this is what I came up with:
I will begin with a quick recap of the months of training
leading up to Sunday August 21st. In summary, they went much better than I had expected. When I signed up for Ironman Wisconsin,
I wrote a post about it (click here) describing that, for me, the race was not
about time. It was about the
journey and many other things. I
lead a very crazy life. I work a
lot. I put a lot of time into charity. I put a lot of time into my
family. Ironman training would
have to work around all of this which meant a lot of late night runs, late
night bike trainer workouts and many early mornings of exactly the same. Outside of my long rides, I would say that
85% of my workouts took place while the sun was down. Even those long weekend rides began as the sun was cresting
my garage. I had fellow peeps
signed up to compete in Wisconsin but they usually start later in the morning
and that would limit time with the family which was not part of my plan. If it were not for my amazing friend,
Emily Conlon, all of my rides would have been solo. She was brave enough to battle my crazy hours and a friend
enough to provide me some company on my journey and for that I will always be
grateful. If I am to say any more
about my training season, I would say that my swim workouts suffered, as
exected, because of my schedule. My training schedule included 3 swims per week but not once
did reality match the schedule. Many times, I only managed 1 swim during the
week. With about 45 days until
race day, I panicked about the swim and tried to cram by using a pool
buoy. To build for the long
distance, I made myself pull for 2,000 yards each of my remaining swim
workouts. Not kicking and having to
use my upper body was my attempt to make up for lost time.
This takes us up to August 20th. Emily and I signed up for the Cool
Breeze Century. I love this ride
and I certainly love hanging with my friend so this was to be a great day and a
great day is exactly what was delivered.
We rode the distance averaging 18mph and I did not even feel
winded. On this day, I would have
run a kick ass marathon off the bike.
I ended this day feeling unstoppable. I had made it through my last long ride completing an injury
free 9 months of training. I would have one more 4-2 brick (4 hour ride
followed by a 2 hour run in case you made it here without knowledge of
triathlon training) the following weekend and then enter my taper to race
day. This 4-2 brick would never
come because of a ridiculous fluke accident the following day, August 21st.
August 21st was also to be an amazing and
emotional day. A great friend to
many, Laura Maloney, wanted to have a party. It was called Laura’s Heart Warming Party and it would not
be any ordinary get together. I
met Laura through Team in Training where she has been a participant on my
marathon team but more importantly has been an honored teammate for as long as
I can remember. You see Laura is a
blood cancer survivor and helps keeps participants connected to the cause. She unfortunately has recently seen
cancer come knocking again and it has her very sick. We had been having some difficult conversations about the
future and in one of those conversations, the importance of this party was made
clear to me. As such, I reached
out to another friend, Lori Jomsky, and we proceeded to make the party
happen. Laura has a lot of friends
that are very loyal so the extent of this party planning was to set up a Facebook
event and send it out. From there,
the party took care of itself.
Plenty of food, drink and people showed up at Laura’s house. It was a tough day for me (and probably
most in attendance) because it was obvious cancer was taking its toll on our
friend. Cancer had made our friend
physically weak but it certainly had not penetrated her spirit, which remained
as strong as ever. This spirit
helped make for an incredible day.
It was amazing to see all of the love and support showed by so many
people. You might be wondering how
an amazing party for a cancer fighting friend could possibly interfere with my
path to Ironman Wisconsin. Well, at
some point during this party, my friend Javier Rivera decided to throw me in
the pool. This sounds innocent enough
but in my attempt to resist, Javier and I fell to the ground on the way to the
pool. When I got out of the water,
folks pointed to my bleeding knee and foot. I was perturbed at what I knew would be an inconvenience but
the wound didn’t look too bad. I
figured everything would be fine in a day or two but this all changed when I
got home and began to clean the wounds.
I poured Hydrogen Peroxide on my foot and when the foam cleared it was
obvious the wounds were far deeper than I had anticipated. I became very concerned and as hours,
days and weeks went by, my concerns were validated because the wounds refused
to heal. In hindsight I should
have went straight to the doctor but you live and learn.
•I was
frustrated because I had done everything right for 9 months. I had remained injury free and with the
race in sight I felt it had been stripped from me.
