You all know that I am not that big of a story teller but
I realize that sharing a big event is a way of connecting with everyone. Who would remember Homer if the “Iliad” were
never written? I know that it is hard to
think of me as humble when I compare my story to this famous epic but there are
a lot of similarities that are hard to deny.
Both of us had to cross many miles in the sea, at least Homer had a
boat. Both of us had to deal with
journey that even the best preparation couldn’t account for the challenges of
the journey. Homer had to deal with
turning to stone if he looked at Medusa.
My legs were turning to stone as I looked at the median turn around
point. Both of our wives had to put up
with the kids while us “heroes” were out on our self-inflicted epic. (Now you know the real hero in the stories.) Okay, so you get the point.
Preface:
After
finishing the same Ironman Course last year, it took me three months before I
started to consider doing another. As
most of you know, the IM is a triathlon that consists of a 2.4 mile swim, 112
mile bike ride, and a 26.2 mile run. I
usually have a hard time saying it with a straight face to people. Then watching as they try to put it in
perspective and realizing that anyone must be touched in the head to consider
such an event. The first year, I
finished in 13hr and 32 minutes. The
prospect of a new job in San Diego and the fact that I might be living there by
myself for a few months was what pushed me into signing up. Training was something to do in my “free”
time. This was quite effective. I did get the new job. I am living down in SD without my family much
longer than I imagined. And training for
the Ironman always goes beyond using up anything that resembles free time. This year, people really knew that I was
whacked when I started showing up to the kids Saturday track meet and pedaling
my bike on the stationary trainer. Talk
about making free time! It seemed
logical to me in that I get to see my kids run and they get to see me ride!! There was one flaw in the IM logic. Yes, it used up my free time but the race
date came at the same time track was ending and we are actively trying to find
a house to live in SD. So the stress was
a bit compressed at the Bertsch house the last few weeks.
The
days leading up to the race were way less stressful than last year. At least now I knew the routine and that
there is no real need to fear all those messages that are generated in the
“self doubt” part of your brain. (It’s
tightly held secret that IM competitors thrive on the adrenaline that is
generated by that part of the brain. One
of the big post race satisfactions is that you proved them wrong!)
The
Race:
Up
at 4:30. Actually, I’m not sure I really
slept much. This year one of my key
strategies was to consume more calories.
The race burns 7400 calories! Do
you know how hard it is to eat that much?
You don’t actually eat that much in fact you stomach is doing
somersaults so it is hard to eat anything.
One
of the challenges that I didn’t have last year was having to get from an
offsite hotel to the race. This year the
race director said that it would be better and it was but the shuttle busses
still had to go through all the incoming traffic. When I got there at 5:30, there must have
been 200 people waiting in line to get on the bus. So we decided to walk down, at the last
minute I shamelessly scammed a seat on the bus that was just getting ready to
pull out leaving my family with having to make the walk. After I got my numbers marked, it was a
matter of simply waiting for the right time to get in the water.
The
water was warm this year at 65degrees.
There was a short period of time where the water in my wet suit was 98.2
degrees. I found my previous covert
waiting spot to be available. You see
they anchor a sailboat at the start.
Rather than tread water for 15 minutes like the 1800 others, I’d rather
go over and stand on the anchor line. I
just smile at everyone. This year the
swim start almost caught everyone by surprise.
It took a long time for the swim to thin out enough to get into a
rhythm. There is a point about 10
minutes into the race where your arms and lungs start saying, “Hello! Mr.
Heart, time to get your butt in gear. We
are working hard here and you are back at the swim start.” Your CO2 starts to rise and that “self doubt”
part of your brain seizes the opportunity to say, “Ha! I told you so. It’s only 10 minutes into the race and you’re
starting to hurt already. There’s a real
lo-o-o-o-ong way to go. I don’t think
you’ll make it.” The extra CO2 makes
your logical brain panic. “Oh shoot, he’s right! What the heck are we doing
here? Look at all these thrashing bodies
you’re gonna die!” Fortunately, the guys
down in the boiler room get on the horn and say, “You pansies. We’ve done this a million times. Pour on the coals and gimmie Full Steam
Ahead!” All of this transpires over the
course of about five strokes. After
that, the boiler room burns off the adrenaline and the heart does its job. Then you become a heat-seeking missile. The prime directive is to find the right
person that seems to be swimming straight enough. (That’s not all that easy
from a vantagepoint of two inches from the water’s surface. But if you find the right person, you can
tuck right in behind and save about 20%.
