Iron Dreams

IRONMAN

When I was a kid, I watched the Ironman on TV. I was glued to ESPN for hours and hours marveling at the amazing athletes who would go out there and do that. It all seemed so impossible. Something that I could never do. I wasn't an athlete, and I had no desire to ever become one. Life is strange, though. In 2016 I ran my first 5K. I was 38 years old and had never run in my life. A year later, I ran my first half marathon. Then in 2018 I celebrated turning 40 by running my first marathon and biking my first US century (100 miles in a single day). That August, I did my first triathlon. As I was retrieving my stuff, an Ironman coach - an Ironman finisher himself - approached me and introduced himself. He said that he believed I had what it takes to be an Ironman. I thought he was crazy. I was a complete novice with no clue what I was doing. I was over 300 pounds until I was 37. No way could I be an Ironman. Sure I had done one sprint, and I did OK enough in it to finish second in my age group, but this coach had to be insane. There's a whole world between a sprint triathlon and an Ironman. This coach is nuts. There's no way.

Celebrating my first triathlon finish

Intrusive Thoughts

Three months later his voice was still in my head, and I signed up for the Ironman Ohio 70.3. The following July, I went to Delaware, Ohio for what would only be the second triathlon I'd ever attempted. I still had no idea what I was doing, but now I was going to go do it on a much bigger stage. On 29 July 2019 at 41years old, I heard my name on the PA as the announcer called my first Half Ironman finish. 

 

That moment when all the pain leaves you

I started to wonder if that crazy coach guy was right. Could I become one? Could I actually be an Ironman? Since the race's inception in 1978 (coincidentally the same year I came into being), only around 400,000 people including repeat finishers have ever heard those four words. "YOU ARE AN IRONMAN". It's about 1 in 20,000. The 0.005%. Could I be one of them? The mental wheels were turning in earnest.

 

Deciding to do IRONMAN

I had a lot of conversations with myself over the next few months, and the latter half of 2019 was still a busy race season for me. I went to Ragnar Trail for the first time (ten days after the 70.3), I did a Spartan Trifecta weekend in WV running a Beast, Super and Sprint in 36 hours, and I ran some smaller road and trail races. After a trip to Germany and Ireland, I participated in my first ever GORUCK event. Then to wrap up the year, I went and did one of the most fun races I've participated in, the A Christmas Story 10K in Cleveland, Ohio with my awesome friend Cheryl whose willingness to babysit my dog makes it possible for me to do a lot of these events that require travel. All the while this voice, the crazy Ironman coach's words, rolled around in my head. "You have what it takes to do an Ironman." Only there was something different about the voice. It was starting to sound like my voice. I started looking at venues. Where would there be a swim that wasn't in the ocean? Where could I find a pretty flat bike course? No longer could I do an Ironman, but where could I do an Ironman?

Cheryl and me in costume for the race

The Speedbump

The wheels came off the world in 2020 when COVID hit. I didn't race. Nobody raced. I started to flounder. The voice in my head kept whispering to me. Do it. Do an Ironman. I signed up. I returned to Ohio in 2022 and had a horrible day and a DNF in the 70.3. I got COVID and missed the Ironman Maryland 140.6, so I deferred the dream to 2023. 

 

Back on track

At 45 years old, once again I returned to Ohio and this time I completed the 70.3 for the second time. September seemed so far away. I did Ragnar Trail. I kept busy. I packed up my gear and my clothes. I got my nutrition and hydration and recovery ready. And just like that, it was time to leave for Maryland.

 

Redemption in Sandusky

Iron Week

Ironman is and isn't a one day event. Race day is the one everybody sees, but the athletes and Sherpas are busy days before doing preparing gear and themselves for what is to come. Writing checklists, planning places to eat, packing up, printing out schedules and athlete guides. I'm old school, I love paper. There is no race-day check in at an Ironman. It's a one day race and a three day event. Sherpas work their asses off to keep their athletes supplied, fed and hydrated. 

