Marathon Me

The morning started bright and early as we got up around 4am. I showered and downed some pop tarts and started drinking some PowerAde. I donned a sweatshirt and swimming trunks and grabbed my gear bag. Shelley had let Christopher sleep as long as possible, but even so there was grumbling. We then we headed down to the lobby to meet with some of the other crazies doing this race. We saw Marty (who was the odds on favorite to crush everyone in our group [note: he did]), Corey May and his wife Tricia (both of whom should be in a good position to put the smack down on me).

Tricia trained like a madwomen for this race. She had actually done a 2.4 mile swim, followed by a 90 mile big ride and then I think a 10+ mile run. No thanks. If I am going to do all of that I’d like a t-shirt and a medal.Shelley dropped me off near the transition and I got in about 5:15. I felt like Paul Williams. I was there so early I had no problem getting to the bathroom, pumping up my tires, putting extra things in all my drop bags and generally walking around and taking it all in.

Sometime after 6am I wondered out of the transition area to try and locate my family, somehow I immediately found Abe, who was perhaps the only smart one in our group as he had come to hang out, party and watch. Abe let me use his cell phone to find my wife.

I went over to them got some last minute hugs and well wishings and left with my wetsuit and headed over to the start.

I had been warned by Corey that the water was crazy cold and that I should have gotten in the water on Saturday, but foolishly I ignored this advice, thinking since I wasn’t going to get into any better shape the day before the only thing I could do would hurt myself. Normally this would have been good advice; not running or biking the day before would be fine. But very soon I would see what a bad idea ignoring this warning would be.

There were 2000+ swimmers all lined up and ready for the gun to go off. After the national anthem the excitement and nervousness was palpable. I had noticed lots of people before the start doing some practice swims and in general just warming up. Soon I would wish I was one of them.

Two things would go against me for not swimming the day before. One, would be the massive chafing I would endure at the hands of my wetsuit. Had I taken a trial swim I would have realized that I needed Body Glide on the back of my knees and could have avoided this:

But alas, I didn’t. Everyone was ready for the race to start as we were getting hot in the wetsuits. The announcer came on and the gun fired and we were off. In case you are wondering what it looks like when 2000+ people all start swimming at the same time, it looks pretty much like this:

As soon as I jumped in the water the cold made itself felt. The announcer told us the water was 55 degrees, which is quite cold. I made it about 50-100 feet enduring several kicks and punches to the face when my chest just seized up at the same time my wetsuit tightened up. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I started having a panic attack, I stopped to start treading water, just trying to breathe. In the meantime no-one seems to notice, or care, and everyone keeps swimming over the top of me. I begin to think I won’t be able to finish the race. My chest still feels too tight and I can’t get a full breath. I have a two piece T1 wetsuit from De Soto Sport that looks kind of like this:

As I continued freaking out, I pulled the top half up to my neck trying to give my chest more room to expand. At this point if I had been next to a kayak, I might have gone over to the side and just stopped. Hopefully just until I got my breath back, but potentially I might have bagged the whole thing. I have never done this in a race before; I’ve run marathons with the flu, and after puking many times ad never have even thought of quiting. So that’s how bad this was for me.

After about 10 minutes, during which I made precious little progress, I finally started to draw air into my lungs at a somewhat normal rate. The panic had subsided and I knew I’d finish, but that it was going to be a long, long day. I would swim the rest of this lap entirely with my head out of the water still trying to get more air in. My first lap took me 52 minutes to cover the 1.2 miles. I got out of the water to cross the timing mat and just stood on the beach for about a minute regaining my composure. I reentered to water and actually swam like a normal human being, or as much as I am capable of doing. I felt light years better than I had 5 minutes earlier and I knew my stretch goal of sub 12 hours was out the window after only one lap, which was kind of depressing, but I was confident that I’d finish the race feeling fine. The second lap only took me 40 minutes (I’m counting the minute I was being a slacker as part of the first lap fiasco), and so I was able to knock about 12-13 minutes off the second lap from the first.

I got close to the first buoy before you turn left around 1:10ish, and I thought to myself, “Damn your black heart Tricia Murphy!”. I knew without a doubt that she would be long gone from the hell hole of a lake and on her bike. In fact she swam a 1:03:52, which was less than a minute and a half behind Desiree Ficker, our local pro.

I emerged from the water with a time of 1:33:04, which was about what I had thought I would do, but I really should have gone around 1:15-1:20 if I hadn’t panicked. So the lesson to be learned, aside from training more, is to try out the swim course a day or two before in the gear you will be using. If I had done this, I wouldn’t have chafed the bejezus out of my legs and I wouldn’t have panicked during the race. Both of which would have been preferable.

I wound up finishing 179th in my age group and 1679th (out of 2061) in the swim, which is the bottom 18% of swimmers. Somehow that means there are 18% of the field that is a worse swimmer than I am. I feel really bad for them, because I wouldn’t have wanted to be in the water any longer than I had to.

As you can see, once I left the water I was much faster. I ran so fast to get away from that cursed place the photographer barely got me in frame. Hahaha.

After leaving the water you cross the timing mats and then head to the “Wet Suit Strippers”, which sadly was not at all what I was expecting. You are basically thrown down on the ground and your wetsuit is brutally stripped off of you and thrown into a big pile which you gather up and then stumble off on rubbery legs to go get changed for the bike.

Up next T1 and the Bike.

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Tags: Ironman, Race Reports //