#16. The Longest Day: My unlikely middle-age quest reaches an unexpectedly happy conclusion
Yes, it is possible to enjoy an Ironman triathlon. How weird is that?
Twelve days ago, I became an Ironman.
Do I feel it? Do I believe it? Not quite yet. For now, I feel only wonder and gratitude, a teariness that wells up anytime I review the long road to Ironman—two friggin’ years!—and the day itself.
To say that the race “exceeded my expectations” doesn’t capture the experience, because my expectations were modest. I pictured finishing last if at all, seeing the race course closing as I ran those final meters sometime after midnight, and having difficulty getting my bike out of transition because everyone else would have gone home. And that was my best-case scenario!
The worst case scenario was being picked up by a sag wagon, mid-race, and deposited at the medical tent. My husband was worried enough that he kept pressuring me to seek additional travel/health insurance. I kept telling him that I was covered for the day of the race and after that, I’d hurry home to Canada if my body was in a state of collapse. After the sickness-inducing marathon I ran in Utah a year ago, anything was possible. (Ha! Not what the Ironman folks mean when they put that phrase on posters.)
Instead of a hospitalization or DNF of any kind, I finished strong, well enough to sprint down the finish chute instead of crawl, precisely in the middle of my age group (whaaaat?), in just under fifteen hours, with midnight more than an hour away and plenty of spectators still cheering wildly.
But here’s the astronishing thing. Instead of struggling through the race, I actually enjoyed it—savored it—something I didn’t think was possible during any all-day endurance attempt. My body and mind came through, and so did the people on whom I depended: friends, family, and strangers, too. It’s a wonderful paradox that endurance sports foster and demand self-reliance while at the same time opening our hearts to the truth that we can’t do the biggest, hardest things alone.
But now let me flashback to a year ago, when I couldn’t envision such a fulfilling outcome. At that time, I visited my chiropractor/running doctor due to an upswing in my chronic lower back pain, triggered by hours on the bike, trying to improve faster than my middle-aged body would allow. I told him I was a few months away from my first Ironman—at the time, I was registered for a New Zealand race—and he heard all of my anxieties about not being able to finish and gave me a stern talking-to, saying I had the wrong attitude toward the race, toward my body, even toward my bike, about which I’d made a less-than-loving comment.
“She can hear you!” he shouted at me. (Yes, he meant the bike.)
I was a little upset with my doctor. He is an ultrarunner, about one million times fitter than I will ever be—all wiry strength, explosive energy, and hard-won confidence. Whereas I am short and round in places, and definitely slow, as well as inexperienced.
“It’s just a long, fun day,” he said about a typical Ironman race.
Maybe he said “enjoyable” rather than “fun.” I’m not sure. What he didn’t call it was a “death march,” which is what I was thinking.
The doctor’s lecture left me both shook-up and annoyed. Of course an Ironman isn’t “just” a long, fun day. It isn’t “just” anything. Who was he kidding? And why couldn’t he understand that at my level of fitness then, in November 2022, my chances of completing any of the race legs were very small, and my chance of completing all three legs was smaller yet?
My typical “long bike ride” at the time was only about 30-40 miles, as versus the Ironman’s 112 miles. I’d never cycled outside for longer than about four hours, and due to winter’s approach, opportunities for outdoor rides were diminishing. I had run a marathon a month earlier, but it had been a disaster—the worst marathon of my life. I didn’t really know how to change a flat. I still hadn’t figured out my race-day nutrition strategy. My gut has problems so I worried about that, too; even more so as I awaited a minor medical procedure. Mentally, I started every single training session feeling like I couldn’t finish it, and I had no tricks to get around moments of fear or doubt.
I could picture myself hyperventilating at the starting line or panicking during the swim, collapsing from exhaustion during the bike or quitting in tears on the run. I felt like I’d gotten myself deep into something I couldn’t accomplish but also couldn’t back away from. I was willing to try, anyway, but I didn’t expect my race to be a “long, fun” day. I’d settle for not getting extremely injured.
And then I got COVID, in December. Even though I started training again after about two weeks, and I managed to cycle for three hours outside on my birthday at the end of the month, my Training Peaks fitness number was in the low 40s on January 1. (By comparison as I type this, I’ve done almost no exercise for ten days but my number is close to 100.)
