Fluctuat nec Mergitur

He is tossed on the waves but does not sink.

The usual pre-race thoughts went through my head as I treaded water waiting for the start of the Muskoka Ironman 70.3 on Sunday: How will my day go? Why is the water so cold? Why did I say I’d do this? Plus one not-so-usual thought: I hope I don’t throw up.

After my heartbreaking DNF last month at Ironman Mont Tremblant due to dizziness and nausea during the swim, I was a mixture of resolution, defiance, and trepidation when the horn went off to start my wave. I began swimming with my customary slow stroke, testing my balance every time I turned my head. I had been in the water for about 20 minutes when I realized that everything was going to be all right. Whatever mysterious sprite had bedevilled me in Lac Tremblant was absent; forever, I fervently hope.

The water got a little choppy out in the middle of the lake, which made me think of the comment Lisa Bentley had made during the athlete meeting on Saturday. I rarely go to athlete meetings, especially ones where I am very familiar with the course, but Lisa has always been a hero of mine, so I wouldn’t have missed this one. During the meeting Lisa made a joke about how the lake was probably the flattest part of the course—which produced a laugh from the audience. Anyway, as the

Grateful to have an uneventful swim

waves danced around me in mid-lake I recalled her remark; not that flat, Lisa. The only real effect that the choppy lake had was that it was harder to sight on the marker buoys; every time I lifted my head I got slapped in the face with some nice, fresh Muskoka lake water. I quite enjoyed the swim—all the more so because I didn’t feel like barfing the whole way—and exited the water in a time that is close to my fastest ever for the distance. My mood was so good that I didn’t even mind the thigh-burning 300-metre climb up the path to T1 (an event in itself).

Everyone has an opinion of the Muskoka bike course. Lisa B. says it is a “fair” course. One guy at my bike rack said in frustration that it was the most difficult thing he’d ever ridden on. For sure, there are hills, combining to make a total climb of over 1200 metres, with countless grades of over 6% along the way. If you are looking to set a PB on the bike this might not be your course. But I like the challenge of putting out a constant effort, and the strategy involved in saving enough energy for the final few hills. Even though I have been riding these roads for years, there always seems to be one more hill than I remember.

The weather on race morning was a tintype of last year’s: sunny but cool, about 14C. I opted for arm warmers and a vest, which turned out to be the perfect choice. As my legs pistoned under me and my wheels turned over the familiar cottage roads and highways, I took time to be grateful for being healthy and fit, and for having the chance to be in such a spectacular event.

There seemed to be even more gel wrappers and water bottles than normal strewn along the roadside; even though parts of the course are bumpy, all of this thrown garbage could not have been accidental. Officials tell us that littering produces an automatic disqualification. I think a good codicil to that rule would be that an athlete busted for littering could have the DQ lifted if they spent two hours post-race picking up garbage along the way.

By the end of the bike I was getting pretty tired of hill climbing. Others were too; quite a few folks were actually walking their bikes up the last hill. The bike course is 94 km, and is therefore longer than standard distance (maybe they should call this race the Muskoka 72.8). The general mood is to want to curse those additional four kilometres, and to thank the cycling gods when they are over.

As I sat on the ground in T2 putting on my running shoes, I noticed an Official looking at me, and I wondered what I was doing wrong; whether I had taken my helmet off before racking my bike or something. Then as I was about to trot out of transition she said quietly, “Don’t forget to take your number”. Aha! Thanks to a welcome new rule, you don’t have to wear your race number on the bike anymore, but not being used to digging around for it along with running shoes and hat, I was about to go charging out without it. Muscle memory. I bet she probably pointed the same thing out to hundreds of people that day.

The run course is a new one that goes along the lake and into downtown Huntsville, and includes a quad-taxing selection of really steep up-and-down hills. The roads go through some beautiful neighbourhoods, and the volunteers at the aid stations were stellar in their dedication and cheerful support; I don’t know how they keep it up hour after hour, but I am so glad they do. We also got to run down the somewhat rough gravel road that leads to the swim start of many other Huntsville triathlons past and present, including the Muskoka 5150; it had a familiar, friendly feel to it.