•Training
for an Ironman takes a lot of time…..time that I already said is in short
supply in my life. Between my
wife, and myself so many things were rearranged to allow me the opportunity to
compete. To go through all of that
for so long and then have something obscure intervene was tough to accept.
•I was also
frustrated at myself for being upset with Javier. He is a great friend and an even more amazing person. I wanted to reach out and make him feel
better about everything but I couldn’t and for that I will always be sorry. Truthfully, much of my desire to heal
was so that Javier would not feel bad.
I wanted to have an amazing race day so that Javier would not bear any
weight from this stupid accident.
That didn’t happen though. My race was not amazing but I would like to go on record to
Javier and say I am truly sorry. I
know my friend would never intentionally do anything to harm my race or
me. It was all simply unfortunate
circumstances that we can chalk up to a bumpy journey to race weekend. I really am disappointed in myself for
letting all of this get into my head.
As a coach I have shut people down many times during the taper to race
day. When it came to my own
experience, I let the lack of training down the stretch cut into all that
confidence I had built up for 9 months.
In my defense, some of this lack of confidence came from some intense
pain and a complete lack of understanding of how a foot that looked as horrible
as mine could hold up for 140.6 miles.
Race Weekend
Before getting to the race, I want to quickly comment on the
days leading up to the race. Most
folks know I am very active with Team in Training, which is all tied to my
story shared on this blog. A few
years ago, some fellow Team in Training friends created So Cal Collective. To be a member of So Cal Collective,
you have to meet the following criteria:
a)be a Team
in Training alumni, and
b)have
completed or be training for a Half or Full Ironman.
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| So Cal Collective Practice Swim |
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| Pre Race Dinner with So Cal Collective |
Saturday night……..off to bed.
Race Day
Race morning, as they always do, started bright and early. I
would argue that most race mornings start the night before because your mind is
already on the race when your head hits the pillow. Instead of a sound sleep, your mind is living out the race
before it happens or simply making sure you never hit too sound a state out
sleep out of fear of oversleeping. I had rented a separate hotel room for my
gear…..yes it gets its own room so I don’t stress about my kids disrupting
everything I have set out. I
usually would sleep in this room the night before the race but on this race
morning I woke up with the rest of the family. For some reason, I just wanted to be close with them before
this day kicked off. I am not really
sure why but one reason is probably that I would not see them until the run on
race day. Ironman starts too early
for a 3 and 7 year old and especially a Mom that would have to wake them up,
get them ready and fight the crowds alone with them. That plus the fact that the bike course really does not
bring you back to town until your 112 miles are behind you meant I was many
hours from seeing any of them again.
I got out of bed well before my alarms went off and made my
way to the ‘gear’ hotel room where I ate some of my breakfast and prepared my
fluid for the bike. I went through
my Special Needs bags to make sure I had what I needed. Special Needs, for those unfamiliar
with Ironman distance races, is basically the half way point of the bike and
the half way point of the run. You
can put things you might need at that point of the race. For me, my bike Special Needs bag
includes hydration/nutrition for the second half of the ride plus CO2
cartridges/tubes in case the 1st half of the race was a battle with
flat tires. Because my foot was a
big uncertainty I also put in extra socks in anticipation of a bloody
mess. My run Special Needs bag had
more socks and a sleeve of Shot Blocks.
Once I finished breakfast I woke up Crea as I promised her I would. One last hug, a pre race photo and I
was off.
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| Swim start to the right. Helix to the left. You bike up that at the end of the ride. |
After a mile walk I arrived at the race site. I dropped off my bags, visited my bike
to drop off my Garmin and hydration then found some SoCal peeps and chilled
out. I guess before I chilled out,
I doctored up my foot. I covered
all my wounds in Liquid Bandage hoping to keep it dry before getting to the
bike. I had a bottle of Liquid
Bandage in each of my transition bags as well. Anyway, with 30 minutes to go or so, we all proceeded to
head to the water, get in our wetsuits and take a test swim. The water was calm and felt great. After the test swim, we all just stood
at the edge of the water waiting for the 7am start. While waiting I decided to make sure my watch was ready to
go and set to chronograph. I do
not swim with my Garmin. It is on
the bike. I use a Timex Ironman
for tracking my race time. When I
looked down at my watch, it was blank…..BLANK. Not simply on the wrong setting but completely dead. Crea had taken my watch to get the
battery replaced before coming to meet me in Wisconsin. She tried out a new shop that
apparently did not waterproof the watch so I was minutes away from race start
with no ability to track my time.