I was forced to withdraw from Ironman New Zealand. It was a costly disappointment. I couldn’t get a refund for the race fee or the two RT air tickets I’d bought. More than $3000 flushed down the drain. Another eight months would pass before I could afford to pay for another Ironman registration, and given our tight family budget, you’d imagine my husband would question the purchase, but he didn’t. Because he knew. This expensive nuisance-of-a-dream wasn’t going away.
If anything, the delay made me more resolute. For all of 2023, I trained like I’d never trained before—finally getting my cycling up to the 6- and 7-hour mark, completing a 112-mile solo ride, mastering my nutrition, logging more swimming and running miles including a fast half-marathon that was close to a personal best, and only in the last two months, working purposefully on training my brain to expect discomfort, to relish hardship, to stay more present-minded at times of difficulty.
You can probably guess why I’m telling you about this. While I’m not glad I got COVID, I’m extremely grateful that I wasn’t able to race in an Ironman before I was ready. Because on November 19, I had the greatest outdoor experience of my life. I had a “long, fun day.” I smiled for nearly all of it. (That’s definitely not an Ironman requirement.)
Darn you, running doc, for being right!
RACE DAY REPORT:
Let me be clear: I made some mistakes in the weeks leading up to the race—like getting a bike-fit at the last minute. (Never…change…anything….close to race day!)
And on race day itself, I did have the typical hiccups. But they felt oddly satisfying—like little tokens I was picking up along the way as proof I was actually doing something hard.
I started the swim feeling a little nervous, as expected, but not as nervous as I felt doing my first 70.3. I chatted with some women next to me and didn’t feel like the one person who didn’t belong. I surprised myself by hustling onto the deck and into the water when it was my turn. After so much waiting, I wanted the test to begin! After the first several buoys, I couldn’t see any of the remaining buoys, because I was swimming too far to the left of them, and I had to sight on a bridge (the finish line) that looked forever away.
At the same time, once I got past a man who was having a panic attack and requiring a rescue (the second time I’ve seen this at the start of an event swim), I was able to center my mind and remember the mental techniques I had practiced. The first half of the swim faces east, and I remembered to appreciate the rising sun glittering on the canal. I was also able to register the fact that the water was actually warm and comfortable. Sure, it was also brown, and I swallowed more than I wanted to, and I nearly swam over a floating dead fish, but there were no waves. If a long swim during which you’re occasionally kicked and hit by other swimmers can be easy, this was easy!
Much to my surprise, I was keeping up with or passing some of the people around me. I kept feeling like my heart rate was too high, and I didn’t feel elegant in the water, but I managed to swim faster, per 100 meters, than I’ve ever been able to swim in a pool. (Which makes no sense at all.) I even paused to wave at family and friends watching from the edge of the canal. Wearing the new contacts I bought for the occasion (what’s a few hundred more dollars when you have spent thousands?), I could see where I was going for the first time in my triathlon life.
In the race pictures I’ve seen of me exiting the swim after 1 hour 38 minutes, as versus my expected two hours, I look about one hundred years old (those goggle marks!) but I’m also beaming. I look like I just walked into a surprise party. That’s how I felt and would keep feeling for the next thirteen-plus hours.
On the bike, which features three loops and a slow incline—a 10-mile-long hill, according to race reports—up Beeline Highway, I found myself waiting for the hill to “start” and laughing to myself because the low grade felt so easy and it certainly wasn’t ten miles long. I’d say the mild grade is notable for four or five miles. The relative ease was my reward for doing all of my hilly island training (*%$!*#!!!), the bane of my existence for the last two years. I always wondered how it would feel to cycle a relatively flat route. As long as the winds aren’t roaring, it feels magnificent!
I remembered to look around and enjoy the cacti and mountain views. I was zealous about monitoring my hydration, salts, and nutrition; when I lost track near the end due to mental fatigue, I erred on the side of consuming more gels, just to be safe. I stopped to use an outhouse only once (four minutes), and made a quick fix to a hissing tire valve (two minutes), and marvelled, as I passed the 100-mile mark, that I have never cycled that many miles without the briefest of stops. And yet I felt less tired than I do on a typical three- or four-hour ride.