I began feeling tired and started to stiffen up at around the 10K marker, but I just kept running along till I got to the end, only walking at some aid stations. As I ran down the finish chute at Deerhurst I felt I had left it all out on the course, with just a little left over afterwards to pedal my bike the few kilometres back to the airstrip where my car was parked.

After my previous outing, it was a relief to finish what I had started this day. It has been a tumultuous summer, and nothing could have calmed it more effectively than a solid finish at this most beautiful and challenging of 70.3 races.

My Seven-Month Ironman

It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters in the end.
Ursula K. McGuin

The weather was just about perfect on the morning of Ironman Mont Tremblant.  Almost everything is perfect about this whole race, in fact. It is the best organized, most generously funded and supported Ironman I have ever seen, from the two air force jets that thundered over the beach at the race start, to the thousands of volunteers, both along the course and working behind the scenes.

My wave starts at 6:54. Pink caps are waiting their turn.

I had awoken that morning feeling a little odd—light-headed and wobbly—but I put this down to the ordeal of getting up at 4:00 am. Splashing into the water just before 7:00 I was looking forward to the long day ahead, biking on a beautifully paved course and running through spectacular Laurentian scenery.

I started easily with a smooth stroke, happy with how well I seemed to be moving through the water without a lot of effort. The sun was just coming up over the mountain, which reminded me of many swims in years past in Penticton at IMC.  The peaceful feeling was short-lived however. About 2000 metres in, the light-headedness I had noticed earlier got much worse. I started to feel dizzy and nauseated every time I turned my head to breathe. About ten minutes later I was sure I was going to be sick right there in the lake. Mercifully for the other swimmers, I wasn’t, but the feeling got worse, and swells from passing boats and wafts of outboard motor exhaust didn’t help. It was a feeling unlike any I have ever had while swimming and it began to drain my strength and my confidence.

I slowed down quite a bit at that point, concentrating on just getting to the end of the swim. My arms and legs continued doing what they were supposed to, but at much reduced power. My head—as well as my body—was swimming. I also began to worry about the rest of the race, but hoped that I might feel better once I stopped being horizontal. As I exited the water I must have still looked fairly miserable though, because a medical volunteer asked me if I was all right. I wasn’t and I knew it, but I continued walking past her towards my wife and daughter who were standing on the sidelines snapping photos of me. I weaved unsteadily up to them and said that I wasn’t sure I could go on.

The medical people must have overheard me because in a few seconds there were two volunteers at my side, helping me sit down as swimmers trotted past on their way to the transition tent. As I babbled and blubbered to them about this being my eighth Ironman and that nothing like this had ever happened to me, I began to shiver uncontrollably even though there was a warm sun shining down.

Eventually the volunteers half-walked, half-carried me to the tent, where I was laid out on a stretcher, still shivering. I must have realized that I wasn’t going to continue the race now, and told someone so, because I was quickly and firmly strapped to the stretcher like a Dexter Morgan victim and heaved onto a golf cart for transport to the infirmary. At some point my timing chip was removed from my ankle and my Ironman was over.

There were very few clients in the infirmary at this early point in the day, so I enjoyed the attention of about six medical people. I can’t say enough good things about them. They were efficient and competent while also appreciating the unhappiness of my situation. I was attached to a heart monitor by means of about a dozen electrodes stuck onto various parts of me. Apparently my symptoms resembled some of those of a heart problem. It wasn’t and I knew it; my heart muscle is indestructible, and the data confirmed this (in contradiction to a belief held by sedentary people that anyone foolish enough to engage in any athletic activity whatsoever is risking a cardiac explosion). After about an hour I was able to sit up and finally walk, and I was released into the bright morning sun to contemplate and live with the devastating reality of my very first Ironman DNF.

The mystery remains. As I write this a day later, I still have a light-headed sensation, but nothing close to what I felt during the race. A virus? Allergic reaction? Middle ear infection?

