It’s 7 a.m. on Monday, the morning after completing the Milkman Triathlon, a half-Ironman distance race, and my first ever triathlon. I wake up, feeling incredibly sore from the backs of my knees up to my butt, as if I’ve overextended every muscle and ligament on the backside of my body.
“Was it fun?” my wife asked. “Or is fun the wrong word?” she qualified, seeing me search for an honest response.
Nicole knows me too well. When it comes to endurance sports, fun is never exactly the right word, when you’re thinking about how far you are from the end the entire time. But somehow, I’m still addicted to them.
For much of the day, I was consumed with the fear of the Big One, Ironman Wisconsin, coming up in just three short months. I kept thinking, “I feel okay now, but how am I going to feel at double this distance? How will I feel at mile 30 on the bike ride when that’s just over a quarter of the way done?”
The Play-by-Play of My First Triathlon
We woke up at 4:45 a.m. The faint glow of first light behind the curtains made it slightly easier to roll out of bed. I’d prepared checklists for every waypoint during the morning, detailing what to put on or in my body (coffee, breakfast shake, GPS watch, contact lenses) and what to remove (wedding ring, poop) and what prep steps to achieve (mix endurance fuel for bike ride, put bottles on bike, etc.).
Nicole dropped me off at the transition area at 5:50 a.m. I had 40 minutes to get all my gear set, pee one more time, and get numbers drawn on my body (I still don’t get why? They were covered by my wetsuit during the swim, and covered by my sleeves on the bike and the run) before they kicked us out of the transition area. Then I had another hour to get my wetsuit on (it takes me 20 minutes on a good day) and wait around until my wave started the swim.
The Swim: 10 Percent Swamp Thing, 90 Percent Fish
The starting waves were segregated by age and gender. A product of 12 years of summer swim team, I expected that my technique would put me among the top 25 percent of swimmers, but up to this point I could still count all of my open water swim experiences on two hands. I’d heard horror stories about triathlon swim starts — kicking, clawing, and groping all being fair game, evidently — but the waves ahead of me appeared to be relatively civil and courteous.
I took to the water surrounded by around 30 other women aged 39 and under, and worked my way toward the front of the group while we waited for the horn to blow.
With a minute to go, nerves got the best of me. I felt a warm sensation inside my wetsuit and realized I was peeing myself, as if it was an automatic reaction to wading into waist-deep water.
The air horn sounded and I dove forward, swimming hard to position myself in the front of the pack. Three other women got out a bit ahead of me, and soon we had put some distance between ourselves and the rest of our wave. I set my focus on swimming to the first buoy, which was hard to see against the splashes of the swimmers around me and the glinting sunlight off the water.
I swam through weeds that almost reached the surface, thankful for the multiple swims I’ve done in Monona Bay that have prepared me for swimming through heavy vegetation. A few strands of invasive watermilfoil clung to my swim cap, and I tried to find a way to remove them without breaking my rhythm. Surely they would slow me down, right? Or should I embrace the Swamp Thing aesthetic?
I was soon past the first buoy, and focused on the next one, trying to remember how many buoys I’d counted from the shore. Was it six or seven? Ah well, just keep swimming.
By the third buoy, I was overtaking swimmers from previous waves. I did my best to avoid them, more often choosing to swim wide around them and reorient toward the next buoy instead of threading the needle.
“This isn’t a walk in the park, but it’s not too bad,” I told myself. The water was smooth, and the further away from shore we got, the fewer weeds we encountered.
Then we hit the first turn, and the water got much choppier. I struggled to stay oriented toward the buoy, constantly finding myself listing to the right when I lifted my head to sight the next buoy. Swimmers from the previous waves clogged the channel ahead, and I accidentally groped someone’s butt in the murky water. I would have to pay closer attention to the swimmers around me.
“I’ll see you again on the bike,” I thought upon passing each swimmer, knowing my swimming prowess would do very little to boost me in the overall race results.
We turned back toward shore after two quick buoys, where I thought the wind might calm down, but the water stayed choppy for the return leg. However, it became a little easier to stay on the right heading. The weeds reappeared with two buoys to go, tickling my fingers and wrapping around my shoulders, but I shook them off.
I passed the last buoy and picked up speed as I headed for the boat ramp, egged on by the cheering crowd. I didn’t stop swimming until my hand grazed the ramp, and I realized it was time to walk. I stood up and lurched up the ramp as my inner ear readjusted to being upright. I completed the swim in 39:12.
Volunteer wetsuit strippers were waiting just beyond the boat launch. As a pair they gripped the collar of my wetsuit and pulled down together, freeing my torso. My Garmin put up a fight with the end of the sleeve, but it slipped out with another tug. I hoped the abrasion of the watch hadn’t ripped another hole in the delicate outer layer of the wetsuit, which I had already put four holes in during the two previous times I’d worn it.
