Half Ironman Recap: Pain in Every Sense of the Word

With 50 yards to go in my first Half Ironman, the tears started rolling down my face.  I wish I could say they were tears of joy but that wasn’t the case.  For the past 5 miles, I had been cramping.  With 3 miles to go, I started to cramp severely.  I’m not talking about a little side cramp that is uncomfortable while running.  I’m talking about incredibly sharp pain shooting from my quads to hamstrings to calves that made it impossible to take another step until I could get the muscles to relax. 

Friends, relatives, and other fans of all the racers were packed around the ropes on both sides of the road cheering the last few yards of the event.  Most participants got a final burst of energy from the crowd at this point and sprinted across the finish line.  I desperately wanted to finish strong as well but my body just wouldn’t cooperate. 

“We’ve got a cramper!” the announcer yelled as I made it to the final stretch and he saw I was barely able to move.  “Let’s cheer him to the finish.”  What the announcer clearly didn’t understand is no amount of cheering could possibly make me go faster.  I had plenty of energy on reserve, but literally could barely walk.  If I would have been offered $1 Million to run the final 20 yards across the finish line, I honestly could not have done it.  I’m not exaggerating.

I had to stop every 20 steps or so to massage my muscles before I could continue.  Any attempt to jog was met with what felt like razor blades cutting into my muscles.  You could literally see my quadriceps spasm and contract around my bones every few steps.  I was fighting the pain but the pain was winning.  I think this is how a dog must feel when hit by the invisible fence if it take one too many steps.  The only difference is that a dog is smart enough to stop once it get zapped…I had been trying to somehow make it through this invisible fence for the last few miles…all while battling the 95 degree heat on the hottest day of the year in NC.

Let’s recap one of the toughest mental and physical challenges of my life and see how I did vs. my goal of finishing in less than 6 hours. 

Pre-race:

Friday night before the race, my brother and I double checked all of our equipment, ate a phenomenal lasagna dinner prepared by Sue and my Mom, and then went to bed.  I always toss and turn at night, but this night was worse than usual.  I couldn’t sleep and wakeup call was coming quickly…we had the alarms set for 2:30am!

At 2:25am I popped out of bed before my alarm went off.  I was ready to do this.  I went to wake my brother and realized he wasn’t sleeping either.  Neither one of us could wait to start.

We left by 3am and made the 2 hour drive to White Lake.  There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.  It was a beautiful sunny day but it was very obvious how hot it was going to be.  It was 70 and humid already and it was only 5am.  I’ve come to love the setup and start of Triathlons in the early morning.  There is something to be said for a sport filled by people crazy enough to pay money for the right to put themselves in a lot of pain for several hours.  Here is a pic of us at bike setup.

Today’s race had a different feel than others I had done in the past.  First, it didn’t look like there were any weak links out there.  In the few Sprint Triathlons I’ve done, you often see people not in the best shape who compete.  They don’t do very well from a ranking perspective but they can get themselves to the end.  This clearly wasn’t the case today for this distance.  Everyone here was serious about their swimming, biking, and running.  That was obvious. 

As my brother and I were finishing setting up, an announcement came on over the loud speaker:  “Water temperature is exactly 78 degrees…wet suits are legal!”  Another tenth of one degree and they could not be used.  This was a great break and I thought a good sign for the day to come. 

Just before 7, we put on our wetsuits, goggles, and swim caps and made it out to the lake.  Here is a pic of the 2 of us before starting to warm-up for the swim (sorry, it’s a bit dark).

After we got loose with some easy sets in the lake, the national anthem was played and the pros were sent on their way at exactly 7am.  5 minutes later, males in the 34-39 age group went off…my brother and I were officially underway in our first Half Ironman! 

The swim (1.2 miles):

The swim was much more difficult than I thought it would be.  While my endurance over the 1.2 miles wasn’t an issue, swimming in a large crowd was very tough.  I was kicked, elbowed, etc. and there really was nothing I could do about it other than keep going.  One sharp elbow knocked my goggles off but I had to just tread water while I put them back on and continue.  Nobody was doing it on purpose…it’s just the madness of the event.  It couldn’t be more different than swimming by yourself in your own pool lane. 

I also found it difficult to find my usual rhythm as I typically breathe every 3 strokes but had to switch to every 2 today.  The reason was that breathing on one side forced you to look directly into the sun and basically blinded you for a few seconds.  The rising sun was reflecting off the lake and made it very difficult to see the buoys which marked the swim course.  It was so difficult to see that I later found out my brother was 2^nd in our age group in the swim at the halfway point but ended up swimming to an incorrect buoy and was forced to backtrack by race officials.

