› 2004 Ironman Wisconsin Race Report
Barry HolmanSuffering is Universal. Misery is a Choice.
-- Roger Rudolph
After the race someone asked me how many Ironman races I do a year. She asked because her husband was in the med tent after dropping out of the race at mile six -- I had just come out of the med tent after 45 minutes of TLC for cramping, hyperventilating and utter exhaustion. Wisconsin marked her husband’s third Ironman of the year and his second DNF. She said he was desperately chasing a Hawaii slot. She was obviously unhappy with a process that had them spending thousands of dollars on community entries and an outcome that was becoming too familiar. I knew I was on the bubble for a slot and the conversation with her immediately after the race was a fortuitous reminder that I live this lifestyle for the experiences I gather from training and racing, not to “win.” That said, I really, really wanted to earn a Hawaii slot.
Thus far I’ve done one Ironman a year for the past three years and that feels about right to me. One of the reasons I like doing one is it gives me a reason to reflect on the year/season leading up to the race. I can take some extra time to look back on training and life and see how it’s all contributed to not just this one race but to what I hope is continued growth as an athlete, coach and human being. This year, and this race, offered up some great opportunities to test my progress.
I started coaching this season. It is a big challenge. To have people depend on you, in part, for their success is scary but so rewarding. I had such a wide range of athletes to work with, from a 50 year-old woman with a history of severe back problems who wanted to do a sprint for her birthday (she did) to an athlete who qualified for Kona in her first IM. Having the opportunity to coach taught me a lot about myself as an athlete and person. I also spent, in total, a month training and hanging out with my good buddy Gordo Byrn. Besides being one of the most knowledgeable and generous triathletes ever, he’s a funny dude and one of those people who you know that just being around makes you a better person. Observing how hard he works and the choices he makes to improve himself is a great lesson in athletic and personal development. I also got to train with Clas Bjorling, take swim and dry land instruction from Dave Scott and workout for a week with Dave’s elite crew in Boulder. The opportunities I’ve been able to take advantage of this year were phenomenal.
I had some challenging races and training this year. I flatted at both Pacific Crest and Boulder 5430 and in each race was 4th in my AG. I put in some huge volume weeks with Gordo and Clas and added some intensity into my cycling. Ultimately I feel as though I enjoyed and got more out of the training than the racing. That’s an interesting switch in mentality for me and I’m curious to see where that leads over the next few years.
I came into this race a bit distracted. A foot injury that was not athletically related had kept me from running for six weeks. The injury was related to my own carelessness and haste so I won’t even call it an accident. It also kept me from weights or other dry land training that put pressure on my heel. I substituted aqua running and when my foot could handle it, the elliptical machine for running. I tried my best to keep a positive attitude and do what I needed to do to speed up the healing.
But it wasn’t just my foot that was distracting. There were other little indicators that I wasn’t at the top of my game. I struggled with my diet during taper and just never felt as lean as I had as recently as Boulder 5430. I was procrastinating a bit in areas of preparation that I’m usually quite good at -- lists, packing and visualization. I never did get around to making checklists. I relied on my memory so of course forgot a couple small items that added just that little extra stress that should be avoided. I didn’t pack until the night before I left so I shorted myself some valuable sleep. I misplaced my driver’s license and didn’t discover it until I was checking in at the airport which resulted in thorough searches and questioning by airport security. Most importantly, I didn’t spend much time visualizing the race. I spent a lot of time visualizing my foot healing or visualizing it not hurting during the run but never ran through a complete race in my head.
I’d set my mind to just deal with the run as it presented itself. I’d gotten a lot of positive encouragement from other athletes who’d PR’d after weeks of not being able to run. I’d read research that aqua running could sustain running fitness for at least four weeks. My foot was improving by the day and I had great confidence in my swimming and biking ability. Yet I never quite felt like I had the whole race dialed in mentally.
Race morning I felt quite good until I realized I’d left my heart rate monitor strap at the hotel. Two hours until the gun and I could either race back to retrieve it or try to get a hold of my folks and have them bring it. Of course I didn’t have a cell phone with me and knew that my mom’s was shut off. So I spent too much time and energy debating on trying to borrow someone’s phone, use their time/money to call information and then the hotel (of course I didn’t know the number off hand) or to find a phone book and get the number and then find a phone or to just scrap the strap and race the bike based on my powertap and the run based on faith. Phew! Too much thinking going on for a race morning. I found a phonebook and phone and picked up my strap from my dad just before getting in the water.