 

Sherpa Jason and I join Crabby Nation

 

Two Days Prior

 

Thursday Jason (who I cannot thank enough for serving as Sherpa) and I headed for Cambridge, loading up the truck and leaving before the sun rose. 

 

 

On the road to Ironman with Sherpa Jason

 

We arrived at Ironman Village and while he circled the busy streets, I checked in and got my race packet and wristband. Each athlete got a hand drawn picture for good luck from a local kid. Mine was from Cameron. 

 

From Cameron

We grabbed some food at a little diner that had delicious crab soup and sat outside under a tree reviewing strategy for the weekend. Eventually I got the text that things were ready, so we checked in at the hotel. Did a little walking around the hotel, out on the pier, trying to relax my mind about the event, while I looked at all the chop in the water and freaked out about having to swim in it. Heineken Had some dinner in the hotel restaurant (crab dip, crab sliders, all the crab) and put on the Eagles game to unwind. Friday morning was going to be another busy one.

 

Seeing the choppy water did not ease my mind.

One Day Prior

After some coffee, Friday was gear day. While I worried about and double checked all the stuff I'd need in all my transition and personal needs bags, Jason helped me go through the checklist again and again, pointing out things I overlooked. We loaded up the truck and headed over to Gerry Boyle Park. Took a test spin on my Cervelo P3 and decided to ride it after a little last minute adjustment to the seat height. Grabbed all the stuff and went up to the transition to check it all in. Rack the bike, place the run bag, place the bike bag, and take a look at the swim exit and the water conditions. Still windy. Still choppy. Still terrifying. We went over to RAR Brewing to eat more delicious crab with images of Chessie toasted into the buns. Jason teased me with real beer while I stuck to non-alcoholic. There were Gremlins everywhere. Finished up lunch and went to the village a bit before heading back over to the hotel for a quick swim in the pool. Jason kicked Sherpa mode into high gear and went to pick up some take out from Carmela's Cucina. Penne chicken Alfredo for me, carbing up. I tried to go to sleep early because race morning was fast approaching.

 

 

Obsessing over the transition bags

 

Racking my bike in transition

Last minute bike decisions

 

 

 After not nearly enough sleep...

Zero Day

 

It's still full dark when we arrive at the park

 

Saturday morning, waking up before the alarm even goes off. The day began at 4 am with getting the tri suit on, having some coffee, and trying to eat. I was so nervous and my stomach so shaky I could only manage half a bagel. The wind and the chop hadn't improved at all and I was not optimistic about my chances in the water. The fear of having to be fished out by a rescue boat was looming. It was still dark when we arrived at the Tamplin's parking and I went into the transition area to place my hydration and nutrition. We began to hear whispers of a delayed start. A shortened swim. Jason went to find out while I paced nervously and hit the porta john again. He came back with the info and we got the official announcements that the start was pushed back an hour and the swim would be one lap instead of two. I was still horrified about having to swim 1.2 miles in the rough water. We went back to sit down in the truck a bit. I tried not to panic. I finished my coffee. And just like that, it was time to go to the swim start and work on getting the wetsuit on. After putting on tons of Sea Safe and Tri Slide, got the wet suit on and got into the starting chute. In the back with all the slower swimmers, I learned that the swim would be 918 meters. 1003 yards. 0.6 miles. I finally started to calm down a little bit. I could do this. Another athlete heard me say I had a high chance of failure. She told me that as long as I started, I didn't fail. I might not finish, but I didn't fail. 

Sunrise at Ironman

 

 

The best Sherpa ever!

Zero Hour  - The Race

Into the water to face the waves

 

At 9:18 am I went into the water. Do it because it is hard. It's more than four hours after we arrived at the race start. The waves were a foot high and coming every one second. It was impossible to take a full breath. I had to dodge around the back of a volunteer in a kayak and I struggled with the chop. It was barely longer than a sprint swim, but it was one of the hardest I have ever done and 26 minutes after I went into the Choptank, I came out of it. No jellyfish stings. I heard Jason yell to me my time. I very quickly got a crash course in what wetsuit peelers do. There's no time to think, just go grab that bike bag and into the changing tent. I don't do a full clothing change, so I just had to get my socks, shoes, gloves and helmet on. I sprayed on sunscreen, put on hydration vest, grabbed my sunglasses and started eating jelly beans as I headed over to my bike on the rack. I heard Jason tell me he'd see me at the bike out. Just keep moving. 

