Journey of an Ironman - Final Chapter

I am brought water and drink as many small cups as they’ll bring me. The cramping eventually subsides, I put on my running shoes and I walk my way out of transition to see my wife and friends who are waiting to see me on my way out of T2. I make a joke about how dumb a race like this is, that “I’m going to quit triathlon and become a competitive eater instead”, but then have to unfortunately inform them of what happened on the bike. “I’m going to do what I can, but I almost didn’t make it off the bike. It’s hot, I’m cramping, and at a certain point, I may just be done. Don’t expect me back soon, but they’ll have to take me off the course at 17 hours if that’s what it takes.” And with that, I head out on the run course.

After a few steps to get acclimated, I’m astonished to find out that, though my biking muscles (quadriceps and glutes) were completely spent, my run muscles (hamstrings and calves) still had a little life in them. I make the first few miles alternating running and walking at about even intervals. It’s still daylight and people seem to be doing fairly well. Many are walking, but I pass more than pass me.

I complete the first loop (two 13 mile loops) and head out on the second loop. The sun is going down, and volunteers have begun handing out glow-in-the-dark loops to be held, hung, or tucked somewhere visible so that athletes can be more easily seen in the dwindling daylight.

I had wanted to finish in daylight. I had wanted lots of things, but now I know I just needed to finish. My running had given way to more and more to walking. The feeling of a cramp began to grow in my hamstring, but I pushed it away for as long as possible with salt tabs and water. As I made the turn for the last 3 miles of the race, I was reduced completely to a walk. I would have been embarrassed by this, but I was 137.6 miles into the race and conceded that walking was the only option.

It was then that I notice everyone was walking, and all of a sudden I realized where I was: I was one of thousands in what was so affectionately know as the “Death March”! It was now completely dark out. All the spectators had made their way to the finish line, and people, family, and kids no longer lined the streets of the racecourse. It was now just those of the Death March. Eerily silent, with just the rhythmic sounds of your own steps to keep you in the real world, we had been in constant motion since 7a.m., that was 14 hours ago. We had seen the sun rise, follow us as we rode, and mock us as it set, getting rest hours before we would. At this moment, just 3 miles from finishing the goal I had set forth, I knew nothing but one foot in front of the other. It becomes that you don’t remember a time when you weren’t doing what you’re doing. One foot in front of the other, if you stop, you won’t be able to keep going. Just keep moving, you’re almost there. 17 hours…just finish under 17 hours.

From the most silent place on Earth, the Death March, a light shows itself over the horizon. The taller buildings of downtown Louisville emerge and the faint sound of cheering is heard. Members of the Death March silently rise into a quick walk, and then, out of the darkness, muster the energy to run. The cheers become louder until they are deafening.  Out of the crowd I hear my childhood friend call my name. “BEN! You did it buddy, you’re there!” I come down the finishing shoot and find my wife, just yards from the finish. As she yells “Baby, I LOVE YOU!” I give her a big hug and take my last few paces to the finish line, bend down, and kiss the ground.

It’s an amazing experience to complete an Ironman. I realized that you can go so far past your “limit” that it becomes less a limit and more a starting place. I’m not a world-class athlete, but I know the words of Winston Churchill to be accurate: “Continuous effort, not strength or intelligence, is the key to unlocking one’s potential.” When asked how long it took me to complete the race, I respond the same each time, “under 17 hours”, and I will brag for the rest of my life.

Journey of an Ironman - Part II

I sleep well the morning before the race and wake up a little closer to 4a.m., the time the transition area opens on race morning. I have my bagel with jelly and peanut butter, sip on a Powerbar Perform sports drink and make my way to transition for a final check of my bike and equipment. I stop to take a quick picture with the official race announcer, and make my way to the swim start.

In virtually every Ironman, the start is a mass or wave start. Uniquely, in IM Louisville it is a time trial start, as competitors enter the water one after another. This results in an almost mile walk to the entry point. Much to my surprise and dismay, I was roughly 1500 spots back (half the pack), and had another mile walk just to get to my spot. The walk took so long, in fact, that I only had 15 minutes once in line to get prepped, as the line started moving. The race had officially begun!

