Sunday, December 18, 2011

Half ironman in Palm Springs



I toted the starting line of my second half ironman distance triathlon event. It was the inaugural HITS Palm Springs race in La Quinta, California. It was a serenly beautiful place to have a race. Everyone asked me where do you swim when out in the desert, and the answer is in a reservoir tucked up against the mountains in the golf resort town of La Quinta. It's a bit under a mile long and half as wide. Taking place in Decmber, this was an off season event on a flat course with cool weather and I was looking forward to a fast time. However, my experience was much more humbling than that, and I learned that even for the strong willed failure is always a possibility. Giving up is not.

I knew the swim in this triathlon would be cold. After all, it was December in the California desert and the sun was just coming up. I was there the day before with my camera to photograph the olympic and sprint athletes coming out of the water, and heard many of them complain about not being able to feel their hands and feet; one girl came out crying. I slept well that night knowing there would be no surprise of cold water.

I took a quick dip before beginning my 1.2 mile out and back swim. It was cold but didn't make me gasp or seize up. A triathlon is one of the easiest places to make friends. When you're nervously waiting at the start of a race, you exchange names and wish each other good luck, and are glad that they are going into this with you.

At 7 am they started the clock and we headed out reluctantly to fulfill our self imposed obligations. I went in with some added confidence thanks to a neoprene swim cap my buddy Ray lent me (he was doing two laps - the full ironman). Like my first half ironman before it, the mayhem of the swim got the better of me. I'm sure I was hyperventilating, and irritated with how the chin strap of the swim cap kind of locked my jaw. I thought to take it off, but then what to do with it, not to mentioned the precious seconds I would need to remove it from under my race cap, and loss of heat through my head. Everybody was pulling ahead of me and and I wanted to keep up. There was so much splashing, my goggles were fogging up, the sun in my face. The sun, as it turned out, was our waypoint, because that was exactly the direction we wanted to swim - due east (there would be no such guide on the way back). Only 5 minutes into the swim I was kinda panicking. It was a mental game; I just had to breath and swim through it.

It wasn't too cold at first. The race organizers claimed the water was 57 degrees and I'm sure it wasn't too far from that near the starting line. But I must insist the starting line was sitting in the warmest part of the lake. It only got colder out in the middle and far end. At some point the water started to bite. It's funny how the mind surpresses traumatic memories like these because I don't remember exactly how bad it was but I remember telling myself that this was the most terrible situation I had ever been in. I thought back to reading about Dean Karnazes at around mile 160 of his first 200 mile run, and thinking I must be feeling something like the way he described it - utter defeat. I had taken all I could handle. The lifegaurds noticed I was struggling and offered help, but I quickly brushed them off. It kind of made me feel proud of myself. It's not often I push myself to my own defeat. The lifegaurds heard me throwing up and asked me if I needed help and I quickly dismissed them and said I was fine. But it got worse from there. I backstroked to try to recover my rhythm and it helped. On second half, coming away from the sun, I'm sure I became hypothermic but I didn't realize it at the time. I knew my right hand was curled up and I couldn't uncurl it, but it didn't occur to me that my body was probably draining the blood from the extremities in order to preserve the core - my brain must have been losing blood too.

After getting back with about 5 other stragglers (some of whom had to walk back in for lap 2) I walked to the changing tent to get dry and began to realize what bad shape I was in. I was shivvering so badly, I could barely get my wetsuit off, and then couldn't zip my bike jersey up. A race official did it for me. In transition, a woman racer was being taken out to sit in a warm car - I guess I must have looked ok because the same people saw me and let me go out on the bike, and confirmed for when I asked them if I had put my helmet on. I guess I couldn't tell by myself. My mind was clouded and I felt like I had just woken up from surgery. I doubted whether I possessed the coordination to turn a corner on the bike. I was dismayed to find that I couldn't see anyone ahead of me on the bike course, and there was nobody behind; I was alone, and I didn't know the course. I was going to have to rely on the markers. I made a wrong turn at the very first place that I could. I don't remember why - I think I saw a sign with an arrow, or I just assumed the bike course would follow the run course, because I did turn and follow the running cones. So I rode on, still shivering a lot and trying to get warm, noticed that my heart rate was very low, around 110, and tried to raise it. I arrived at an intersection without any sign pointing were to go. That's when I thought that if there is no sign then I probably go straight. So I did, but that road had no shoulder. A car passed and honked at me like I was in the way. I was at a four lane intersection in the desert and in each direction there was nothing. It was like a scene out of an Alfred Hitchock movie. I wondered if an airplane may swoop down from the sky at me.

