I will start my race report with a little recap of the days leading up to the big day.
*Tuesday, October 6th
Mary and I were awoken at 4:30a.m by the sound of our alarm clock screaming “it is time to go to Hawaii, get your asses up. A quick loading of the car and we where off to SkyHarbor airport. Along the way Mary started a photo-documentary of our travels. Normally we never take any pictures when we go somewhere and I spend the entire time saying where is the camera? Great job sweetheart!
After dragging what would become a very familiar job of traveling with 2 bike boxes and 2 other checked bags, we were finally aboard our first of many flights on our way to Honolulu. Arriving right on time and after a short lay over onto our next leg of the trip to the big island of Hawaii and our final destination , for a few days at least of Kailua-Kona. Ironman holy ground and the mecca of Ironman racing.
Our rental jeep and bikes all loaded , off we headed onto the first journey down the infamous Queen K Hwy. Just like in all the pictures I had seen, it was uninviting, very windy, and humid as hell. A short 15 minutes later we pulled down Alii Drive and into out accommodations for race week. The Royal Kona Resort. At this point the next three and a half days where pretty much a blur, with a few things sticking out here and there.
* Wednesday, October 7th
Mary and I meet Marc Rubin at the pier for my first swim on the actual World Championship course.
We swam about 40 minutes, which included a trip out to the Kona Coffee boat, where you swim up and they serve you free shots of coffee or Gatorade. Then we headed off towards our turn around buoy when we saw Roch Frey on his stand up paddle board. He asked if either of us wanted to give it a try, and Mary not having to worry about getting injured before race day rose her hand and jump on up. She only went for a short time, but was totally hooked, and wants to go again soon. The swim back in to shore was kinda crazy, we had what seemed like thousands of swimmers all going in the opposite direction, so we put Marc out front to block for us and let him lead us home safely.
Then I knew it was time to face the demons and go for a short ride out on the Queen K. Mary and I loaded the Jeep and headed out to find a place to park and start our ride from. It was getting warm already and it must have been only 8:30a.m. Down the road we went, after about 20 minutes Mary texted me and said :I have had enough, “I am going back to the car to wait for you”. Seems she forgot to eat and with the heat, and wind ,was already bonking. So I went out 30 minutes and then came back. I felt great that day on the bike. Must be a good omen, RIGHT?! We will see.
*Thursday , October 8th (THE UNDER PANTS RUN)
T-minus two days until blast off. The morning started off with a nice lttle run around Alii drive with several of my closest freinds, oh yeah, we where all in our underwear. A lot of fun, some things you never want to see again, and some things that you wish you had on a poster.(The Lovato's).Following the run it started to feel like this thing is going to actually happen when Marc and I went through registration together giving each other shit and taking tons of pics of each other. We where interviewed by Jessi Steensland from Active.com. It is up on their website under Ironman videos.
Once we had our athlete wristbands and all that goes with them, we hit the Ironman store for a few hard earned gifts. Marc and I had waited a long time to be able to buy some IRONMAN WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS gear. With goodies in tow we headed back to our rooms for a little R&R.
The remainder of the day was pretty low key, a little jog, and dinner and off to bed.
*Friday, October 9th
This day is all about bike and gear bag check in. this was one of the coolest parts of my experience, you show up with said gear and bikes at a time determined by your bib number. When you arrive they have at least 50 people from all walks of the cycling world counting and checking out every little piece of bike equipment you have, from the frame down to your bottle cages, and everything in between. Then you are taken by your very own volunteer through transition. They take your bags, your bike anything you need and walk you through every inch of transition and answer every possible question you may have. So first class, you know you are in Kona now!! So after leaving my trusty steed behind off Mary and I head for an early dinner and bed time.
