It’s been nine days since I swam my way up and down the
Russian River, cycled my way through Sonoma and Napa counties and ran a
marathon around the city of Windsor, CA. Like the wine we’ve been drinking
since the day after the race, time has aged my memory and I believe I can now
put how awesome this experience was onto paper.
The primary goal of this race for me had nothing to do with
the passage of time or attaining personal gain. Quite the contrary—six weeks
prior to race day I was called to reach out to my network and ask for prayer
requests, one for each mile traveled on race day, and by the time I got up and
put on my wetsuit, I had over 120 requests from family, friends, friends of
family and friends of friends. I was able to fill the remainder with people who
came to mind just by asking God to speak to me as I was out on the course. This
took an exceptional amount of courage on my part and begged of me to put myself
out there more than I would typically do so in any other arena. But I am glad I
did—it was life changing for me….
Cancer, divorce, miscarriage, addiction, mental illness,
unemployment, world peace, and so many other sorrowful things….People were able
to open up to me, many of whom had never met me, and told me their deepest
fears and worries, and asked that I pray for them. I took on these burdens,
prayed the entire race, and had one consistent thought in my mind the whole
time: my pain is so much less significant compared to anyone on that list.
Isn’t this consistent with what God wants for us? To take on the burdens of
those around us? Friends, I can tell you from firsthand experience, every
soreness, every cramp, every time the little voice in my head challenged me to
give up all I had to do was pray for someone on my list and it went away.
Immediately. God used me as a vessel and showed me that I have so much more to
give, even when I am stretched thin, my tank is never empty….for those who sent
in requests and all of those people in my network, it is my sincere desire that
you felt peace throughout my race and will continue to do so going forward. I
can assure you that my prayers will not cease at the completion of this Ironman.
I would be lying if I said I didn’t also have a personal
finishing time goal for the race. Just being honest. When I last took on
Ironman (Texas in 2013), I really struggled to finish. I had a terrible swim,
stopped multiple times on the bike and ended up walking the majority of the
marathon. My mind was never right from the time the gun went off until the
finish chute. It was painful, agonizing and not fun for me. I swore this time
around to do everything differently…I wanted to have fun, to remember to smile
and to encourage others out on the course. My training was also laser-focused
and I completed 90% of the prescribed workouts, so I knew I had done everything
I could to be ready for whatever was thrown my way on race day. That’s what a
successful Ironman is all about: eliminating variables and maximizing control. On
the flight to San Francisco, I went back over my pacing in Training Peaks and
came up with a bracketed estimated finish time of somewhere between 11:30 and
13:30. I crossed in 12:16. Being honest in your training and with yourself
works.
Planning for Vineman.
Since we were staying for five days after the race, it took a lot of planning
out where we were going to stay and which wineries we were going to visit
afterwards. Luckily, Emily’s cousin Rob, who is a remarkable winemaker and all around great guy, helped us pin down the wine tastings, so all I had to do was book
places to stay. I decided to pick a spot north of the finish line to stay both
pre-race and the night of the race so that we could get out of the logjam and be on
our way the next morning. We had a great little place on Pony Ranch Vineyards
which was 30min from the start line and 15min from the finish line (yes, there
are two transition areas…). I used Cycle Chauffer to transport my bike and gear bag, so I picked these up on Thursday prior
to the race at the Ironman Village site. We also picked up my packet at
check-in, grabbed a t-shirt and walked around for a bit. I got in a quick 40min
ride on part of the bike course that evening and had dinner, then called it a
night. Friday morning, we went to T2 to drop off my run gear bag and then
headed down to the swim start/T1 to drop my bike and bike gear bag. Since
Johnson’s Beach is a public beach on the Russian River, I was able to get a
20min swim in my wetsuit and make sure I could still fit in it since it’s been
sitting in my closet for over a year. After the bike was checked in, we went to
lunch back in Healdsburg and Emily did a wine tasting at Mazzocco Estates. I
got in a short 20min run after that and felt great in the 0% humidity climate.