You end up changing this parasite relationship at least six times during
the race. Five-foot inflatable buoys
mark the turns. Approaching these is
very interesting in that hundreds of swimmers are converging on the same
spot. It is like getting on a turnstile
in a crowded store. You swim up and basically
let the flow of swimmers push you around until you are in the clear and can
resume what you were doing moments before looking for another good
swimmer! Time does strange things on the
swim because you have no clue of how long you’ve been in the water. Finally, there becomes a point where the swim
finish becomes visible and you can feel everyone start to surge for one last
final kick. When you can put your feet
back down on the ground, the smile automatically returns to your face. But that is a fleeting moment as you dash out
of the water and you start looking for the draw chord for the zipper. It should be dangling at your back but it
usually defies physics and hangs over your shoulder. So you flip it back and start fishing for it
again. All to the amusement of the
spectators I am sure. There are
volunteers there to help yank the suit off.
Don’t worry most people remember to wear something underneath.
After
the swim, the next challenge is to find your bike gear in a sea of racks that
all look the same. They are actually
numbered but with people streaming in it can get crazy. With bag in hand you head into the changing
tent. You are met with another sea of
people all trying to find some room to dump out dry clothes onto the wet and
dirty ground. You are wet and shaky so
nothing dry wants to go onto your body.
A trick I learned from my mentor, Joe Foster, is to roll your socks down
like a doughnut so that you can roll them on rather than pull them on. I am still trying to figure out how to roll
my shirt.
After
much hopping and fiddling, I am out on the bike course. This year I also decided that I would take 30
seconds to stop and give my family high fives.
Out on the bike course, you wait to get into a groove. At first, everything is great your blood
sugar is high and your bike is streaking along like a well-oiled machine. As I said, my goal was to “eat” more so I
started to eat a power bar early.
Although they take a lot of saliva to work down I never have any problem
with them. I was also packing a flask of
GU. It is an easily digestible
…well…Goo! It has the consistency and
sweetness of frosting but for some reason just is not as easy to swallow. My problem was that this stuff gets thicker
as it gets colder. I could not get it to
flow down to the nozzle. I tried
everything but gave up. But I guess
during one of my attempts some of it got stuck on my face. It wasn’t until it was over that my kids said
that I looked like I cut myself shaving.
Naturally, this “scar” shows up in all the race photos.
Just
to show that things are not all happening to the participants: The family was
making a poster to cheer me on. One of
the sponsors, Janice Funds, supplied poster boards and markers. The kids and Grandpa were waiving these as I
came by on the bike. Later, Theresa sees
that Grandpa Jim has these dark blue “bruises” around each eye. When she asks him what happened he gives the
usual grunt, “Huh? What bruises?” Now Theresa is starting to think that she is
going to have to take Grandpa to the med tent when they finally realize that
the blue poster markers were not permanent and Grandpa had been rubbing his
eyes!! What a classic!
Also,
Carolyn found this really nice quartz rock on the beach. Papou (Greek for Grandpa Bill) is a
geologist. He informs Carolyn of what a
beautiful specimen that she has found.
While they are all sitting there, Carolyn grabs the nearest water bottle
and starts to rinse all the sand off.
Bill does a double take but alas too late. As fate would have it, the water bottle was
(emphasis on was) full of Bill’s vodka for his afternoon Screwdriver. Another classic.
Meanwhile,
I was just getting ready to complete the bike course. People ask, “Do you get depressed at each
transition knowing that you have to go out and still do the next event? It is actually the other way around. I think everyone is so happy that the
previous event is over that they are happy to start the next. I know that my
butt was really happy to get off that tiny little seat.
My
run transition was made in record time for me.
2 minutes and 33 seconds. I owe
this to the volunteers that work this transition. I have been volunteering transitions a couple
times in Kona and it is not glamorous at all.
Everyone is hot, wet, stinky and mostly self absorbed in getting the
heck out of there. There was a very nice
man who offered to help me. At first I
was reluctant but I asked him to switch the timing chip to the outside of my
sock. (Even the littlest of tasks are monumental
at this point!) So while I was rolling
my other sock on and fighting my shoe, he was patiently working the Velcro on
the timing chip. I had learned the hard
way last year that it is a slow grind into your ankle on the run. By this point, fatigue is something you are
dealing with and any help is very appreciated.
I think I thanked him four times.
He helped dump my old wet socks and shoes into my bag after I had
left.
I
was glad to be back in the fresh air and starting the run. This year the prime place that I really had
hopes of improving was my marathon time.
