Ironman Take 2

A Tale of Two Cities, the best of times the worst of times, words vs. numbers, left brain vs. right brain. To write about that day is to tell two entirely different stories. One is unequivocal, orderly, and told through splits and rankings and hours, minutes, seconds. The other is emotional, chaotic, illogical and told by the heart.

It was April 13, 2008, my 27th birthday. The alarm clock woke me at 4:00 am. I arrived to prep my bike at 5:00. My race number was marked perfectly on both arms: 1953. I had 15 minutes in the water before they fired the gun at 6:30. Only a few minutes into the race and my heart rate was flirting with the 180's when it should have been 155, MAX. It took me an hour to swim the first mile and 49 minutes to complete the last 1.4. Out of 2027 people who began the race and exited the water, I was in 1968th place -- with only 50 others behind me . . .

. . . I was suprisingly relaxed that morning, given what I was about to do. Fruit smoothie, cup of English Breakfast tea. I woke my three friends who had stayed with me that night in anticipation of a long day of spectating. When I got to the course I went to work on my bike. As the dawn approached and the sky grew light, I looked up from my bike to take it all in. I glanced up at the bridge that spans Tempe Town Lake and for a moment my eyes locked upon three figures silhouetted by the pastels of the approaching sunrise. As I watched, the three became five with the addition of a dinosaur and what could only be a blow up man. There they all were, my three friends, K-Rex and Pedro. Long story, better saved for another time.

I was calm until the gun went off. Immediately I knew I was too far forward in the pack and I was about to be run over by every other swimmer out there. I panicked. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't put my face in the water. I rolled over and tried to take a couple backstrokes, but each time the choppy water splashed across my face, my lungs tightened up even more. I heard someone next to me, "I can't do this. I CAN'T DO THIS!" I stopped and looked around and saw a few people -- wounded, struggling. Can I do this? If I didn't calm down, then no, I couldn't. Why are you here? You don't have to be here. Call that safety boat over and you can end this all right now. My friends waiting at transition, my family watching online, my team, good God my parents! No, I will do this, You MUST do this. What is the cut off? You can't be sure, you didn't pay attention to cut off times because you didn't anticipate this. You thought this was going to be easy? It's the God damn Ironman!

So I stopped, twice. The first kayak was paddled by a girl about my age. Before I let go she said to me, "You're doing amazing." And with that I sunk back down into the murk. I stopped a second time before I took control -- before I felt my first deep breath and forceful exhale, before I saw a glimmer of hope and imagined exiting the water and standing solidly on the ground, before I found a rhythm, before I just, swam . . .

. . . My coach had anticipated my swim to be about 1:15. I was 35 minutes behind, and I would NOT make it up on the bike. I was immediately aggravated by the gusty headwind leading out (and up) of town. The further I got up the gradual hill, the slower I got: 15 . . . 13.5 . . . 11. . . 9 . . . 8.5. So much for a 6 hour bike ride. 800 calories, 300 ounces of liquid, heart rate 155, temperature 90 degrees. Still, you dig in and grit your teeth and race the person in front of you until you catch him. Once, twice, three times, 763 times. By the end of the 6 hour 55 minute ride, over which I averaged 16.1 mph, I was in the middle of the pack. Number 1205. 114.4 miles, or 9 hours, down. 8% of the field had already dropped out . . .

. . . On the bike, even when the speeds are slow, you move, react, observe everything in a "hyper speed" sort of state. Your senses seem heightened. You listen for the slightest noise, perhaps a bike coming up behind you. You watch for the smallest of debris in the road, dodging everything in an attempt to save your next flat for another day. You see bodies but not faces. You exchange words but you don't talk. By this time I had come to accept that I would be far off my expected finish time, and I didn't care. I let the numbers go; they didn't matter any more. What was happening was far greater than anything you could measure . . .

. . . I started the marathon, 26.2 miles, at 4 pm. The volunteers in T2 told me it was 97 degrees outside the cool, shady tent. The loop was about 8.5 miles long. I needed about 400-500 calories on the run but couldn't get past 100 without making myself sick. The sun set at about 7 pm, leaving the last loop to be run in the dark. A couple friends escorted me on bikes through stretches of my last 9 miles. They brought good news with them: I had passed nearly 800 people since the swim. "Perfect 10 minute miles," one of them commented, "Just since we've been riding next to you you've passed another 50 people!" At this point, only about 15% of those left on the course were still running. The only mile I clearly remember was 22, because I bent over in front of the mile marker with an immediate urge to be sick. Then I had only minutes, seconds, I heard someone say "Quarter mile!" 13:41:25. 1689 people finished the race in the alloted 17 hours, only 83% of the field. It was the 3rd highest drop out rate in Ironman history. I had passed 1142 people. I was number 885 of the original 2027 . . .

. . . The run doesn't have that same lonely, blind feeling as the swim. And it doesn't have that isolated, fish bowl feeling of the bike. The run is something you can share. Your world moves in the same way as those around you, you no longer feel alone. You see faces, you have conversations, you smile, you laugh. You realize that you have everything with you, right now, that you need to make it to the finish: two feet and an iron will. You realize that these people you've been trying to get past all day make up the greatest company you will ever find yourself in; and the miles that you can't help but to wish away, are miles you will want back before the day is even over. You look into the eyes of friends, family, who you've seen since 6 am, and you remember their excitement the first time they saw you exit the water, and the next time they saw you on the first bike loop, and the third time they saw you on the THIRD bike loop, because they were so busy cheering for ALL THE OTHER Iron people that they missed YOU on the second loop entirely, and you know what it is to feel unwavering support and immeasurable love. And when you finish, they are there, as enthusiastic as they were 13 hours ago. It's as if THEY have completed the race. And they have. One person can't do this alone . . .

