Sorry to those who have been waiting for this. The trip to Calgary turned out to be far more eventful than anticipated and I wanted to take the time to sum it all up. Wade and I also had a wedding speech to polish up before I could concentrate on this AND I went ahead and did a second half ironman in Lake Stevens, Washington. But without further ado, here is my first half ironman experience; the 2010 Calgary Ironman 70.3:
p.s. Don’t forget to check out the pics that accompany this note on facebook (‘TRI, TRI AGAIN’ album).
PART 1: “QUICK! Call 4-1-1!”
Five months of preparation, countless credit card swipes, and eight freshly burned CD’s later, we are finally on the road. Loaded to the brim with all the race essentials, by the time Brent (my dad) and I arrive at Wade’s door our GMC Jimmy looks more like a motorized pack mule. Thankfully, my friend Wade is notorious for packing light; risky light. He and his lone bag quickly find their nest in the backseat amidst a cluster of sleeping bags, pillows, foam rollers, and Fig Newtons. To quote Lloyd Christmas, “Some people just aren’t cut out for life on the road”. Wade drifts off to the peaceful sounds of Neil Young and David Gray and is out cold before we know it. Unbeknownst to us, the road to Alberta will be anything but peaceful this August long weekend. It’s Thursday and the race is three days away.
Hours pass and we find ourselves at the outskirts of Kamloops on Highway 1 and in serious need of a good leg stretch. Suddenly, a cloud of dust billows up from the far edge of the oncoming lane; directly to our left. Dad slows down and I sit up in my seat. We watch as a silver vehicle catapults from the dust and launches high into the air. The car’s front end points toward the sky and for an instant we see its full underbody before it spirals around 360 degrees in mid-air. It was like watching a stunt from some blockbuster movie (a 3D movie!). The driver must have lost control and veered off the road and into the steep ditch that lines the highway. In a last-“ditch” effort to correct his mistake he turned HARD back toward the road, but at that kind of speed the trench acted as a dusty stunt ramp and they were cleared for take-off. Luckily, it is only a single car accident. And even more luckily, this single car has somehow landed back on all four wheels. However, they are not out of the woods yet. Here comes that leg stretch.
Brent pulls over and all three of us hop out. “QUICK! Call 4-1-1!” Dad says to me. I decide to go with 9-1-1 instead. Emergency puts me on HOLD for what feels like 10 minutes (probably closer to 10 seconds). I look over at the car. It is so badly crumpled that I cannot even tell what make or model it is. My call goes through;
“Fire, Police, or Ambulance?” A female voice asks. This is a tough one. It catches me off-guard.
“BRING EVERYONE!” I yell. I am pacing back and forth beside our Jimmy on the opposite side of the highway from the accident. I’m so focused on the 9-1-1 call, and reviewing my decision to tell them to bring EVERYONE, that I don’t even stop to think what Wade and Brent might be up to. The phone line gets transferred over and an incredibly calm new voice speaks into my ear.
“Alright sir, has there been a car accident?” The new lady asks.
“YES!” I reply.
“Well that’s okay. That’s okay. What is your location?” She inquires; more calm than ever.
“Umm…KAMLOOPS!” I instantly recognize that “KAMLOOPS” is not a good enough answer and begin bobbing around for clues. WHY are they asking me all these difficult questions!?! I think to myself. Don’t they have Google Street View or some iPhone app that can take care of this? It was madness. Madness, I tell you!
The accident is no more than one minute old at this point, but as I shoot my head around to find someone with answers it felt like the entire city had shown up. On the right-hand side of the freeway, nearest to our vehicle, there is a steep grassy embankment with houses and rural roads that overlook Highway 1. The top of this hill is now lined with locals eager to provide a running, but primarily counterproductive, commentary on the incident. I call to one of these “hillbillies”, as we would later refer to them as (due to their behaviour and literal position atop the hill), and one of them provides me with our exact location for the 9-1-1 operator. It would turn out to be the last helpful remark uttered by any of these onlookers. The types that come from nowhere then go right back into it.
“Back up! She’s gonna blow!” Screams a hillbilly. This catches my attention and with my cell phone still to my ear, I finally turn around and face the wrecked silver car. Now, when you have just witnessed a serious car accident, are on the phone with 9-1-1, and can hear people screaming “SHE’S GONNA BLOW”, things can feel a bit overwhelming. Altogether though, I felt like I was maintaining my composure. This all began to change as I see Wade and Brent digging around in the passenger seat of a car that was now on fire!
