The Ironman Story

This was a bucket list item to be completed 10-15 years down the road.....until we went to the church's father and son campout in May of 2011.  That was when my friend Tige saw me return from an early morning, 12-mile trail run.  (Grandpa G. was there, so Trey wasn't alone in the tent).  In the ensuing conversation with Tige he found out that I enjoyed endurance, running events and that I had just purchased a road bike that previous summer, and had done a couple of shorter distance triathlons.  I found out that he previously raced cycles in Portland, was on a cycling team, and was getting into triathlons.  The next comment went something like this, "Hey, I'm planning on doing an Ironman triathlon in the fall of 2012.  You should do it with me."  To which I responded something like, "You're nuts.  Do you even know what it's like to run a marathon alone?  Let alone after a 2.4 mile swim and 112 mile bike?  I don't have the gear.  Do you know how much time it's going to take to train for something like that?  You're crazy!"  I was also in the beginning phases of studying for my advanced certification exam that I was scheduled to take in May of 2012.  That would obviously take precedence over a dumb endurance race, and if I decided to do the race, the studying would take away several months of good training.  Not only that, but the summer of 2012 would be Julie's and my 10th anniversary and we were planning a big trip together, on which I would most likely not have my bike or a pool to train in.  And who wants to go on a long training run on vacation?

A week or two later, I agreed to do race with him.  The main reason?  I didn't know if I would ever have someone who would want to do something like this with me again, and having a training partner is HUGE for something as large an undertaking as an Ironman.

Training began two days after my birthday: on January 9, 2012.  The iron-distance race chosen was to be on September 15, 2012 in Grand Coulee, WA.  A smaller in numbers triathlon, but one that the family could travel to more easily, and one that was about 1/2 the price of an officially branded "Ironman" sanctioned event.  We didn't really care if the t-shirt said "Ironman," as long as the distance we covered was equivalent.  And, it indeed was.

Santa brought me an indoor bike trainer so I could ride through the wet, dark winter in my garage.  That wasn't super fun.  Ok, it wasn't fun at all, but it sure made me appreciate the beauty of flying down a big hill on a warm spring day at 35+ mph.

I did the best I could to study over my lunch breaks, ride and/or run after the kids went to bed and before they woke up on Saturday mornings.  But this training was much more time consuming than anything I had ever done before.  I knew it would be like this, and so before agreeing to do this race, I talked it over with Julie.  She agreed I should go for it with the fair stipulation that she would have time to achieve some of her goals once I was done with this crazy idea.  It was still obviously a huge sacrifice for her.  There were several Saturdays when the training required 5-8 hour rides and runs that would take me away from the family no matter how early I got up.

Many a garage ride before my test included studying flash cards.  The aero bars made this a little bit easier.

Prior to April we had a couple of nice weekends to get outside, but there weren't many dry days.  On our first century ride weekend we had stellar weather.  

Views like this were frequent on our ride.  We ended up riding 92 miles.  I then ran for 30 minutes off the ride.  I must  say that I felt HORRIBLE on that run, and even though it was early in the training program, I seriously questioned how I would be able to run a full marathon after biking 112 miles (not to mention the swim) 

I sat for my exam on May 12th.  I wouldn't learn the results for another 5 weeks, but I did love the feeling of getting that thing off my shoulders.  I jumped into training with renewed vigor, especially swimming.  I really hadn't done any training for the swimming portion up to that point, knowing that that event would not be too difficult for me (with it being the first event of the 3, and having swum competitively for many years).

A couple of things happened in June.  First, Tige and I decided to do our first half-ironman (70.3) triathlon.  I figured that if we were going to do a full iron then we may as well get a 70.3 (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run) under our belts in the process.  We signed up for the 1/2 iron tri set for June 22nd in Sunriver, OR.  We had only heard great things about this race: beautiful course, warm, challenging, and tons of support.  We were excited!  The second thing that happened was that I found out that I passed my certification exam!  What a relief!