I was reminded that day that sometimes things get hard, so hard, that just to finish, you need a reason greater than yourself. Numbers don't cut it. For all my "reasons" that were there that day, as well as those who where there in spirit, thank you. I began because of me and finished because of you.

Ironman Take 1

Holding on with both hands and bobbing up and down with the choppy water, I clung to the side of the kayak. I watched the number on my watch flash with every beat of my heart: 181, 181, 182 . . . and listened to my own panicked breathing, shallow and labored.

I clipped in with my left shoe and heard someone behind me say with formidable encouragement, "Have a good ride Kelly." I shoved away and clipped in with my right. Here we go, just a nice 112 mile ride.

He was waiting there when I exited the T2 tent. All he said was all I needed to hear, "Twenty-six one mile jogs."

I stopped to tread water and raised one fist above my head -- come to find out this is the NOT SO universal sign of distress. I tried to call to someone for help, but a little like a bad dream, nothing came out when I opened my mouth.

I reached the top of the hill, the unrelenting headwind hitting me square in the face. My current speed read 8.5 mph. "BRING IT!" I snarled. It couldn't get worse, it might get better, and a bigger challenge would make for a better story at the end of the day.

"You'll keep this on for the next 4 days." he said. I looked down at my wrist as he snapped the closure on the silver hologrammed wrist band that read FORD IRONMAN 2008. "Holy shit," I thought to myself, "you're really doing this."

"How many times have you been here before?" the sign along the side of the run path begged. Presumably a simple question. Or perhaps intended to be a little more profound. How many times have you been here before . . . exhausted, running on empty, alone, scared, wanting nothing more than to stop? And then you don't. And the next moment you don't stop, again. And the moment after that you don't stop. And you put all those moments together and you get something amazing. How many times have I been here before? COUNTLESS.

I was a dot in a sea of bobbing pink and green caps. I watched the line of black wetsuits flopping into the water one by one. Looking out onto the first 2.4 miles of the next 140.6 miles of my life. "Welcome to the BEST DAY OF YOUR LIFE!" the announcer boomed into his microphone.

"Six miles until Ironman!" my dad yelled as I ran by in my last loop. By this time 10 of the high school girls I coach had also gathered in the same area to emphatically cheer me on into the finish. Signs, yelling, screaming. I realized then that you can feel love -- that love is the negation of all pain and fatigue. Love is the greatest renewer. "Right now three things remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13:13

I had only been on the course for about 15 seconds when I heard the announcer inform the crowd that the pros were coming through for their second lap. For a moment I thought it would be exciting to see them pass -- their perfect bodies and top of the line gear, their sponsors' names zooming by at 25+ mph. My next thought was: Mother F*ckers! The race is only 2 hours old and they are already 38 miles ahead of me?

When the sun goes down and the course gets dark, everything gets quiet, very quiet. You can hear the shuffling of footsteps, but even those get lighter and softer. You go inward, you have no energy, no emotion left for the outside world. All you have goes to turning your legs over, one after another, after another . . .

After the most self-doubting sixty minutes I've ever experienced, I was at the turn around buoy. I had only one hour and twenty minutes for the return trip plus an additional 500 meters. Would I even get the chance to bike the 112 and run the marathon? Or would it end here in the water? Would those 1000s of hours of training be for nothing? Was the Ironman just too hard for me?

At some point I crossed the finish line back into the real world. I had asked more of myself than ever before, I had allowed myself to go places I never knew existed, I had been to the opposite end of the world and back, I felt like I had lived a lifetime in a day. I don't remember the cheering or the signs. I don't remember Mike Reilly saying "Kelly Vanek! You are an Ironman!" By that time I already knew. All day long I had known. I had had the guts to train for it, surely I had the guts to finish it. Race day is not a test of skill, it is a test of patience.

This is how that day, "the best day of my life" exists in my head -- as bits and pieces. As memories that stand out for a moment, then fade back into their surroundings, as if they are all part a long, meandering, cluttered, dream. The timeline is disordered, the story line seems unreal, the characters include all my friends and family, an inflatable dinosaur and blow up Mexican Man named Pedro. Yes, this MUST have been a dream.


All you learn from such an experience is unfathomable. Since April, I have tried to sum it up in a few pages. I've tried to define it with some overall theme. It isn't possible. It is too many things, too many moments, too many lessons. What I do know is that April 13, 2008, was, as predicted, the best day of my life.

I had felt my highest high, which made me vulnerable to my lowest low, which I think I also reached in these 6 months post race. When one day has the capacity to change your life, every other seems wasted, sad, uninspired. "That event ruins people," I once heard someone say. Perhaps, but if it didn't ruin me that day, it sure won't ruin me today.

Ironman is not the Holy Grail of athletics, it is not Kilimanjaro, it is also not a thing to do just to say you've done it. It won't make you a better person and it won't take anything away from you. But I think amid the haze of the event and the dreamlike recollection of all the moments connected to that day, I think it does offer you a few seconds of the most pristine clarity.

You realize that everything you do, become, accept, renounce, love, endure is a choice. And so I choose to add this caveat:

April 13, 2008: the best day of my life . . . so far.