My IRONMAN Story Part I

The Day I became an IRONMAN

Part I

I’ve felt compelled to share my story…..but first, some important information!

What’s an Ironman Triathlon? It’s a long-distance triathlon consisting of a 2.4mile swim, 112mile bike ride then 26.2 mile run for total of 140.6miles. Born in Hawaii in 1978, the story goes that the top athletes on the island wanted to see who is the fittest amongst runners, swimmers or cyclists. So, there you have it, they came up with the distances based on existing courses used on the island and deemed it the way to find out who is the fittest. Lake Placid, NY is the longest running Ironman distance race in the US outside of Hawaii, which hosts the world championships each year. Ironman Lake Placid is not an easy course and is one of the more challenging amongst the Ironman races given the amount of elevation between the bike and run, with the bike being listed at just over 7,000ft of gain and the run at 1,200ft of gain.

The race itself, 2 loops in Mirror Lake, which is a street width away from Lake Placid. After the first loop you get out of the water, run about 50 yards and jump back in. The bike course and run course are also 2 loops. The center of the race is on the Olympic oval, where we go to after each discipline-it was epic. You have 17 hours to complete once you start your swim, each discipline has its own timing as well. You must be at or past certain parts of the bike and run courses to continue with the race, if you don’t hit those spots that the designated time of day then your day is done.

You also need to know about a group of amazing people that I will forever be grateful to be part of. My story would not be the same without them. Team Maddie, a triathlon team created to bring awareness for cancer research for children after a little girl named Maddie was diagnosed with Sarcoma. Sadly, Maddie passed at the end of 2019 but her fight left a positive impact on the fight against childhood cancer with multiple new treatments being developed from the trials she was involved with. Alex’s Lemonade stand was a big part of her story and each September a lot of effort by the group goes into bringing awareness through activities like biking, walking and running to raise funds for cancer research. Hence, the bike ride we all did last September and will be doing it again this September!! I unfortunately, never met Maddie but watched and followed her story in the media and through friends that were heavily involved. Over the last few years, I’ve really enjoyed all the stories everyone shares of Maddie-there have been lots of them. A few mantras that Team Maddie live by: “if you can’t be strong, be #maddiestrong” and “its not when you finish it’s WHY”.

Lake Placid is also nicknamed the “mecca” for the group, in various combination of numbers they have been participating in lake placid for almost a decade. Ironman did a piece on Team Maddie, her story and the team during Ironman Mont-Tremblant 2019 and I really encourage you to check it out. On YouTube, search “2019 Subaru Ironman Canada-Mont-Tremblant, Quebec | Race Day”, Maddie’s parents and the team are featured at timestamps of 7min, 40min and 45mins. 

Saturday, day before the big day! We wake up and walk down to the Olympic Oval for breakfast, a local church puts on an awesome pancake breakfast for all to enjoy including athletes and their families. We got a chance to see most of the Team Maddie group one last time before race morning. There were 10 of us racing, then another 20+ spectating which on race day they were EVERYWHERE, so we had a solid squad. Good relaxing conversations, further reiteration from Coach Kelley that tomorrow is a big victory lap and celebration of all the hard work the past 6+ months, meanwhile I’m heavily concerned for all the cut off times so relaxing wasn’t on my mind. After breakfast, we walk the mile back to where we are staying to grab our bikes and bags to drop them off. The bike, bike bag and Run bag are dropped off the day before and special needs bags are dropped off the morning of the race. We ride our bikes down, drop off our bags and hang our bikes on the appropriate numbered rack that matches our race number. Then, we make our way back to our places and relax a bit before lunch. Between lunch and dinner, I do a final check on my special needs bags and get my clothes laid out for the morning. Making sure I don’t have to do anything else the rest of the day and very little in the AM. Then, the quiet begins and the town slowly dies down.

I don’t necessarily enjoy the quiet before these big events, I’d rather be around people I think, to at least hold some conversations. I took much of this time to think about all the work to get to this point, all nearly 8 months’ worth.

Tomorrow will be about being in the moment, nothing else. Remembering to enjoy the moments, the highs and the lows. Mentally being ready for it to hurt more than anything else I had done up to that point, new hurt-the unknown hurt. Mindset is everything, you can’t think of the bike while you’re swimming, you can’t think of anything else but that moment. It’s truly the mindset needed for these long endurance events.

During this 4-5hr window before our last meal, I looked at the notebook that I wrote “I will be an Ironman” on it 1,000 times a month before trying to get my mind to believe I can do it.

I also remembered when, a few months back, I went online searching to find who the heaviest person was to complete one of these things. Odd? Yes, but at the time I’m searching for is this possible? The results? There were no results, no confirmation for me, no reassurances, guess I’ll be that person. I’ve been that person since I’ve started running in 2013, so nothing new there-make my own data on heavy endurance athletes. Despite all my attempts, I didn’t have a huge weight drop off during training, thought this would be the time I did.