My Journey To Ironman

It is Sunday, November 22nd, 2009, 6:59am and I am floating in the 60 degree water of the Tempe Towne Lake in Tempe, Arizona, along with 2400 other anxious, freezing, elated and determined athletes. Mike Reilly, the official "voice" of Ironman, is telling the massive, cheering crowd they are about to see one of the most incredible images in sport: The mass swim start of an Ironman competition. Treading water, I can see the faces of the people standing along the bank. They are friends, family, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, possibly even strangers, yet they are all standing on the shore this morning for one reason: to support someone floating in that water that has a dream. A dream to carry their body, their mind, their soul, 140.6 miles, all under their own power, in a single day. Participants will swim 2.4 miles, then bike 112 miles, and finally, run 26.2 miles. And in doing so, maybe discover a little bit about themselves, and what they are made of. As I tread water, I remember back to this day one year ago when I was one of those spectators at this very race. Standing on the lake’s edge, wondering what it would be like to be in that water. Wondering what it would feel like to have such a seemingly overwhelming task before me. Wondering if I had what it takes. I remember being hopeful. I was certainly nervous. Mostly I was warm! Hard to imagine that was just 12 months ago, and only 4 months before that when I had done my very first triathlon. Yet here I was, bobbing in the water with a helicopter hovering overhead, tears welling up in my eyes, trying to flood my goggles before the race even started. Then suddenly… "BOOM!" The cannon (yes they actually use a cannon) fired and in an instant my calm, serene environment was transformed into a human washing machine. The Ironman had begun!

Of the three sports that make up triathlon, swimming is definitely my weakest. It is an accomplishment just to cover the Ironman swim distance, let alone do it in a lane about 50 yards wide with 2400 other swimmers all vying for their positions. Trying to keep one’s cool in a seemingly endless sea of flailing arms and legs and splashing water, often times all coming together right on your head or face or even worse your goggles, is a task that I have thus far been unable to master. If you are unfortunate enough to get pushed under the surface, it is like falling through a hole in the ice as you try and search for a small spot of light in the sea of bodies to break through to the surface. Unlike many long distance swim courses that are swum in loops, this course was a simple out and back. This makes the task of sighting where you are going somewhat easier, but it makes it impossible to hide from your consciousness the shear distance to be covered. I was not, however, participating in this event without a plan. The fact was, I have spent an entire year developing, preparing, and fine tuning my race plan for this very day. And the plan for part one was simple, survive the swim by staying out of the way. I had taken a conservative position behind to start line and towards the outside, trying to keep my body out of the path of the faster swimmers. I learned, though, that there is no hiding from the chaos. I had developed a mantra to help stay focused on the task and not the situation. "Long and lean" I kept repeating to myself. This was to remind me to keep my body long, as a long vessel meets less resistance. The pure adrenaline of the start had my heart racing above where it should have been for a race pace, but soon I found myself well into the course. Despite the fact I was getting bumped around like a cue ball on a pool table, I managed to convince myself the best thing to do was just keep moving. "Long and lean, long and lean" I kept thinking, and before I knew it, I was at the turn around. Of course, the reason I knew this was not because of my highly efficient spotting. No, it was because I had become oblivious to my position and while I was swimming straight, 2399 other swimmers were trying to turn left, and apparently I was creating an obstruction to that. So much for sighting! I had made it half way through this swim, and started to think I might just make this after all. I was no longer cold, no longer afraid, and it was all I could do to keep from giggling.

