Ironman Utah, May 24th, 2011 - The Race That Should Have Never Been

Each time I do a race, it’s always the one I won’t write about. “Nothing happened.” Kinda silly because it’s a major event with months of my life planned around it, months of socializing put on hold, thousands of dollars invested in training/travel and leave burned to go do it. The problem is remembering it all effectively enough to portray what the event really was like and meant in the overall scheme of things. For some reason, I decided that going it alone would be a good call. Someone once said that nothing is lonelier than a finish line without friends. Apparently I need to learn this yet again but in reality, going it alone was necessary to know I could do it without help. So yeah, I trained for and participated in an Ironman without any support. It was an amazing challenge but one that forced me to be entirely present, entirely organized and entirely motivated – something you don’t do when you rely on others to take care of your shit. The decision to do Utah was pretty much a coin flip. Since at the time of signing up, there were only two US races not yet sold out, I asked my coach which one. In retrospect, maybe Louisville would have been a better choice in terms of pain mitigation but you who know me know that I’m all in for maximum discomfort in the name of entertainment and “personal growth”. The challenge of doing a dessert Ironman at 2000-5000 feet of altitude was combined with some other “self improvement” projects I have going on in life so was an excellent proof of concept (as we say in the military staff world) that life is expanding in all the right ways. Jonser, you’ll be happy to know that I don’t want to kill you anymore for saying Utah was the race for me. Fast forward to arrival and imagine my dismay (because I didn’t pre-flight plan this…ignernce is bliss!) that the terrain was high, dry and freakin’ hot. Oh well… no backing out now. I arrived through Vegas and made the 2-hour drive up to St. George, UT through some fantastic (although high, dry and freakin’ hot) scenery. Pictures fail to capture the “big sky” of it all. I checked into my hotel and figured I’d deal with the logistics tomorrow. Remember that whole “lack of pre-flight” thingy? Yeah, because I was here alone, I had no earthly idea how I was going to get to the swim start which was 30 miles away from the finish line and how I would get back to my hotel which was 6 miles from the finish line. If I were graded on the final exam at this point, it would be a resounding “F”. Pressing on… Ever been to Utah? It’s a great state with the most incredibly wonderful people ever. All those Mormons have it figured out. They’re so friendly and welcoming saying, “Oh yeah, come and do our cute little triathlon! You’ll love it and we have pizza and soda pop afterwards! And square dancing! YEA!” Then you get there and realize that there’s the distinct possibility that the Mormons are working closely in concert with Satan. They completely suck you in and then give you the Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka from the high rails on you as they pound you into submission with the Ironman from hell. With a square dancing and soda pop chasers of course. Point of digression… Allow me to take a moment to mention just how out-of-place Europeans are in Utah. In Hawaii they just look like tourists but to the conservative Utah crowd, the spandex-wearing, nude-in-the-parking-lot crowd just doesn’t work. It must be me because it seems like every Ironman, I happened to attract the hairy (European) dudes in full frontal out in public. It’s God’s cruel joke that still haunts me to this day. OK, back to the topic. I have a very good friend who recently gave me some excellent advice: simplify and clarify. I’ve taken that onboard in ways you can’t even imagine and it’s filtered over into my racing and training. So much so that it was a bit alarming when I built up my bike (which took all of 5 minutes…very simple) and realized that it was set up with one bottle of nutrition, a couple of gu gels and….yeah, that’s about it. Compare to Arizona in 2008 when I had an entire laundry list to check off when getting my bike and transition bags ready. Packing my transition bags was worse: shoes, helmet/hat… uh, that’s it. I threw a Red Bull into each bag just to make it seem heavier because damn! that’s just not enough, right? My special needs bags, one Red Bull and a chunk of carrot cake that I wouldn’t even use. I mean, crap, I even forgot to bring my heart rate monitor and bike bottles. Who goes to an Ironman without a heart rate monitor and water bottles? Rookie mistakes that we will now conveniently re-characterize as “simplifying” in order to save face. In taking in the entire holistic picture, my grand scheme to simplify appeared it would materialize as either a total success or a total failure. Deep in the back of my mind, there’s the nagging thought that I’m simply not taking this seriously enough. Cleary, there are people here who have an entourage of dozens, packed transition bags full of towels, body glide, Big Macs, small midgets, ponies and unicorns while I’m down to a Red Bull. Hmmm…. Add to that the fact that I simply (there’s that simple thingy again) not nervous. You’re supposed to be nervous before an Ironman right? Truth be told, I get more nervous before my semi-annual PRT than before an IM. I was quickly starting to realize how liberating this whole “simple” thing really is. Because when you skin this cat, the only person I would be failing was me. It dawned on me that this might actually be the first major race I’ve done for just me. Nothing to prove; nothing for which to qualify; no fans present to disappoint. And my traveling buddy, Little Man Haysoos simply doesn’t care about these things. It would be a race to enjoy for the sake of racing. Although from the cheap seats here at my computer, I admit that “enjoy” really would only come long after. Before race day, I spent some time enjoying the local area and made a quick trip up to Zion National Park. Definitely worth