I enter the water and begin swimming upstream. Yup, we do the first quarter of the race upstream and the last two-thirds downstream. I site using bridges (two to pass under) and stay to the outside of the main pack to keep some open water. The swim goes well and I’m out of the water without much trouble. The shortest leg of the race is over in just 1 hour, 21 minutes.

I take my time in transition, making sure not to forget anything, and head out on my bike, a converted road bike with clip-on handlebars so that I can ride in aero position and hopefully save enough energy during the 112 mile bike ride to complete the run. At this point, the sun is out and the temperature is quickly climbing into the mid 90’s, unseasonably warm for Kentucky in the early fall.

I pace fairly well for the first half of the ride. In training I had done several 70-80 mile rides, so this would be my first time attempting over 100. Feeling good, I complete my first loop around the town of Le Grange. We make two loops around the town and then head back into Louisville. I find that the course is very hilly and many parts are narrow and I have to slow my speeds to match that of those around me, making any momentum I have virtually non-existent and the climbs that much worse.

Around mile 85 I begin to become disoriented, most likely due to the inevitable dehydration setting in. I make sure to fill up at the 85 mile aid station and continue along, fighting off the dehydration. At this point, being further than I had ever ridden previously, I find that my “undercarriage” (a kind cyclist term for…well, you know) is so uncomfortable that it is almost unbearable to sit. I begin standing on down hills to relieve the pressure, and begin to have terrible hot spots in my shoes. At this point sitting feels like being on a chair of needles and standing, or even peddling, feels like being forced to hold your feet to a fire. 

Being in such pain I hardly notice the last aid station on the bike course at mile 101 and blow right by. At this point I want nothing more in the world to be off that bike! I look around and other riders are suffering the same heat and distance-induced pains, and I am least comforted that I’m not alone. Some are even off their bikes and lying prone, trying to muster the energy to go on. I say a quick prayer to myself that each is okay first, and can complete the race second.

Ironman Swag Bag

I soon find that others may be praying for me as I begin to feel a twinge in each thigh. As I have been systematically shifting from seated to standing to leaning on the crossbar for relief, I stand only to have a searing pain shot through both thighs. My dehydration had caught up to me, only miles from the finish of the bike leg. I painfully dismount, and stand in a half crouch, straddling my bike. Both quadriceps are fully and excruciatingly cramping. With a shaking hand I reach and grab a salt tab and go to wash it down with water to make the cramping subside, only to realize I have no more water. Skipping the previous aid station had proven to be an almost catastrophic mistake. “17 hours…anything to stay under 17 hours.”

I remount my bike, and begin to peddle away despite the cramps. As I press on the cleats, each leg alternates cramping and being forcibly ripped from a cramp. The next (and last) 7 miles of the bike course takes the better part of an hour.

As I approach the transition area, the roar of the crowd and sound of cowbells begin to fill the air and the cramping doesn’t seem to hurt so badly. I enter transition, gingerly dismount my bike, and slowly walk to the changing tent. Even with the steps to the tent, each leg is taking turns, alternating which one cramps. I sit down, and think to myself, “now I have to run a marathon!” 

The Road to Ironman

No, I myself have not done an Ironman.  I have thought it about tho and if it wasn't for an open water swim with hundreds of flailing body limbs around me, I might actually be crazy enough to attempt at least a sprint Ironman.

But I am proud to say I know one.  He just completed it this year.  I had him in my youth group in Georgia when he was just a young man and he has turned out to be a very inspirational soul - as many of my former students have gone on to be.  So this is his story.

I'd like you to meet Ben Fitzpatrick.  Husband, son, dad.  Owner of Fitness at Five in Athens, GA.

IRONMAN! 

This is where he plays works. 

And this is his Ironman story...

“17 hours…17 hours…you have 17 hours…” were the only words I could hear in my head on August 24^th during the near 500 mile drive it took to get from the foothills of North Georgia to Louisville Kentucky, the site of the 2012 Ironman Louisville. It would be my first attempt at the distance. I had raced triathlon for years, exclusively Sprint distance races, but always like a new challenge. Call me athletically A.D.D., but I needed the motivation. I have been enamored with the idea of Ironman from the first time I witnessed the NBC broadcast of the event. In that broadcast the narrator detailed the first running of the race, less a competition than to settle an argument: Who is the fittest person on Earth? Some said it was the winner of the annual Waikiki Roughwater swim. Others proposed great Marathon champions. And one present noted that World Class cyclists like those in the Tour de France would have viable stake to the claim.