“Alright sir, help is on the way. Can you describe for me the situation?” More questions from the calm lady.
“My father and my best friend are pulling people from a burning vehicle!” I almost can’t believe my own words.
“Okay, go.” She says. Thinking back on it with a clear mind this was kind of a wild thing to say. No instructions? No talking us through this? Just “go”? Okay, I will go. I run across two lanes, through the trench that separates east and westbound traffic, and into the belly of the beast. It is scary and I am really hoping there are no dead people in the car. Wade and Brent have just unbuckled and evacuated a barely conscious female passenger and she’s lying at our feet. Dad runs back to see if anyone else is inside and realizes that another witness has removed the driver from the car – everyone is out. Both are alive. The air is thick with black smoke that is making it hard to breathe. The “It’s gonna blow” chants continue.
“They’re both shitfaced!” Another hillbilly yells eroneously. Wade and I decide to pick up the female and carry her as far from the carnage as possible. She is covered in blood and dirt and her face is so swollen that we can’t tell if she’s 13 or 30. We are trying to be gentle with her but she begins to regain consciousness and is very squirmy. I keep telling her that everything is alright.
“No it’s not!” She screams back at us. She is right. We lay her down well out of harm’s way and Wade makes a pillow with his shirt and places it under her head. I look back to see that the silver car she was buckled to just moments ago is now fully engulfed in flames. The gas tank would later explode, as the hillbillies predicted, but it was far less eventful than their frantic warning yelps implied. The explosion shot up rather than out and was nothing more than a loud BOOM and a puff of smoke.
I see the male driver of the vehicle surrounded by his own group of witnesses. There is a large gash on his forehand but he is standing and walking around on his own power. He holds a dirty cloth to his head to stop the bleeding and is attempting to make his way over to the female but is being slowed down by many well-meaning bystanders. Seemingly out of nowhere comes a Medical First Responder who looks like Doogie Howser. Even though it seems like he has just hit puberty, and it could very well be his first day on the job, this kid does an amazing job taking care of a very distressed female and I earn a ton of respect for, not only him, but anyone in an emergency response profession. The first response team showed up so lightning quick that they must have either been on that stretch of highway already OR they are a bunch of psychics who roll around in first aid Ferrari’s.
Once the professionals have taken over we return to our Jimmy and continue on our journey. When we left the scene of the accident there did not seem to be any reason to believe that either passenger had suffered serious or life-threatening injuries. While we are not doctors, Wade and I do both hold Bachelors Degree’s now so that’s an assessment of health you can take straight to the bank! I see a lot car advertisements bragging about their safety features or crash-test ratings, but it’s impossible to have an appreciation for such things until you witness the importance first-hand. Seatbelts and airbags were the difference between life and death on this day. A few miles down the road I get a text message from my mom. She wants to know how the drive is going and if we’re making good time. I text back:
“Dad and Wade just rescued a person from a burning vehicle. Other than that, everything is going great.”
I have felt some level of nerves in each one of my triathlon races to date. These feelings have ranged from a healthy anxiousness to a full-blown “HOLY SHIT I’M DROWNING” panic attack. As corny as it may sound, to experience such a chilling circumstance, and endure the events that followed, really put things into perspective for me as we safely completed the drive to Ghost Lake, Alberta (location of the swim). I felt strangely calm for the remainder of the trip and throughout my longest race distance yet - thankful that I am strong enough in mind and body to even attempt such a task. I mean, c’mon, if Dad and Wade can rescue a person from a flaming vehicle, the least I can do is swim, cycle, and run for 70.3 miles, right?
PART 2: Tornadoes and Transitions
During my preparations for this race, I read an article by a runner turned triathlete who was attempting to explain the first discipline of the sport to non-swimmers. “Swimming in a pool is to running on a treadmill as swimming in the open water is to running from a hungry bear.” Before finishing our drive to the city of Calgary we set up a tent on the edge of Ghost Lake for one night so that I may test the hungry waters prior to the start gun blast. The only consistent review of this lake has been that it’s cold, cold, COLD. It lived up to this billing. Even through the wetsuit my joints feel frozen and the choppy water tastes like pure gasoline from the dozens of boats anchored near the entry point. I tell myself that the race morning adrenaline will make the cold go away. But I tell myself a lot of things.