Race Day
October 10th 2009
(the day I had waited for and dreamed about for soooo long, the day that just a few weeks back I didn’t know if I was going to be part of) as many of you know my trials and tribulations I will make this brief, but I missed qualifying by :12 seconds in April of 2008 in a sprint finish to the line. Only to come back in November of the same year to get the last qualifying spot in my age group by :11 seconds in a sprint finish to that same line. After all the hard work and sacrifice I was in the best shape of my life leading into the end of July 2009 when I was forced off the road by a car while riding my bike. Resulting in 4 breaks of my right clavicle and followed by surgery to insert a metal plate and 7 screws to hold it all in place. After weeks of extreme rehab I decided that even based on my limited training base that there was no way I was missing this day damn it!!!
So anyway, back to race day. We woke up at 4:30 and after the normal stuff we headed down to the swim start where we met up with Marc Rubin , Jeff Bassett and their families. I did my body marking, and we did some picture taking and Marc, Jeff and I started getting our minds right for the day that laid ahead.
Finally a big kiss good bye to Mary and I was headed into transition and it was time to put on my not so speedy speed suit, and head to the water.
THE SWIM
Well just so happens among the 1800 plus athletes I swam right up to Jeff and we hung out the final 5 minutes or so together excited to get the day going. Then bam, the cannon sounded and it was every man or woman for themselves. Let the slugfest begin! I spent the next 30ish minutes trying to find some clean water. What most of you don’t know is that I met with my surgeon the week before and the x-rays showed that the bone is not healed yet and that as long as no one kicked or punched me in my shoulder then I should be fine. Well lets just say that is all that happened for the first 30 minutes or so, and that was all I could hear in my head was him telling me that, and all I could think was I wasn’t getting dragged out of this water by a life guard and having my day cut short. (not finishing was not a option)!
Once I made the turn buoy I figured out a couple of things, first off the life guards keep the course so tight that each time I saw one of them and they pointed us towards the other way it was because the width of the course was only like 25 meters. So each time I corrected myself I was correcting to far and was ending up on the other side of the 25 meters, but I thought I kept swimming way off course. The other effect of this narrow alley is that everyone stays right on top each other pretty much the entire swim. Just after the turn I had to stop and dump the salt water out of my goggles because my eyes where on fire and that is when I realized the narrowness of the course and felt like I swam a much straighter line back to shore. I came out of the water and looked at my watch 1:16, the slowest, by far Ironman swim I have ever had, I bent down and kissed the top step so happy to be back on dry land.
T1
Pretty nonevent full, hosed the salt water off of me, took off my speed suit and headed for the long run to the bike. I think only Ironman Wisconsin has a longer T1 transition .
THE BIKE
My first order of business was to get up the hill out of transition and get some water in my mouth.
I had swallowed my share of salt water over the last hour and my nose was burning and my mouth was so damn dry. All I could think about was getting that ocean taste out of my mouth.
Onto the bike course I saw Mary ay about mile 5 and then after the turn around at about mile 7ish . I blew her a big kiss because I knew from this point on it was going to be a long time and a major effort before I would see her again. One or two small turns and we where off onto the Queen K. This time it counted, and my very simple plan was to go out conservatively to mile 60 in Hawi (the turn around) and just see how things played out from there. My first sign of the trouble that lay ahead was when I had my first ever flat in a competition. Mile 30 into the World Championships, are you kidding me, and of course it was the back so it takes a little more time to change and causes a much bigger mess of grease on your hands for the rest of the day. Oh well, 5 to 10 minutes later I was off again. I was feeling good and flying by people, most of whom I had already passed once. At one point in the the first 45 or so miles I was still averaging over 22 mph. I knew that was a little fast, but didn’t feel like I was really killing myself at that point. Then things changed in a hurry. The ride up to Hawi was into a tough head wind. Though I made the turn and was flying again at 40 mph down hill and pretty darn happy. Here is when the awakening happened around mile 75 or so, I noticed that my average speend was dropping quickly, and I had no answer for it. The wind was relentless, and the word to describe my day came out for the first time, BRUTAL!!! I just started thinking about survival, it didn’t make sense to me, I had ridden lots of windy days, and on bigger hills, but my body
Just was not responding. Now what? I did everything I could think of to change things, eat, drink, salt tabs, stand up and stretch, nothing made a difference. Then I lost my chain, so I though ok, get off and fix it and take a minute to stretch your legs out. Here I have about 25 miles to go and start to cramp like I have never cramped before. My adductor muscles where in full rigor, I could not pedal. Not good! Seriously, not at all,
I grabbed a mouth full of salt tabs, and half a bottle of Infinit, and hoped for the best. Luckily the let up, but I could tell the damage was done and I wasn’t out of the dark yet. Just try to get back to town is what I kept telling myself. Not finishing is not an option!!! Do whatever it takes. It started to become so painful that I was actually yelling in pain. I got to the last him coming into town and was not sure how I would get up it, I had 1 mile to go and couldn’t stand, sit, pedal coast, it all hurt like hell full on Charlie horses in my legs and nothing helped, with lots of yelling and effort I made it to the top and never pedaled again, I coasted the last mile back into transition. Bike time with my flat was 6:03. By far my slowest bike leg ever.