 

Biking out of transition

 

I got on the bike and started hydrating while riding. I felt pretty good with the swim behind me, and as I settled in on the aero bars I liked my odds for the rest of the day. I expected to finish long after dark, but I was finally expecting to finish. And that's how it went for the first nearly 25 miles. But then something happened that I didn't predict. Something I hadn't even worried about. The very aggressive riding posture on my P3 started to take a toll on my back. I felt the muscles stiffen and the pain set in. I suddenly found it difficult to pedal, to lean, to stay balanced. I had to stop and stretch my back. Every stop is a price paid in overall time, and as things wore on I had to stop more and more often. I kept pushing. At mile 47 I was in pain, I was angry, and I was still trying to make it to the second lap before the cutoff, but I had to stop at the aid station to use the porta john. That's where the second thing I didn't predict in my wildest dreams happened. One of the volunteers started asking for my phone number as I was trying to get to the porta john. Covered in sweat, having peed my pants a couple of times, and smelling like a rotting donkey corpse, this guy actually hit on me. Weirdo. He was still trying when I came out of the porta john and got back on my bike. The only thing on my mind was that second lap. I wouldn't know if I had made the cutoff until I got there. Time of day told me nothing. I wasn't sure what the effect of the extremely delayed start was. But when I got there, at 58 miles, the course marshal was all I needed to see. I had missed it. My race was over. And I still had to bike 12 miles back to the transition. 

 

The DNF

I admit it, I ugly cried. This wasn't how I wanted things to end. Tears flowed out of my eyes and I sobbed as the faster riders finishing the last of their 112 yelled "Good job!" and "Almost there!" to me. I felt defeated. I felt like a failure. But the words of that athlete in the chute came back into my head. I may not have finished, but I didn't fail. I looked into the face of a full Ironman and I kept going. Before I'd made it back to the transition area, I resolved to fix my training, to put in the hours and the miles on my P3 to make sure my back does not fail me again. When I circled back, Jason made sure I got my recovery Tailwind while I put on my sweats. Seventy miles is a hell of a long way to go and still not hit a finish line. We got my bike and my bags from transition and went back to the hotel. Got a shower and we went for a nice steak dinner, reflecting on the day and the effort. It was not success, but it was not failure. I learned so much from this experience. I faced fear and I did not back down. I am proud of myself for going head long into it. 

 

Full of optimism and grit

The Future

One day after returning home with my DNF, I signed up for the Ironman Maryland in 2024. I now believe that coach who spoke to me way back in 2018 was absolutely right. 

 

Anything is possible. I will become one.

Becoming an Athlete

 If you've been following so far, you already know I would never have self-applied such a term. I wasn't an athlete. I laughed at the idea. It was preposterous. There's your big brain word for "fucking insane" to think that I was an athlete. Keyboard commando. That's what I was. I read books, and I worked on my computer, and I played video games. These things could all be done in air-conditioned comfort and - more importantly to me - while snacking. If you've been following, then you know we left off with my first ever 5K finish and my desire to run a half marathon. 

What the hell happened?

People talk about runner's high. I'd love to say it was that, but it wasn't. I've never felt runner's high in my life. My time spent running is largely consumed by a mental calculation of exactly how fucking long I have to keep slamming my feet off the pavement before I get the reward. A banana. A cookie. A beer. A medal. A protein stick. A bottle of water and electrolytes. Whatever that thing is that waits for me. I don't love running. I love being done running. And that makes it even more confusing that I would sign myself up to increase the distance and the duration of the run. But there was something about that moment at the finish line of the 5K, shoving an under-ripe banana in my mouth with my first ever finisher medal hanging from my neck that poked my brain. Dopamine is a hell of a drug, and as it happens I make equally absurd decisions while swimming in my own neurotransmitters as I do when I've saturated my brain in alcohol. So, I became a runner. I was now an athlete. I spent the summer consistently running 5K several times a week and went on to my next event: The Color Run.

