For those of you who don’t read this all the way through I
wanted to get this part right for sure.
I’d like to thank those that came out to support me on race day: Jeff Scully was there from start to finish
helping Jess navigate the entire course and get the entire group in places to
see me. In addition he has let me borrow
his bike for the past three years. I
tried to sell it for $5 to the bike catcher after I came back to the Monona
Terrace but she wouldn’t take it. It
will officially be returned to its rightful owner. Thank you to my parents Tom and Nora, for
watching our two boys Sunday morning/afternoon while I competed. Afterward they came out to the run portion
and raced around downtown Madison to see me several times on the course. I know that much racing around the run course
was challenging for them physically and they’re probably as sore as I am
today. A shout out to Melanie Gray for
also being there from start to finish and helping everyone get around the race
course and keeping me focused on the run.
Having been there herself it was a great help to see the empathy in her
eyes on the run course telling me to ‘pick a spot and run to it’. Big thank you to Leslie, Denise, and Doug
Householder for making it out to ‘their spot’ on the run course and cheer me
along with a home-made sign. I had one
of my few lighter moments on the run when I was yelling to them “I’m f-ing
retiring after this!” Thanks to Sara
Draeger and Wayne Hunt for coming back from a vacation up North to watch the
boys allowing my parents to come down and see the run portion. I know they both wanted to be there
themselves to cheer me on, and I felt their support as much as anyone who was
at the race in person. Sam and Natalie
Jonas made it and cheered me on during the run and I appreciated the lighter
moments with them as Sam was yelling ‘feel the Bern’ or was it feel the
burn? They hung around to the finish to
make sure I was OK after the race. Jerry
Draeger and MJ were out on the course several times on race day cheering me on
at the swim, bike and run. Best of all
after the race they went to the Monona Terrace and collected my bike and
transition bags so I didn’t need to worry about them. My cousins VJ Scully, Lynne Murry, and Leanne
Scully for making the trip over from Milwaukee to cheer me on during the bike
and run. It was great to see them
several times throughout the day and celebrate with them afterward. A big shout out to Sarah Nechvatal who made
an appearance during the bike through Verona and then, after what I understand
was a rowdy weekend, dragged herself down to the finish line to capture a great
video of me coming across the line. I
also saw Missy Thousand (I think on the bike in Verona) but certainly on the
run down on the lake path, which is a very dark and lonely place, shouting
encouragement to me to get across the line.
Last but not least my beautiful wife Jess, who gave birth just two
months ago and supported my goal for the past 12 months. I know she has been incredibly frustrated
with me over that time for countless number of reasons (related to training)
but she kept it inside and kept me focused on my task. She carried the weight of two parents over
the past couple of months and prior to that managed Camdyn on her own during
several long training days and events.
On race day she was a beacon of positivity and calmness and looked into
my eyes each time I saw her and passed to me her determination and grit to get
to the finish line. Thank you to all
those above and thank you to the many others that cheered from afar and offered
kind words on encouragement and congratulations. There is only one person who crosses the
finish line but there are a team of people that carry them to it!
Race day itself was an adventure like no other this time
around. On the way down to the swim
portion I felt sick and lethargic and actually said to Jess while I was putting
on my wetsuit ‘why the hell am I doing this?’
I’ll say this much, she was not the person to utter that sentence in
front of as the fire that I could see behind her eyes was like no other, even
though her face and words told me ‘you got this’! She and the boys have sacrificed so much to
get me to that point that there was no way she was letting me pack it in right
at that moment. I took her words of
encouragement and headed into Lake Monona.
I again started farthest out from shore up closer to the front of the
pack to try and get a better swim time and get me on my way to a sub 13 hour
finishing goal. Gun goes off and it was
much of the same as before, lots of grabbing, pulling, and bumping but I
enjoyed the physical contact and aggressiveness. It seemed to be a bit more physical than
before and maybe it was because the ‘secret’ of swimming inside the buoy line
was no longer a secret. Finished the 2.4
mile swim in 1:21:40, almost 4 minutes slower than 2014. Not off to a good start in my mind.
The transition to the bike was quick and I was off onto the
course. I heard my support group yell
for me as I left the helix of the Monona Terrace, but was immediately down on
myself as I was behind my goal time already and had 6 hours plus all by myself
on the bike. I got through most of the
first loop and was coming up the last large hill before Verona to where my support
team was setup to cheer. As I came upon
them I saw Jess and my parents had brought both my boys Camdyn and Dawson to
cheer for me. I squeezed Camdyn’s arm as
I rode by and tears came streaming down my face as I rode into Verona. I still had this negative and crappy attitude
to contend with but thought about how difficult it would be to face my kids if
I quit. I heard the voices all day
telling me; “you’ve already done this, why go through the pain again?”, “you’re
already off your time so there’s no point”, “there goes another over-weight or
older person by you on the bike, give it up”…it’s comical now after the fact
how loud the voices were telling me to just stop. As I started my second bike loop I kept
reminding myself there’s your ‘could’ pace and there’s your ‘should’ pace,
meaning I know I could ride harder but I won’t have anything left for the run
so slow down. Too late! I looked down and saw that the first loop
average was 17 mph, I was shooting for 16-16.5 mph to have something left for
the run. So on the second loop I tried
to reign it in a bit but the voices were back telling me “you’ve already burned
your matches, you won’t be able to run”.