I was so upset that I threw my watch into Lake Monona (sorry Wisconsin!)
where it probably still sits today.
As a side note here, a dead watch really should not have mattered. When I registered for this race, it
wasn’t about the time. When my
foot injury transpired, race day was even less about the time. I had many conversations with my wife
and Emily Conlon about my mental state regarding race day. They were supportive that if I gave
110% I should be proud and that pushing through the obstacles should be what I
am proud of. Crossing the finish
line is what I should be proud of.
I told myself the time didn’t matter a 1,000 times but my actions kept
showing I didn’t take it to heart.
I cannot figure out why really.
I think it is because I have friends, both real and virtual, that I
didn’t want to disappoint. I think it is because I know what I am capable of
and regardless of what I say, I have internal time expectations. If I am minutes or hours beyond those
expectations, I have to wonder and doubt.
“Did I really give 110%?”
“Could I have stretched the run interval by 30 seconds without falling
on my face?” Sorry for all of
these tangents. As I write, I
really am not sure I will ever advertise this post. It is feeling like an internal discussion and battle as I
try to come to grips with the results.
If you are reading this, I apologize. My struggle is all tied to putting in so much time for
something and not having it go as planned. Given my story, you would think I should be an expert at
this by now but I guess I have more to learn.
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| Within the mayhem hundreds are being kicked right now |
At 7am, the outrageously loud canon goes off and the swim
begins without much exciting to report.
I swim and am quickly hugging the buoy line. I am excited I am not completely alone as with every breath
I see folks. I catch a person or two but, again, starting at the back makes it
tough to pass and be passed. I
remember the sun at various times was blinding. I had brought tinted lenses but on my test swim they seemed
to leak a bit so I went with the clear pair I had been using in the pool. They didn’t leak but they made it hard
to see when staring at the sun. I
made it to the first turn (Wisconsin is a 2 loop swim) of the first loop and,
as advertised, it was a log jam.
Everyone was doggy paddling trying to wait for space so this definitely
cut into time but I was not worried because I didn’t expect too much on the
swim nor did I have any idea of the time. The unfortunate part is that when I thought I finally
had space to begin swimming around this first buoy, I got kicked very hard in
the face. I had been kicked many
times before on a swim but this was by far the worst I took a foot to my
face. I was very angry. I let it go and kept swimming and
wouldn’t think about it much until the next day when it took me a minute to
remember why the left side of my face was so sore. The remaining 1.9 miles was uneventful. I remember not feeling amazing…..nauseous
a bit. This bummed me out a little but I tried to let it go. On
the second loop I could definitely feel the effects of not swimming enough
throughout my training and of not swimming at all down the stretch tied to my
foot injury. I was getting
tired. My pull was suffering but I
just kept swimming, just kept swimming.
I finally made the last turn and was heading to shore. I remembered the last time I turned to
shore was at Ironman Florida where I had a good view of a shark 10 feet below
me. I gave a silent thank you to Wisconsin
for not being next to the ocean and continued on. I got out of the water, was relieved and tired and
emotional. It was very strange but
a wave of emotion came over me. I
am not sure why but guess it is tied to the emotion of the last 3 weeks leading
up to race day. This day had been
at risk and at least I was here.
I headed into transition. I did not feel rushed because I wasn’t overly concerned with
my time but I tried to be efficient and get moving. Once dressed I stopped by the sun block station where they
lathered me up. They certainly did
not skimp on the block as you can see in photos. I was a sea of white lotion. From there I was off to get my bike then out on the course for a 113
miles……yes I did say 113 miles.
It felt good to be on the bike. Even though I had not rode in weeks, I had a good training
season on the bike and felt ready to go.
I had trained on plenty of hills riding at least 2,500 feet of climb
each week that would be needed on what was to be a tough bike course. The Wisconsin bike course is referred
to as a lollipop course. You head
16 miles out of town then do two 40-mile loops then head back into town on that
same 16 mile stretch.