I had heard that after the mass start, things start to spread out a little and you can actually find some "open water" to swim without getting tangled up with other swimmers. This basic principal generally holds true except for at the turn bouys. Here, just like at the start, you have every swimmer trying to occupy the same space in the sake of not making their swim any longer than it has to be. I became a victim of my positioning as I had "drifted" towards the inside of the lane as the swimmers spread out, and now all of the outside swimmers were trying to take their left turn and I was forced to go with the flow and resume my fight to stay on the surface. This brought back some temporary panic, but with "long and lean" playing over and over in my head, I made the turn and so far had survived two attacks on my goggles (that resulted in some flooding that I was able to clear). Much better than some souls, including the woman who had her goggles knocked completely off of her head only to have them vanish in the sea of swimmers (I don’t know what ever happened to her day). I could hardly believe it, I was over half way done with the swim and feeling strong. The other unique aspect of this swim, being a long, linear course, is that there were spectators within view the entire time. The cheering of the crowd never left your ears. As I approached the bridge I would be swimming under just before making my final turn to exit the water, the roar of the supporters was deafening. There were moments during the day when I would become so overwhelmed with the emotion, it was almost paralyzing. This was one of those moments. I made my final turn, and before I knew it I was being plucked out of the water, guided up the stairs and in a flash my wetsuit was striped off of me and somebody was directing me to my transition bag to prepare for the longest event of the day, the bike course. Time in the water, one hour and 25 minutes. That time wouldn’t smash any records, but the swim was done. I had survived!

Perhaps you recall me commenting on the water temperature earlier. Well let me just say an hour and a half in 60 degree water has a way of making body parts go numb. Now, swimming in a wetsuit with numb extremities isn’t really so hard. Walking, however, is a completely different story. And trying to do anything that required fine motor control (like putting on cycling shoes), forget about it! As I was shuffled forward through the transition area, somehow my bike bag showed up in my hands and I was being directed into the men’s changing tent. Imagine a locker room the size of a warehouse, only without lockers and packed shoulder to shoulder with bodies. It was like a Wal-Mart on the weekend. On Christmas Eve. There were people in various states of dress everywhere. One thing about triathletes, they are not modest, at least not on race day! Not being able to find any space in the tent, I just sat down at the entrance and somehow managed to get my cycling shoes on. I fumbled with this task for what FELT like minutes, even though all I had to do was secure two pieces of Velcro! Next my race belt, helmet, and sunglasses, and I was running down the enormous bike rack area. The volunteers were calling out my number as I ran towards my bike, and by the time I got to my aisle my bike was waiting for me.

Through the bike chute I went, clipped in and I was off. Again cycling down a corridor lined with so many people shouting so enthusiastically I imagine that must be what it feels like walking down the red carpet at the academy awards. My heart was racing again, way above where I wanted it to be. I had survived my weakest event, but had to avoid the temptation to try and "make up" lost time by going out to fast and hard on the bike. I got into my tuck and focused on a smooth, steady cadence. The plan for this leg was to keep my heart rate for the first two laps of a three lap course within a very tight range, all the while focusing on my nutrition (considered by many the "fourth" event of the Ironman). My tempo was to be dictated by my heart rate, and it meant letting many riders pass me. The mental game begins! The course was essentially an out and back, meaning we rode out to some spot in the dessert and turned around and came back. The route was essentially uphill almost the entire way out, then a downhill heading back. This made the beginning of each lap painfully slow. And talk about brutal wind. It would gust so hard you had to be sure to take a wide berth when passing because you never knew when a rider was going to be blown off of their line. At some point in the ride I passed Rudy, the double amputee who had attempted the World Championship Ironman race in Kona just a month before but didn’t make the bike cut off. He was looking strong. I shouted out some encouraging words and continued. This would be the longest event of the day, and the hours were spent performing a series of small tasks: check heart rate, sip water, sip Gatorade, eat shot block, check heart rate, repeat. The monotony would be broken up every once and awhile when I would pass an aide station and the focus then turned to the art of trying to grab a water bottle from a volunteer without stopping and without dropping it (and potentially hitting the riders behind you!). Three bottles of fluid an hour at a 50:50 Gatorade to water ratio was the goal. Luckily, despite this being a completely exposed course and not a cloud in the sky, the temperature was relatively mild (mid 70’s) and the wind blowing so fiercely it was keeping my core temperature fairly cool. I must have been doing a good job drinking, because at some point during the second lap it became clear that I was going to have to stop for a bathroom break. I struggled with this, not wanting to waste precious minutes, but in the end my body was telling me that stopping was not optional. So now the trick would be to find the least crowded station to stop. People may be tempted to use "mother nature’s" toilet, but the race directors made it very clear there would be zero tolerance for this, anyone caught doing it would be immediately disqualified. Besides, unless you were thinner than a cactus (clearly NOT me), there was no place to "discretely" perform the call of nature.