I have always believed that it’s a mistake to think of Ironman as a one-day event. Too many things can happen on race day—weather, equipment problems, old injures recurring or new ones appearing—to pin every success metric on that one 15-hour attempt.

Instead I try to think of Ironman as a seven-month process of planning, training and preparing mentally and physically. In this way I know that even if I trip and break my femur on the way to the starting line, I will still have had the advantage, the experience, and hopefully the enjoyment of all the months leading up to race day.

I know that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, just as I know that it’s an incomparable feeling to run under the finishing tower and get the T shirt; this is a given. But I have to believe that if you have been through the process, failing to finish the race is not a total failure, but rather something just short of a total success. My Ironman took me seven months, and all but the last day were wonderful; I’ll be back soon to capture that final day.

The Distance Between Your Ears

Q: How do u find the distance between your ears?

Actual question submitted to Yahoo Answers

I’m sure am not the first person ever to run joyfully and effortlessly down the chutes at the Ironman finish line and wonder why, if I have all this energy, I couldn’t have run this way for the past four hours. Where was this exuberance when I felt like barfing at mile 18?

There is an aspect of the horse catching the scent of the barn here, a concept Wiktionary defines as “To experience heightened anticipation or to act with renewed speed or energy as one approaches a destination, goal, or other desired outcome”. And of course, in the closing miles of Ironman, the desired outcome is usually simply to stop moving.

 At the other end of the scale is the apprehension that arises—along with the excitement–in the days before the race.

Experience can be a good teacher, but also a harsh one. I have done enough events at this distance to know that finishing is not only possible, but probable. At the same time I have done enough events at this distance to know what could happen to me on the way to the finish.

Note the duct-taped front wheel

Worst case scenarios? I have plenty. In one of my first Ironman events, in Lake Placid, a spoke tore itself right off the hub of my front wheel at 60K into the bike (it poured rain all day to add to the fun). I couldn’t get the spoke off the wheel without major surgery, so I duct-taped the remnant of the spoke to its neighbor, disabled my front brake, and rode the next 120K with a seriously out-of-true wheel and minimal stopping ability.

At Ironman Canada in 2011, the annoyance of two flat tires I had on the bike was exacerbated by an unexpected shortage of water at the aid stations, which then contributed to a bout of dehydration on the run; this in turn caused me to walk much of the marathon.

Ouch. Only 40K to go.

In both cases I did get to the finish line more or less intact, though a little later than planned.

In the best of worlds I would use these experiences to teach me to prepare for any outcome, and to know that even if the worst happens, there are very few things that will keep me from finishing. In reality, I tend to fret about what new disasters might be waiting for me around the corner. Because I know what can happen, I worry all the more that it will.

Someone once said that the greatest distance an athlete will have to travel on Ironman race day is the distance between his two ears. I take this to mean that all my previous experience plus my concerns and expectations for the race ahead are rattling around in my mind, taking up space and energy that I should be using to enjoy the moment and to move myself to the finish line. In their book Thinking Body, Dancing Mind, Al Huang and Jerry Lynch remind us that letting go of preconceived expectations is the key to personal freedom and power. “Evolved individuals act without expectation” says the Tao.

Einstein said that imagination was more important than knowledge. But imagination can also be powerfully intimidating if allowed to run unleashed before a race. Therefore both imagination and knowledge must be combined; each to govern the other.

In addition to finishing the race, my goals each year are always:

• to avoid speculating about all that could happen in the miles ahead and simply keep moving;
• to know that there is a finish line, and that I am progressing towards it, no matter how fast or slow;
• to simplify the effort so that my mind stays quiet;
• to enjoy small successes and put speed bumps and road blocks behind me;
• to celebrate the opportunity I have been given to participate in such an extraordinary adventure.

 The good news is that after I finish, all the fretting and fussing over real or imagined disasters is always quickly forgotten. Of all the final miles I have run and all the finish lines I have crossed in the past thirty years, there is nothing like Ironman and there never will be.

Is it all worth it? Ask me in a week.

Slowest finish ever - but still a finish