As those present were familiar with the new format of races being done in San Diego, triathlons, they decided to combine these ultimate distances for what would soon be known as “the most difficult single day event on the planet.” They set a date, and with a hand printed flyer invited the best athletes they could find (or coerce). The final line of this publication now stands as the official tagline for Ironman:  “Swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, run 26.2 miles…brag for the rest of your life!”

So on Saturday, May 12^th I sat at my computer and pulled up the website I visited frequently, Ironman.com.  Admittedly, I should have been out on a training run or a group ride, but the motivation just wasn’t there. So I again lived vicariously through the inspiring clips of others like the ALS Warrior Poet Jon “Blazeman” Blais and “Team Hoyt”. Those who had trained, sacrificed, and paid the price to call themselves “Ironman”. On that day I decided I could no longer stand back and look longingly through the window at others achieving their dreams. I started racing triathlon because I wanted to do Ironman! So like tearing off a band-aid, I clicked register, threw down my credit card (to an amount I will not disclose), and suddenly had a glowing screen reading, “congratulations, your are successfully registered for the 2012 Ironman Louisville.” And so it began.

I won’t bore you with the details of the training, but I will give you the schedule of my 16 weeks of preparation for Ironman Louisville.

Monday: Total body strength training/core

Tuesday a.m.: Swim

Tuesday p.m.: Run

Wednesday a.m.: Run (easy)

Wednesday p.m.: Bike

Thursday a.m.: Swim

Thursday p.m.: Run

Friday a.m.: Run (easy)

Friday p.m.: Bike

Saturday: Bike long/Run long/or long brick

Sunday: Rest

I did this in increasing distances for 12 weeks. I didn’t give myself a chance to skip workouts, despite how much I wanted to. Every time I didn’t want to get out of bed, all I could think was “don’t give yourself an excuse. If you don’t finish this, don’t open yourself to ‘what if I had not been so lax on training?’” At the end of the 12 weeks, I felt that I was in the best shape of my life. That being said, I feared that even my best shape, even my best effort, would not be enough to get me to that finish line, and that was the most frightening prospect of all: what if your best just isn’t good enough?

So filled with fear and excitement, my wife Katie and I head off on our 500-mile journey. We arrived at The Galt House, the host hotel for IM Louisville. Along with 3000 of the tannest, fittest athletes I’ve ever seen, we headed directly to sign in. Just the sight of them made me feel that maybe I had bitten off more than I could chew. I was ushered to an athlete only area where no less than a dozen individuals checking and rechecking my identity barraged me and had me sign release waiver after release waiver. I can’t tell you how many times someone mentioned “death due to drowning” or “death by heat stroke” or “sudden cardiac arrest”.  If I wasn’t nervous before, I was now. I emerge from the athlete only area looking ghostly and macabre. 

K: “You okay?”

Me: “Just trying to stay alive”.

We get settled in our room and I go to unpacking everything I’ll need for race day. Transition 1 bag, Transition 2 bag, bike special needs bag, run special needs bag, race morning bag, bike number, helmet number, run number. If I can say anything for World Triathlon Corporation, they are nothing if not efficient and well run. I spent the remainder of Friday night organizing and reorganizing everything that will have to be checked in Saturday, the day before the race.

Saturday morning I partake in the optional practice swim, where part of the course is opened to get in the open water and become acclimated to the temperature and sighting in the Ohio River. After that I spend the remainder of the day taking in downtown Louisville, tour the Louisville Slugger museum, and then head back to the room to have a 4:30p.m. dinner as my alarm is set to go off at 3:30a.m. the next morning. A quick dinner, my traditional lemon caper pasta with garlic, and I’m off to bed. Surprisingly, I experienced no nervousness to this point. I suppose I had given in to the idea of at this point, whatever happens, happens, and my job is just to respond as well as possible.

For the rest of the story, check back in a couple of days.  I'll also be putting my Route 66 Half Marathon post as well.