At moments like these of greatest despair, lost on the bike course with no hope of getting a good finish time at this race, I remember thinking - this sucks, but just push on, because you never know what will happen. So I took a pee, and a random car drove up to me at that intersection and must have known I was a race participant and I was lost. I don't know who they were, but they had a map, and they tried to figure help but they were lost too. We eventually did conclude that I should go back the way I came. So I backtracked and talked to a police officer who was working the next intersection. Turns out this was an intersection at about 1/2 way through the bike course (I had rode about 5 miles so far) and he told me to go right. Well, at the next intersection a police officer on a motorcycle gave me an escort and I thought little of it until I saw the half way point, which featured an electronic scanning post to prove you were there, and turnaround. I was the first to arrive! It was weird to have some of the volunteers cheering me on, saying I was doing great; I guess it was not obvious that I was having a hard time and was obviously not contending to win this race - far from it, but I didn't bother talking to anyody. I just took it in and rode on. So eventually I saw for the first time, another rider, who came from behind me. He was a full ironman racer and he was lost too! So we rode together and got even more lost, before a race official on a motorcycle found us and set us back on the course, in the wrong direction. Eventually we saw a lot of riders going the opposite direction and staring suspiciously at us. I eventually realized why - we clearly were not super strong triathletes, but we were leading the race!

Eventually the lead racers did pass us, and wow they were bookin' it. We rode on to what was officially the 50 mile mark, and my gps registered only 34 miles. Me and my full ironman compatriot decided to backtrack 8 miles and then come back so we would finally be synced up with the race at mile 50 of the bike, and the rest could be a normal race.

I'm really glad I pushed on through that race in spite of how crappy it was going for me. I met some really cool people. It was 2 miles from the finish line during the run and I was passed by a lady, and this was only the second person to pass me the whole run, the first being very early on. I decided to try and keep up and shortly learned why she was such a strong runner: she was an ultrarunner, and had several 100 mile runs under her belt. I excitedly told her my how my biggest long term goal is to do a 100 mile run, but she was more impressed by my other goal of a full ironman. She finished about 30 seconds ahead of me, but when I came in she introduced me to her friend Anne Langstaff, who finished 10 minutes ahead of us. Anne was the female winner of Badwater in 2001. There was music playing at the finish line and we all danced and lip synced to songs.

So the moral of the story is that in spite of having a crappy race day, I think I learned to revel in it. It's really quite amusing if you have the right outlook on it. Since my very first marathon was run in torrential wind and rain, and similarly more than half of the various races or big events I have done since then have involved heavy rain, I think I am destined to suffer a little bit more than most, but I'm ok with it. I'll wear it like a badge of honor.

I love these races for the comradery. There is a shared understanding of what you're going through, and even though you're supposed to be racing against each other, there is a great deal of respect for the other athletes whether you win or lose. Everybody is routing for everybody else.

After finishing my race I drove back and showered, checked out of the hotel and ate lunch, then retrieved my gear from transition and headed out to watch the full ironman finishers come in. They were all finishing after sundown. I was amazed that they all looked fresh, without even a waiver in their step. That's my goal.

Finally I will end when some thoughts that have been on my mind while I'm out running and cycling. Running is one of the most intense forms of meditation. You're engaging mind and body in a rhythm for as long as you can. Like making music or a painting, it's something you lose yourself in. To me it's only an added bonus that running makes you eat better, sleep better, feel better and look better. A book called The Pose Method taught me to run by changing support as quick as you can from one foot to another, lean a little bit forward and let gravity pull you down, but then your foot comes down and stops that downword vector and you're left only with the forward motion. I love running because that's all it is, a constant change of support. Simple. No matter where you are, or how bad your current situation is, all you have to do is change your support and you'll be going somewhere. I will never in my life feel a loss for all hope because I belive that if you summon the strength to take just a single step you will be on the road to to a better place. So here's one monkey who's going to keep doing just that, and we'll see where it takes him. He's not giving up, ever.