Tempe, Arizona United States Ironman North America

Total Time = 00m Overall Rank = / Age Group = Age Group Rank = 0/

"Barely Started, Did Not Finish"

I won't get into the usual arriving in tempe, riding the course, meeting bters, experiencing IronMan for the first time, as it doesn't feel appropriate. But the days leading up to IMAZ were exactly what I wanted, and I was just trying to experience every moment.

If you've read my blog you've read this "report" more or less, nothing new, really.

I do want to express how much this site, and its members, mean to me. It's easy to take you all for granted, but when the shit hits the fan, and you people -- who generally have experienced everything there is to experience in tris and know what it's like when a race goes south -- come through with support, love, acceptance, kicks in the ass, and perspective... well, that's when this site really shines. I know that myself and several other IMAZers who needed the right words at the right time got them here. From friends and total strangers. What a great family we have here.

Anyway, long story short, DNFd the swim, by far my strongest leg and the one I had "in the bag." Maybe cosmic karma came my way, got a little too cocky, some hubris in my goody bag. More likely I needed the lesson that nothing in life, tris, etc. is guaranteed, or in the bag.

I started about 3 rows back, about 30 feet from the Ford buoy. Was a fairly clean swim, I've had worse sprints. HR was hovering around 148, a little high, but I could live with it. My thoughts during the swim was "this is going really well." About at ASU I started to feel what I thought was seasick, which was odd, since I don't get seasick. Slowed down and worked on form, figured I'd get thru it. At the far bridge I realized it wasn't that, but something like vertigo, every time I rolled right I could feel it. I stopped to try to shake it off.

DOn't remember if I started swimming or was still stopped, but all of a sudden BAM my face was in the water and I couldn't figure out how to get it out. I was swallowing water, trying to pick my head up, but I couldn't figure out where up was, so getting air was hard, almost impossible. The world was spinning out of control, and I couldn't do anything to stop it. The guy behind me stopped and said "hey are you OK?" since i was clearly thrashing about like a panic attack. I don't know what I said, but looked right and there was a boat, I instinctively raised my hand, and a guard swam out to me.

I told her i was having vertigo and couldn't tell up from down. She stabilized me and brought me to the boat. Let me say I have never had vertigo while swimming. I get alternobaric vertigo on occasion when diving in cold water and a hood when changing depths but it passes in seconds. I also swim in colder water than this at home. The only thing I did differently was tightening my goggles a bit, which I always do for ocean or crowded swims.

At the boat, the other guards were asking "cramps?" cold?" "tired?" nope..... I wish. I was sitting on the swim step, trying to shake it. It wasn't getting much better, but I sat watching hundreds of swimmers pass by. I was resigned to losing my 1:00 goal. Just get thru the swim. I said I was going to give it another shot, they assigned a kayaker to watch me. I jumped in, and tried to swim. Vertigo still there. I breaststroked. Better, but way too slow, I'd never make it. Modified water polo stroke with head out of the water. Got to the turn around buoy, got to the second buoy, and then it hit again big time. I hung onto the kayak again for a while, but I wanted another shot. My swim to then was good and on target, even with the stop on the boat. It was 7:28 and I was past the turn around, heading home. I had nearly 2 hours to go a mile. Should be a piece of cake, that's like 4 times what I need. Tried to clear the vertigo, but now was starting to get nasueous.

I tried again and started my modified stroke again, but started to slowly realize that there was no way I could keep a bike upright safely, affecting me and everyone else, even if I could muscle thru the swim. When the vertigo hit bad again this time, it felt as though someone was pushing my legs up and my face into the water. If you've ever had it, you know the feeling is as real as someone actually doing it. I went back to the kayak, that's when the vomiting and dry heaving started. "Do you want me to call the boat?" I had to say yes. At that point I just wanted the spinning and nausea to stop. I also wanted to say "I am not a bad swimmer, a panicker, a slow swimmer, if I could do anything to make this stop just so I could swim, I would" At that point I felt like I was in survival mode and didn't care about the race. I had tried to go on three times, and each time I felt as if I was drowning.

At the athlete's dinner, PNF was referring to the heat when she said don't leave your brains behind. In getting in the boat I believe I was saving my life. I honestly believe that had I tried to continue the outcome might have been very, very bad. I have done a lot of risky and remote diving with sharks, heavy currents, open water swimming in fairly big surf. I am pretty comfortable in the water. I am not exxagerating when I say I as scared for my life as I've ever been in the water. I don't say that lightly.

When the boat came, I was able to haul myself in, but face planted because as soon as my head went over the vertigo came on. Vomited off the side of the boat. "May I have your chip?" I made a half hearted effor to get it off, but they ended up doing it. At that point my day was officially over. Told them my number in betwen dry heaves. Transferred to another boat, and they had to basically carry me over. More vomiting. Got to an ambulance on shore, couldn't stand up. More vomiting. Eventually made it to the gurney using a railing to walk with. Got into the ambulance. More vomiting. Laid in medical for about an hour, with more vomiting. Couldn't take anything in. My BP was 90/60 for the first 30 minutes. Guess that's bad.

There was one light hearted moment, they were putting me on the gurney, but given i was puking my guts out, told them I should be on my left side. EMT touched my fucked up shoulder and said "whoa... umm, is that normal?" I said "no... I mean, for me it is... but no, it's not normal."

It was cold in the med tent, so they eventually sat me in the sun, in a wheelchair, just between med and the US airways parking lot, since there was a stiff breeze blowing through. In my jammers, as families and support walked by. Fucking great. Not humiliating at all.