The way the swim start is organized at IMWI is first rate. It’s deep water, incredibly wide and they have a seeding system. It can still be a little close with 2188 swimmers but my improved swim has helped stay out of the 60 minute battle royale pack. I never felt as though I swam above upper steady. Mostly it was steady swimming with a lot of drafting and moving just enough to pick up faster feet as they came through. I did end up leading a little pack on the backside of the second lap because it was simply going too slowly and when I moved up to draft off the side of the head of the bunch he quickly disappeared behind me. I worked a little bit to bridge up to a group about 30 yards ahead but it felt good to be able to really stretch out my stroke without someone’s feet getting in the way. Of course there was a bunch sprinting from the last buoy but I backed off and just kept it steady as they thrashed past. I’d predicted a 55 minute swim and came in at 54:59. Two minutes faster than Canada last year and five faster than Austria in 2002. A little better recognition of the 52-53 minute pace group early on and I’m sure I could have hung on their feet without much extra effort.
Transitions at Wisconsin are a long and windy road, literally. Up the concrete “helix”, into Monona Terrace, through one room for the gear bag and into another to change, then back outside to the parking deck and way around to the bike rack entrance and then all the way back again to T1’s exit. I was concerned prior to the race about the pounding on the concrete and how my heel would hold up. I’d taped my heel really tightly in the morning and stashed sandals next to the parking attendant booth just before the helix but wasn’t convinced the tape would hold or that the sandals would be there. Both were there for me and while T1 took a long time (7:13), I was happy to be on the bike knowing I hadn’t done any damage to my foot or driven my heart rate through the roof.
I drove the bike course on Thursday and rode a couple of downhill sections where I thought some time could be saved. It seemed like a fun course, very technical, lots of hills but only one real climb with a pretty slack grade. I’m an excellent bike handler and race cyclocross in the winters so I was confident that this was a good course for me. But it felt different on race day. Not that it felt hard per se, I just never felt as fast, smooth or strong as I’ve felt recently in training. Eric Schwartz rolled past at Mt. Herob and asked how I was going. I said I was waiting for my legs to catch up. He said it’s a long day and be patient. Then he was gone. I was using my powertap to cap my effort level. Always trying not to see 300+ on the climbs, always holding back, always trying to be patient. Until about mile 65 the ride was a bit boring and I was battling to stay focused in the moment. My mind was wandering big time and definitely in the wrong direction. I’d already begun to write my “excuses” as to why the race was going south. I tried finding the “Vegan Vibe” that Gordo encourages me to tap into. I’d even put a “VV” on my right forearm but it had rubbed off during the swim. I tried not to take it as a sign. I focused on nutrition and hydration, patience and pacing.
At 65 I still wasn’t feeling the love. I made a calculated decision to pick things up a bit. I tried to keep 200 watts on the little bit of flats but also tried to keep the 300 cap on the climbs. My heart rate remained steady in the mid 130’s, about 10bpm above AeT (aerobic threshold), normal for IM racing. From about miles 80 – 95 I felt better. Not great, but better. The race became fun and I was racing the bike with purpose. Not drilling it but racing. At mile 95 my legs started to bark. Cramps in the VMO and sartorius in my right leg. Left hamstring talking to me as well. I had a little mental breakdown wondering how in the hell my legs could feel so poorly when I was riding so easily. It was the exact opposite of Canada last year where I felt as though the ride was easy and my legs were fresh. The last 20 miles were tough physically and mentally. I knew I was destined to finish right around 5:30, much slower than I’d expected. I also knew that the cramping could be a real problem for legs that hadn’t seen a lick of pavement in six weeks. On the upside I knew I was still well within the top 100 (82nd off the bike) in the race and had seen a number of pros sliding back in the field and really suffering. I don’t want to say that I tried to steal any positive energy from their troubles but it is a bit heartening to know that not all was going as planned for other highly capable and determined athletes.
What amazes me is how quickly some floundering pros can rebound. With about five miles to go on the bike one pro I’d passed mid race came roaring by me and when I saw him on the run he looked strong. I often wonder how much of that ability to regroup is physical and how much is mental? My training and listening to pros this year leads me to believe that the answer to my question is “yes.”