After surrendering a few pints of blood to the locust-like mosquito infestation at Ghost Lake, Wade and I drive into town while Brent opts to ride his bike so he can scope out the course and fulfill his Vancouver-to-Whistler Grand Fondo training requirement for the weekend. He doesn’t see us again until hours later; by this point Wade and I have already checked into the hotel and made an impression on at least two local cowgirls…each. I am curious about the bike course but Brent’s review is a negative one – rough roads, road rage, and rabid skeeters. Again, I engage in some healthy self-talk to shift the pendulum. Obviously conditions will be a bit more favourable on race day as opposed to a weekday ride. I tell myself to not to worry about any of these “uncontrollables” and we flip on the TV in our room. The words IMMINENT TORNADO WARNING are splattered in bold across the weather channel. That is one BIG uncontrollable! Wade and I have a good laugh at this. Hide the women and children!
The rest of the lead up to the race passes quickly. I follow a strict diet while watching Wade eat like a king. I increase my sodium consumption while Wade increases his liquor consumption (ALL beers are Alberta-sized). We both attend the race expo where Wade acts as my agent; pimping me out as the potential new face of everyone’s product. Some are more intrigued than others. At the pre-race meeting, while anxious age groupers are asking inconsequential questions over where to place their helmet sticker, I ask 11-time Ironman champion Lisa Bentley if she thinks it will be a tailwind or headwind tornado. She votes tailwind. And before I know it, I am back laying on the itchy Sandman sheets ready for bed at 8pm on a Saturday night. The 2010 Calgary Ironman 70.3 starts in 10 hours. I put in my earplugs and sleep like a newborn baby.
Unfortunately, Brent decided to put in earplugs as well. Neither of us rise to the multiple 4am alarms. Wade hears them loud and clear and tosses a pillow at us. I spring out of bed. I feel ready: salt pills, caffeine, bagel, banana, yogurt, anti-chaff cream EVERYWHERE, iPod, out the door. Our 4:30am shuttle is an old yellow school bus. Other than the crackle of PowerBar wrappers and the muffled
emissions of everything from Beathovan’s 5th to Marshall Mather’s ‘Til I Collapse’, everything is silent. I follow suit and pop in my earbuds - “Intro” by The XX is the soundtrack to my morning.
Forty-five minutes later we are back at Ghost Lake. Hundreds of athletes and thousands of mosquitoes are already buzzing around the first transition zone (the caged area housing the bikes). I roam around a little and watch others fumble through their pre-race preparations. I don’t know what it is, but observing overly-anxious people really gives me a sense of calm. Maybe it was because my heat wave (ages 18-24) doesn’t get set loose until 6:45; a full 45 minutes later than the first group. This downtime gives Wade’s school bus a chance to catch up with us and I am able to enjoy watching him swat away skeeters with heavy pre-sunrise hands before it’s time to get wet.
In learning how to swim (properly), one of the biggest obstacles I overcame was acceptance of the fact that submerging myself under water means losing touch with reality for significant periods of time. The idea off having the majority of my senses limited or cut-off really agitated me. It’s like showing up to a party then wearing a blindfold and earmuffs for an hour. When you take them off, your environment is bound to have changed. Perhaps there has been an emergency and you didn’t even realize it, or someone is looking for you, or maybe some cute girls strolled in – who knows? I am exaggerating a tad but the fact remains that similar feelings still manifest themselves during the start of my races.
Before the start gun in Calgary, I seed myself very intelligently amongst the pack; so as not to get mowed down or kicked in the teeth. Nevertheless, I still execute the first 30 strokes or so with my entire head above water to see where I’m going and to ensure I find a pocket of open water. Everything is going smoothly and I know it is now time to dunk my face and commit to this swim. Yet, something is still holding me back. Ahh, but I really don’t feel like going under just yet. It’s like when you’re a kid and your mom’s trying to wake you up for school; “Just a few more minutes, PLEASE!” It is at this moment when I remind myself, for the first of many times, one of triathlon’s important ongoing lessons. When your mind is telling your body any of these words: can’t, won’t, don’t, stop, or WHY? Do you best to tell your brain to SHUT THE HELL UP! I plunge my head into Ghost Lake.