Dinner that night, my traditional beer (Pliny the Elder) and off to bed by 9pm.
My first alarm went off at 3am per my plan and I took down
an Ensure drink, my electrolytes, vitamins, a PB & banana bagel and 32oz of
my endurance blend drink. I was able to fall back asleep for a little bit until
the next alarm went off at 430am to get up for good. Slammed another Ensure and
another endurance drink and re-checked my special needs bags, put on sunscreen
and my kit and off we went down to Johnson’s Beach. Traffic was moderately
heavy, but we were able to get right into town and then I had Emily get the car
out of there so she wouldn’t be caught up in race traffic. Quick kiss goodbye
and I told her I’d see her in a few hours…
Vineman. The T1 transition area was chaotic. I always wear headphones for multiple reasons, but
primarily to block out all of the chatter and nervous energy that people
project prior to a race. It also dictates which songs will be in my head on the
swim…
Pros entered the water at 625am and amateurs begin filing in
(per Ironman’s new swim initiative) in waves of 10 people. I didn’t get to the
water until 705am and began swimming as fast as I could. It became
abundantly apparent that the vast majority of athletes were overzealous with
their projected swim times and seeded themselves poorly. I spent the entire
swim going around people, touching feet and whizzing by people who decided to
walk in the shallow water. Yep, some people walked the majority of the swim. I
wanted my legs to be fresh and decided to use my arms instead. I quickly made
it to the turn around, looked at my watch (said 32min) and really tried to push
myself for the second half. Unfortunately, it was more of the same. Slow
swimmers seeded incorrectly. By the time I passed back underneath the bridges,
I had lost a bit of time from all of the zigging and zagging but was still
enjoying myself. The swim exit was getting closer and closer with every sight
stroke and I finally got out of the water in 1:09. Perfect. Striped off my
wetsuit and headed in.
The transition area was a mud pit, as was the changing
area….I grabbed my bag and headed to the back of the tent to change into my
cycling gear. I had swam with only my tri-bottoms so that I would have a dry
shirt for the chilly first 10 miles of the bike, and it was crazy hard to put
on a skinsuit when you’re wet. Put on my HR monitor, grabbed my prayer list, my
helmet and shoes, and ran out to my bike.
The bike ride begins with a 7% incline up from transition to
the main road. They were asking people to run their bikes up the hill, so I
opted to do that versus shifting down and burning my legs up the first hill.
Once on the top of the hill, I mounted my bike and began the beautiful ride through
Sonoma County. The first 12 miles are flat and fast with only 200’ or so of
climbing. Once you get onto the Calistoga loop at mile 13/60, the fun really
starts….My plan was to drink my endurance blend (Sustained Energy, X Endurance
Hydrate and Skratch Labs) and take a salt lick every 15min during the bike,
which I did the entire time. I also ate a Clif Shot every hour on the hour,
alternating between 25mg caffeine and 100mg caffeine. And I prayed…By the time
I zipped through Hwy 101 and started to head back south towards St. Helena, I
was feeling great. This is when the bike course punches you in the
stomach---mile 45-ish drops you onto Chalk Hill Road which houses two 9%
climbs, the second of which stretches about .5 miles long. Luckily, there were
so many spectators lining the ridge and running alongside the cyclists, so it
felt a bit like a stage of the tour. Once you climb these hills, you drop down
into a canyon and hit speeds over 40mph. A quick 15 miles and you are back on
the highway to Calistoga to do your second loop. I opted to skip special needs
as I had everything I needed in my jersey and bento box—mistake. As I passed
through a water stop to grab water, I began mixing my bottle and went to put it
back in the bottle cage. Two miles passed the water stop, I hit a bump and my
new bottle got thrown onto the pavement. Since it would have been a penalty to
leave it, I had to turn back and grab it only to find that it all leaked out
after it hit the ground. Should have stopped and filled it at special needs.