I rolled into an aid station that seemed fairly well staffed but with light traffic and with 4 port-a-potties. They had bike racks set up and it appeared there was only one bike on the rack, so I decided this was it. I grabbed my fluids as I rolled through the station (the port-a-potties being at the far end) and finally rolled to a stop. Or rather, mashed on my brakes and screeched to a halt, as apparently my frozen brain had thrown off my ability to judge distances. For the first time since the cannon went off, I was not moving. This was an odd feeling, and for some reason my body didn’t react well to it. The most basic task;, that of unclipping a bike shoe from a pedal, had become beyond my ability, and over I started to tumble. Luckily, a volunteer (man the volunteers were great) was right there, and caught me be before I tipped beyond the point of no return. Time seemed to be running in slow motion again, like those scenes in a movie where somebody is running down a hallway but the hallway keeps getting longer. By the time I was finally standing free of my bike, enough traffic had moved in and now all the toilets were occupied. I waited my turn, and once I was finally standing inside my plastic sanctuary, I realized there was ONE thing that I had not practiced, and that was taking off a one piece race suit, complete with race belt and loaded with gear, in a very cramped port-a-pottie. It was not pretty, and I will spare you any more detail than that. Eventually I was rolling again, hoping that was the last time I would need to do that!

Back out on the course the hours rolled by. The sun rose, passed overhead, and started setting on the other side. I had stuck to my race plan fairly well, and now on the final lap that called for a slightly higher heart rate allotment. My lower back was on fire from hours spent leaning over my aerobars, but otherwise I was feeling strong. My training coach called this third lap that of "joyous restraint." Joyous because I would be so happy it was the last one but had to show restraint to myself from getting overzealous and finishing to hard, as I still had a very long run ahead of me. Making the final turnout in the dessert and heading back into town on that downhill, I had another one of those nearly paralyzing emotional moments. The last half of the last lap of the Ironman bike course. Oh yeah! My bike was performing beautifully, and fortunately I had not had the misfortune of any flat tires (unlike many others out there), which was good because I was only carrying one spare! I passed the bike special needs station (a place where you could stop and pick up any items you though you might need and had the foresight to pack and for me contained only an extra spare tire and some CO2 cartridges) for the last time, and rolled back into town with a grin I am sure must have been from ear to ear. I rolled down the bike finishing chute with the thunderous roar of the crowd deafening out my body’s complaints of pain and fatigue, and managed an uneventful dismount. A volunteer was there to whisk my bike away and again I found myself being directed through the transition to my running gear. Total time on bike 5:45:24 with a 19.46 mph average, which moved me up 712 places in the overall standings. I’ll take that!

My final transition was going pretty smoothly. With my running gear bag in hand, I again found a spot outside of the changing tent (luckily I didn’t need to change my clothes) and changed from my cleated cycling shoes to my cushioned running shoes. Replacing helmet for runners hat, I was on my way, or so I thought. As I prepared to enter the run course, an official caught me at the last second and said I needed to move my race number to the front, as it was still on my back from the bike. Okay, that shouldn’t be a problem as I was wearing my number on a race belt, the very purpose of which is to simply those sorts of adjustments. I was standing right in front of the run start timing mat, and went to give my race belt a 180 degree rotation. But wait, my belt isn’t turning. What’s going on. Precious seconds tick by. My race belt has somehow become intertwined with a fuel belt I was wearing. I try and force it, and next thing I know my race number is floating to the ground. I grab it before touchdown, and now have to reattach it to my belt that that I have properly positioned. God how long have I been standing here? It seems like 5 minutes already. Again I feel like I trying to move down that elongating hallway. Finally my number and belt are one again, and the official yells I can go. Not the way I wanted to start the run, but I guess it wasn’t as bad as it felt, as my T2 time (total time from off my bike to starting run) was 3:44. Not bad for an Ironman transition.