Well, the typical, sunny Central Oregon weather in late June was nowhere to be found.  But the typical Western Washington spring-- wind, cold, and rain-- was all over the place.  Ugh!  55 degrees was predicted for the high in the valley.  The bike course would cruise up to 6,000 feet to the Mt. Bachelor ski resort.  Well, it was snowing up there.

Are you kidding me?  Central Oregon in the summer is supposed to be hot and sunny!  This is Western Washington winter weather.

Yeah, that says 62 degrees.

Below is a video that I didn't make, but it takes you through the course pretty well.  They don't show the hail storm we had to run through, and you can't really appreciate the temperature, but it's a pretty good video nonetheless.

The day of the race dawned cloudy and rainy.  We took our bike-to-run T2 stuff (running shoes, running hat, and some nutrition) to the transition area and set that up before hopping on the bus that would take us over to the swim start.  It was on the bus that we learned that they cancelled half of the bike route due to snow up in the mountains.  The route would now be the 28 mile olympic distance route instead of the 58 mile half-iron route.  This was much to Tige's dismay because they were shortening his strongest event.  The main reason I was bummed about it was that now I couldn't say that I had done an actual Half-Ironman.  Oh well.

Well, at 10:30am sharp, I dove into the 62 degree water of Lake Wickiup.  After my head got over the cold headache and my shoulder muscles warmed up, I felt ok, but that took awhile.  This was the first open water swim that I had done in quite a while, but the buoy sighting went all right, and I didn't stray too far off course.  I finished the 1.2 mile swim in 35 minutes, and felt pretty good about that since I really had only been swimming less than 6 weeks.  In the middle of the swim the sun broke out, and I started warming up a bit with that beating on my black wetsuit.  When I got out of the water, I was quite warm, and figured that I wouldn't need my arm warmers.  Bad move.  My brain obviously wasn't working very well because I had forgotten that the high wasn't supposed to be more than the mid-50's and that wasn't supposed to happen until mid afternoon.  So it was probably in the high 40's or low 50's when I started riding.  Add a 20-30 mph wind chill from riding a bike against a wet body in lycra and that makes for one cold ride.

This race confirmed my suspicions that I'm not a strong cyclist (yet).  Five miles into the ride, Tige blew by me like I was standing still.  I just rode at a comfortable pace for me.  The faster I rode, the colder the wind chill was, and I still had a half-marathon to run, and I didn't really know how that would feel.  I came into the bike-to-run transition feeling pretty good.  As I was putting on my shoes, I looked to the west and saw some very dark, menacing clouds off in the distance.  I knew that was not good.

The run started with some partly sunny skies, and it took awhile in order for them to get adjusted.  A mile into the run the heavens erupted in a nice hail storm and I dealt with that for a half mile or so.  That wasn't too cool, but I got through it.  I caught Tige about 5 miles into the run (his weakest event).  We chatted, and after a bit, I took off.  I felt myself running out of gas right around mile 12, and was able to push to the end.  I was quite chilled at the end and loved the hot broth they had for post race food.  Tige was pretty upset when he finished because he felt that his run was terrible.  As we were getting ready to go we checked the results and what do ya know?  He won his division!  So...we got our bikes loaded up, changed clothes, and went to the awards ceremony, so he could get his trophy.  Nice work Tige!

Tige's tradition of taking a numbered calf shot after the completed triathlon.

My calves are quite puny compared to his.  

With the half-iron (sort of) out of the way, focus turned completely to the full deal: 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and 26.2 mile run.  I worked hard over the next month and felt good, but really began to question my sanity when I basically took a week off to take the scouts backpacking and then left the next week for a 3-week vacation with the family traveling to Idaho, Alaska, and Wyoming.  The vacations would be very active (climbing mountains with the scouts, and hiking and kayaking in Alaska), but none of it would be tri-specific.  But I didn't really have a choice.  My 10-year anniversary would only come once, and that took precedence over Tige and the ironman.  So I would just have to do the best I could.  

We got home from vacation almost exactly a month before the race.  That meant 2 weeks of hard training, and 2 weeks of taper, and that was it.