The wind picked up on the second loop which made it much more difficult
and by the end my feet and back were killing me so I figured my day was pretty
much shot. I made my way back to Madison
telling myself there’s no way I’m running any of the 26.2 miles so just walk it
as quickly as possible so I can go home.
Finished the 112 mile bike in 6:40:45 going 16.77 mph, which was 12
minutes faster than my goal so I made up some overall time.
After the next transition to my running gear I came out to
start the race and checked that I needed a 10 minute 40 second per mile pace
marathon to come in under my 13 hour goal time.
I immediately saw Jess as I came up to the capital and told her with
tears in my eyes that my legs are toast and “I can’t do this”. Again, she peered into me exuding energy and
light, encouraging me to keep moving forward.
I just kept thinking about the whole 26.2 miles in front of me, which if
any of you have run a distance race before is pretty much the worst thing you
can do, you just need to focus on the next 1 mile, or 100 yards, or ten feet.
As you can tell from this race report, I had some pretty
loud negative voices in my head. Jess
asked me after the fact, why I thought that was and the only thing I can come
up with is that the last two months of my training after Dawson was born, were
totally different from my first 10 or so months and that change threw me off my
game. I found that after Dawson was
born, I made adjustments to my training to get it done whenever the time
allowed so there were several sessions when I was up riding my bike on the
trainer at 2am because I was up with Dawson for the midnight feeding. By no means is this an indictment of Dawson,
I love my chunker, I think my training just took a shift down in priority and
it felt more like taking my medicine after he was born. So that shift lead me to believe I wasn’t
getting in the right amount of work in order to accomplish my goal time so I
felt like I was unprepared at the beginning of the race. My attitude sucked all day, I think I spent
too much time comparing this race to how I felt two years ago the first time I
competed. There’s nothing like the first
time you run a race and it just can’t be replicated so I needed to focus on why
I was doing the race this time around and that was for redemption. I wanted to prove to myself that I was better
than this race and that it wouldn’t put me in the hospital again.
So after I first saw Jess at the start of the run, I said to
myself “just run a mile and see how it feels”, then another and another and I
told myself I’d walk at 6 miles after I got to State St. I saw my support group a few times and like I
mentioned before, Melanie Gray yelled at me to just pick a spot and run to
it. So I kept going until the turn
around to head back to the Capital, once there my quads still weren’t hurting so
I kept pushing to the half way point.
For those unfamiliar, the half way point is back up where the run starts
and you come around the corner to a sign that says ‘Finishers’ with and arrow
to the right, where you can literally see the finish line 100 yards away, and
it also says ‘2nd Loop’ with and arrow to the left…this is a
demoralizing sign to have to face on your first loop. I made the turn with a stutter-step and let
out a loud scream to get my head right. During
my training runs, there was a halfway point on my route where I envisioned the
course halfway point, each time in training I’d make this stutter-step turn
with a little hop and a shout to push forward.
I told myself that every step now is one closer to home and if I can
somehow turn my attitude around and prove to the voices in my head that my
personality is stronger than them, it would be an epic finish. So I started grinding on the second loop and
saw my support team several times, most memorably on the long and steep
Observatory hill. I saw Jess right away
and she ran by my side telling me ‘you are the storm’ and to ‘finish this’,
which is exactly what I needed. At the
bottom of the hill were my parents who I could see were just as tired as I, yet
they were beaming with pride and yelling encouragement. I looped around to the lake side bike path
and the support group was there again screaming at me like it was the first
start of the race, the energy was overwhelming.
There was some serious ‘darkness’ ahead of me at mile 23 running the
slight uphill on the quiet, lonely University Dr, but once I made it to Camp
Randall I knew I was home. I never
looked at my overall pace during the run because I was going pretty much as
fast as I could muster and I figured if I missed my goal then it wasn’t meant
to be as I had nothing left to give. My
GPS watch battery started to fail just before the stadium so I shut it down and
just looked at the time of day and saw it was only 7:30pm meaning I had 30
minutes to make it two miles to make my goal…I’m going to beat this race!
I won’t do it justice trying to explain the feeling of
running up to the Capital towards the finish of an Ironman race. All the hours, conversations, sweat, blood,
commitment, motivation, pride, anger, and pain flashed through my mind as I
came to the final turn to once again face the Finishers/2nd Loop
sign, this time going to the right. I
let out a prideful scream a few times coming down the finishers shoot; I had
done it, I had defeated all the negativity in my head, the voices telling me to
quit. I had gotten my redemption on the
most physical and mental challenge I’ve ever encountered. I ran the 26.2 miles in 4:25:33 at a 10:08/mile
pace which was 9 minutes faster than my goal.
Overall I finished the day at 12:43:10, coming in 17 minutes faster than
my goal and 54 minutes faster than my first Ironman.