This was it, the final event. But, for many, the most difficult. My entire race plan, the conservative swim, the restrained bike, was all designed to set me up for a strong finish on the run. It is amazing the ripple effect that going out too hard too early in the day can have. An athlete on the bike might push really hard to finish their bike 20 minutes faster, but the cost of that extra effort may be the difference between running a 9 minute mile vs a 12 minute mile, or even having to walk! Not such a good tradeoff when that 20 minutes on the bike costs you an hour or more on the run. This course, again being very spectator friendly, would take runners through three loops, all centered right around the main transition area. This was going to take some mental toughness, because three times you had to run right past the turn off for the finish line. There was a sign: lap 1, 2, and 3 to the right, finishers to the left. You could look right down the finish area as you ran by. I was going to try and treat this as just three simple 8+ mile runs. I had stuck to my nutrition plan to the tee on the bike, and the plan for the run as equally calculated. There were aide stations set up basically every mile, so I was to WALK through every other aide station to be sure I got down an entire cup of water and Gatorade every two miles. It was hard to hold back and make myself walk, at least early on, but important because if you have ever tried to drink out of a cup while running you know usually about half of it ends up on your clothes rather than your mouth. They were offering lots of snacks, pretzels, bananas, orange wedges, candy. I passed on all of it and stuck to the fluids and one gel each hour. Now that I didn’t have that strong wind that was present during the bike, I could feel my temperature rising. Luckily they offered cold sponges each mile, and I figured out I could stuff those in various places in my race suit. They also had cups of ice, which I would happily take and dump right into my race suit. My pace goal was to try and maintain an 8:45 minute mile pace the first two laps, being sure that my heart rate stayed below 150. I was able to stick to that plan for the first loop, but I found myself growing incredibly fatigued. Thankfully, there were several people that were there to support me. Karen had volunteered at a running aide station that was at the first mile of each loop, and gave me water each time I passed. My friend Aaron was there as well and would show up at various places along the route with encouraging words on my progress. I ran past my dad a few times, and my mom had volunteered at finisher’s medals, and I knew she was standing there waiting for me with that medal in her hand. Also, all my friends from back home, and all across the country. They would all be watching, waiting for an update, and for all of them I did not want to stop!

On the second loop it got even harder to maintain my pace. I was doing fine with my heart rate goals, but it seemed my body just was running out of gas. I would try and demand more, but I kept hearing Scotty’s voice from Star Trek talking to me, "Capt’n I’m given ya all she’s got." My pace was slowing by about 30 seconds a mile each loop. I’m sure un-intentionally but what seemed like a cruel joke at the time, they had mile markers set up for people on their last lap, so even though I was only just past mile one, then just past mile 8, I kept passing a sign that said mile 18. The second time I passed that sign I think I might have literally yelled at the sign "I’m coming for ya" and gave it the one finger salute. I am not sure; I think I was a little delirious at that point. I started setting small goals to keep me going. The first was I really wanted to be started on my last lap before dark. I again passed my friend Aaron, and then my Dad, somewhere towards the end of the second loop. I was noticing all around me more and more athletes were walking, yet some how, inexplicably, I was still running. For the last time of the day, I stayed to the right of the finishers sign and entered my third and final lap.