One of the funniest moments in my day was the bike dismount. The volunteer ran up right in front of me and grabbed my bullhorns. I had my feet out of my shoes but hadn’t swung my leg over the bike because I had cramps going in quads and hammies in both legs at the same time. So the volunteer has my bars, I’m balancing on the tops of my shoes and we just sort of lock eyes and are stuck not knowing how to get out of this situation. I finally sort of hopped off both pedals and landed on the ground straddling my bike. I had to ask the perplexed volunteer to let go of my bike so that I could lay it flat on the ground and step out of it because there was no way I was going to be able to lift my leg over the top tube or the saddle. My dad has a picture of me goose-stepping away from the dismount line. He was pretty sure I wouldn’t be running out of T2 and I wasn’t so sure myself.
I eventually got out of T2 and just as I was exiting onto the run course I realized that my watch/hr monitor was still on my bike. I strap it to my bars because I don’t like to scroll through the powertap display to check my heart rate and because I can’t wear the watch on my wrist while I’m in the aerobars as my wrists are very close to the arm rests. So after all the hand wringing and rigamarole about having my heart rate monitor strap before the race, now, at the time in the race when I most rely on heart rate, I had the monitor strapped on but had no watch! I had a laugh at my own ridiculousness, said to myself “JFR”, pulled my visor down real low and took off on a run during which I never had any idea of my splits, elapsed time or heart rate. Back when I used to race sprints my buddies and I had a “soul racing” rule. We’d race in speedos and shoes only. No wetsuits, no shirts, no socks, no hats, no watches, no heart rate monitors. That was fun. Running a blind IM marathon, not so much fun.
I have no idea if having some data would have helped. My guess is it may have but it may have also kept me from learning some important lessons. I ran 8:41 pace for the first half marathon; 9:20 pace for the second half. Both well below my capabilities but given the amount of pain I was in the goal was not to go fast, just to go.
By mile 10 I knew I’d need to go someplace deep within myself to finish the race. The other two IMs I’d done had hurt but the feeling I had in my calves, vmo and groin was one of injury, not pain. Every footfall resulted in a ripping feeling, most often in my vmos, It felt as though the fibers were sheering apart and that the muscle was tearing right off the bone. It was a deep and unending pain. I suppose I was drawing on other muscles to compensate for the hurting quads and that’s probably why my groin muscles and hamstrings began to cramp. I’ve been troubled with hamstring cramps in past races and had to stop to stretch them. At 5430 I’d had a nice run in tough conditions and with just a half mile until the finish I pulled up with a right hamstring cramp. The woman behind me who I’d been pacing for the second loop smacked me in the back as she passed and yelled at me to keep running. Suddenly my cramp went away and I ran well through the finish. She taught me a huge lesson that day and I employed it in Wisconsin. When I felt a cramp coming on I just refused to stop. I ran on and tried to run even harder. If the muscle cramped, I didn’t stop. I just kept running until it subsided. After a while I stopped getting the cramps.
Meanwhile my vmos were screaming for relief. At the halfway point I had thoughts of quitting. I knew I was slowing down, I was hurting, I was mad and I wasn’t having any fun. Then something my friend Roger Rudolph said to me just before I left for Wisconsin popped in my mind, “Suffering is universal. Misery is a choice.” Roger’s words made me think. No one had forced me to do this race, no one had forced me to put in the training, no one outside of a very few people even knew I was doing this race or even had a clue what an Ironman is. Let’s face it, I thought to myself, the world really couldn’t give a shit about me, this race, my self-imposed misery. So I decided to try to be less miserable. I started with a mantra, “Get inside the pain.” I repeated it over and over to myself and then started mumbling it aloud. Sometimes I said it really loudly and eventually I started singing it to the tune of a Nirvana refrain that goes, “Grandma take me home.” Instead of coming up with ways to make the pain go away (walking or quitting) I worked at forcing my mind inside the pain in my legs. I put my mind’s eye inside the muscle fibers of my vmo, I saw the strands breaking, the blow flowing, the nerve ends pulsing in red alert.