Gotta keep moving….Since that bottle contained the majority of the nutrition I
had left (that was cold), I had to go back to the last bottle I put on my bike
in the morning. It was warm and had been on my bike for 5 hours. Big mistake
since my drink has protein in it. After three swigs of it, my stomach quickly
reminded me how much it disagreed with the hot drink and I found myself having to stop at
the next two water stops to visit the port-o-can. After I had thrown up of
all of the drink, I got back on my bike, climbed chalk hill, grabbed a cold
Gatorade and headed into Windsor. Bike time was 6 hours on the dot (includes
7-8 min of stopping). Perfect.
The great thing about T2 at Vineman was the fact that
volunteers take your bike and rack it for you. All I had to do was focus on
getting my run gear bag and preparing for the run. As I hopped off my bike, my
legs felt surprisingly great and I was able to chug a bottle of endurance fuel,
put on my shoes, grab my race number and hat, and take off.
I finally saw Emily as I was grabbing my run bag and heading
out to the run course. What a blessing it was to see her smiling face and hear
her yelling for me! I ran out of the finish line area and quickly made it up
the first long climb which drops you out onto Eastside road, where Rodney
Strong is located. The first loop went by fast, and I averaged 9min miles which
was on plan. I was also enjoying seeing the pros passing me on the other side
of the road, heading in on their last loops. Professional triathletes are
freaks of nature….I continued my praying and before I knew it, I was headed
downhill back into Windsor to the finish area where I would turn off for the
second and third loops. I didn’t see Emily on the second turn loop, but kept
trucking because I knew it was a fine line between my pace and cramping out. As
I made my way up the long climb out of the finish area and onto the second
loop, my quads and flexors started to twitch. There’s my old friends….I began
introducing coke and oranges at each water stop, and dumping ice water in my
kit. I also stuffed ice into my tri shorts on my quads. My plan was to take
salt every 15min and a Clif Shot every hour on the hour, which I did. However,
after I made the turn at the halfway point on the second loop, my legs were
stiff and cramped up. This is where my pace went from 9min/mi to 10, then to 11
and 12. By the time I started heading down the hill and back into Windsor, I
knew sub-12 race was out of the question and I decided to keep focusing on the
prayer list and just have fun. I can’t tell you how many people asked about my
list, about Catapult (my race team’s charity partner) and where I was from. I
must have met over 100 people out on the run course—I was having an absolute
blast. As I was coming in from loop 2, I saw Emily and was able to hand her my
list because I had prayed so much for so many people and wanted the last loop
to be ran in solitude—I wanted to rely on God to push me and feed me prayer
requests, which overwhelming happened. Each mile was someone new and another person
popped into my head. Before I could even think about how much it hurt, I was
running down the hill back into Windsor and entering the finisher loop which
would wind around for about a mile. I remember thinking about Emily, about Jack
and about how awesome this adventure was. I was actually sad that it was
over…as I turned into the chute, all I could see was the sun setting over the
mountains. What a metaphor for the last 20 weeks of preparation—I did it, 12:16:55, I
finished…
What I learned.
It was such a pleasure to make this journey about serving others. I honestly
don’t think I could have pushed myself as hard as I did without the external
motivation of having other people relying on me to pray for them. Isn’t that the
model that God wants us to live by? It’s amazing how much burden you can take
on and still push through to accomplish great things. I actually felt more
energy when I was thinking about everyone who made my list and the pain in my
legs subsided when I thought about how minuscule it was compared to the plight
of others. I certainly don’t want this to end here—it has to be something that
is contagious and spreads onto every aspect of my life. What am I doing for
others? How much more of myself is there left to give?
I want to thank all of those who participated in this
journey—from sending in prayer requests, to joining me on my long rides, to
sending over words of encouragement and for Emily and Jack for being patient
with my schedule. While I might be done racing for a while, there remains a
fire within me that needs to be used for good. Until next time.
KB