It could be because myself and about one thousand other athletes have just leaked in our wetsuits, or maybe it was all the excitement, but the water felt significantly warmer than two days prior. What do piss warm waters and an instinct to spend as little time as possible with my head under water both have in common? The incentive to swim like a fish. I cruise through the swim and exit in about 33 minutes; much faster than anticipated.
I trot up the boat launch feeling a little legless. Leaving the water is such a drastic change in stimulation to the body and it is still something I am not used to; sort of feels like “liquor legs”. I make a mental note to include more drunken stumbles home in my training. I crest the ramp and flop onto the grass allowing the volunteer wetsuit strippers to do their business. They make short work of me and I’m off to find my transition-1 bag containing all my meticulously packaged bike gear. These races can make for a long day and it is critical to remember that whenever you are doing anything for up to nine hours straight, there are bound to be hiccups. How you choose to cope with these hiccups is up you. I now encounter my first mishap of the day; it is not a tornado, but a transition.
Prior to the swim I placed my red transition bag amongst a sea of other red transition bags just like it. The difference was that mine was strategically set at the very end of a long row of bags. I did not take my eyes off it until I had to enter the water; it would be impossible to miss. I missed it. I run back down the line of bags. I miss it again. I spot a volunteer and feel the urge to scream angry words in their direction. But my heart rate is already soaring from a strong swim effort and obscenities will only serve to increase it. Plus I can see Wade shooting some video footage. “PLEASE tell me you didn’t move the bags while we were swimming?” I say.
“Ummm…we had to.” Replies the nervous volunteer.
It turns out they also “had to” move my bag three rows down to the female athlete section for some reason. I am scrambling around so hard to find it that I half expect a Kamloops car accident hillbilly to pop out with some shoddy advice. It is sort of like finding a needle in a haystack. But more like finding a red sack with a tiny ID number in a sea of identical red sack’s with tiny ID numbers. Eventually I see the bag, empty its contents, stuff my wetsuit inside, and punt it into a separate pile. This eternal transition ends with a brief moment of clarity as I pass a rider in the process of changing a flat tire not even 10 feet onto the bike course! I am thankful not to be him. Though one day I could be, and when that day comes I hope to have learned not to react so emotionally to setbacks. Some people happen to people on purpose. This guy calmed me down, for now.
Speaking of emotional overreactions, I am now officially on the bike leg of my first Ironman 70.3 and I’m finding it difficult to stick to the game plan. A game plan that consists of taking the first 10 kilometers of the ride extremely easy; allowing my heart rate to drop and giving me a chance to settle in. The trouble is that most people appear to be adhering to the very opposite approach. Suddenly it feels like I am once again on a level playing field with everyone I worked so hard to out-swim. I want to react to each of these “attacks”; to every man and woman ripping past me on their ten thousand dollar speed machines. I want to start mashing through my hardest gears and follow them to where ever they are in such a hurry to go. But I don’t. Instead, I sit back and reassure myself that I’ll being meeting each one of them somewhere down the road. As the competitors begin to settle in, there is some chatter out on the course. I start screaming, “WANNA TRADE BIKES!?!” to those sporting the sweetest rides. Obviously, some of the people who zip past are never to been seen again: studs, thoroughbreds, stallions. Though many who made the early push I did come across, and overtake, a couple hours later.
Around the same time the adrenaline wears off and my heart rate drops, a morning chill sinks into my bones. I am donning a damp two-piece lyrca triathlon suit that the growling tornado-ready skies are not aiding to dry. I block out the biting cold and look forward to my first dose of nutrition. Allowing my heart rate to decrease before taking in calories will ensure they are put to the best possible use in my body. I love to eat, and I often find myself daydreaming about potential recovery meals while I train. So whenever it is “snack time” out on the course, I make an effort to really savour it. I have packed Fig Newtons, PowerBar gels, and a custom formulated energy/electrolyte mix called Infinit. Ahead I see the flashing lights from parked Calgary police cruisers dancing off the slick highway road. I have a brief Kamloops flashback but I know that these cars are only here to block oncoming traffic as there is a sharp left turning approaching.
