Yesterday was a long day.
I arrived at Lake Cahuilla early enough to catch the finish of the
sprint distance race and watch my friend and team mate from LB Tri go out on
the run. My plan had been to hang out at
the park and check out the expo all day then head into the city to stay with a
friend of a friend who offered to put me up for the night.
Unfortunately the expo consisted of three vendors. It wasn’t enough to entertain me for the rest
of the afternoon while I waited to check in my bike and pick up my race
packet. I watched some of the race and
walked around a bit… possibly too much walking as later in the afternoon the
back of my knees felt like they were tightening up on me. Not to mention the winds were picking up
bringing with it a chill in the air.
By the time four thirty rolled around and I started setting
up my transition area it was really getting cold. I had also been walking around for the last
six hours so I was feeling a bit tired as well.
The sun was beginning to set and being the cold was really starting to
bite.
The race director was trying to get through the mandatory
meeting as soon as possible so we could all get out of there and get some much
needed rest. The meeting was fairly
quick with only a few questions being asked by my fellow participants.

Well after driving a while down 111 and not finding anything
that really stuck out, I ended up at the OG.
After I sat down and ordered, I texted my friend’s friend to find out if
she was ready for me to arrive. I
received a reply that while she was ready, I ended up being bumped to the couch
because of a family issue that had come up and she ended up having her entire
family at the house for the next couple weeks.
This wasn’t going to work for me. My anxiety was already somewhat high with my
goal being just hours away. Luckily I
always have a back up plan. I whipped
out my trusty phone and dialed up the Shat (Priceline), and proceeded to find a
hotel in the area.
It took a couple tries but I ended up at the Hyatt in Palm
Springs, not too far out. GPS says it
should have been about thirty to forty minutes out. Little did I know that Palm Springs was
having its annual Christmas parade that shut down the exact area I needed to
get to. What was a half hour drive ended
up being about 1 ½ hours due to traffic, detours and about eleventy billion
people walking down the middle of the street.
Luckily I hit the tail end of the parade otherwise I may have been
sitting in my truck forever.
By the time I pulled into the hotel parking lot my anxiety
was through the roof and my patience had completely worn out. The valet probably thought I was on some good
drugs because I know I wasn’t making sense and the ability to form complete
sentences had left me a stammering idiot.
I had planned on being in bed by eight o’clock-ish so I could wake up by
three to get ready… it was already after nine and I really needed to get to
bed.

So with race tats on and my gear laid out for the morning I
set my phone alarm and the hotel clock alarm to wake me up at three a.m. and go
into the other room to roll out and wind down by watching a little HIMYM. By the time I’m all settled down it’s already
after ten. I’m beat and sleep can’t come
soon enough.
Three a.m. It feels
like I just went to bed. I’d love to
sleep a few more hours but it’s about that time. Time to get up. I’m in desperate need of coffee. Unfortunately the only thing available and
easily accessible is the crappy hotel room coffee. I start it brewing and head to the bathroom
to start getting ready.
I splash some water on my face and look at myself in the
mirror. I haven’t even had breakfast yet
and the blender of emotions is starting to kick in. I’m a little nervous, excited and scared but
somewhere in the back of it all I feel calm.
I know how hard I’ve worked. I’ve
put in the grueling hours and buckets of sweat.
I can do this.
I have the usual breakfast of a banana sandwiched between
two toaster waffles and some Justin’s Chocolate Almond Butter and wash it down
with a couple glasses of water and two cups of coffee. I proceed to get suited up in my superman
gear and roll out one more time since my legs still feel a little tight from
the day before and then grab my gear and head out the door.
Amazingly I make it over to the HITS horse park before the
first shuttle leaves. As those who have
driven with me know, I’m completely dependant on my GPS and without it I’d get
lost trying to back up out of my driveway.
I grab my transition bag out of my truck and climb into the
shuttle. There are only a couple seats
left so I go for the last one on the right, accidentally stepping on someone’s
foot on the way there and settle in for the quick trip to T1.
The rest of the morning leading up to the race flies by and
before I know it, it’s almost time to go when I hear “Long Beach!” I look up and my buddy Vinny from the LB Tri
is there to pick up his trailer from the day before. Vinny raced the Olympic distance and ended up
leaving his trailer there because he didn’t feel like driving it back with the
wind picking up the night before.
There were no words to describe how good it felt to have
someone there. It was like a giant
weight I didn’t know was even there had been lifted off my shoulders. It really was amazing to have moral support
on the course. I couldn’t thank him
enough for being there to watch the race.