T2
I honestly have never been happier to be off of my bike in my entire life, but I can not even run through T2,
So I walk the entire way to the changing tent, did I mention that it is a really long transition area?!
I grabbed my run bag and sat down in a chair. Trying to think what I can do to help myself out of this deep hole I had gotten into.
THE RUN
If you want to call it a run. It was more like a walk with intervals of running included. My problem of leg crapping became major stomach cramping instead. I walked the first mile out of transition where I saw Mary and the Triscottsdale group. I was hurting bad at this point and Mary gave me some tough love, basically she told me this is what I had worked so hard for and it was time to dig deeper than I had ever dug before and just get to the finish line. Not finishing was not an option, even if it took until midnight. I really thought at that point that it could take until midnight. I saw Marc on my way out to the first run turn around and he too was suffering, and he told me to catch him. I so wanted to, but every time I tried to run my legs cramped and worst my stomach would just double me over. Mary came by on her bike at about mile 5 and gave me some encouraging words for the next few miles, but then it was off to the Queen k again. This part from mile 10 until the turn around in the energy lab at mile 17ish, was the longest section of any race in my life. I tried everything to be able to run and nothing worked. I tried food, not good, cola, not good, gels, not good, water, not good, I tried to vomit and couldn’t, I tried to pass gas and couldn’t. I was just run a bit and walk a bit. Finally when I entered the Energy Lab things started to come around a little. I was able to run a little farther each attempt. I was flying when I was running the entire time, around 7 minute miles. Finally at about 19 miles I was able to start hammer out entire miles at a time before the cramping would come. So on and off I went. Once I hit mile 24 I said get this shit done, suck it up and finish already. I ran to the top of the last hill (Palani) and made the turn down hill to the 25mile mark, I just dug in and kept pushing, flying by people, onto the last right turn onto Alii Dr and the finish line. Just before the finish I see Mary and all of my buddies that had raced and all of our friends and families that came out and yelled for nearly 13 hours in that heat and humity, and I ran up the ramp and Mike Reilly called me an Ironman again. What a feeling and what a day.
As I wandered out of the finishing area there was mu love Mary to take care of me, and boy did I need it.
I always say that I want to push myself until I vomit in a race, and this time I did twice after finishing. Thanks to Marc and the use of his room and shower. Now lets go get some French fries!!!!!
This was the hardest day in my racing career, and I am so grateful for it!
Thank you to everyone that sent me so many kind words through face book and text, and phone calls.
A big Thank You to my medical team that help me realize this dream, Dr Amit @ASMC, Matt (The scrapper) Kraemer, Shawna @ Endurance Rehab, Christina (Surf Kats) LaRoche, Carson Robertson @ Alpha Chiropratic, & Jason Loth @ Sports Docs.
Thank you to Triscootsdale for being such a great bunch of teammates. I will be back!!!
Most of all thank you to my fiancee Mary, with out here support I would never have made it to Kona.
I can not put into words what she has meant to me, and can not even begin to list all of the things she has done for me. I love you!!
Mahalo
Dan
Mary and I in front of the Big Island Jewlery store. Where Mary bought our wedding rings!
