IMCDA 2009 Race Report - My first DNF

UPDATE: Two and a half weeks after race day I was diagnosed with Stage 1 thyroid cancer. In the weeks following I underwent two major surgeries and iodine-131 radiation therapy. I'm not making excuses for this DNF, but it just seems my 09 tri season was over before it even started. Here is the original race report, written before I knew about the cancer.

I guess I have been dreading writing this blog since about 20 minutes into the swim last Sunday, so here goes. I have always done my best to make my blog a positive place to visit, so I'll try to extract the positives out of this race experience and not dwell on the negatives.

Everybody knows the back story leading up to this race, but if not, here it is in 30 second recap: After a 10:08 at full iron last fall and looking ahead to this June, IMCDA was to be my chance at a Kona slot. That changed when we had to move to PA because of my job. All the hassle of buying and selling a house and moving, plus trying to train in a much colder climate took its toll, and soon I had readjusted my goal from getting a Kona slot to just training the best I could and having fun. Then April came and I had my whole "neck lump" fiasco, which knocked a 1 month sized whole in my training plan. So, I gave myself 5 hard weeks and hoped for the best. Throw into the backdrop my wife, who had been kicking ass with her training early on, and by the numbers all things were looking like a cake walk to a Kona slot. Then, late in her training plan she got a stress fractured femur. This was diagnosed the day before we flew to CDA, meaning all the money, time, and effort of CDA was coming down to me, as undertrained as I was.

The week before we flew my buddy Alex, who was staying with us, called to say a hip injury would keep him from the race. We started joking about the house being cursed, between Becca's stress fractured leg, Alex's hip, and my neck tumor. And the week before leaving I got a foot infection that hurt to walk on. Then, Becca, Elena, and I all got pink eye the day of the flight. It was just not measuring up nicely at all. Alex even asked me if I thought racing was a good idea, spooky....

This trip was, thankfully, coupled with a visit to my parents and sister, who all moved to the west coast while I was in grad school. I had such a great time visiting with them, and watching them play with Elena, that I basically forgot the reason we were in Idaho was for a race. I skipped all the Ironman propaganda dinners and such and just did the minimum necessary to get my chip and race.

Needless to say, my mind wasn't on smoking this course when I woke up Sunday morning. I was forgetting all kinds of silly crap, like filling my water bottles (Becca was very helpful in keeping my head on straight). I also woke up in a coma, with what I call "convulsive yawning." I think this had to do with the travel and my daughter not adjusting to pacific time at all (she should work for the CIA in the sleep deprivation dept). But, in the end, none of these little things ended up mattering to my race, and I knew they wouldn't. Ironman is so long and complicated that there is always something unforseen that takes center stage on race day.

For me, trouble started less than two minutes into this race. Unlike IM Florida, where the starting pen is narrow and deep, at IM CDA you can basically start anywhere along a long beach, and the people only go about 20 deep or so the whole length of it. Being it my third IM, and feeling like a 1:05 or so was totally within reach, I looked to the inside. Nope, way too crowded over there. The outside was really packed up too, but the middle was almost empty comparatively, so I chose a spot about 8-9 bodies deep in the middle. When the cannon went off, I waited a few seconds, then entered the masses into the water. Conditions were choppy, and right off I realized I started too far back. There was a wall of people in front of me swimming too slowly, and the chop made breathing a real pain. I started getting bumped and hit almost immediately. On Slowtwitch and other people's blogs, I have read this year's CDA swim described as a "rugby match" and a "goatf#ck." I have never been to the latter, but given the choice of that swim or the goat, I'd go with the goat every time. I think I must have gotten thumped 4-5 times in a row pretty hard, and every time I turned to breath I started taking in water, and I started to panic. Now, I have been in full contact swims before. I have been punched, kicked, goggles knocked off, dunked, and even had my pants pulled down once. But this was entirely different. Just too many people in too small of an area to swim. I tried at forward progress for another couple strokes and when all I was getting was water and no air, I decided I was going to need some help. Just like they tell you to do when you're in trouble in a triathlon, I rolled over and waved my arm in the air. When I lifted my head up to see where the nearest kayak was, all I could see was swimming mayhem around me. As I was on my back trying to catch my breath, people were swimming right over top of me. I can honestly say I thought it was all going to be over. A few nice swimmers could see my predicament and offered to help, but as soon as they stopped they got clobbered and kept on their way. So, I gave up on getting rescued and just layed on my back, and tried to keep my head out of the water, while kicking with my legs to keep from getting run over for what seemed like forever, but in reality it was probably 15 minutes or so. I've never had a panic attack before, I am just not the type, but when faced with those circumstances its fair to say that's what I had.