“Sit on the grass!” the volunteers instructed. “Lift up your legs!” I did as I was told. “One, two, three!” with a yank, my legs were free as well. I draped the wetsuit over my shoulder and jogged toward the transition area.
Triathlons require a mind boggling amount of gear, and I’ve tried to find used gear as much as possible. One piece of gear I’d neglected to acquire was a trisuit, the zip-up one-piece that offers a slim chamois for biking and convenient lumbar pockets for energy gels. Instead, I wore spandex compression underwear and a sports bra under the wetsuit, and donned my regular bike shorts and bike jersey for the ride. I would have to change once again into running shorts, but since this was ultimately just a training day, and not my goal race, I didn’t mind the added time in transition. Still, my outfit marked me as a novice.
I checked my phone to ensure I’d packed everything I would need for the ride (energy gels, emergency bike pump, phone), and jogged out of transition with my bike.
The Bike: Battling the Wicked Wind from the West
The swim hadn’t taken much out of me, so I started out pretty fast on the bike. Despite navigating some tricky turns on the bike path for the first few miles, my first 5-mile lap came out at 17 minutes and 30 seconds, a pace that would have been record setting for me. I wondered if I’d be able to sustain that for the whole 56 miles, aided by adrenaline and the traffic controllers, or if I was setting myself up to bonk hard in the second half.
Around Mile 6 my inner thighs began to feel tender and achy — like they were being asked to contribute too much to the effort. I tried out several posture variations to redistribute the strain, worrying about the 50 miles ahead. I still hadn’t gotten a chance to get my bike fitted, and I suspected that was contributing to this new pain.
As I’d expected, dozens of athletes passed me during those first 15 miles on the bike, including friends who started in the final wave 10 minutes after me. I tried to put my head down to focus on my own goals, my own race, but as bike after bike zoomed past me, I wondered if I was underachieving on the bike.
My second 5-mile lap clocked in at 19:03. Slower than the first, and much closer to my typical training pace. As long as I was averaging at or below 20 minutes per lap, I would be faster than the required pace for Ironman, so I wasn’t too worried.
A few miles before I hit the 15 mile mark on the out-and-back course, a biker passed me on his return route. He was almost 30 miles ahead of me. As a member of the elite wave, he’d had a 27-minute head start on me, but I was still shocked by his pace.
I bypassed the first aid station at mile 13.5, and sucked down one of my Maurten gels at 15 miles, looking forward to seeing Nicole cheering for me around 25 miles in. Despite biking directly into a fierce headwind from the west, my inner thighs weren’t bothering me anymore, and I was feeling confident in finishing the ride with gas in the tank for the run.
Around Mile 27, I was grinding against the headwind on a slight incline before a hard left turn. Looking up, I saw a long line of bikers on the horizon riding much slower than me on what looked like another gradual incline. But the slow pace of the bikers warned me that looks were probably deceiving. Was that Observatory Hill? I hadn’t studied the course as well as I probably should have, but I’d heard plenty of complaints about this hill.
I hit the turn, and noticed the street sign. Observatory Drive. Here we go. I switched to my lowest gear and prepared to grind it out. One athlete was already walking. I pushed along, passing a few other athletes, waiting for the pain.
A few weeks prior, Nicole and I had done a training ride in Spring Green, where empty dairy roads took us up and over high ridges and back down into deep hollers. Those climbs had been fierce, both steep and long, requiring me to dig deep to make it to the top without walking. But Observatory was just long, never that steep. I crested the hill and spotted a photographer. Of course they would station someone at the top of the hardest climb on the course. I pasted a big smile on my face, knowing that anything less than a crazed grin in race photos makes me look constipated, confused, or both.
The pavement at the top of the hill was decorated with dozens of encouraging graffiti tags. It looked permanent, a testament to many years of this race navigating the same course through the Sugar River Valley.
I geared up for the long downhill and held on tight as my speed reached 37 miles per hour. I’ve gone faster than that on a snowboard, which is kind of insane if I let myself think about it. Still, I tried not to think about the damage a crash on pavement would do.
Finally, the course turned back east. Time to milk that tailwind. I clocked a hilly 5-mile lap in 18 minutes, then a flatter one in 16 minutes, a personal best up to that point. I was all smiles on the second Nicole sighting, knowing the big climb was behind me.
When the course turned back north for the final 15 miles, I started thinking about how to prepare for the run. Stay relaxed, like you’re biking to a half marathon. Because you are. I was also getting very hungry, and wondering if my gels would be enough to soothe the rumbling. Two of the run aid stations were supposed to be stocked with oranges, bananas, and pretzels. Solid food hasn’t always been my stomach’s best friend on race day, but I would have to risk it.