Grand Columbian Ironman

Very quickly, the week of the race arrived.  Tige and I took off the Thursday afternoon before the race to acclimate to the altitude a little bit, have a relaxing Friday where we could pick up our packets, learn about the course, and have time for an easy workout.  We got all of that taken care of and just speculated all day about what the next day would bring.  (Man I had some anxiety).

The families showed up Friday afternoon.  My parents came out from Wyoming, Sara and Kalon and crew came out from Boise, and Emily crossed the state from Ft. Lewis area with her 2 kiddos.  My Aunt Jessine also came over from Lewiston, ID with Jim.  Judging by the rest of the triathletes I saw throughout the race, I definitely had the biggest cheering section.  What a boost!  Thanks again, everyone for your support.  After the reuniting, I organized my gear, put together my special needs bags, and tried to get some sleep.  Yeah right.

5:00 am eventually came, and Tige and I headed down to Lake Roosevelt, the site of the 2.4 mile swim by 6:00 to get the last-minute things set up and to put on our wet suits.  My parents, Julie, and Tige’s family came down about 6:30 to witness the start of the longest endurance event of my life.

My plan was to just go nice and easy, keep my heart rate in the aerobic zone no matter what happened, and then start picking people off in the run, easily my strongest of the three events.  So when the swim started I just settled into a nice, easy pace.  One of the best things about this race was that they had a guide line about 6-10 feet below the water.  This made the swim super nice because I could keep my head in the water and not have to keep lifting it up to site the buoys.  The course was a two-lap course.  I settled into an easy pace like I wanted, and soon found myself exiting the water after the first 1.2 mile lap feeling great.  I loved hearing the family cheering as I exited the water and ran over the timing map.

A couple of hundred meters into the second lap I found myself swimming next to a bearded triathlete.  He was breathing to his left, and I was breathing to my right.  I actually started to get a little worried because I thought I recognized this guy.  I was pretty sure he was the one and only James Lawrence, the current world record holder in number of Ironman races done in one year at 22.  He was in Grand Coulee for his 23rd on route to a record-smashing 30!  (The previous record was 20).  He’s already in the record books for doing 22 Half-Ironman races in 30 weeks in 2010.  Anyhow, I digress.  I was worried when I saw him because I have been following the Iron Cowboy and I knew how fast he usually swam, and it was much faster than I thought I should swim.  But I felt great, and didn’t feel like I was pushing it, so I just kept the pace and came out of the water in 1:07, good enough for 8th place overall.  

Before the idiocy begins.

My biggest fan and support.  Thanks for everything love!

These two amazing people traveled 754 miles to watch me torture myself:)  Thanks mom and dad!

'Twas a very beautiful morning.  Perfect temperature.

Small body of swimmers.  

Waiting for me to transition to the bike.

                            

I transitioned pretty smoothly, and Tige came running in, finishing the swim a couple of minutes after me.  This would be the only lead I would have on him for a long while.  The 112-mile bike began with a two-mile climb out of the state park where the lake was located, a few miles downhill, and then a 6% grade that climbed up a mountainside for the next 5-10 miles.  The next 40 miles were lots of uphill, and not a lot of down.  Sigh.  I continued to work at keeping my heart rate in the aerobic zone as biker after biker passed me.  

Well, the family ended up having those 7.5 hours to play around the Grand Coulee area.  So they did.

This was the first time all 8 grandkids have been together at one time.  Guess I'll need to do another IM to get them all together again:)

Julie found these cool shirts that the kiddos wore during the race.  They were a surprise to me.  Awesome?  Oh yeah!

Cycling is definitely my weakness, and as I progress in this sport, will need to be my focus.  The real demoralizing thing about triathlon, at times, is knowing exactly the age of those who pass you.  See, on your left calf they write your race number, and on the right calf they write your age.  So, unless the athlete is wearing calf sleeves, it is abundantly clear when a 40 year old woman or a 52 year old man passes you.  Still...I had a full marathon to complete after the bike, and that’s what I kept telling myself.  “You’ll see them again.  Stay the course," I kept saying.  And back I’d go to focusing on how I was managing my own race.  I knew it was going to be a tough bike course, minimal flats and lots of ups and downs after the initial brutal climb.    

