Cal.E is depressed because all her favorite football teams, both college and pro, lost this week. She would not answer her phone, so I will just go straight to chapter twenty-four of “Beyond the Thirteenth Mile; The Iron Man Chronicles.
CHAPTER 24:
THE SEASON
Run course; Last aid station: I am almost to mile twenty-three, where the going REALLY gets tough. I need to find some chicken soup at this aid station (again). The salt in it will help me replenish my electrolytes and finish the race strong (or at all). This has been a hard season, but I am proud of myself for getting this far. I cannot give up now, no matter how nauseated and tired I feel. I am almost there, almost there, almost there...
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The season, my fourth in terms of participating in triathlons wasn't going as well as I'd hoped. While I had hoped to finish in the top ten in my division at least once, the best that I could muster was to finish in the top twenty-three times. I finished seventeenth twice, and fourteenth once. While these are not bad finishes, I had hoped that this would be my “break-out season," since it was only my second one that was almost completely injury-free. The year before, I had set personal records on every course on which I competed. The first half of the season had gone rather smoothly, with strong finishes in both the one-half-IronMan distance triathlon and the first sprint that I attempted. My third race, though, was a huge disappointment. With it being on my favorite course, the one where I had begun my career as a triathlete, I thought that my fastest time ever was attainable. That time, I thought, should put me in the top ten in my division, a first for me in terms of competing in triathlons.
The best-laid plans of mice and men, however, are often made in vain. It took me five minutes longer to finish this course than I believed myself capable of doing, mainly the results of two slow transitions. In a long race, five minutes isn't that much, but, in a sprint, five minutes is an eternity. Most of my times were slightly slower than the year before.
For some reason unknown to me still, my allergies had decided to come back with a vengeance during the summer months, and they were becoming a real problem. They seemed to surface at the most inopportune of times. This was usually in the course of a race or a run. I wondered if my slower times were due to my allergies, or were they due to over-training, or perhaps under-training? The proof, I knew, would reveal itself at Cinco Ranch.
Cinco Ranch was declared the club championship course that year. This is the one at which all triathlon clubs try to have the most members. My club was the host this year. That would ensure a minimum of one thousand participants, most of whom would be seasoned veterans.
The week before Cinco Ranch was a busy one, as are most weeks, months, and years in most of our lives. I felt fine the day of the race, but the usual nervous energy was missing. That is, until the start of the swim. Going against both my coaching and my better judgment, I dove into the middle of my swim wave, in the dead center. After being kicked in the head repeatedly, I inhaled several mouthfuls of the murky water, setting a gag-reflex action in order. This, in turn, set off an allergy attack, and I was in dire straits.
Although my body and brain were in a panic mode, experience and coaching took over. Heeding my swimming coach's words, I turned on my back to breathe, all the while keeping an eye on the familiar markers along the way. When I spotted the one that I was looking for, I headed to the side of the pond and, with my feet, located my salvation. There is a shelf about one-half of the way through the swim on one side, and it was that shelf, which a volunteer had kindly pointed out to me, that had practically saved my life three years before, the first time that I attempted this race. It was that same shelf on which I now stood, catching my breath but always, always moving forward, as I had been trained to do. I was extremely winded by the end of the swim, and behind my goal by about two minutes.
Nicole and I both thought that I could make that time upon the bike leg, as she stood on the sidelines, shouting words of both encouragement and concern.
I did pass at least five of the participants in my category on the bike leg, and about 35
more who weren't in my category. With a 10 mile-per-hour crosswind blowing, though, I couldn't quite reach my goal of averaging 22 m.p.h. That left me needing to run three miles in under 25 minutes to meet my goal, something that I had never done at the "energy lab III.”
I set off at a comfortable pace, and promptly got passed by three competitors in my division. I had passed all three on the bike. I let the first two disappear out of my sight, knowing that I had no chance of catching either of them. The third one I decided to pace on, reasoning that I would go into my trademark sprint and pass him at the finish line. I did pace on this runner for 2.99 miles, going into my trademark sprint where I had sprained my ankle three years before, and crossed “under the wire” in one hour, thirty-two minutes and thirty seconds, or about thirty seconds after my "rabbit" crossed the finish line.
I averaged my usual 9-minute pace on the run, even though I thought that I had run a little faster this year. Everyone that I talked to, however, had a one-word description for the run course on this hot, humid August day in southeast Texas - brutal. No, I didn't finish in the top twenty in this race; I barely made it into the top forty, finishing thirty-ninth. Since my division had over 90 competitors, that put me in the top 40%. That wasn't too bad, until you stop and consider that 25% of the competitors are doing the race “just for fun," and just as many more probably had either flats or some other physical problems. In so many words, I only finished ahead of about 5% of the "competitors" in my division, not exactly where I wanted to be!
There is a reason why competitive athletes keep a training journal. It is to figure out what we are doing, both right and wrong. At this time, I turned to mine. My one thought when I did this was, “When did I have time to do all of this?!”
Sometimes, hobbies can be a relief from day-to-day life. But if you must work until midnight on Friday, just so you will be able to get in 18 holes of golf on Saturday, then, chances are, you won't enjoy your golf game very much. Since both of my knees, my right shoulder, and left foot were beginning to develop a case of tendonitis, I decided to take a rest to allow them all to heal. The tendonitis in my knees, foot and shoulder didn't subside with rest, but life goes on. There are times, however, when I truly wish that I could make time standstill. This season was one of those times. I am not referring to the triathlon season now, but rather, this particular season of my life.
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I've heard old-timers say that bad things come in groups of three. I don't know where this saying originated, but I could only hope that it was true during this season of my life.
My whole family was looking forward to a joyous occasion that was set to occur - the birth of my parent's first great-grandchild. She decided to make her appearance a little early. As a result, she had a brief stay in the hospital. The night that my niece (who was a registered nurse at the time) brought her home, she stopped breathing and passed away in her sleep. She was only eleven days old. Not even the most gruesome of scenes from a William Faulkner movie could have compared to the sight of my niece's husband carrying the casket of his infant daughter to her tiny grave.
This happened just five days after another member of my family, tragically and unexplainably, decided to take his own life. Why anyone would choose to do this is a mystery to me, just as why someone would choose to fly an airplane into the side of a building, killing thousands of others along with him, is also a mystery to me, as it is to most people. This all happened less than a month after Nicole's grandfather passed away from complications of Alzheimer's disease.
Suicide and suicide bombings are not easy to understand, but they, at least, are based on a decision that someone made. An infant's death is never easy to explain or understand. Hailey's funeral did, however, put my next race into proper perspective.
At this one, I didn't let trivial things such as people lying about their swim times to get a better seed (in a seeded pool swim) or others drafting on the bike leg bother me. I did, however, dedicate the race to Hailey's memory. I stenciled her initials to the base of my running shoes to remind me of her. On the back of my race number, I wrote part of a Bible verse that the minister had read at her funeral. Every time I felt like pulling up, I reminded myself "it's for Hailey." This, however, like the tears at her funeral (as well as after) didn't seem to be nearly enough to express my grief. Somehow, tears don't seem to begin to cover the amount of grief that I felt at the loss of a child. I don't know that I will ever look at a child quite the same way again.
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