When I exited the lake, I looked at my watch and it showed 38 minutes.  First thing I thought was at least my watch worked this time!  Second, I was already 3 minutes behind my goal as I wanted to be out of the water by 35 minutes.  My brother, incidentally, finished in 35 minutes even with his debacle of going the wrong direction.

I had a relatively smooth transition from the swim to the bike.  I took my first 2 Advil (of what would ultimately end up being 8 Advil throughout the race), tore off my wetsuit, threw on my bike helmet, sunglasses, socks, and biking shoes, and was ready for the 56 mile next leg.  I already had 4 bottles mounted to my bike filled with water and nutrition drinks but also took 4 energy gels with me and a few bites of a Clif bar as I mounted my Cervelo. 

The Bike (56 miles)

The first 20 miles on the bike I was absolutely cruising.  I was consistently over 22 miles per hour, the road conditions were great, and my legs felt really strong.  I passed a few people but was getting passed by others and not letting that get to me.  I knew it was a long race and if I worried about people passing me with 5 hours to go it would spell trouble later on. 

My biggest challenge on the bike was figuring out how to take in calories.  I brought gels and other things but I found it pretty difficult to ingest the necessary nutrition while riding.  I did my best to stay on a schedule of going through one bottle of drink and one gel every 45 minutes.

By mile 30, I was very uncomfortable in the seat and my neck, back and shoulders were in a lot of pain from being bent over in an aerodynamic position.  My legs were still feeling strong though and I was making really good time…much better than I had planned by this point.  The final 15-20 miles turned into the wind and the road conditions were not nearly as good.  It slowed my pace considerably but I was still able to come in at 2 hours and 52 minutes for the full 56 miles on the bike which was averaging 19.5 mph.  This was 10 minutes faster than I had planned in my goal.

The Run (13.1 miles)

Now 2 legs of the race were done and only the run remained.  At the bike to run transition, I took 4 more Advil, slipped on my running shoes, put on my bib number and off I went.  Amazingly, I felt great all around.  My legs weren’t dead at all and I was ready for a good run.  I was about 3-4 minutes off my goal pace after the swim but made up 10 minutes on the bike so ended up starting the run with a 6 minute cushion of where I thought I would be.

As I began the run and looked at my watch, I realized I had 2:22 remaining before my 6 hour time goal was complete.  This meant I needed to run 13.1 miles at only a 10 minutes and 50 seconds / mile average to get the job done.  No problem…let’s do it!!

At ~1/2 mile into the run, I looked at my watch and was doing a 7:30 / mile pace and realized that was way, way too fast.  Even though I felt great I had no idea how I was going to feel 10 miles from now.  After all, 8 miles was the longest I had ever run and that was on completely fresh legs in 65 degree weather.  Today I needed to go half marathon distance after the swim and bike and the temp was approaching 95.

At each mile, there were aid stations set up that had towels dipped in ice water, energy drinks, snacks, etc.  My plan was to walk twice per mile; once at each of the aid stations while I did everything possible to hydrate myself and the other time for about 20 seconds each half mile in between stations to let my heart rate come down.  This strategy seemed to work beautifully.  At the 5 mile mark of the run I was averaging right at 9 minutes per mile including my walking.

What surprised me though is that I hadn’t yet seen my brother.  The run course was an “out and back” course so I had to see him at some point on the run.  I was guessing I would see him around my mile 3 of the run (which would have been his mile 10 on the way back) or my mile 4 (his mile 9).  I passed through mile 5 though and still hadn’t seen him.  I knew something must be wrong because he should have had a huge lead on me. 

Finally, a little past mile 6 I was nearing the turnaround point and saw my brother coming back the other way towards me.  He yelled over that he had been cramping since the beginning of the run.  He did not look good.  My first reaction was to feel bad for him but my next reaction was to think that I could actually beat him in this race.  I was now less than 1 mile behind him. 

I made the turn at the 6.55 mile half-way point and my run time so far was 59 minutes.  This meant I now had 1 hour, 23 minutes to do the 2^nd half of the run to finish in less than 6 hours.  This was equivalent to a 12:40/mile pace so I had built significantly on my cushion I had at the start of the run.  As I made the turn, I also got a boost from seeing Sue and my mom holding signs for me.  Hilariously, this was the sign Sue had made for me.

For those of you who follow my blog regularly, you may remember an earlier post I wrote http://schmeis35for35.blogspot.com/2011/12/where-does-motivation-come-from.html where I list sources of motivation and then come up with various Acronyms to make it easy to remember.   “Busy Notepads” was one of those.  As I point out in my blog post, a simple rearranging of the letters and it reads  “Don’t be a Pussy.”  Go ahead, check it out if you’re curious.  So basically, my wife was holding a sign cheering me on by telling me not to be a pussy.  Classic.