Eventually, I found some open water in the middle of the rectangular course. I continued on my back and took a look around. I decided my race day was over, and I just wanted out of that lake. But, I couldn't swim against the people coming around for a second lap, and I couldn't cut across the center of the course (probably be known forever on Slowtwitch as "course cutting man" or something like that). So, I had to finish my lap. After a while my breathing calmed, and I was able to flip back over and swim normally for the rest of the lap. When I got on shore, I stopped and looked around for my parents and Becca, so I could walk off the beach and be done, but there was nobody there (naturally they assumed they missed me since I took 46 minutes to swim this lap). I was ushered back in the water by cheering volunteers, and thought, OK, sure I will go swim another lap, even though that was just about the last thing I wanted to go do. The second lap was fine, except for the nasty chop. I swam this one easy and by the end I was even thinking of continuing the race.

So I walked through T2, having swum a 1:26 or so. I was really tired. I have never swam that long in my entire life. Sure, I have swam that far several times, but never for that long. I put on my bike stuff and decided to give it a go. The bike was fine, except I was cold. And I couldn't seem to get my legs going. They were cramping early on, like 30 miles, and I have to think it was from the treading water during the swim part (trying to stay alive). The course was hilly, but more so than I expected from having done the Computrainer Real Course. I saw my family at 15 miles and yelled "I love you guys!!" knowing they would have no idea what I had just been through in the water. I saw them again at 55 miles, and I was ready to pull the plug, but they were cheering so hard they couldn't hear a word I said. Then, when I went by them at 75mi, I said "It isn't going to happen today." Becca knows that I know my body well enough to know when I have it and when I don't. She told me after the race she wanted me to pull out right then. Somehow I got through the rest of the bike, and when I saw everybody again at 111 miles I said "This might take all night." By then I was feeling better emotionally, but not physically. And having finished the bike course, I was determined to give the run a try. I thought it would be disrespectful to the race and to all the other competitors to quit before I was totally used up.

So, I took another leisurely transition: put on fresh shorts and undies, changed socks, ate a Gu, and took a pee. Then I walked out to start the run. I began running out of transition, but it just wasn't there. I only made it about 2 miles before I got super dizzy and had to walk. I adopted a strategy where I would run aid station to aid station, then walk and eat pretzels, cookies, and gatorade until I felt better. By 6 miles I could tell it wasn't really helping. I walked from there to the turn around at 7.5, where I thought there might be a golf cart or something I could ride back to town in, but no luck. So I walked the next 8 miles. I got super cold, as it was 50 and lightly raining, and I wrapped myself in a heat sheet. My walking was more like a dizzy stagger, but eventually (after a 3 hour first lap) I made it back to where my family had been waiting for me. I was really afraid everybody would be disappointed in me, and that Becca would want me to keep walking and finish the next 12.5 miles. There was no way I could, and she saw it. They were so supportive, and just happy I was OK, as they pulled me off the course. All I could say was "I can't do it today. I just don't have it." Becca unceremoniously took off my chip.

Now, 5 days post race, when I reflect on it, I think the panic in the water was the deciding factor in the race. I think I used up so much effort staying alive and freaking out that I couldn't get my head or my legs right the rest of the day. My nutrition was solid, no issues there, and my fitness was in the 10:30ish neighborhood, so it must have been the panic.

There are a number of positives to come out of such an awful race though. For one, it was good to have a bad race at a time when I wasn't 100% on top of my fitness. It would have been so disappointing to be thinking Kona and then have that happen in the swim. Also, speaking of Kona, I picked just about the worst race in history for the M30-34 age group as a Kona qualifier. I turns out you needed to be sub 9:30 at this one, as 10 hours got you 20th place or so. Historically, 10 hours gets it done at IMCDA, but not this year. There's a slowtwitch post about this that's pretty funny.

So, there it is. My no DNF streak is broken. My buddy Thys said if you race enough ironmans eventually a bad one will get you, and I guess mine is out of the way for awhile. Now that I am back home and this is all behind me, I am really looking forward to not training hard the rest of the year. I have my neck surgery in 2 weeks, and after that I will kick back for awhile.

I wanted to say thanks to everybody who sent texts, calls, and emails of concern on Sunday. It was warming to my heart o know that so many of you care enough to check in on me during this race. And I guess the Trakkers thing was a bust (please comment if you got it to work, Becca and others said it never picked me up).

And a huge special thanks to my family: my dad, who had to spend his father's day worrying about my out there, my mom, who worried more than he did and swore this is the last time she'll spectate and Ironman, my sister, who had never been to a triathlon before and had to have this be her first, and to my wife and daughter, who all cheered hard and waited for 3 hours in the cold and rain for me to come back to them during the run. It really meant the world to me to be able to DNF off the course right into a great big hug of the people who love me the most.