Tempe, Arizona United States Ironman North America 72F / 22C Sunny

Total Time = 12h 03m 33s Overall Rank = 912/2400 Age Group = 35-39 Age Group Rank = 187/450

This race report is more of a race journey. I'll apologize now that this is such a long race report. A little background is required to understand my mindset going into this race. Several years ago I decided to attempt my first half marathon and was asked if I would consider doing doing an Ironman. The Ironman had just come to Arizona a year before. At the time I was asked about doing an Ironman, my athletic ability was nonexistent and I weighed 280 pounds. I can't explain how humiliated I felt trying run more than a mile and doing 13 of them was a fantasy. Now someone was asking me about this race that only superhuman people do. I just said no and went on to do my half marathon. I did it again the following year and then did a full marathon a year after that. Over the years I would see Ironman Arizona come through town since I live in Tempe. I would always think about being asked about Ironman and that feeling of inadequacy. But now I had done a marathon and that must count for something. I hadn't been on a bike in years and didn't know how to swim, and I'm not overstating that either. I had never learned how to swim and would not get in a pool unless there was an inflatable object coming with me. How could someone like me even consider this lunacy?

I asked my wife (rotorkim) if she would be support me if I decided to do this and she said yes. I would not have gone down this road if she wasn't on board. She is my best friend, knows me better than anybody and understands my strange requests. She gave me the green light and I registered on April 14, 2008. Well, now I had to learn how to swim, buy a bike and learn to ride it. I promptly went down to the gym and enrolled in a beginning swim class. Talk about an ego buster. Jumping in the pool and being three times taller than the rest of the class. A month later I could do 25 meters. This was going to take a lot of work! At the same time I went and bought a bike with yet another embarrassing moment having to ask the sales guy how to shift gears. I continued to learn and train everyday. I still needed to see if I could get into a lake and not drown. At this point I still didn't know anyone in the sport and thought it would be a good idea to meet some. A few minutes online and I came across BT. This was convenient and everyone seemed nice. So I tagged along at an open water swim with a few people from the ESCKTC (East Side Cool Kids Tri Club).

After several months and not looking too much like an idiot, I registered for all my preparation races for IMAZ. Every race was to be learning experience for the big day. I did a few sprints, an Olympic, Oceanside 70.3 and Vineman 70.3. Along the way my times were getting better and I was having fun meeting great people. I also want to point out that Kim joined me in the triathlon lifestyle and even did Vineman with me. How cool is that! My training was on track and was consistently adjusting my HR zones and race goals. At this point I just needed to log my long rides and runs.

On September 20 (62 days to IMAZ), Elliot (elliot85) and I were off to do a 115 mile ride and it would be my first time breaking the century mark. The first 30 miles went by with nice weather and good conversation. We just started down some switchbacks and we see an accident scene with several vehicles off to the side. As I come up to corner an ambulance pulls out taking away my lane so I turned to avoid the ambulance, resulting in a blown tire. I don't have any memory of what happened next. But I apparently went over my handlebars, hitting my chest and then striking the ground with my head and right shoulder. The GPS said I went from 33 mph to 0 in about six feet. The good news was that the paramedics were right there and stabilized me since I was convulsing and unresponsive. I took a short ambulance trip up the hill where I met the helicopter that flew me down to the trauma center. I finally regained consciousness later that day in the hospital. I was very tired but was feeling OK and asked when I could leave. It turns out that morphine has a way of masking the pain. They told me I had internal brain bleeding, a broken eye socket, a compound fractured clavicle and bruised ribs. I remembered asking one of the MANY doctors that came through if I could still do Ironman. I was devastated. At the time I couldn't understand the severity of the injuries and even told my boss I would be at work the next day. All I knew was that I was broken and causing my family and friends undue strain. It was the most helpless feeling I have ever experienced, but I also really learned how great the people are in my life. The hospital kept giving me CT scans to watch the bleeding and did a quick surgery to clean out the clavicle fracture. They couldn't do a repair with all the road rash so that would have to wait. Three days later they discharged me from ICU.

I scheduled an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon to fix my clavicle. He shot an x-ray and suggested plating it. I agreed but needed the road rash to heal more. The surgery date came on October 9 (44 days to IMAZ). This should have been a simple procedure but it wasn't. I came out of anesthesia from a 3 1/2 hour operation and was told by the surgeon that I was the worst shoulder operation he had ever done and he had to do a non-typical plate installation. I guess the shoulder took such a hard hit that it shattered the entire end of the clavicle and resulted in the loss of the AC joint. His plan was to temporarily fuse the remainder of the clavicle to the scapula. Two weeks with a sling and a lot of pain I got another x-ray to find out the plate pulled out of the scapula and was pushing up on my skin (27 days to IMAZ). More depression sitting in his office with road rash that still isn't healing and a plate that has to come out. Later that week I went back for another operation to remove the plate (22 days to IMAZ). Now the plate is out and I was told that he didn't have any other options for me but leave it. I had only one question "Can I do any more damage?" Nope, it's already broken.

Let the training begin. I lost a total of 7 weeks of training and had some catching up to do. I first needed to get my arm moving since I had a lot of muscle atrophy in the right arm and was now missing bone and the AC joint. A quick trip to a physical therapist helped get my arm rotated enough to get in the pool try a swim stroke. I knew I had 2:20 to get out of that water and it was time to make it happen. The next hurdle was to get on the bike trainer. The pressure on the arm just thumped my shoulder but at least I was training. I couldn't even think about the aero position since my chest hurt so bad with the rib bruising. The time flew by trying to get in enough training.

Just to see whether I could do the swim, I signed up for a 4000m swim in Tempe Town Lake two weeks before IMAZ. The broken shoulder was compounded by the fact that my road rash still hadn't healed. It turned out that the wound had incurred a staph infection, and I was nervous about swimming in TTL with an open wound. So I put a thin bandage over the wound and smeared it with Aquaphor to keep the wetsuit from chafing the wound too badly. It turned out well -- I finished the 4000m in 1:36, so I felt more confident about the swim.

I thought about getting to that start line for 550 days and did my best everyday to make that happen and nothing was going to keep from racing!

Woke up at 4:00 AM and ate my typical bagel and banana. Got to to transition and checked the bike to find a flat rear tire. Walked it down to Landis and they put a new tube in for me.