After seeing the sign, I picked up the pace.  I knew I could catch my brother and that my ultimate goal of finishing in 6 hours was in reach. 

With 5.5 miles to go I was starting to celebrate in my head.  I was getting close to being able to walk the rest and still finish in 6 hours so I thought that unless someone from the crowd shot me, I had it.  Well, anyone who plays sports knows that the karma gods don’t like it when you celebrate too early. 

It was less than a half mile later than I felt my left quad seize up for the first time.  I knew exactly what it was…cramping.  It was very painful but it loosened quickly.  After another 15 yards, it hit again and I had to stop.  I told myself just to stay calm, massage it, stretch it, and walk a little to get it loose.  I did this for a bit then made it the next couple of miles in pain but still was making good time.

With 3 miles to go, the wheels started coming off.  I looked at my watch and the elapsed time was 5:18.  I still had 42 minutes to make it only 3 miles…14 min/mile pace.  A normal walk is probably about 17 min/mile so I couldn’t quite walk it but was very close.  The only way I was going to break 6 hours though was to pick up the pace for short stretches and then walk and stop where necessary.  I tried this technique and it resulted in my 3^rd to last mile being 15 minutes…damn it.

I still wasn’t panicking.  My cramps were getting more frequent but I still had 27 minutes to do the final 2 miles…13:30/mile.  If I could just loosen up enough to run a little bit, I knew I could do it.  I started jogging with nearly all my weight on my right leg (since my left leg was the biggest problem at this point) and that seemed to work for about .1 miles.  Then…BAM!  My right calf seized up.  I now was cramping in both legs.  I massaged the muscles, stopped to stretch quickly, and then continued on trying to jog a little, walk, and stop when the pain hit.  The 2^nd to last mile took me 16 minutes.

Finally, after 5 hours and 49 minutes of swimming, biking, and running I had reached the 1 mile marker.  Unbelievably, I still could make my goal if I could somehow turn in an 11 minute final mile.  Under any ordinary circumstances, this would be so easy but this obviously was anything but ordinary.  Every time I tried even the slightest jog, a muscle cramped.  Pain was jumping from my left quad to right calf to left calf to right hamstring to left hamstring to right groin…my body was completely shutting down.  At this point, I could barely walk.

In a very depressing moment, I saw my watch turn to 6 hours and I still had about ½ mile to go.  Goal failed.  Somehow, I had only managed to make it a little more than ½ mile in the last 11 minutes.  In the end, my final mile ended up taking me 21 minutes and I crossed the finish line in 6 hours and 10 minutes…coming so close but missing my goal again.   

While others around me ran across the line with smiles and their hands in the air, I walked over the line slowly in absolute disgust.  I barely missed my goal of 6 hours despite doing everything I could to push through the pain to the finish.  

While my muscles were screaming in pain, I was honestly more hurt by not making the goal.  After all, unlike some of the other 35 goals, it’s not like you can just try this one again the next day.  My brother and I got in the lake right after the race to relax and try to calm the muscles.  Here is a pic of that just after me finishing.

Of course, as we all drove home an hour later, clouds rolled in and rain started to come down.  No joke, the temperature dropped from 95 to 70.  The next day, the White Lake area ended up being a high of 68 and cloudy…nearly 30 degrees cooler than the conditions we faced. 

In the end, my brother took home the trophy.  He finished in 5:51 (202nd out of ~800)…19 minutes ahead of me (306th).  He deserved it…if his cramps were anything like mine, I’m incredibly impressed he made it through the whole run.  We both gave it everything we had.  We both also lost a ridiculous number of places in the race at the end but that's life.  Here is a pic of the winner holding the very prestigious Schmeiser traveling trophy.

Sunday night I couldn’t help but think what would have happened if the weather cooperated, if I drank more fluids, if I stretched more, etc.  Then I remembered something I wrote in a previous post about focusing on what you can control.  That race is done…and thinking about “what-ifs” wasn’t going to change anything.

So, I’ll leave you with 2 questions (and I'll answer them both myself):

1.      

      1. What do you do when you barely miss your half Ironman goal? 

Answer:  You get back on the horse and find another one to do.  I just signed up for Half Ironman Muncie, Indiana on July 7…less than 9 weeks away.   I’m going to make a 10 hour drive and give it another attempt.  I’m doing this one in less than 6 hours…I guarantee it.

2.  What do you do when you’re so confident with your answer to question #1?

Answer:  You sign up for a FULL Ironman.  That’s exactly what I just did.  I’m now registered for the Beach2Battleship Ironman in Wilmington, NC on October 20 this year…a full 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and 26.2 mile marathon. 

You can call me crazy…call me nuts…or call me insane.  But you can’t call me a pussy.

Busy Notepads,

Schmeis