the time but damn, that’s a lot of traffic. Bumper to bumper going through the park and it was only early May. In any case, I was able to score the best Geedunk of the trip. Normally since these events are so few and far between, we load up on T-shirts and bling to announce in blazing font across our chests that WE ARE IRONMEN!! It’s part of the bizarre Ironman subculture. Anyhoo, the tri-jersey I got was nice but my favorite bling from this year’s race was actually the Harley Davidson t-shirt I picked up from the dealership that was about 30 miles from Zion Park. It’s just cool and says absolutely nothing about triathlon. I walked around the rest of the time in my jeans, shit-kickers and Harley shirt. People were looking at me strange like, “are you really racing or is that number on your arm a stunt?” No doubt after babbling on for two pages, you all want to hear about the race. Sure why not. It was (pardon my French…) fucking hot, windy and I couldn’t get a solid breath of air for 13 hours. That pretty much sums it up. 95 degrees. Bike hills were up to 15% grade and we ran up a hill that was 8%. Tough stuff. Making a good call to drive the course AFTER instead of BEFORE, I got some pictures for posterity. The scenery was killer (along with the hill affectionately dubbed “The Wall”) and provided a few moments of “presentness” and clear focus (i.e. I pulled my head out of my ass momentarily) in the midst of the hardest physical challenge of my life. To draw a picture for you, there was a point at about mile 22 of the run where I was heading up yet another hill, the sun lowering in front of me, wind briskly in our faces blowing dust and sand aggressively. It was so steady a wind that I couldn’t see the feet of those in front of me as the sun shining off the dust and sand blocked out people from the waist down. Tumbleweed blew across our paths (seriously). It’s interesting though, that in the middle of all this, there are moments of clarity that completely stand out: the darkness of the morning wilderness sky painting a beautiful display of stars; the smell of the school bus that transported us to the swim start; the feel of the burning pavement under my rear end when I was putting on my running shoes; the taste of the fries I had after crossing the finish line and the cobweb that some lost spider had built on my bike overnight after I dropped it off in transition. That spider web, BTW, stayed there the entire race which on many levels is depressing since it means I never got fast enough on the bike to blow it off but in many ways cool – that’s one tough web. Simple yet strong. This is where I get philosophical so if that stuff bores you please skip to the end (assuming of course that you made it this far to begin with!). I have a very good friend who is in the process of moving. At the age of 38, she’s accepted a job cross country and is leaving the place where she has spent 5 years (and collected 5 years of stuff presumably). She’s shipping her motorcycle, bicycles and truck, selling the rest and putting only the most essential basics in the back of a rental (along with the dogs of course – can’t mail those) and driving to a new life. This entirely demonstrates someone who fully embraces lack of attachment to stuff. (FYI, I cannot and don’t pretend – still learning. I’d like to state for the record that my new pick up truck which has complicated my life significantly with a car loan is cool enough in my mind to make up for my attachment to “stuff”.) There are very few people like this in the world that understand that simplicity is liberating and we are so much happier as humans when free of self-imposed yokes. We are so attached to our stuff that we forget that it’s really just stuff. We also forget it’s the attachment to people that really is the important thing (like the attachment that means being willing to drop everything on a moment’s notice and hang out with your Grandfather for a week). Riding and driving through the mountains of Utah, Arizona and Nevada reminded me yet again of what it must have been like for those first settlers (and Native Americans of course) to hack out an existence here. Can you imagine what they thought when they saw it? No doubt there wasn’t much of a fight when Brigham Young said, “Yeah, we’ll take it” and walked away with the keys to Utah. Talk about simple – it doesn’t get more basic than finding shelter, water and chow in the middle of the desert wilderness. What’s an Ironman compared to that? The plan to pare down this race to the bare essentials actually could be termed a success. My time was 13h 07m which upon crossing the finish line was really disappointing (normal time is 1h 20m faster) but after reviewing the times online, realized that if there’s a pro that comes in at 12 hours, then 13 ain’t so bad after all. It was a brutal test of both mental and physical endurance and once again, at mile 18 of the run, I swore to high heaven that this would absolutely be my last. I have, however, finally come up with an answer to those who would ask, “are you freakin’ crazy and why the hell do you do this?” There are few things in life that will tell you exactly what you are made of. Since I’ll never see hand-to-hand combat, this is the next best thing. This certainly does not mean I’m made of great stuff. Clearly this race gave me some personal insight to a few things that still need tweaking (not mentioned here to protect my fragile ego…) but at least now there’s clarity. So with a little rudder applied courtesy of Ironman Utah, me ‘n my ego are re-adjusted on the path to expansion and evolution. Post Script: Since you are all fans of Haysoos, being the typing cripple he is, he wanted me to pass on that he had a great time too. We didn’t see Elvis in Vegas but there’s a chance we’ll go to Graceland at the end of May. Little Man spent the race day safely tucked away in the air-conditioned hotel room sucking on a beer but was with me in spirit. He did however join me for race registration and as always, was a big hit with the Ironman crew. Photos posted in the IM Utah folder. Enjoy :)