Ironman Louisville; The Run, Part I

As I cross the mats and start my run I see my parents again. I tell them to meet me at the end of the bridge; I’ve got an important message to give them, but am currently more interested in talking to a friend of mine I didn’t expect to see out there. Mike Phillips, who posts on the Tri-Talk Forums with me and who also ran the Memphis Marathon with me, was volunteering most of the day and jogged with me for a while giving me encouragement and advice. In 2008, he did Ironman Louisville as his first Ironman, and ended up pretty much exactly where I found myself: humiliated, beaten up and questioning whether I could finish by midnight. He said he “never thought he’d be a 16 hour guy” and neither did I, so I was quick to take his words to heart. He told me to walk the bridge, eat, drink and run whenever I could. So, that’s what I did.

I hit the 2nd St Bridge and started walking. I was ready to take Mike on his word and knew my body needed fluids, salts and ice, but it also set me up for my biggest shock of the day: I really started to feel good. Coming off the bike was just horrific and I doubted heavily whether I’d be able to make it by midnight. After a quarter mile of jogging, I received a gentle reminder from my body that running, in fact, is not my weakness anymore. I’ve actually gotten quite a bit stronger at it, so this day might not end up being such a waste after all. Reaching to top of the bridge, I got to the aid station, sucked down some Ironman Perform and slipped ice in my hat and wrists. Then I started running. The bridge wasn’t nearly as bad as I had envisioned it would be, and I quickly found myself at the turnaround near the Indiana state line. Heading back towards the aid station, I passed that girl I wished would hurry up and run with me, but she was still walking; damn. Reaching the aid station, I repeated what I had done prior, laying the foundation of an easily repeatable pattern for each aid station on course and jogged down the hill looking forward to seeing my parents again.

This was a pretty crucial part of the race for me. Seeing my parents at the end of the 2nd St Bridge would be the last time I saw them until mile 14. Over the mind-erasing last 30 miles of the bike, one of my few conscious thoughts was what I would say to my mom as I ran by. Thinking about it made me tear up and shake with chills. It was all too obvious to me by that point that I had found myself in survival mode once more, and that I needed to start asking for God’s help to get me through the day.

So, jogging down the bridge, I see my mom taking pictures. I run up to her and ask her for a favor. She says yes, so I deliver to her the speech I had rehearsed on the bike. I take off my glasses, bury my head in her shoulder and ask her to pray for me, because I can’t do this by myself anymore.

Leaving her, I headed towards 3rd St and the start of the two loop, out-and-back marathon section. Heading down 3rd towards the turnaround point 6 miles up the road, I really did feel great. At that time of day, the only runners that were on that part of the course were the sorry souls who just escaped the bike cutoff, like me, and were largely physically broken by that point. So, from the very start of the run to the very end of the run, with few exceptions, I was flying past the entire field. The first 3 mile flew past without me really noticing it. Before I knew it, I was popping my first gel at mile 4. I passed Denise somewhere in there; I’m sure she said something encouraging, but I was in the zone. I kept going, kept eating, kept drinking, kept icing, kept running 10 min/mis between aid stations, walking the stations and kept praying that this high would last as long as possible. It did last a while, much longer than I’ve heard from fellow racers. Still, as I knew fully well, it did pass, around mile 8, and dumped me into the most painful low of the day.

I knew from asking another athlete that the turnaround was right around mile marker 8/20, so I didn’t waste valuable energy worrying about where it was. Coinciding perfectly with reaching the turnaround, my legs very quickly became heavy, my smile very quickly inverted and my body very quickly reminded me that it has put up with a lot of my shit today and that I shouldn’t expect this run to be easy. The Ironman shuffle sets in. My running slows. I can no longer run all the way to the aid stations and start walking as soon as they get in sight. I remember a tip I heard on a podcast that if you’re ever in a race and find yourself “running” slower than 12 minute/mis, then you may as well be walking and conserving energy, rather than “jumping up and down, without really getting anywhere.” All to say, my pace dropped pretty considerably. My Garmin auto-lapped each mile and showed me my split, so I was able to watch my average pace per mile drop from 11:30 to 12:30 to 14:00 to quite a bit slower than that. Reality was setting in, in a very painful way.