As soon as I spot the volunteer waving a left turn signal I begin to slice across the road from right to left while simultaneously reaching behind my saddle for one of two bottles of my carefully concocted (and I mean VERY carefully – down to the calorie) Infinit beverage. I figure that slowing down for a turn is as good a time as any to take a quick hit. As I make my move, my bike rolls across a set of staggered rumble strips that line the road. I knew they were there, and I swear I’ve successfully rolled over them in B.C. These ones are different; Alberta-grade bone-jarring asphalt indentations that nearly rattle me off my wheels. For an instant I thought both tires had burst; they hadn’t, but something had violently shot past my outstretched arm. A brimming bottle of fluid can act as heavy artillery when such force is applied to it. A couple seconds later I hear a loud CLUNK – the bottle had launched high into the air, hit the pavement, and spun off the highway and into a soggy ditch. The remaining bottle was clinging for dear life in its respective bottle cage and is thankfully salvaged. But the fact remains that HALF of my nutrition was now missing less than an hour into a long day of exercise. I am in quite the mood.
I begrudgingly decide to stop and search for the precious calories. It is a frantic hunt. I scurry back down the road. Riders are yelling things like, “WHAT are you doing!?!” and “You’re doing fine. Don’t give up man!” All I keep thinking is, Kevin you are in a race and moving in the opposite direction! I didn’t see where the bottled had skidded off the road and if the chants and self-criticism weren’t enough to get me on my way, the mosquitoes are. I clip back into my pedals and continue to ride. My mind is racing.
The remainder of the 90 kilometer trek goes by in a flash. I become somewhat of a rolling chemist and do a complete mental overhaul of my nutrition plan in order to make the remaining supplies stretch. Nutrition is often considered the fourth discipline of triathlon and I was absolutely determined not to let it be the downfall of my first half-Iron race. I rationed everything I had on me and, to be honest, it may have been a blessing in disguise. I had planned for a humid day but on this gloomy August long weekend I would not end up perspiring and subsequently sacrificing anywhere near the amount of calories I had intended. Sometimes, getting what you want is not nearly as important as giving what you have. I finish the ride (which was actually closer to 96 km.) in 3 hours 6 minutes and leap off my bike feeling fresh for the half marathon run. The feeling would not last long.
As I sit and reflect upon the run leg of the race, I mind myself a little tongue-tied. Not because I can’t recall this portion of the race, but because of how difficult it was. It was tough, VERY tough - child labour comes to mind (as if I know what that’s like it). During the swim and bike segments of the race I felt very much “in the moment”. Fully aware of my surroundings and able to soak up all the sights and sounds. The hilly run course was filled with so much torment that these quiet observations were replaces with internal questions. Will this next stride be my last? I was locked in the mental "hurt box" for nearly the entire 1 hour 55 minute run and it shut out most pleasant thoughts; only permitting the angry ones to enter. During the first 10 kilometers I began breaking down my exertion into tiny segments and would count my foot strikes up to ten. After those ten came another ten, then another, then another. On the home stretch I would look ahead and single out a tall tree off in the distance. I fixated on it and as it grew closer and closer I would pretend it was reeling me in. This worked well and served as a welcome distraction.
Another distraction, and perhaps the only amusing experience of the entire run, came in the form of two men in lime green Borat-style banana hammock Speedos holding a chalkboard sign titled: PHONE NUMBERS? You could see professional athletes struggling to wipe the smile from their faces and get back into race mode. It was pure genius. Aside from that, I thought about two things. The first and foremost was FOOD. I found myself wondering what kind of post-race sandwiches they would serve. Turkey would be nice. This also tells me that I could have been missing those calories I left in a ditch about 60 miles back. The second thing I thought about, oddly enough, was a scene from The Dark Knight.
Near the end of that movie, while the Joker is reeking havoc, he insists to a Gotham cop; “In their last moments, people show you who they really are. So in a way, I know your friends better than you ever did.” As violent an example as this is, I saw some overlap in what I was doing. While I didn't feel dead out there (we'll save that for Ironman Canada), I did feel completely stripped down during those hours of running. Layers and layers of self were slowing peeled back and not much mattered anymore: the weather, the spectators, the flattened Fig Newton caked onto the back of my top - none of that stuff. All that mattered was that damn finish line and it took an internal argument with the very core of myself to make it there in full stride. How bad do you want it? It has been said that in life it is important to not necessarily be strong, but to feel strong. To measure yourself at least once. The measuring stick was certainly out on this day. But I suppose it's all a part of life on the run.
