Moving Forward

Ironman Canada August 28, 2011

“I’m alive, and I’m moving forward”
Ironman mantra

I have always said that I enjoy the process of training for an Ironman almost more than the race itself. However, I should never forget the fact that the Ironman race is also a process, a day-long odyssey of challenges. I once heard legendary triathlete Lisa Bentley say that your success on race day is proportional to how you deal with all the unexpected challenges that are thrown your way. This year, Ironman Canada threw a number of those challenges my way to threaten my chances for success.

Race morning as I stood in my wetsuit on the beach under the cloudless pre-dawn Okanagan sky, I felt the familiar combination of excitement and jangled nerves plus the heavy anticipation of a long day ahead. The feeling has been there for each of my Ironman races, and I hope it always will be. Hot sunny weather was predicted; hot and sunny it became.

Swim - 3.86 kilometres

When the starting horn sounded at 7:00am, over 2800 athletes splashed into Okanagan Lake. This is a few hundred more than have ever started before and the population increase was noticeable. The beach area at the start is wide but swimmers quickly began to converge on the seemingly endless line of orange buoys that stretched out into the lake. Even though I stayed near the back of the pack, I felt more crowded than I ever have before, as if I was trying to get out of a subway car that had somehow filled up with water at morning rush hour.

But having lots of close company is part of the Ironman swim, so we all did our best to make progress amidst the flailing arms and kicking legs around us. I never did find any completely clean water to swim in, but after a while, everyone seemed to settle into a rhythm and we all moved forward. My old clavicle injury was not really a factor and I was happy and relieved to exit the water at about 1:37, one of my faster times. My daughter Laura was already ten minutes ahead of me and I would not see her again until we met on the run, some eleven hours later.

Bike – 180 kilometres
My legs felt strong right from the beginning of the bike as I headed down Skaha Lake Road and up the first hill at McLean Creek.

I flew down Highway 97 and rounded the 60k turn at Osoyoos on schedule and feeling terrific. My habit is not to take any bottles of liquid up the long climb to Richter Pass with me, not wanting to haul them up 10k of mountainous incline. This strategy works fine as long as you don’t have to stop along the way and can get to the next aid station quickly. As it turned out, I couldn’t.

I had just started up the climb when my rear tire went flat. I have never had a flat tire in a race, and I suppose that it was bound to happen sooner or later. I quickly changed the tube and pumped up the new one, which also went flat. I had obviously pinched the new tube in my haste to get back on the road. I was just replacing it again when the race support van from the Bike Barn stopped by. They were kind enough to pump up my tire and I continued upward to Richter Pass. I had been quite a while without anything to drink, and I had nothing with me. It was hot and windless, but I was determined to make up the time I had lost so I hammered my way up to the top. In hindsight this was probably a dumb thing to do.

The thrilling descents and the rollers were just as much fun as they always are, and the slipstream breeze was rejuvenating. Just as I pulled into the aid station at kilometre 100, my rear tire went flat again. Once again the fantastic Bike Barn people were right there and this time we replaced my rim tape as well. They got me on my way quickly, but I reckoned I had lost about thirty minutes by now. Once again I pushed hard to make up for the time. Once again it was a dumb idea.

Some of the aid stations had run out of water by the time I got to them (and the sports drinks were bathwater temperature), which did not help anyone battle the oppressive heat.

By the time I got back into town and rolled into T2 my bike had taken over seven hours and I was glad to put it behind me.

Run – 42.2 kilometres

My run began under the relentless afternoon sun. I started conservatively as I always do, running slowly and walking through each aid station. I was trying to take in lots of fluids to make up for what I had lost on the bike, but by this point I was rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

At about 15k I started to feel sick and light headed, as if I were either going to pass out or throw up - or both. I found that if I just walked it was slightly better, but as soon as I started running I would feel horrible again. I had obviously committed the cardinal error of becoming dehydrated out on the bike and now my body was making me slow down. My marathon and I were going downhill quickly. At 19k I met Laura, who was looking strong on her way back to the finish. I told her I would be finishing very late, if I finished at all.

Approaching the turnaround at 21k I began to consider the possibility that I might actually have to drop out if I started feeling any worse. The thought of a DNF depressed me beyond description, but I didn’t want to collapse right onto the road and be carted away by an ambulance; I’d seen this happen to other athletes throughout the day.

As I sat forlornly on the curb at the turnaround pondering my future, another runner eased himself down beside me. He asked me how I was doing, and I whined briefly about my nausea and light-headedness whenever I tried to run. Then just walk it, he said, but walk with purpose and determination and you’ll get there; you’ve got lots of time. It was then that I noticed that he was covered from head to toe with ugly red scrapes and bruises and that one finger was bandaged and splinted. Obviously he had survived a bike crash earlier in the day. He had to be in a universe of pain and I saw from the grease pencil numbers on his ankle that he was several years older than me.

I raised myself off the curb and started walking toward the finish. With purpose.

As the song says, if you’re going through hell, keep going; so keep going I did, one step at a time. After the sun went down I felt slightly better. Ironically my legs felt strong and there was no pain in my feet, but each time I tried to speed up the nausea returned. Although it was terminally frustrating not to be able to go faster, at least I was making forward progress. The mile markers appeared out of the darkness at slow but regular intervals: 19, 20, 21…

And so I strode purposefully and gratefully back into Penticton, down Main Street and across the finish line with my slowest marathon ever, giving me an overall time for the day of just over 16 hours. Of my seven Ironman races, this was the hardest of them all; but in the words of one coach, at least I “got ‘er done”.

Doing an Ironman is not heroic, despite the road-chalked encouragement slogans and heartfelt hand-lettered signs; but I believe that there is a degree of heroism in finishing what you start, in doing what you said you would do, in keeping your promises to yourself and others, and in honouring those who do the same.

I have no idea if that injured fellow I spoke to finished or not. I hope he did and I wish there was a way I could let him know how much he inspired me to heed my own often-professed advice: just get up off the curb and keep moving forward.