I had guesstimated that the entire bike would take me about 7:30 and I rode in at 7:24, and felt great.  I had managed my heart rate, nutrition, and fluids well.  Better than expected actually.  Now, I could start hunting down all those who passed me.  With that poor (compared to other cyclists') time, I had lost a lot of ground.  My cycling time was good enough for 35th out of 41 riders.  Yikes.  Not sure what place I was overall (after the combined swim and bike), but it wasn’t great.

I transitioned from the bike to run with lots of support and energy hugs from my kiddos and nieces and nephews.  Super awesome, and I was actually feeling great considering what I had already accomplished.

So on to the marathon I went.  Tige and I had listened to a podcast prior to the race that basically said that at some point in the run the race would begin to suck.  It was up to me to control when that suck would start.  By not chasing that 40 year old woman earlier, I hoped that the proverbial suck would begin later in the race.  I kept an eye on my heart rate and for the first 6 miles I paced between a 9:30 and 10:00 mile.  The race was an out and back 13.1 mile course that ran down by the Columbia River.  After about 6 miles I felt my body getting used to the running, and I started to pick up the pace, to about a 9:00 pace or so.  

Around mile 9 or 10 I looked behind me and saw the Iron Cowboy, James Lawrence, creeping up on me.  He was finishing up his race.  As he got closer, I realized that he wasn’t cruising too much faster than me, so when he caught me I picked up my pace just a touch and ran with this world record holder for a while.  The conversation went something like this,

IC: “Hey, can you tell me how far behind me is that guy in black?”

Me: “Um, about 400 meters or so.”

IC: “K.  Do me a favor will ya?”  (said in a joking tone)

Me: “Sure.”

IC: “Trip him for me:)  This is for the win, man!”

Me: “Sure.  No problem.”  (also joking, of course)

Me: “Hey, I’ve been following your journey on your blog, and on Facebook, and I just want to say that I’m inspired by you, your cause, and what you’re doing, but I’m going to tell you something you already know.  Your wife is the real rock star in this whole thing!”

IC: “I know.  I know.  She's amazing.  Hey, you see those two girls up there at that aide station?  Those are my daughters.  They’re a couple of rock stars too.”  (James has 5 kids under 9 (or maybe 10) years old).

Me (looking behind):  “You have about 800 meters on that guy now.  Go for it.”

I slowed down back to my pace, and off he went.

Sara snapped these pictures as he came in to for the win with his 2 daughters.

23 Ironmans will wear a dude out!

Julie, my rock star of a wife, and the wearer of my favorite shirt!

Grand Coulee dam in the background.  Waiting for me to come around for my first lap.

Audrey made this sign all by herself.

The other super awesome pick-me-up that I had in the race was when Sara and Emily found me on the run course shortly after I ran with the Iron Cowboy.  They ran behind me so it wouldn’t appear as though they were pacing me, and it was great to have them talk to me.  After a 2:03 half marathon, more energy hugs and kisses as I ran through the park, I took off for the final 13.1 miles of the 140.6 mile race.  I was still feeling surprisingly good and I looked forward to picking off the athletes who had hit the “suck” one by one.  And that’s what I did.  

My running partner waiting for me as I finish up 13.1 miles.

Hugs and kisses are always worth the time (unless I'm trying to qualify for Kona.  Someday?????)

Off for the final 13.1!  I am still a little amazed that I had made it this far while still feeling pretty good.

I knew I would feel good for only so much longer.  I started to feel the “suck” starting around mile 19 or 20.  As I made the final turn to the last 6 mile stretch I began using my sister Emily’s advice by chanting Julie and the kids’ names in cadence.  I pictured them, the greatest joys in my life, as the miles became harder and harder, and I found an inner strength to continue pushing forward.  I thought about the sacrifices they had made over the past several months as I had to take more time than normal away from them in order to train, and I was just so grateful for all of them.  I was brought to tears several times in my 6-mile anguish as I thought about the sacrifice of my parents, sisters, and aunt who each made a long trek out to support me.  I think I became quite vulnerable in my pain.  But it was cleansing.  

