IM WI Race Day - Pre Race and Swim

Pre Race and Swim

Sunday morning, 3:30. Again, I did not sleep as much as I would have liked, maybe three and a half hours, but I was awake. I was ready.

I grabbed another sandwich for breakfast. Trina, Cassie, and I were chillin' in the kitchen. We all were getting ourselves ready in our own individual way. I had some more mellow stuff on my mp3 player like some Otis Redding, John Coltrane. Trina was getting herself amped up with some Eminem. Cassie had her quintuple espresso shot coffee. I went through my usually Shit, Shower, Shave routine, grabbed my special needs bags, and we were out the door around 4:45.

Trina's boyfriend, Dennis, was our driver and support for the day. Our first stop was to drop off the special needs bags. The place was crawling with athletes and spectators. We dumped our bags and headed over to The Terrace. I dropped off my food into my transition bags and then went to check on Ferrah. I grabbed the grocery bags off of her and got her ready to ride. I walked a bit through transition to familiarize myself with the whole zone. Ferrah would be on the far right by the last light pole.

I finally met Chris. He had been a source of inspiration for me all summer long and I knew I would be following his lead all day. We chatted a bit as we walked back towards the warmth of the Terrace. We wished each other well and parted ways for the day.

I took the two grocery bags from the bike stuffed them so they hung out of my transition bags so I would spot them immediately upon entering the room. I now realized I had forgotten a few things this morning: taking my multivitamin, taking my allergy medication, and my body glide. The first two omissions did not bother me. But no body glide...That might be a problem. So now I was separated from Cassie, Trina, and Dennis for quite some time and was hoping to find them to borrow some body glide from them. No luck. So I headed over to body marking and then down towards the water.

As I am squeezing myself into my wetsuit, I notice the guy next to me pulling on his wetsuit as well.

"Excuse me sir, mind if I get a squirt of your Chamois Butt'r?" He obliged. So I guess this sharing of another guy's chamois butt'r is becoming a habit of mine.

I saw Josh as he was preparing for his start. We wished each other well as I moved over to dump off my dry clothing bag and strolled a little bit closer to the water. I was relieved when I finally saw Trina and Cassie again. We BSed for a few moments and inched closer towards the water. Josh and the pros were off and swimming already. Trina moved into the water first while Cassie and I hung back just an extra minute. We shouted over a caught Mickey's attention and got a picture taken just a few feet before the water's edge.

"One minute.....WHO WANTS TO BE AN IRONMAN TODAY?" blared the announcer.

I doggie paddled out into the water, took a breathe, and then....

BOOOOMMM!!!!

Clicked the watch, breathed in deep, dove forward, stroked, go...

Okay people, the horror stories about an Ironman swim are mostly true. At over 2400 athletes, the 2006 IM WI was the largest field to ever start a race. It was definitely a contact sport out there.

I started waaayy to the right, but I eventually merged into the mess. I was kicked and groped pretty much the entire first half mile. As I approached the first buoy, I was about 10 meters away from the buoy and came to a complete stand still. I pretty much treaded water towards the next buoy while trying to navigate through the masses.

As we made the turn at the next buoy, we were greeted by the wind and chop.

Holy Crap!!! Where's my dramamine...

So now most of my thoughts turned to survival. My plans had to be changed from swimming strong and trying to race to avoid getting the snot beat out of me or drowning under the waves.

After a few strokes I was able to synchronize my stroke and breathing to the waves. That lasted, oh, all of five seconds as I had to slow up yet again as the mass of bodies collected in front of me. About 3/4 of a mile into the swim...thump. I had gotten kicked in the face and my goggles came sliding down. Ugh. So I breaststroke kick a bit while trying to secure the goggles back on my face. Meanwhile waves kept crashing over me and the sharks were still thrashing around. Fun...

Folks just remember these two simple pieces of advice: Don't freak out in the water and breathe, normally.

So I encountered more kicking, more groping, and not enough open swimming lanes. I tried several times to "follow my lead blocker" and draft behind someone, but they seemed to want to swim in a direction that I did not want to go.

For most of the swim, I swam passively. I would take a few strokes then let up. I allowed the aggressive swimmers to pass by me while I let the blind swimmers cut in front of me. Only once did I get upset. That happened when my ankle was physically grabbed. I switched from my weak flutter kick to my mortal-kombat-fatality breaststroke kick. I grazed him with my foot as a warning shot, but then slowed up to let him go by. Have a nice day buddy!!!

The second loop was not as bad. To keep my mind from getting too frustrated about the swimming conditions, I tried to calculate the amount of extra distance I covered. Let me tell you the square root of 68 was not easy to calculate during that swim. So by the end of the swim I estimated I swam an extra 90 meters or so. That would equate to roughly an extra 2 minutes. So as I exited the water I glanced at my watch which read just over 1:21. AWESOME!!! I was pretty much right on target.

The wetsuit peeling zone was a bit slippery as I almost wiped out. Luckily I landed safely on my butt, let the strippers do their job, thanked them, asked if I could tip them, then went on my way, full of confidence...

Swim: 1:21:40