 

 

More running, more dopamine. This time I had gone to the event with friends and learned that even in an individual sport like running, I felt like being part of a team. We ran at different paces, we finished at different times, but we were there together. I was among my people. Finally, I enjoyed something about running other than being done. The weight loss continued and I kept running. I started increasing my distances a bit. It was fall 2016, and I found a friend who was willing to run the 10 mile relay with me. I started to get some confidence about the half marathon, and I registered for it. Ever the nerd, I got myself an app that had a training program for a half marathon. That was it. I had become a runner, an athlete. One of those insufferable assholes who sent memes about running to my friends.

And you can guess what happened right after I posed with another finisher medal. Yep. I very excitedly declared that next year, I'd run the fucking marathon.

The marathon

Lots of people know the legend of the marathon. In 490 BC, Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Athens to deliver news of the victory in battle, a distance of about 25 miles, which led to the modern day marathon race. Turns out the legend is a mash up of actual events that's not really how it happened. Pheidippides did indeed go on a heroic run - of 140 miles - to ask Sparta for aid to the Greeks in battle against the Persians. The Athenians then marched the 25 miles back from their victory in battle to see the Persians depart from Athens, thus completing their victory. But as it happens, the wrong legend stuck, and with a little fudging of the distance, the 26.2 mile foot race debuted in 1896 at the Olympics. Since then, millions of people all over the world have taken on the challenge. In May of 2018, only two years after the first time I ever ran a mile, I joined the millions and stood in the starting corral of the Pittsburgh Marathon with two of my running friends. I had stopped showing up at events alone. In the rain and cold I slogged out 26.2 miles, the last 8 of which I ran side-by-side with my friend. It was slow going. But I had done it. I was told that no one goes from unable to run one mile to marathon in two years. Well, I'm not just anyone. I'm a marathoner.

My Bad Hand: Being a Brain

Natural Ability Isn't Always Good

I was the kid for whom school came easy. Everything that I learned took very little if any effort, and when my natural talent for absorbing and applying information became apparent there were of course all the usual tests and it resulted in those terms being thrown about. Gifted. Genius. Brilliant. Words that sound like huge compliments, but would plague me for much of my life. When I learned something quickly, like math concepts or principles of science I was praised instantly for being "so very smart". 

What bullshit. My parents and teachers no doubt meant well, but what they didn't know was that they were teaching me to equate results with a state of being I had no control over. I was good at school, not because I worked hard or devoted myself to it, but because that shit came easy for me. I learned early that if something isn't easy the first time, there's not going to be a lot of excitement around attempting it. My first and only attempt at team sports involved a lot of being told that sports just weren't for me because they weren't instantly easy for me. For every failure there, I was encouraged to just keep doing what I was good at. Trying anything new was out of the question. My fate was decided, and I was going to be a brain. 

Always Learning

Learning Not To Try

Expressing interest in anything outside academics is something that I learned not to do. Through a combination of that and being every bit the target of bullies that a four-eyed geek who can't even get a base hit at kick ball is, I learned to stop trying. And so it went throughout my childhood. If it wasn't about getting an academic scholarship, don't bother. Forget art classes, music, sports of any kind. Just stick with the math and science.And don't fuck it up. Because if you fail, all it means is you're not actually smart. That brought its own problems. Kids who get told that their academic success is due to being smart are way more reluctant to try doing something new unless they're already certain they can succeed at it. I wasn't any different. I sure as shit wasn't going to do something that might disprove everyone's insistence that I was a genius. 