One thing I failed to mention here is that I was using race
wheels. While this shouldn’t be a
big deal I certainly made it one leading up to race day. At the 11th hour I decided
to rent race wheels and every hour on the hour for 2 weeks I questioned whether
I should use them or not. You are
not supposed to try anything new and although wheels are not a big deal, I was
using a Zipp 808 on the back which requires a valve extender which I had never
used before. My huge fear on the
bike is not the distance……….it is flat tires. To use a new wheel set and a valve extender and tires I had
no history with (meaning they could have 3,000 miles on them already) had me
stressed out. To make a long story
short, I ended up talking to many people, probably upsetting folks at the wheel
rental company (Race Day Wheels were amazing and I highly recommend them) with
my ridiculous questions but ultimately made the decision to use them.
The 16 miles out were uneventful. Truthfully, much of this write up will be uneventful because
I really get in my own head and zone out to surroundings. To this day I will get race day photos
where I am beside some amazing landscape that I cannot even remember. What I did remember was a lot of corn
and surroundings that were far different than I was used to seeing in Southern
California. I remember thinking as
a large tractor reminiscent of Frank in the Disney movie Cars crossed the road that I may never see something like this
again. There were enormous barns
and silos that I had only seen in books or photos but never in person. It was all very surreal. There were people all over the place
cheering on the bike course. There
were very large crowds when you made it to the start of the 40-mile loop. I believe they were there to cheer us
on knowing the big hills were to come.
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| IM Wisconsin has a lot of this |
I was about an hour in and had finished my first bottle of fluid which quickly lead to the realization of my first problem. I did what you should never do……….changed my nutrition plan
for race day. In my defense, I had
tested the new plan….or so I had thought.
In training, I use Nuun and CarboPro. It always works for me I just hate dealing with the fizz of
the Nuun which can get messy as I open up bottle caps. I had stumbled across GuBrew in a local
shop a few weeks before the race and decided to give it a shot. There were two flavors but what really
caught my eye was that the Blueberry-Pomegranite flavor had 490mg of sodium
which is far more than I was getting in my Nuun mixture. I am a heavy sweater and battle salt
loss and as such cramping. I
thought GuBrew might finally be the answer to a long fought battle. I also wear a race belt which allows me
to carry electrolyte pills but getting more sodium into my drink would be a
good thing because it would allow me to zone out more and not focus on
remembering to take the pills. I
drank GuBrew every day for weeks before the race. It tasted good and did not upset my stomach in any way so I
figured I was good to go. I was
actually very excited about using it.
There was only one problem here.
I have room on my bike for one bottle on the cage and one Aerobottle on
my aero bars. Many people use a
rear hydration system off their seat but I cannot because of a freakish reverse
Michael Phelps body. He has a long
upper body and shorter legs which is a great thing for a swimmer. I am the opposite……..very long legs and
a shorter upper body. This makes
bike fitting a challenge. I am
tall enough to be in a 60” or larger frame but because of my build this would
have me reaching too far for the handle bars. As such, I actually take a step down on frame size which
pushes my seat to a place that is very challenging to fit a rear hydration
system. Long story short, this
forces me to carry 3 hours of hydration/nutrition in 2 bottles (3 hours will
get me to special needs where I can pick up new bottles). Because of this, I create one bottle of
nutrition at double strength. I
double the amount of Nuun and double the scoops of CarboPro.
Side note here. I keep referring to hydration/nutrition
on the bike. This is because I get
all of my calories through my drink.
The CarboPro is a flavorless powder that gives me carbs and
calories. I do not eat bars or any
real food. Each bottle of fluid for me will have 500+ calories.
Back to this double strength bottle. It has never been an issue with Nuun so
I did not think a double strength bottle of GuBrew would be a problem. Here is where my claim to be perfect
fails miserably. I was very wrong. I went to take the first sip from the
double strength bottle and it was like the thickest milkshake I had ever drank. It was very difficult to get the
fluid out which made the rest of the ride challenging. After I drink my single strength
bottle, I always toss it and then grab a bottle of water. I did this in Wisconsin but I tried to
use the water to ‘water down’ my milk shake concoction. I also needed to use the water to cool
down so the end result is that I drank too little and took in far too few
calories. That double strength
bottle was supposed to get me to special needs but it lasted the entire ride
which meant I would be a few bottles and many calories behind where I needed to
be. I wish I could say that this
was my only biking issue but it was not.
