Notes on a Half Ironman

It started out with rain. The kind that hangs in the trees until a wind causes more wet to drop from the sky. But despite that, in summer it is still warm. I bike the three miles to the race site, wet, apprehensive, nervous, excited, resigned to the fact that today is the day, like it or not. There are a number of housekeeping things to do before the race starts; sign in, body marking, transition area set up, eating something here and there. For me, they are the things that keep my mind off my nervousness, the things that interrupt the silent conversation in my head regarding whether or not I have trained enough or too little. This is certainly the toughest race I've attempted to date. Looking around at so many elite athletes, their bodies sculpted with dedication, it is hard not to feel intimidated. It is hard to believe that I am one of them.

Fifteen minutes before the race, everyone convenes at the water. I don't like those minutes because the swim course always appears so long and the anticipation of starting makes my nerves go into overdrive. I fight the urge to hyperventilate. My friends try to joke, to take pictures, to be supportive, whatever it takes to keep things light. Before you know it, the first waves have started and you feel swept up in a machine that only moves forward, the noise of something unknown just up ahead. And then without a fight, your face is in the water, your arms are paddling, the conversation you had with yourself about your training becomes irrelevant.

I really don't mind the swim. I stay out of the pack, try to avoid getting kicked in the head. The trip to the first buoy always feels like you're running down the hall in a horror movie and the hall just keeps getting longer and longer. It feels like it's never gonna come. But eventually, you round that first corner and things even out. You try to breathe easy, try to lengthen your stroke and concentrate on form. Since all participants were wearing the same colored caps, it is difficult to gauge my progress as one wave melts into another. That's interesting for me. 1.2 miles later, the longest distance in my swimming history, I am back on the beach heading to the transition.

On my bike now, it's time to hunker down. I'm gonna be on this thing for the next 3.5 hours. Biking for me is challenging. I'm not very fast. And so in these races, it is always a mental struggle as other racers whiz past me. My number is 369. I try to stay zen as the 400's, 500's, 600's, 700's, and 800's parad past me in succession. I want to scream, "what do they have that I don't?" I wonder if I felt worse watching them pass me, if they felt an equal amount of satisfaction knowing they were getting ahead of someone who started before they did. And yet, I am biking faster than I usually do and making strong progress. So why the comparison? Why the need to downplay my own success because someone is doing better? After 40 miles on the bike, I am getting pretty tired. I was eating power gels and drinking a ton but it wasn't giving me the boost I needed. Perhaps they were just keeping me in the game. The idea of biking another hour and then running a half marathon is now a bit daunting. It's raining and water is dripping off of my helmut and my nose. I am soaked. It's odd to think that I am in Sturgeon Bay and I still have to bike to Egg Harbor. The support from the volunteers is starting to sound empty.

And yet, oddly enough coming into transition after 56 miles of biking, I am energized for the run. I stop thinking about not being able to finish. I start to think about the beauty of this time and this moment, about the opportunity and the ability to achieve this at all. The rain has stopped and it is still cool and running just feels comfortable. I always shine on the run and this day is no different. I begin passing people and we all start encouraging each other to keep going. We run up as much of the hills as we can trying to see who will start walking first. We begin to joke with the volunteers as water stations. I can see people starting to fatigue but I am feeling great. My friends and Tony position themselves in multiple spots along the way to yell for me, push me along, tell me that I'm doing fine.

Up until this moment, I haven't thought much about why I'm doing this race. I've been caught up on alot of the technical details of just getting through; the planning, buoys, changing gears, nutrition, passing on the left, stretching. Without any of that left, my mind drifts to one person, Carl Walker Hoover. Had he not killed himself, he would be 13 now. I begin to think about what his life would be like - he would be starting high school, maybe at a new school, new friends, trying out for the freshman football team, algebra, Homecoming. Would he feel as though his past struggles would be behind him? Or would he feel as though nothing will have changed? I begin to think about what advice I would give to this young man, this teenager. How could I best tell him that races are meant to be run just like life is meant to be lived? There are bouys to round like there are milestones for us to meet. There are gears to shift, hills to climb, people who will intentionally leave us behind just like there are years in life that challenge our identity and well being. There are moments of clarity and simplicity and times to excel just like there are moments of compassion and community. There are transitions to bridge each new phase as we allow ourselves to be reinvented.

And above it all, there is the realization that there is more that connects us than divides us. For as much as we try to differentiate ourselves, to reach out from the pack, to blaze a trail that has been previously undefined, our base struggle is still the same. And for as much as we feel the need to get ahead of others, to never be last, to elevate ourselves at another's expense, our human condition is still the same and it is shared. We can create invisible lines, rules, to guide our interactions but they can be lines that either separate us from one another or lines that draw us closer.

The end of the Door County Half Ironman is a large downhill road that shoots you out into the finishing gate. You cannot help but take long fast strides to barrel down the hill. After 6 hours and 19 minutes, well under my goal of 7 hours, I cannot feel my legs, I cannot think. I have no choice but to let this last sprint propel me forward to a life past this finish line.

Anticipation

The Half Ironman is next weekend. I'm a bit terrified. My training hasn't been coming together like I thought it would in the last two weeks. For the first time, I'm less worried about having a bad finishing time and more worried about becoming physically unable to finish. Perhaps I've bitten off more than I can chew?

I have a tendency to do these things; go blindly into a project or stare into the future without a full estimation of the consequences. It is equal parts stupid and endearing. And so when the deadline approaches, the anticipation of it becomes both exciting and yet crippling. It is a conscious act to decide which of the two will take over at any given time. In the end it is much easier to fall back on a construct of ourselves that we already know rather than trust the vision of the person we hope we can be. The snags in our journey outshine the possibility that things will be different this next time. It is difficult to say "I am an ironman athlete" and believe it.

In the thick of the summer, it isn't quite time yet to think about the first day back at school. But my thoughts about my upcoming race mirror what alot of kids think about that day. It is easy for bullied kids to focus on a year of more of the same as opposed to looking in the mirror and saying "things are gonna be better for me this time around" and believing it.

I'm climbing this monster of a hill, this Half Ironman, because I believe that I can be better than I ever thought I could. And I'm sending that energy to every kid who is struggling just to be themselves.

You can help me by donating to my race partner GLSEN by clicking the donation button on the right or https:/my.glsen.org/leschke