I’ve learned to use visualization to accomplish many goals. It’s a powerful tool. It can change one’s perception of a current situation and can be used to rewrite our memories of past traumatic events. It can be used to rehearse how we want an event to play out and it can be used to prepare for possible problems that may occur in a situation. As I said earlier, I didn’t visualize well before the race. I visualized very well during the run. I used rewrite visualization to deal with what I could see happening in my quads. I first let myself clearly see not just the pain but what was causing the pain. I acknowledged it. I looked at it. I looked at it from various perspectives. I gave the pain a number from 1-10. As I remember it was about a 9.5, with 10 being “absolutely unbearable.” Then I talked myself through the “normalcy” of the pain. I viewed the muscles, blood and nerves as reacting exactly as they should in this situation. I objectively saw what was happening inside my body and didn’t assign any meaning to it. It just was. And once I was able to let it exist without any meaning, there was no pain. Pain, it seems to me, is the subjective label we give to a bodily process.
Between aid stations from miles 16 – 24 I would sort of zone out, looking only at the ground, trying not to take note of anything or anyone around me. At aid stations I’d snap out of it and get water, cola, sponges and ice but never stop running. Twice I missed water because people walking through the aid stations were in my way and because I refused to stop running. I was at a point where I wasn’t thinking about goals or times or even running form. I became more and more determined to not let the pain beat me. To not let the pain even exist. By the second time through campus I was the only person I saw not walking the hill and I ran as hard as I could down the S curve. God did it hurt. But for the first time ever I was starting to enjoy the pain and use it as a reason to keep pushing, not as a reason to slow down.
With about five miles to go I’d worked through my misery and I started to feel proud. I was realizing that no matter what my finish time or place, I’d accomplished something of great importance to me. I’d gone somewhere I’d previously been afraid to go. I’d not given up on myself and I’d not used pain as an excuse to slow down. I may have been slowing down but at least it wasn’t because my mind was giving in to my body. I also wanted to not be satisfied and just take it easy the rest of the way in. So for the next three miles I tried to run harder than I had been. I fought and fought to pick up my stride rate and squeeze just a little bit of acceleration out of my body. But the more I tried, the more I felt as if I was fighting a loosing battle. My pride reverted back to misery as I felt my muscles constrict and my mind panic. At the 24 mile marker I was really fighting myself of all fronts and I (which ever part of I was the real I at that point) was loosing badly. I was trying to draw strength from the training I’d done this year. Back-to-back 38 hours weeks with Gordo and Clas, 50+ mile run weeks, 3T and Change Up Interval bike sessions that shredded my legs, killer squash court sessions with Dave Scott. None of that stuff helped. Instead it just made me try harder and the harder I tried, the more tied up and twisted I felt.
Then, somewhere deep within the part of the brain that must store happy thoughts a vision started to form. It was me and Maui, my dog, running down Connecticut Avenue in Washington, DC. Five years ago, before I’d even considered doing a triathlon, we’d run three or four times a week for four or five miles. Our favorite route took us up 16th Street and into Rock Creek Park just about to the Maryland state line. Then we’d cut west and work our way down to the zoo. The last two miles back were fast, downhill and packed with commuters exiting the subway and diners fighting for a sidewalk table at the trendy restaurants. We’d fly down the sidewalk laughing and winding our way through the throngs. It was the most fun I can remember having running. Anyway, that thought grew and as it did I had a little conversation with myself that went something like this, “Barry, what the hell you doing? You’re trying so hard to run hard that you’re hardly running.” “Shut up and let me run.” “Didn’t you hear me, you’re not running. Ask anyone, ask yourself.” “Well, smart ass, what do you suggest?” “Allow yourself to run for the real reason you started running, because you love the way it feels. Run as though Maui is pulling you down Connecticut Avenue. Run because it feels good to just let go…” So I did. I ran. I ran into the sensation of joy and stayed there. I ran until the knots I’d kept in my body and mind melted away. I ran and just allowed the breath to come in and out of my body as it needed to. I ran with the red dog pulling on my leash, leading me home.
With about a mile to go a dude named Georg passed me. I know his name was Georg because it was in big yellow letters on the back of his blue shirt. He was running so beautifully, so strong. And then after he got a couple of hundred yards in front, he pulled up, grabbing both hamstrings and bending over at the waist. As I came up on him I had contradictory thoughts battling in my brain. On one side an angel/devil said, “Ah ha, how fortunate, we’re going to pick up another overall place.” The other angel/devil said, “You know his cramps are mental and that he should be running. Someone at 5430 taught you that lesson. Bad, bad juju if you run by him without at least trying to help.” Give me a break. I’m 1/26th from ending this painful day and I’m having a moral dilemma?! Running coach Bobby McGee’s book Magical Running popped in my mind. In it he talks of the stages of running and how these relate to Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs. McGee identified “giving back” as one of the levels of running/athletics/life that we might strive for. So as I came up on Georg, who looked in physical agony and mentally distress at being so close to the finish but unable to move forward, I started yelling at him, “Hey Georg, what are you doing? Don’t stop now! Just start running, you’ll be fine. Run!” I glanced back and could see he was looking at me as though I was nuts. He almost looked as though he was going to cry. So now I’m thinking that I’m a complete ass and the guy is not only in physical pain but now also emotionally battered because some idiot riding a fatigue induced high, being pulled towards the finish line by an imaginary red dog, had just yelled at him. Nice.