Creating Bravery From Fear

I still battle that demon every day, but at least now I know that I have a demon to battle. It took me a very long time to recognize that fucker as an entity of its own. And it rides my ass like a conjoined twin I can't separate. There came a point late in the middle of winter of 2016 that some people I knew from work who were aware of my gym going had been telling me that it's fun to run. I had never had fun running in my entire life. Running was one of those things I wasn't good at, and therefore didn't try to do. I'd failed the mile run every year in high school PE, and I sure as fuck did not want to start running as a 37 year-old fatass. I was going to be terrible, so I wasn't going to try. There's the demon. Screaming in my ear. You're not good at running. You should stick to what you are good at. Be a brain. Write more code. That son of a bitch was still there. 

But so was something else. I had, months before, created a voice in me that would yell back at the demon. And so I relented, with my coworkers promising me that if I ran just one 5K and still hated running, they would never bother me again. I downloaded a Couch to 5K app, and I signed up for a 5K. The biggest 5K in Pittsburgh, which is always run the day before the Pittsburgh Marathon. I didn't tell a soul. I was too afraid I would fail. I still weighed over 200 pounds and I had never run a mile in my life, let alone 3.1 miles. But I started running anyway. I had no proper running shoes and at first I struggled to run for 1 minute at a time. I was convinced that I would fail, but at least I would fail silently and no one who knew me would ever know about it. 

On April 30th, 2016 it was race day. I pinned my bib onto clothes I have come to learn are a terrible choice for sweating into - a 100% cotton shirt, and some loose fitting sweat pants. My shoes had holes in the toes. I weighed in at 201 pounds, but I hauled my ass out there and ran. I was nearly last, and nervous the entire time about the sweep bus picking me up for being too slow; I'd heard all the horror stories about that humiliating possibility. But the demon didn't win that day. I didn't fail. I finished a 5K. It was the first time I had tried something I wasn't automatically good at, risked failure, and carried on anyway despite my fears. Bravery is not being unafraid. Anyone can do something they're not afraid of, that shit's easy. Bravery is doing something that scares you. So of course at the finish line, when another runner asked me "What now?" I replied "I'm going to run a half marathon!"

You never forget your first time

Of course the first stop from there was to get properly fitted for some running shoes and retire my old friends, but the following year I was back. And I ran that half marathon.

My Bad Hand - David Goggins Challenge

"What kind of bullshit did you deal with growing up?"

The dirty laundry I don't want to air

 I started out life in a coal patch in rural Pennsylvania as a scrawny, nerdy tomboy in a blue collar rural environment that didn't know what to do with me and parents who didn't either. Vision so bad that for the first two and a half years of my life, I could tell day from night but nothing else, and in a family where excess money wasn't one of our burdens I got my first pair of glasses before my third birthday. They were Coke-bottle thick. I wasn't even in kindergarten when I learned what bullies were. The neighborhood kids taught me that being the four-eyed weirdo was not the thing to be. I resisted every effort made to put me in dresses and teach me to be a normal girl, and that didn't really win me any friends either. The summer after kindergarten, I was put in Pony League baseball. Not because I was good at throwing or catching or hitting a ball. I couldn't do any of those things. I was the ninth kid in town the right age for there to be a team. I was shoved into left field with a hand-me-down glove, and everybody knew I was a guaranteed strike out. I played one season, and other than getting my ass kicked by the boys on the team for constantly fucking up, I saw no action at all. From then on, baseball and softball were nightmare inducing. A guaranteed recipe for being made fun of and kicked around. I stuck to riding my bicycle.

1985 - The scrawny tomboy with glasses

The coal patch is quicksand

My father was a steelworker and my mother was a part-time teacher when I was a kid. They weren't well off and I was abundantly aware of how often I heard "We can't afford it." about absolutely everything. Since it was decided at age five that sports weren't for me because I didn't have natural talent, I heard a string of "No, we can't afford it." about pretty much everything I wanted to do. Musical instruments, dance classes, even karate at the rec center were not in the budget. Growing up in a small town that came with all the rigid conformity that accompanies a place where less than a thousand people live, I was shoved into exactly one activity and it was one that was thought to be proper for a girl: Girl Scouts. Enrolled as a Brownie at six years old, I thought it would be like Boy Scouts. Camping and hiking in the woods and learning to build snares and make fires. It was nothing of the sort. Once again, I was forced into a dress. There I would find myself watching the clock through activities like make overs and sewing decorative pillows. I went to camp exactly once and to my great horror we were simply put into a dormitory building and kept indoors doing more fucking arts and crafts. I wanted the hell out of that coal patch, which was the one thing my parents were in complete agreement about. They didn't want me stuck there my whole life trying to be the housewife of a coal miner. Since I was shit at sports, and not a musical prodigy, the one way out was to dig in and be a good nerd. And I was. 