What are the other issues you ask?
Here they are:
•In order to take some strain off of my foot injury, I
slightly adjusted the cleat on the bottom of my left foot. I knew there was risk to this but I
really didn’t have a choice. I
could not have too much pressure on the open wound so this adjustment was my
solution.
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| Making one of many turns at one of many barns |
•Last issue was simply bike mechanics. I am not sure why but I kept dropping
the chain when switching to the big ring.
I was shifting down before the change but it didn’t matter. I almost crashed a few times because of
the difficulty trying to get it back on leading into the hill. Anyway, I became so frustrated with
this that for the last half of the 2nd 40 mile loop, I stayed in the
big ring. If you combine this with
the fact I was climbing with one leg and the fact that I was falling behind on
nutrition, you can see where the rest of the day was headed.
This all being said, it was a fun ride. The town was amazing. The landscape was surreal and an
amazing change of scenery for me.
The crowds were incredible…..seriously incredible! I wish I had felt
better to thank all of them because the hills were full of spectators cheering everyone
to the top. There was one
particular small country road hill climb I will never forget. It was a narrow road and there were
people everywhere. It felt like a
scene out of Tour De France. You
actually had to pay attention because people were running up and down the hill
and crossing the street. The
mayhem wasn’t annoying. It was
spectacular and made me feel on top of the world despite all the battles I felt
I was facing.
After the second 40 mile loop was done, needless to say I
was relieved. One good thing
I did on the bike was to NOT look at my pace. Here is one place I accepted I could only do what I could
do. As long as I was giving 110%
of whatever I had, the pace would be what the pace would be. I vowed not to look at my speed until I
at least hit 90 miles.
Wherever it was that I first looked at the watch, I remember thinking it
was slow but I do remember thinking I left what I had on the bike course. I was worked and in a lot of pain. Cramps had started to reveal themselves
now and then so I knew the rest of the day would be fun. I did the math in my
head and realized if I pushed hard, I could exit the bike under 6.5 hours. That is not great on any other day but
today I would consider it a victory and it was something to shoot for. I was using my right leg/foot to try
and power myself. I used my left
foot but really mainly on the pull….not the push. My speed picked up and I just tried to hammer it home. If
you look at my time, you will see that I did not finish the bike sub 6.5
hours. Truthfully though, I did
reach my goal. At 112 miles, my
watch showed me just under 6 hours 30 minutes but off to my right about a mile
away was the transition area. I
think the course had been modified a bit and on this day I would ride just over
113 miles. I would blame the
Garmin except every single person I talked to said the same thing…….”who
stretched the bike course”.
Anyway, I came into transition which someone very evil created. When you arrive at the bike finish,
transition is on the top level of a parking garage so you have to climb the helix at the Monona Terrace. EVIL!!!! It was over though so I knew at the top
of this climb I would get off the bike.
I reached the dismount line and had to pause for a second. Cramps were getting worse so I had one
of the volunteers help me to avoid a sprawl to the ground writhing in cramping
pain.
Off to transition.
Again, I didn’t feel rushed. My time was nothing to write home about and
I could tell my cramps and foot pain would make the next 26.2 miles a
challenge. I changed tops, tried
to make up for some of that lost nutrition, put on my running shoes and hobbled
out of transition.
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| T2 For My Kids |
A little while later I ran into a SoCal teammate Andrew Grant who was walking. He
knew he would have to walk the marathon because he was battling horrible IT
band issues but I stopped to walk with him a second. We shared a laugh or
two……cannot remember at what…….and then I told him about my 3-1 plan. I talked
him into giving it a shot and off we went. About a minute later, Andrew unfortunately had to bow out of
the interval but I kept going because I knew I was deteriorating fast. The rest of the run was much of the
same:
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| Crea Patiently Waiting: "What I found a baby before" |
•I took my salt pills.
•I punched my quads and hamstrings begging they stop cramping.
•My 3-1 interval kept
deteriorating. It eventually
whittled down to a 1-1 interval and I must say the running 1 minute might not
have been much faster than the walking minute.