A cycling coach once explained to me that you’ll never quite know how a race will feel, because you spend so little time in a “tapered” (unfatigued, ready-to-race) state; I’d been training hard for a year, missing multiple workouts only when I was ill. I didn’t know what my quads could do in a healthy, rested state. I repeated some of my key mantras—trust your body; trust your mind—and spent some giddy time thanking my legs for the great job they were doing. (TMI, included here for every other person who has normal aging problems: I have a nerve/muscle problem in one calf that has withered half of my gastrocnemius; the fact that the other side of the leg has built up to compensate is pretty wonderful.)
I knew the bike would get harder and it did, the winds building up on each successive loop until the final leg back into town was a head-down battle, my speed dropping from my 16-17 mph average down to a laborious 10-12 mph for about an hour. But I’d built up enough of a time reserve by then to accept the wind for what it was—payback for the “easy” first miles.
Instead of resenting the wind, it gave me something to focus on, because deciding when to pass other cyclists—and getting around them quickly enough to avoid a penalty for drafting—was trickier. None of us were going fast by then. I could tell by watching a lot of cyclists in front of me that they were hurting by the way they would stand up at moments, to ease back tension. Logically, my back—the site of my nerve problems—should have hurt as well, because it complains anytime I ride more than three hours, but during the race, it didn’t. I was as surprised by the lack of back pain as I am when our barky dog manages to spend time in the yard without barking.
There was one other niggling problem during the second half of my bike, however. A toe on my right foot went numb and then to flaming, in pain nearly every time I pedaled for fifty miles. I focused on good posture and body mechanics, giving the toe some relief with each upward stroke, and made peace with that little red-hot spike of sensory information. For some strange reason, it didn’t stress me. Pain, when it isn’t dragging a long tail of anxiety behind it, has an abstract quality. I had the vague thought that I might not actually be able to run the marathon at all, but it felt easy to conjure a “wait and see” attitude. After all, I was having a great day. I didn’t want to waste a single moment by worrying.
I’d never felt so strong on the bike in my life, enjoying the fact that I could keep up with the “big boys,” as I thought of them—one lean, tall, muscular man after another, usually in team triathlon suits, riding expensive tri bikes. I’m so used to riding completely alone that it was a real pleasure to have a group to tag along with. Granted, we were still the back-of-the-packers, but these back-of-the-packers looked like pros to me!
Coming into transition, with a changing-tent volunteer ready to help me, we took off the cycling shoe that was hurting my right foot. I expected blood to pour out, or to see proof I’d broken the toe. Instead it was only a little red.
“I’ve seen much worse! You’re fine!” the volunteer proclaimed and help me change quickly, handing me my shorts and an extra dollop of Vaseline to rub under my arms to guard against marathon chafing. (I didn’t think I needed it, but it was so nice to be taken care of!) Once I had the running shoe on, the pain vanished immediately. Another miracle.
For the first four miles of the run, I was actually going too fast; the cycling cadence had conditioned my legs to turn over quickly and to take no breaks. My high heart rate let me know I should settle back, and I did, taking regular breaks (a 7:1 run/walk pattern) and breathing calmly, watching my heart rate settle, after an hour, into a comfortable zone 2.
Around mile eight, what felt ridiculously easy started to feel hard, but expectations helped. Instead of worrying, “Oh, no!” my internal monologue kicked in. “It’s about time—this isn’t supposed to be effortless! This is exactly what you signed up for.”
How happy I was, and how astonished. The list of things not going wrong kept growing. I had no stomach upset, no cramps, no diarrhea, no stitches, no boredom, no gait issues, no back pain, no blisters. Maybe a twinge of knee pain—sure! but it seemed inconsequential. The only negative I can report was feeling profoundly tired of every aid station offering. I’d already had bananas, Gatorade, cola, Red Bull, lots of chicken broth, and more gels than I could count, in three different varieties. The biggest reward I looked forward to was not needing to consume another sickening gel. Still, I gave my gut immense kudos for digesting those carbs so smoothly. Like everything, that was only possible to do with training. (Yes, gut training achieved via practicing using gel and electrolyte drinks during long rides and runs. It matters.)
