Sitting on a bike seat about the width of a cucumber for five and half hours and 112 miles can be brutal. The imposing headwind that fought us 5 miles from the finish continued its assault all the way to the transition area where race staff guided us in with air traffic control like hand signals to ensure a slow and safe dismount. The end of the bike leg had arrived and I was delighted to be standing upright as I quickly replaced my helmet and cleats with a visor and running shoes. I ran out of the changing room and was directed to the exit chute leading to the final leg of the Florida Ironman Triathlon, a 26.2 mile marathon.
For most people, running a marathon requires serious training, discipline and mental toughness. For Ironman triathletes, attempting to run a marathon after cycling 112miles and swimming 2.4 miles requires a complete loss of your mental faculties. You simply cannot allow yourself to contemplate or appreciate fully what you are doing because it’s completely absurd. Realistically, all you can do is spend months training your mind and body to be as mentally and physically prepared as your age, lifestyle, body type and genetics will allow. After that, every Ironman will tell you the same thing. It’s simply a battle of will.
I ran through the exit chute and started the marathon course. During the first mile my legs felt like two bags of post hole cement and my heart rate shot up as my body began the adjustment period from biking to running. If you are new to triathlons this can be a terrifying feeling and it is very easy to snap mentally and give up. The body is adjusting to the activation of new muscle groups and body positioning and nobody is immune to it; you just learn to accept it and work through it. Eventually, if you start out fairly conservatively and show some patience, the heart rate will settle and the muscles will begin to feel better. Certain types of workouts during training replicates this condition which allows more experienced triathletes to avoid the anxieties that newer athletes will experience.
The two loop run course was fairly flat and meandered through some residential neighborhoods before entering the outer lands of an air force base. The first thirteen miles was not pleasant and I could feel my body deteriorating rapidly. Two knee surgeries 17 years ago left me with no cartilage in my left knee and during my long training runs it became more and more evident that my distance running days were numbered.
I made the turnaround at the 13.1 mile mark in 2:07 and started back out for the second lap. My halfway time was right about where I had planned but I knew based on my current state of physical fatigue that trouble was ahead and the remainder of this run was going to get ugly in a hurry. But then again I knew this moment was coming before I started the swim almost seven hours earlier. I knew this was coming ten months earlier when I began my initial training regimen for this race. I knew this time would arrive and I thought about it every day. It’s why I swam over 200 miles, cycled over 6,000 miles and ran 1,000 miles. It’s why I worked out twice a day, spent hours doing resistance training and abdominal work. It’s why I lost 25 lbs, observed a strict diet plan and got plenty of sleep each night. It’s was why I was there; to meet the demons. It was the cruel lure of Ironman.
The latter portion of the marathon leg of an Ironman triathlon is where the soul is exposed and the battle of the mind is acute. At mile seventeen I met the demons and passed through a doorway into a new frontier of suffering and self discovery. My left leg lost all ability to rebound off the ground after each stride. I could no longer hold down solid food or even gels and turned to chicken soup. In order to stay focused on the present I made it my goal to simply reach the next half mile marker. When I reached it, the goal was to reach the next one and so on.
At mile 21 my body was trying very hard to convince me I could no longer run. I decided to run to the nutrition stops and walk through them while drinking soup. Those 30 seconds or so allowed me to collect just enough physical strength to run again and hopefully get to the next stop. I did that for three more miles.
At mile 24 I was catatonic. Another runner collapsed in front of me and didn’t move. I was temporarily distracted and tripped over the body, nearly crashing to the pavement myself. I did everything in my power not to fall because I was seriously afraid I would not be able to get up. The next two miles might as well been a hundred.
I passed the 25.2 mile sign in a complete stupor. My thighs and armpits were raw and bloody. The salt released from my body stained my racing singlet and made a ghostly silhouette around my body. I became concerned about the possibility of leg collapse and wondered if my body would veto all further directions from the brain and shut down operations.
The last mile was filled with supporters and they were not about to let me or anyone else quit. I had to run continuously for the last mile and somehow reach deep down and find the strength to finish strong. The pain in my ankles, calves, knees and thighs was off the chart and I could no longer take in nutrients of any kind, but that didn’t matter anymore. I bored a hole into the roadway ten yards in front of me and simply ran. Somewhere a few miles back I had separated from my physical self and no longer really acknowledged anything.
The massive finish line came into view and the long finishing chute was lined with hundreds of screaming supporters. I picked up my pace in defiance of all known physiological laws and from three thousand miles away, my wife watched on live streaming video as I crossed the line. There are no words that can describe the emotions of that moment. I managed to stay upright and avoid the body catchers as a female race official approached and took me into her custody. She draped a blanket over my shoulders and began asking me a series of simple questions designed to ascertain whether I was coherent or in need of emergency medical attention. I must have produced the right answers. What a day.
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I lived a lifetime in eleven and half hours that early November day and I am grateful to have had the opportunity and ability to experience the journey that got me there. Like most other ultra distance participants, I am drawn by the mystique that surrounds the concept of personal limitations. It is what drives me personally and provides for balance in an otherwise unbalanced world. My fiercest competitor and most daunting adversary has always been myself and I find the challenges to exceed myself to be exciting and motivating. It’s a frontier of discovery that will never go away or be truly conquered. It’s not simply a matter of time, speed or placing and it’s not dependent on age or physical prowess. I feel lucky that I have this need, this desire and this drive to find a challenge and go after it. While others may bemoan those who strive to accomplish something for personal reasons, I embrace my condition and give thanks every time I step out of the water, get off my bike or finish a run. I also have tremendous admiration to those co-workers and friends who share this condition with me and we share a common lens with which we view the world.
We all have our own frontiers of personal discovery that lies outside those pre-established limitations that we so conveniently place on upon ourselves. I encourage everyone to remove the word “never” from your vocabulary and find your personal frontier. Embrace fear and doubt as a motivator and go for it. Whether that frontier is to quit smoking and swim one length of a swimming pool, or run a mile without stopping, or 100 miles, it’s all the same. It’s nothing more then breaking away from your personally imposed barriers because despite what Captain Kirk says, the final frontier is in the mirror.
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