Ironman 2 days later

After decompressing from the race, a few things are worth remembering. I am now back home with my feet up. I have one more day of vacation; it is back to work tomorrow. It has been an incredible vacation for me. But it is time to go back to work. I need another tangible objective besides torturing my body. Today I have dangerous free time. When I have undifferentiated free time, I inevitably devolve into mischief and delusions.

I have talked about the Ironman Arizona race with my family and fellow athlete friends. I watched myself on TV. I have done a forensic analysis of my race data. My swim and bike ride were much slower than I had anticipated. This is undoubtedly due to my hypothermia during the swim. During the first 30 miles of the bike ride I was delirious, shivering, and cyanotic. I looked like an Avatar. The incident was a good reality check for me. I consider 2.4 mile of swimming to be easy, but this one completely dismantled me. Next time I race Ironman, I will take the swim more seriously.

As the day progressed, I got stronger and stronger. When it came time to run, I was quite fresh. I was not fatigued at all when I hit T2. For the first two hours, hypothermia had rendered me metabolically inert. The nutrition aspect was good. When I started running my organs were overflowing with glycogen.

I am very proud of my pace and heart rate data from the marathon. I ran it under 4 hours, with a negative split and average heart rate in the 120s. I think that is the second fastest Ironman marathon in my career. It is really my modern personal Mona Lisa. Panache. I was unaware that I still had that in me. This was my first decent competitive run in several years. In my twenties I could run a 10K in less than 34 minutes. My PR in a marathon is 2:46 (Long Beach Marathon 2001). I recall running an Ironman marathon in 3:30 back in 1994. This was after riding 112 miles on a vintage bike with down tube shifters, drop handlebars, and running shoes. Unfortunately, I have no GPS data from that day. I don’t think GPS had even been available back then. The 1994 results are merely burnished in my memory. Perhaps it is documented on a piece of paper somewhere in my attic. I hope the wetsuit rats aren’t eating it.

When I finished the race I still felt fine. One of the reasons was better nutrition. I was eating constantly, mainly Clif gels from the aid stations. It was really strange to finish an endurance event not being hungry.

Before the race, there was a tingle of neurons in my brain telling me that I might qualify for Kona. Of course, I was nowhere near that level. I needed to shave only a mere 1.5 hours from my overall time. That is a preposterous concept. Frankly, I am quite mediocre. I always have been. I am now making myself repeat something over and over: “I will never qualify for Kona”. That is a scientific fact. I need to have that on a loop recording. Having an intense competitive drive, this is difficult to admit. The psychology revolves around denial and grandiosity. No doubt there are many other triathletes in the same boat. Perhaps I should start a support group. We could call it “Ironman Anonymous.” We could have weekly online meetings to give each other emotional support. None of us will ever taste the salt, wind, or lava from a Kona October.

Initially the Ironman app reported me outside of top ten per cent in my age group. Today I was notified that I was indeed inside the top ten per cent. The glitchy app had not accounted for the large numbers of DNFs (Did Not Finishers). Being in the top ten per cent gives me automatic qualification for 2019. Today is not the right day to decide about this. I looked at the Age Group results. It seems I moved overall from 150th place to 30th place during the marathon. This verifies and reinforces my attitude about this event: it is all about the end game. This goes for professionals, too. The fastest runner almost always wins.

My mood today has the appearance of a sine wave. It is fluctuating wildly between post-race euphoria and depression. There is an element of endorphin withdrawal. One could postulate similarities to childbirth. I would dearly love to exercise, but my legs, neck, and back are aching.

Running is out of the question. My plan is to take at least six months off running. It is a beautiful day outside; a bike ride would be marvelous. My legs would be too sore to climb the hills around my house. I could certainly swim without hurting. The idea of getting in the water nauseates me. I might have PTSD from that terrible freezing swim I had. Deep down I am repulsed by swimming. I think I swam too much as a youngster and young adult. Swimming feels like a chore. I even despise the whole process of going to the pool. I hate going in the change room. There is always the same naked guy in the shower when I go to Splash La Mirada. This pervert is taking a shower when I arrive. Two hours later, after my workout, he is still taking a shower. One would think he is clean by that point. He is probably still taking a shower at closing time. I should report him to the authorities for wasting Southern California water. I don't know how Splash can stay in business with patrons like him. $3 for an entrance fee, use up $200 of water in the shower.

It was fun to watch the video of the Ironman finish line. I managed to find my finish, and we watched it as a family. My children enjoyed seeing me on TV. I did not get much screen time. I was coming in really hot. I pipped two racers at the line. My efforts diminished the power of my finish somewhat. I really wanted to do one of those victory dances, but it was all about business.

It helps to have another athletic goal on the horizon. Mine is the 2019 Belgian Waffle Ride (BWR). It is on Cinco de Mayo. Despite being a four-time BWR veteran, the event still scares me.

One odd thing about the Ironman finish is the traditional “you are an Ironman” declaration. I forgot the name of the guy who says this. He has a distinctive voice. This pronouncement is one of the iconic parts of the race. In the triathlon world, it is comparable to being knighted or inaugurated. “Joe Blow, you are an IRONMAN!” Curiously, this even applies the female athletes. “Debra Smith, you are an IRONMAN!” etc.

The actual term “Ironman” is sexist by definition. The female athletes do not seem to object to this. In fact, I observed many women with an “M-dot” tattooed on their calf. In modern times, the suffix “man” has disappeared from the vernacular. Think of “spokesman” being replaced by “spokesperson”, and so on. In fact, whenever I hear a noun ending in “man”, I cringe. It just sounds wrong. It could even be considered offensive.

The entire business model of the Ironman Corporation revolves around the antiquated term and ubiquitous “M-dot” logo. When I started racing triathlon in the 1980s, Ironman was a generic term for the 2.4/112/26.2 event. In 2015 the term Ironman was trademarked. There are many events around the world with the exact same race distances. These races are so-called “non-branded”, and must be merely labelled “full distance”. The Ironman name is actually owned by a huge corporation from China entitled “World Triathlon Corporation”. This entity must make millions from entry fees and marketing of “M-dot” paraphernalia. The female triathletes should rise up and protest. Why would athletic women ink up their legs to advertise a sexist Chinese conglomeration? If I were an elite female triathlete, I would boycott all Ironman branded events until the name was investigated. If someone from the World Triathlon Corporation actually reads this blog, I will probably be banned from racing in their events. Whoop dee doo, who cares?

Before I leave the topic, I wanted to give thanks to Mark and Paul from velofix.com. They took custody of my bike a week before the event, tuned and race-dialed it, transported it to the event, and brought it home for me. This alleviated all the bike fussing during race weekend. I really felt treated like a professional cyclist.

Goodbye for now. My race blog will be going dark for a while. My muscles alone will do the talking.