Somehow the last lap of the last event did not greet me with the same elation as the last lap of the bike course. However, there were some small victories I was able to savor. One was that this time when I passed the mile 18 sign, it was for real! That sign that had been taunting me like a mortal enemy now became a welcomed friend. The other, it was still daylight! Goal accomplished. The course was more crowded now, as everyone who was going to make the bike to run transition had done so. It seemed as if athletes were littered all over the course. Some walking. Some shuffling. Some Sitting. Some were even puking. Very few, however, were running. Yet here I was. Sometime during that lap, the sun finally gave way to the desert darkness, and the best part about that was the chicken broth! It seems that the aid stations save this special treat for those athletes lucky enough to still be on the course at night, and let me tell you, you’ve never had anything taste as good as a warm cup of chicken broth on the third and final loop of an Ironman marathon. Those poor professionals, finishing there races in 8 or 9 hours… They will never know what they are missing! In the dark, I really had to stay focused on where I was going. I could just see it, 2 miles from the finish line and I end up spraining my ankle (or worse). I heard somebody from the darkness yell "go big guy!" My feet were throbbing and my quads were on fire, but I was getting close. Just make it to the next aide station I would tell myself. It was getting harder and harder to stomach any fluids at this point. At mile 24 I could barely get down a full cup, and I felt like if I put one more thing in my stomach I would loose it all. I was aware that I was on a pace to break a 12 hour finish, but now was thinking I could maybe even break 11 and a half hours! I turned back onto the trail beside the very lake this amazing day had started in, and thought back to when I was in that water. My God did that seem like forever ago. I approached the mile 25 aid station, and it was almost inconceivable for me to think this would be the last time. I had developed my little aid station routine of first throwing down then grabbing new cold sponges to put under my shoulder straps and under my hat. Next a cup of ice to dump into my suite. Finally, the cup of water and cup of Gatorade. It was actually quite a lot of business to take care in the short distance these stations were spread over. I decided I was done with the nutrition part of the day, and in an act of defiance, rather than walk through I picked up my pace for my final "sprint" to the finish.

For the first time of the day, I found myself thinking about how close to being done I actually was. Then it finally hit me… I was going to finish. I wanted to be careful and not jinx myself, a mile is still plenty of time for some misfortunate accident to happen. A bad step on the loose gravel, or maybe a spectator making a poorly timed dash across the pathway, and I could find myself with a day ending injury. But as I got closer, I could begin hear the voice of Mike Reilly in the distance "Joe Smith, You are an Ironman." Soon he would be calling my name. My pace quickened. The crowd grew thicker yet, almost engulfing the running path. Yet, magically, as I moved forward, the crowd would part for me to pass, as if I were carrying a stone tablet in each arm. And if they were loud before, they were downright thunderous now. Then I could see it. "Laps 1, 2, and 3 to the right, Finishers to the left." And just as my day had begun: I started to cry.

As I made that left turn, I realized there was no longer any pain in my legs. My pace quickened. The lights grew brighter. I was really running now and nothing hurt. There was the finish line, I could see the clock. The crowd packed the bleachers lining the finishers shoot. They were all standing, cheering, screaming. I looked around, I wanted to remember this moment forever. I got closer and closer, 30 yards, 20 yards, 10 yards. This time, the hallway wasn’t getting any longer. I could hear Mike Reilly’s voice telling the crowd who I was, where I was from "Here’s Jamie Loggins, a surgeon all the way from Auburn, Maine." Suddenly I had one of those experiences that people sometimes describe in near-death situations where a series of events flash before there eyes. My mind was filled with thoughts of all the time, the training, the money, and the sacrifices made by myself and by so many of the people close to me that made it possible for me to even attempt this 140.6 mile journey of self discovery. Was it worth it? Then a bright flash of light from the camera as I hear:

"Jamie Loggins, YOU Are An Ironman!"

Oh yeah. It was a bargain!

Total Marathon time 4:06:08, which was the 454th fastest run of the day.

Total Race Time: 11:26:04. Overall place: 600/2400.

Most importantly, a life changing experience I will never forget.

Thank You.

Jamie Loggins