Well, not much I could do to fix the situation so we just kept trotting. The last aid station is at the base of the last little incline before the finish, maybe a half mile tops. As I hit the aid station I saw Rich Strauss a couple of blocks ahead. I’d seen Rich out on the run a few times and new he was suffering pretty good. I knew this because for all my suffering I’d been steadily but very, very slowly closing the gap on him. Turns out he developed a bad stomach on the run but endured well. About that time my legs started to tie up a bit again so I asked the red dog to pull a little harder up the hill. About half way up that little grade Georg came blowing by, again! And then he stopped, grabbing his hamstrings, again! He looked back at me and I tried to give him a reassuring smile. When I got about even with him I started talking to him, telling him the cramps were in his head, not his legs. I gave him a little pat on the back and told him to start running. He straightened up and limped forward. I turned my eyes back to the road in front of me, looking for my family in the crowd. Just as I made the last turn into the finishing chute Georg came up beside me smiling. He smacked me on the back and said, “Thanks, I might not have finished without you.” I smiled back but didn’t have any energy left for even a mumbled, “you’re welcome.” He then made a great gesture by asking what age group I was in. I whispered 35-39 and he said that if we were in the same age group he’d let me finish in front of him but since we weren’t, he was going to go ahead at his own pace. We shook hands and he bounded off through the shoot and across the finish line a few seconds before I used my last bit of physical and mental energy to lift my arms up in victory.
I must have been a sight. I draped my body between my two catchers and my legs seized up from foot to hip. The catchers started ushering me towards the massage tent and I could see Rich and Georg in the finish area. I wanted to have a word with each of them but someone from the med tent had eyed me up. He swooped in, directed the catchers to the med tent and had me on a cot in seconds. I wanted to fall asleep. I wasn’t hungry. I wasn’t thirsty. I didn’t know or care in what place I’d finished. I didn’t care about the cramps in my legs or how sore my foot suddenly felt. I was just tired.
After nearly an hour in the med tent sipping Gatorade and getting the fluid massaged out of my ankles and calves, they let me go. The swelling in my feet and legs was bizarre and continued for almost a week after the race. If I spent any amount of time at all on my feet my ankles would balloon up and my socks would become tourniquets, leaving my feet numb from lack of circulation.
It was a tough day for me out there and I didn’t meet my time goals. And yet my placing wasn’t too bad. 77th overall and 17th in my age group. Statistically my 10:37 at Wisconsin placed me higher versus the field and my age group than my 10:12 at Canada in 2003. How can I feel bad about being inside the top 5% of my age group on a day when I wasn’t at my best? And I accomplished things inside the race that reflect well on my training and bode well for the future. I’d actually made up a few spots on the run that I’d given back on the bike. I may have slowed down but I hadn’t slowed down the most! My swim had been exactly what I’d predicted and showed a considerable improvement over last year. Most importantly I’d gone to places inside myself I’d been afraid to go in other races. I found a way to dissociate from pain and mentally overcome the cramping that I’ve often allowed to hold me back. I’d raced on guts and determination when my training didn’t allow for the legs I’d have preferred to run on. And in a small way I’d been able to give something back.
I didn’t make the cut for Hawaii. At first I felt as though I’d let a lot of people down because of that. So many of my friends and family have said that when I qualify they are coming to the race. I felt a bit of pressure to meet what I perceived as their expectations and to not ruin their vacation plans. None of them held it against me for not qualifying. Besides, I’m in this for me. I’m in it to learn and have fun. To create and tear down new limits, to have meaningful experiences and live my life in a way that works for me. If that means I go to Hawaii to learn to surf instead of for a triathlon, no worries. I’m sure there are important lessons to be learned while getting battered by the surf.
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