Similar to the end of the bike, the trip back downtown on the first loop is a haze of pain and self-doubt. My only entertainment is seeing my pace drop off severely, seeing racers all around me walking, sitting, lying down, being carted off by ambulances and on gurneys. It’s chaos. All I know to look forward to is the Ford Motivational Mile and Special Needs bags, both somewhere around the 12 mile marker. In the interest of space, I’ll skip over the hour and a half it took me to backtrack towards downtown; sufficed to say it was all blood boiling on hot asphalt in the summer heat.

Reaching the Motivational Mile near mile 12/24 meant that I was very near downtown and the halfway point of the marathon. I run over the mat, but do not hear the customary beep of the computer reading my chip’s information. Sure enough, I look up on the screen and see no motivational message bearing my name. I’ll have to be satisfied with the half-naked cheerleaders in cowboy hats dancing about, pretending they’re having a great time. I can’t help but wonder how much money they get paid to do that? They’re out there about 10 hours and never really seem like they get tired. Surely they rotate out.

Anyway, off to downtown, still suffering. The sun is finally starting to set and I don’t have to put such a premium on make sure I grab ice at every aid station. So much for my goal of being a daylight finisher; that’ll have to wait until next year. How many times will I have to put this off until next year? The end of the loop and the start of the 2nd half of the run isn’t until after mile 14, so there’s a bit more trudging back downtown than I would have rather done. I pass mile 13, pop my 4th gel and finally get to the special needs bags. I grab my pepto tabs, some more salt pills, and a half a flask of heavily caffeinated gel, which should provide me with the rocket fuel I need to propel me to the finish line in a huge hurry if it comes to that. My body is tired and perilously oscillating between dehydrated and hyponatremic. For the most part, I’m able to tell the symptoms apart and fuel accordingly at the aid stations, and am very glad to pick up some more salt tabs as I’m about out. What’s more, I see spectators start getting thicker and the noise starting to grow louder. I quickly lost count of how many athletes told me that I was “almost there.” All I could do was weakly respond
“not really.”

“First lap?”

“Yeah…”

“Well keep at it.”

Turning onto 4th St and seeing the finish line is harder than I thought; harder than I could have imagined it would be. I want to be finished so badly. The last 6 miles had been complete agony, and I had no reason to think that the next 12 would be easier. Upon that discovery, I looked at my watch to see how my pacing was. My first 8 miles had been very fast, very smooth, but I hadn’t banked as much time as I was hoping. I did the first 14 miles in 3:15, and it was 8:30, meaning I had 3:30 to finish the 2nd lap. I knew I was over halfway done, but it wasn’t until that point when I was able to give myself credit for being halfway there.

So, here we are: dehydrated, body threatening cramping, totally exhausted, still 12 miles to go, half of which is the last 10k of a marathon at the end of an Ironman Triathlon; and now, on top of everything, I have to start thinking about RUNNING FASTER or I may not be allowed to finish.

I’m fighting back the tears of utter panic when I pass my mom and sister heading back onto Third St. “It’s gonna be close,” I whimper hopelessly. “It’s gonna be really, really close.” “We’ll be here…” they respond.

Oh, God, please don’t let this happen to me.

Mile 1: 12:39;
Mile 2: 11:21;
Mile 3: 11:24;
Mile 4: 11:40;
Mile 5: 11:20;
Mile 6: 11:57;
Mile 7: 11:26;
Mile 8: 12:21; (turnaround)
Mile 9: 12:33;
Mile 10: 12:40;
Mile 11: 14:27;
Mile 12: 14:08; (motivational mile)
Mile 13: 16:22;
Mile 14: 20:17; (downtown)