The previous year my goal was to finish without walking which I did
after 4 hours and 44 minutes. This year
I wanted to finish in the sunlight and possibly run a sub four-hour run. Being the engineer, I had my countdown timer
set to chime off my pace at each mile. I
even had a print out of the times for each mile that I should have done to
reach my goal. The problem I found is
that I can’t do anything but real basic math while I am running so calculating
times is nearly impossible. By mile
three, I was running with a guy from Canada that had the same goal of finishing
in four hours. It’s everyone for
themselves but we both agreed to hang as much as possible together. My well made plans started to falter because
the mile markers were not always visible.
(I started to recall that it was the same way last year.) The markers are small so a spectator could
easily obstruct them. It was not until I
was coming back to the halfway turn around that I could see that I was almost
exactly on a four hour pace. Realizing
this after two hours of working hard, I started to get emotional. I also knew that my family would be someplace
ahead ready to cheer me on. The stands
are full of cheering people, and the speakers were blaring the song, “Send me
an angel, Send me an angel, Right now! Right now!” My emotions just spilled over the top between
happiness and thankfulness. By the time
I made it to where my family was I could barely stop for the high fives. I remember getting a hug from Theresa but
that was all I could put together at the time.
My mom wanted the squeeze off a photo from her cardboard camera but I
waived her off. They all thought that I
was on the verge of a melt down. But I
really was on a surge of emotion. The
last loop of the run was tough. I have a
lot of respect for everyone who heads out on the second loop. At that point thirteen miles seems a long
way. My hat is off to Joe Foster who
finished second in his age group. He
said that he couldn’t remember finishing the race. I had taken my run from the level of
completing to the level of running through the pain. Joe runs at two levels (perhaps more) above
that. The hard thing to explain is that
the higher the level you break through the more personal reward there is to
finishing. Perhaps that is what draws us
back again.
I
got a big lift as my friend, John Snyder, talked to me from his bike on the
back leg of the second loop. (don’t tell
anyone as this is against the rules.) I
remember thinking at some point, “Why is he telling me all of this stuff? Can’t he tell that I am dying here?” Actually, it did help because instead of
focusing on my current situation I was focusing on his story. For a good
portion, he was video taping me. I have
yet to look at the tape because I am afraid to see the sorry shape that I was
in. At this point in the race, I am in
survival mode. If someone had told me
that eating my shirt would help, I am sure that I would give it a try. The real tip is to resist trying anything
new. Stick with what is working. The final boost came when someone I passed at
mile 23 said out of the blue to me, “Well you’ve got a good shot at finishing
in under 12 (hours)”. This snapped me
back into reality. In my head I break
down the race into segments, this makes it much more manageable. At this point, I was only timing my
marathon. I switched my watch to the
time of day and noticed that there was about 15 minutes left before 7pm (race
start was 7am). At first I could not
believe it. This put me an hour and 30
minutes ahead of my previous time!! As I said earlier, I can’t do a lick of
math while running but 15/3 was pretty easy.
I had to run five minute miles. I
knew that that wasn’t possible but somehow I really wanted to get close. The second to last mile is tough because it
goes across sand which really uses more energy than I am willing to give. In the previous year as I entered the final
100 yards I was so spent that I couldn’t put together any kick at all. This time I was at the final 200 yards and
thinking there is still some steam left.
Of course I wasn’t sure if my legs would answer the call. As you round the last turn, you re-enter all
the cheering, all the music but this time you don’t have to turn around and
head back out. This time you will
finish. There were two guys ahead of me
by at least 30 yards which is a lot to make up in a 100 yards. Last year, the guy who stopped just before me
ruined my finish photo. I noticed that
these guys were slowing down so I opened all the valves and dumped any
remaining fuel into a last ditch effort.
It paid off and my photo shows that I finished in 12 hours and 14
minutes. That was an hour and fifteen
minutes off my last year’s time. I was
ecstatic!! I couldn’t believe it myself.
The
other thing that I was real happy with was that my recovery was much faster
than the previous year. Theresa said
that I looked much better. In a long day
like this, calories count. Ironically, I
was starved because the whole day was mostly a liquid diet. I had a Denny’s Grand Slam breakfast at 9:00
pm!
When
asked why I do it my answer is “Life is not defined by the ordinary things that
you do but by the extra ordinary things you do.
If you are blessed with the ability and opportunity, don’t miss life.”
Well,
I could write six times more stories about this day but the rest are the
personal connections that you make with family, friends, and friends you don’t
even know. You see them all the next day
and one look in the eye and you know that they shared their own epic that day
too!
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