The course got darker on the far side of the river, the runners more widely spaced, with few spectators around. I was getting close to the “wall,” and wondering if it would appear at mile 20, as it usually does in the marathon, and the answer was: Yes! The fact that I’d also done a long swim and bike didn’t affect the timing at all. Hello, Wall! Time to prove the power of mind-over-matter. I just had to make it to the finish line however I could, even by walking.
The strange thing was, I didn’t really want to walk. Instead, I mostly kept to the 7:1 pattern (seven minute run, 1 minute walk) I started with, adding a few extra walks on any hill, however small, or while passing aid stations, doing my best not to worry about mile markers and shrinking my world (another key mantra) to the section of dark race course I could see ahead of me. The views were still lovely. I enjoyed the canal, which I had now gotten to know from every possible angle, sparkling in the moonlight; the lights of buildings; a fresh desert breeze.
As a plus, I got to spend about a mile chatting with another woman whose pace matched my own. She had lost her goggles entirely during the swim and almost quit the race, pausing at a buoy, with a race rescuer next to her, waiting for the athlete to make up her mind. Then she kept going. Her eyes were still burning from the salty canal water, she told me.
We shared our observations about the people around us: a lot of the men looked weary and dejected, with broken gaits—including a man who volunteered that he was already hours behind his planned finish time of sub-13 hours. How lucky I felt to be ahead of my planned finishing time. The key to happiness is modest expectations!
The women, by contrast, looked strong, focused and fierce. Without intending to further stereotypes, the gender differences were fascinating to witness. The men in my pace group: This sucks, I should have had a better day! The women: I signed up for this shit and by god I am going to finish if it kills me.
My own temporary race partner was a muscular bull of my limited height, chugging along with a swift cadence. Because I do take regular walking breaks—and she didn’t—we finally had to say goodbye around mile 21. (But I did get to hug her just outside the finish line. Yay, Jasmine!)
During those last dark miles, things got a little tougher. That’s when I completely turned off my Garmin watch so that I could still see the clock time but not my pace or distance. It didn’t matter. I kept feeling—and fighting—an excited urge to go a little faster, because a sub-15 finish (impossible? not impossible?) was within my reach.
I reminded myself to Be here now. I felt almost prematurely nostalgic. I can’t pretend I didn’t want to see that finish line, but in another way, I didn’t want the race to end. I felt—and still feel—that I will probably never do a full Ironman again. I spent lots of time trying to store up sense memories and convert moments from the day into life lessons I would hope to remember.
In every half-marathon or marathon I’ve ever run, the final hundreds of meters are terrible. Often, I’ve picked up my pace too quickly, or gotten a sudden stitch. The true finish line seems to retreat, taunting you.
This finish chute, on the other hand, was all too short. One moment, I turned a sharp corner, and suddenly crowds were cheering and blinding lights were in my face. I started sprinting. It felt great. I had expected to cry—just watching videos of other people finish Ironmans often makes me cry. Instead, I couldn’t stop grinning. I completely missed the voices of my family and friends on the left side of the barrier, and I heard but couldn’t fully process the announcer’s voice, saying my name, and calling out those magic words: “You are an Ironman.”
A volunteer touched my shoulder, told me I felt cold, and asked if I was okay. “A little nauseous and dizzy, actually,” I said. “But great. I feel great!” She led me to the recovery area and wrapped me in a foil blanket—one last touch of TLC—and invited me to sit down, but I was too eager to find my personal cheering squad and get back to our AirBnb, even if it meant walking another mile.
I couldn’t believe it was over.
I still can’t.
But I guess I don’t have to call this journey “unlikely” anymore.
A HUGE THANKS to everyone who supported me by reading, subscribing, donating, sending kind messages, helping with training information, and believing in this quest.
Andromeda - I've been thinking of you and eager to read how the race went. CONGRATULATIONS! What a spectacular achievement! I am so impressed with your toughness and perseverance. Thank you for taking us along on this journey. The Ironman parallels so many challenges in life; thank you for the inspiration.
Congratulations! Thank you so much for including us on this long journey! It’s such an amazing accomplishment, and the life lessons you’ve shared will continue to inspire me!