By the time I actually slip into the water the race director
calls everyone over for a small pre-race talk.
Good timing. After the talk I
make my way over the starting area. My
plan is to stick to the outside, stay out of the blender and just get in a nice
groove. My plan works really well on the
way out as I didn’t have to sight much, just swam directly into the sun. By the time I round the buoy at the halfway
point I end up in the middle of the pack.
There are elbows flying and bumping going on either side of me as I
tried to swim a straight line back into shore.
I’m also sure the same person was on my feet the whole way back in as
well because I kept feeling someone grabbing my feet.
I didn’t let it bother me though. Just concentrated on having a nice even
stroke, although sighting on the way back in was a little tougher as there
weren’t really any distinguishable landmarks going back in. It wasn’t until I actually exited the water
that I realized that my hands and feet were numb. I was having such kind of a rough time out of
the water so I just ended up walking the short way up from the beach.
Into T1 it took me a while to get my wetsuit off as I couldn’t
use my fingers to grip it. Once I
actually had it down around my waist it was easy enough to get off though. Trying to put socks on wet, numb feet with
numb hands was quite a task. T1 took me
just over six minutes, which in hindsight I was actually ok with. While I would have like to be faster through
this transition I’m glad I took my time as it helped get some feeling back into
my hands and feet.
Once I got onto the bike course everything turned to
gold. The wind stayed down, my cadence
was high and the course was fast. At
mile four the urge to pee hit me as it always does whenever I finish a
swim. In my mind though, I decided there
was no way I was going to stop. The
night before I had decided that I would hit the turn around on the bike before
the wind picked up, so that I would have a good tailwind on the longest stretch
of the course possible. Somewhere about
the two hour mark I found myself singing, “Moves like Jagger.” That was a rough hour.
There were a few tricky turns here and there with the sand
that had blown onto the course over the night but all in all I had a great ride
up until mile fifty. That’s when I heard
that familiar line from Top Gun reverberating in my skull. “The defense department regrets to inform
you that your sons are dead because they were stupid. “

By the time I
made it back into transition the urge to pee was so great I couldn’t think of
anything else. I racked my bike, threw
off my riding gear, threw on my running shoes and headed straight for the
porta-potty. On the way there the RD was
exiting one of them and stopped to shake my hand. All I could say was, “Porta-Potty!” I’m pretty sure I yelled this pretty loudly
too as I quickly ran by him to relieve myself after spending just under 3 hours
on the bike.

My original
plan on the run was to go ten minute miles on the first six and a half miles
and then negative split it and run nine minute miles or so on the way back
depending on how I felt. Unfortunately
the pain in my knee slowed me down to about eleven minute miles as I tried to
switch up my gait to alleviate some of the pain that was building in my knee.

I still
remember the hearing Vinny and Nidia shouting at me as I was running up to
the finish. I couldn’t believe they had
stayed the entire six plus hours just to watch me cross. Vinny would later say, “That’s what teammates
do.” I still can’t find the right words
to thank him though.
The feeling of
defeat I had earlier on the run vanished.
The only thing I could feel was happy.
I did it. I crossed that
line. I had gone from pre-diabetic, to
losing over sixty pounds and literally went from zero to half iron man in less
than ten months.
If there is
anything that I’ve learned from 2011, it’s that the only limits you have are
those you place on yourself. With
dedication, hard work and drive you can accomplish anything.
To all my
teammates from LB Tri and all of my friends, family and MFPeeps, I dedicate my
story to you. I couldn’t have done this
if it weren’t for all of you who continued to inspire and drive me every single
day.
You are so amazing! Great job!
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