I took very short strides trying not to anger the cramping Gods and
because it was hard to put any pressure on my left foot which had unbeknownst
to me turned a lovely shade of purple and red. It was not the wound on my left foot that hurt……..it was the
underside of the foot which resulted from the shifting of the bike cleat. Either way, I was a mess.
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| The High Five Rule |
I made it back to the Capital Building which meant home was
near. I made the last left turn
towards the finish. A guy beside
me told me to go ahead so we didn’t share the same photo. I offered to let him go first but
didn’t have the strength to argue so off I went. My legs were so wobbly. There was a slight downhill and I just closed my eyes and
asked them to hold on for another minute.
They did. I crossed the
finish line hours after I wanted to.
I wish I could say I felt elation at the moment but I didn’t. I felt pain and disappointment. I guess I didn’t look too good because
2 volunteers came up to me and asked a bunch of questions. I must not have been answering
correctly because they took me to the medical tent. I do not remember too much about it. A bunch of people asking me questions
and apparently me giving all the wrong answers. After some time……..not sure how much……clarity started
returning. I remember a guy beside
me asking if it was normal he was peeing blood. The assistant went to get someone else to provide an
answer. I took a moment to tell this
guy it was not normal and he better take a seat. I think I was supposed to stay there a while but I seized
the opportunity when someone new came to ask how I was doing. Learning from my past, I responded
“Fantastic, let’s get me out of here” which is what they did. I left the medical tent and found my
family. I am sure I apologized
again but I really do not remember too much. I even have pictures on Facebook that a friend took on the
walk back to the hotel that for the life of me I don’t remember taking.
Two months have now passed since I turned 3x Ironman. I still accept my time for what it
is. I am still disappointed and
full of questions. Ironman
Wisconsin 2011 was going to be my last Ironman but I am not sure I can go to my
grave with this performance as my last.
If this had just been a bad performance, I probably could live with
it. I struggle, however, with some
of the circumstances that lead to the bad day so I have begged my wife for one
more shot at the title. I want to
go out my way….on my terms. While
I am confident I left all of me on the streets of Wisconsin on September 11,
2011, I would like one more chance to cover 140.6 miles with no asterisks. I am not sure what race I will choose
but hope that 2013 is the year that sees me cross my final Ironman finish
line. I will close by saying while
I am not proud of my performance, I am very proud to have crossed the Ironman
finish line. I am grateful to my
wife for her support of my endeavor. She gives up so much to let me train for
races like these. I am proud to
have shared the day with so many amazing athletes. I am grateful to the 1,000’s of spectators that cheered for
me on race day. I am grateful to
all the kind words on race day from folks on Twitter and Facebook and I
apologize to those who had to wait so long for me to finish. I love this sport. I love all it represents. It is
something I try to carry with me on a daily basis as I do my entire story. I always say I run to remember so in
that sense my ‘extended’ race day gave me a little more time to do so and that
cannot be such a bad thing.
One last very good piece of news is that Laura Maloney, my cancer fighting friend mentioned in this recap, is now cancer free. I saw her at a Team in Training Kick Off and she looked much stronger and was doing great.
Final note is that I raised a lot of money to beat cancer on the road to Ironman Wisconsin. With your help, we raised over $27,000 and I personally reached my lifetime goal of raising over $100,000. It is now my wife's turn. She watched me train for hours. She has seen me complete Lavaman Triathlon the last 3 years with Team in Training. It is now her turn to carry the torch, fight the fight and show cancer that it lost the battle with her and will ultimately lose the battle with all. If you would like to help my 2 x cancer fighting wife fight back, the fundraising link at the top of this page is to her site. I would be honored if you show her the same love that you have shown me over the years.
Final note is that I raised a lot of money to beat cancer on the road to Ironman Wisconsin. With your help, we raised over $27,000 and I personally reached my lifetime goal of raising over $100,000. It is now my wife's turn. She watched me train for hours. She has seen me complete Lavaman Triathlon the last 3 years with Team in Training. It is now her turn to carry the torch, fight the fight and show cancer that it lost the battle with her and will ultimately lose the battle with all. If you would like to help my 2 x cancer fighting wife fight back, the fundraising link at the top of this page is to her site. I would be honored if you show her the same love that you have shown me over the years.