I have to thank my friend Cat for coming by at that moment, although it turned on the waterworks, she knows what I was going thru and somehow knew exactly what to say. Don't know if she knew what that meant to me, she does now. I'll always owe her for being there. Love you, Cat.

One other swimmer came in, hypothermia, I think. They were going to send me to the ER, but the head doc said probably not necessary, take me home, fluids, etc. Another walk of shame. I couldn't walk without support, so my wife got the car as close as she could, and they wheeled me over, still in just my jammers, in a wheelchair, through all the people coming to the race. More absolute fucking humiliation. To top it off, the only place my wife could park was next the the finisher's chute. I always thought I'd get to the finisher's chute, just not like that.

I was OK emotionally until I had the nurse call my wife, then the emotions hit, and really didn't stop all Sunday. After getting back to the hotel, I basically laid in a dark room from 9 am until about 7 pm trying to get water, gatorade, pringles down. Anything. No TV, just lying there. I think I made it through 1/2 a bottle of water and 20 pringles. Although I was only in the water for 30 minutes, I felt like absolute crap.

We had to get my bike and bags, so we had to go back to the race. I really did not want to. Emotions hit me again as we passed the runners on Scottsdale Bridge. I couldn't even watch, I had to turn my head. I couldn't walk past the finisher chute so we went the long way, but hearing the cheering, Reilly's voice, it was painful and I had to stop and just let it out. My wife Wendy met with Cat for a while waiting for her boyfriend Jeff, so I went down under the Mill bridge and sat on the lakeside, watching where my body failed me on one side in the water, and watching the runners go by on the other, where I was supposed to be. I think it was therapeutic to see these brave people doing something that I could not do on that day.

Walking through the expo, everyone with medals, finisher's shirts. I just walked with my head down, so I didn't see them and they couldn't see my red eyes. I wanted out of there as fast as possible. I immediately took the stickers off my bike. I took the rack sticker with my name and threw it out. Came home and purged the room of the athlete's guide, the race instructions, race plans, articles, the poster, anything to do with this race. Gave away the license plate frame to Jeff since he didn't get on, he refused the 140.6 sticker I bought, he told me to put it in a drawer. I was fucking pissed at IMAZ, disappointed in myself..... all the inappropriate acting out emotions, that seemed quite appropriate under the circumstances.

At midnight Sunday, as I was writing, I could hear people returning to the hotel after their finishes. THat's where I always thought I'd be. In all of my dreams and visions, etc., it always included me crossing the line. I sent out an email to friends and coworkers saying "watch me" and all they get is a line of "0"s. More explanations. For some reason I was embarrassed, ashamed. Just wanted to hide. Quit. I trained for 6 months. Spent hundreds and hundreds, medical bills, equipment, worked through the accident, Untold hours of stress and attention to all these little details. For what. A fucking 1/2 hour swim

After I wrote a long blog entry, with a lot of anger and emotion, and frankly quite a bit of self pity, I had a long talk with Wendy and the thing she said that stuck to my heart was "you weren't given the choice to finish. Your body said no." She was right, even if I could have found a way to get thru the swim, I couldn't even stand up, much less ride a bike. I could barely kneel on the ground without toppling over. My day was over in the first 30 minutes. There wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. It's just taken a couple days to accept it. What she said is what turned me around.

So, lying in bed, at 2 am, I decided that I would go back to the expo, grab my special needs bags, return the IMAZ jersey and hat (they said "we only do exchanges." I said "I didn't finish, I can't wear these." they said "oh, OK", what are they gonna do, make me exchange it for finisher's gear???), and.... decided to get my number to do IMAZ 11/09. Wendy asked if it was the IM I wanted to do. I said it's the one I feel I need to do. Not for revenge. But to borrow a phrase, to take care of unfinished business.

I felt better planning out the rest of this and next year's big races, SIlverman HIM 08, Cali 70.3 09, SOMA 09, IMAZ 09. Life goes on, there are more races, more friends to be made, experiences to have. Just get me to the starting line. Heard a good yiddish saying the other day, "Man plans, God laughs." Yup, it's just sometimes I don't get his sense of humor.

Despite all this perspective, Monday morning was difficult. Probably the wrong thing to do, but I avoided the people I came here with, for right or wrong. They are the people I trained with and care about, but I didn't think I could get through explaining what happened over and over. I didn't think I could see all of them in finisher's gear and hold myself together. I do want to congratulate them, and I don't want to take away what they've accomplished. But I don't want to hear all the war stories about how hard it was. That's absolutely their right to tell about what happened on what will be remembered as an epic day. Maybe someday, not tomorrow. I've told them all this in email, they understand.

I've learned some good stuff in the last couple days, hopefully to carry it through to the next challenge. Getting away from tempe, into Sedona, gave me some new perspective. Today, driving around looking for vortices, acting silly and singing stupid songs about Javelinas, my wife said "you know, I am not complaining, but it's hard to believe you suffered an IM DNF just yesterday."

The silver lining is that those of us DNF ing the swim were probably the smartest, given the conditions. Might as well get to it, a lot of folks DNFd and ended up in much worse shape than I.

I want to thank Wendy, who came ready to support me all day long in the heat, and who ended up wondering where I was after the swim and worrying about me, and getting a call from medical out of the blue. She sat with me all day, consoled me. And then said the words that turned it around. Nice to have your best friend as your wife.

And I want to thank the incredible people here, I will try to do each one personally. Yoou have no idea how muc the support means

Now, enough of IMAZ 2008. Onward and upward.