Nerds don't go to the prom

I had exactly two friends in high school and I haven't seen either one of them in 26 years, not since the day we all graduated and went our own ways in life. I don't know where they are; I've never looked them up. We were outcasts together and our friendship seemed to mostly be based on just not wanting to get bullied too much at lunch. School work was the one thing that came easily to me, so I excelled at it without any real effort. Being a nerd still wasn't cool, so I spent a great deal of my middle school and high school years getting into fights. That kind of shit will kill your motivation to leave the house. I read books, I ate a lot of snacks, and I started developing habits that plague me to this day. Sit around eating. Like it was my job. I never went to the prom, homecoming, school dances. I didn't date. I read books and ate food. By 16 I was obese. My answer to everything was food.

1994 - Already on my way to morbid obesity

 

How far down the hole goes

In some measures, I was a success story. I got an academic scholarship to pay about half of my tuition at my first choice university, and I went. And like a lot of freshmen, when I got there and moved into my dorm room I discovered a few things that led what otherwise would've been a success story to be more of a slow roll into a self-dug grave. I found parties, bars that didn't ask for ID, and the cafeteria. Wholly unprepared for the amount of work involved in a university level education, I didn't do any. My grades reflected the fact that I spent all my time drinking and eating. My BMI went up. My GPA went down. I lost my scholarship so I took out bigger loans because I had to get the degree. I did, eventually, squeak by with it. Along the way, I got an explanation for why I had always been such a weirdo. It's not just that I was a tomboy or a nerd. "On the spectrum" is how the refer to it now. Then it was Asperger's Syndrome. It explained a lot of the behavior that made me tick, and even more of why I've never found it easy to make friends or handle social situations. But food and alcohol don't care, and alcohol makes everyone popular in college. I drank all night, I slept during the day, I cut classes routinely and showed up for exams. I relied on my brain's uncanny ability to make sense out of anything in a hurry - at least sense enough to pass the exams - and I maintained an acceptable average in enough of my classes to get a degree.

 

Having just barely graduated, I spent the next five years working in a shitty job at a shitty little company that paid me only enough to make the payments on my student loans and my shitty little economy car. I had taken up smoking, so all my addictions were related to putting something in my mouth. Food, alcohol, cigarettes. I did no physical activity. I hated everything involved with going outside. I worked, I slept, I ate, I drank, I smoked. Five years of my life disappeared. I got a better job but by then was morbidly obese. In the vein of always indulging my desire for more food and more beer, I took a full-time travel position and made the most of my per diems. Food addiction wasn't anything that even entered my mind. I liked to eat, so I did a lot of it. I still like to eat. There's a constant battle raging in me between my appetite for more food and my knowledge that it will kill me. I lived a repetitive life where even in the chaos of constant travel, I maintained my routines. I once ate dinner at the same gastropub every day for a year straight. I was so predictable, I had a usual at three airport bars. And then in January of 2015 it came to a screeching halt. My employer did a massive layoff, and I found myself suddenly getting a new job I didn't want to get. I looked at myself in the mirror and it looked like the picture below. No angles, no filters, no hiding the truth. Somewhere north of 300 pounds - where the scale stopped - at 37 years old and that was the day I knew that if I didn't get the fuck over the food addiction, the aversion to all things sport related, and my inability to go the hell outside I would die that way. The day was coming that the last words I heard on earth were going to be "Get the extra-wide stretcher." 

And on Monday, 2 February 2015 I woke up on Day Zero of the rest of my life. 

2015 - Day zero