The last two miles were congested with non-racers, reminding me that this was just another beautiful summer day for most of Madison. I coasted into the dismount line for an official bike time of 3:35:28 — a solid performance for me and a comfortable buffer for my Ironman prospects (double it and you’re just over 7 hours and 10 minutes, giving me 50 minutes of wiggle room for the official bike cutoff of 8 hours, plus a little more since I hope to finish the swim at least 45 minutes before the cutoff). I jogged on wobbly legs back into the transition area. Costume change, potty break, and back at it.
The Run: How Far Can One Banana Take You?
The clock read 11:58 a.m. as I started the final leg, hoping for a finish right at or before 2 p.m. It was just my legs against 13.1 miles of pavement under a blazing hot sun. No friendly neoprene to keep me afloat, no carbon fiber engineering to smooth my ride. I suppose they save the run for last because it’s the least dangerous, but it’s also the most taxing. I would need every bit of the energy I’d conserved up to that point to finish.
I took a greedy pull of water from my handheld water bottle, and nearly spit it out. Sitting on my towel in the hot sun, it had heated up to at least body temperature, if not more. Luckily, I knew I wouldn’t have to wait long to get cold water, with aid stations spaced just two miles apart throughout the course.
My legs felt surprisingly strong starting out. My five minute transition had worked through a lot of the immediate stiffness from the bike ride. My first mile of the run came in at 9:06, about 30 seconds faster than I intended. I have a habit of starting out every run too fast, and it seems I haven’t broken it yet. By mile 2, the fatigue began to set in, but my experience racing much longer distances was coming in handy. I was once again passing athletes, even as my legs ached.
The third aid station offered up the promised orange slices and bananas, and I took one of each. Like my water bottle, they’d been soaking up the sun for hours. “Nothing like a hot banana on a sunny day!” I said to another athlete as I slurped it down. With a little imagination, I could almost pretend it was a bananas foster sundae, just minus the ice cream.
After the halfway point, my stomach began to grumble again. I’d taken in two of four Maurten gels, but they weren’t satisfying my hunger. The orange slice triggered a series of citrusy burps, so I didn’t think I’d risk another, but a banana — even a hot one — seemed like a safe choice. I started salivating as I approached the next aid station. But alas, they had no food! I thought I’d misremembered which aid stations would have food. Next one, surely. But no, there was no more food on the rest of the course — whether due to a miscommunication by the race directors or the excessive appetites of the athletes before me, I’ll never know.
Just before mile 10, I crossed the Yahara River. Stomach growling, legs aching, heart rate rising, I was sorely in need of encouragement. I rounded the corner and a group of people erupted in cheers. My friends! Taking a break from the nearby neighborhood music festival to lift my spirits. Their excitement spurred me on for another mile, cresting the final hill on the isthmus before hitting the long flat stretch of John Nolen Drive. Two miles to go, and I could see the grassy hill of Olin Park, where the finish line waited for me, way across the lake. The bike path was congested with walkers, runners, and bikers, a few who passed me dangerously closely as they weaved through the crowds. I reminded myself not to be that person in the future, when I’m trying to squeeze in a bike workout around town.
Mile 12.5. So close. I found a hidden cache of energy and passed two women on a small out and back. Then I passed a man as we raced back across the boat launch toward the finish corral. Nicole’s smiling face pulled me up the final hill and I crossed the finish line in 6:32:37.
The Aftermath
I filled my belly with all the food my bib ticket entitled me to in the finish line party, fighting to replenish myself before GI distress hit. For me, the real pain of endurance races often comes after I stop moving, yet I never can quite remember that when I’m looking forward to that finish line feeling.
It took about an hour of lying on my back at the finish line party before I was ready to gather my stuff and hobble to the car, and then at home I curled up on a towel in the bathroom for another 45 minutes, waiting for my body to decide which end it wanted to expel the contents of my stomach from.
Finally, the nausea passed, and I made my way to the couch to pore over my splits and revel in the accomplishment. My main goal for the day had been to conserve my energy throughout the swim and bike to ensure a solid run performance, and I’d achieved that. The nausea was an indication that I fell behind on nutrition and hydration, so I’ll need to make a lot of tweaks to my nutrition plan for the full Ironman.
If this had been the Big One, I’d probably have already started asking myself what’s next, while simultaneously panicking about all the overdue house projects. But in this case, I already know what’s next. I’d already committed to it nine months before starting this one. And when I signed up, 140.6 miles was just a number. Now, it was much more tangible. All I could think was, what have I gotten myself into?
At least I have three more months before I have to tackle all those house projects.