At mile 22, Julie and Emily showed up on the course to run behind me and to talk to me, and what a support!  I was really starting to need it, and at mile 24 or so, the “suck” hit hard.  I was out of gas.  I hit the wall.  My glycogen stores were all gone.  But I could see the finish line, up the hill, across the river, and towards the dam, and that’s all I needed to continue going forward.  I completed 140.6 miles by swimming, biking, and running in 13 hours and 7 minutes, good enough for 17th place overall.  When all was said and done, I finished the marathon portion in 4:24.  That was good enough for 7th fastest (out of 41).  Not one person passed me on the run, and I passed quite a few.  The kiddos continued the tradition of joining me in crossing the finish line.  I was utterly exhausted, yet exhilarated.

My cheering section, the best around. Dad, Asha, Kalon (bro-in-law), Ethan, Sara (sis), Isaac (on shoulders), Savannah, Julie, Trey, Audrey, Me, Mom, Ivan, Emily (sis), Ella, Aunt Jessine, Uncle Jim.

After I refueled, said my many thanks to my family for hanging out and cheering the whole day, I waited around for Tige to finish.  I sat and chatted with Taryn and crew while we waited.  Tige experienced some real challenges on the run portion, yet persevered and achieved this great accomplishment.  It was a great pleasure to train and race with him.  We live about 15 minutes away from each other, both have families, work, other responsibilities, and we both have vastly different skill sets, so we didn't train together as I had initially anticipated, but it made all the difference for me knowing that he was out there training, and so out I'd go.  So much better to do something like this with a partner.  So thanks Tige.  Proud of you, and proud of what we accomplished.  Now if I can only bike like you.

Tige's calves are still bigger than mine.

Achieving this goal was a fantastic process.  There was so much positive energy at the race, even though it was a relatively small event.  It was so great to have so much of my family there.  I learned a lot about myself through this journey.  Let me share a few.  

First, this was the toughest physical endeavor I've ever undertaken.  Most people view an event like this as impossible.  It wasn't too long ago that I thought the same thing.  I learned that if you want something bad enough, you can achieve it.  The bigger the goal, the more the planning, dedication, time, effort, sacrifice, etc.  This was a large goal, but in the whole scheme of things, it was pretty small.  What about my career?  What about raising a family?  What about becoming who we're meant to become as a person, husband, father, friend, brother?  Do you know what you want to become?  Do you know who you need to be?  You can't do what you need to do, become who you need to become, or accomplish anything without a goal.  You can't achieve that goal without a plan.  That goal can be anything from physical to financial to spiritual to educational, whatever.  

Second, just do the best you can, with the tools you've been given, and the time you have.  My training wasn't ideal.  I took a 3-week vacation right in the middle of it.  I had family, work, and church obligations that took time away from training.  Some mornings I couldn't get up early enough.  Some nights, I just couldn't get out.  But I did the best I could, and it was enough.  

Third, it's a ton tougher to achieve your goals without support.  I recognize that this was a great, individual physical accomplishment.  But the fact of the matter is that I couldn’t have done it without Julie’s support.  Before I ever took off on this endeavor, I informed her of how much time I thought it would take to train, and she still said, “Go for it!”  Her support and love means more to me than she could ever know, and I thank her for it.

Fourth, anything worthwhile is going to take a lot of time, effort, work, and sacrifice.  If not, everyone would do it.  To do it well, it's going to take even more work and sacrifice.  And you know what?  Even if you don't succeed, you will be all the better for trying. 

Will I do another one?  Absolutely!  It was an awesome experience.  When?  Well, it won’t be for a long while.  The time it took to train was too much away from the family.  So, for the next several years I will focus more on the shorter races, and then someday in the future another Ironman awaits.  Perhaps by then I’ll have a new bike in addition to focused cycling training and huge calves to help me not lose so much ground on the bike!  Who wants to join me?