September 29th, 2010. I’m lying in a grotesquely uncomfortable hospital bed, which seems to purr and vibrate whenever I try to move, attempting to prevent bedsores, I guess. I’m preparing questions for the doctor’s morning rounds, questions I want to ask Dr. Strong (fitting name for a trauma surgeon, no?). She’s responsible for making sure all of my disparate injuries and insults are healing properly. Getting ready is actually a big deal, because I can’t talk, and can barely use my right hand, arduously pecking out on my new iPad the questions I want her to read and then answer. There are so many things wrong with me: my neck is immobilized in an Aspen collar, suffering from five broken vertebral processes and harboring Central Cord syndrome, a stroke like spinal cord injury. My left arm is in a cast, useless; I can’t feel my fingers or hands, and have lost fine motor function and gross movement strength in both arms. I have a tracheotomy, and a crushed larynx so I can’t swallow or talk, and have a feeding tube in my stomach. I’m a mess, and the thing uppermost on my mind is … my plane is talking off this morning, the one which was supposed to carry me to Kona where I’d be racing on October 8th, were it not for the slight inconveniences I listed above.
Looking back on it, I really should have left off feeling sorry for myself about missing out on a chance to spend two weeks in the sunshine, climaxed by the archetypal Ironman, the one every triathlete aspires to, the Mecca of our sport. I should have been more worried about how I would regain enough function to feed myself (I forgot to mention: I was also missing nine and part of my lower jaw), and use my hands again. But, no, the only thing which really counted was: when (not how) would I be able to get back to Kona.
I’m not quite sure why that aspiration has been dictating my life for the past two years, but it seems to have done the trick. I now have nine new teeth firmly fixed to titanium screws in my new jaw. Apart from a dimple below my ribs on the left side, and a strange inability to swallow the last drink or bite I take, I can eat everything and anything I want. Granted, my fingers still tingle all the time, but my hands and arms are just as strong as they used to be, I can write and type, and even do surgery. And most important, I can swim and cycle and run well enough to feel that I belong here, getting ready to race on the Big Island of Hawaii on the second Saturday in October.
Feeling like I belong is very important, as I am demonstrably slower than most of the other athletes who congregate annually for this race. But that’s not due to my accident and injuries; it’s simply a function of age. No matter how hard I train, I can’t overcome that handicap. Luckily, Ironman sorts its competitors by age; every 5 years, one gets a chance to compete against his chronological peers, and so here we are.
After spending 3 weeks prepping in the mountains around Aspen, I knew that my fitness was deep, and my ability to sustain speed over time (endurance) was recharged. And the past 24 hours, I’ve proven to myself I’ve got the goods to meet my race day goal here: celebrate my life and enjoy the day (tough to do when you’re swimming for 80 minutes, biking for over six hours, then running a marathon.)
One hour after touchdown, I’m out on Ali’i Drive, running from mile 1 to 3.5 and back, in the muggy Kona haze, at the same pace I;d be doing at home. And I even had enough left to catch the 40 something Euro-Stork who waddled by me as I had ten minutes left in the run; I let him work up the hill, then I ticked things up a gear and caught him just as I hit the right turn for home (I didn’t actually pass him, just used him as a rabbit for a while).
Then this morning, out to Kailua Bay and into the water at 7:30, to swim for 57 minutes, maybe 2800 meters. Slow but steady, not tiring, remembering how primal and basic it is to swim in the ocean, the ultimate reason for all those laps over all those decades in the pool, a fact I discovered the first time I went in the Pacific, back in the 70s in Venice.
Then on to the Queen K. I had wanted a 3 hour ride up to Hawi and back, to test myself in the one things which still scares me about this race, the downhill with sidewinds, followed by the endless rollers, in the 17 miles from the windmills to the port town of Kawaihae. But a flat 10 miles into the ride made me re-think my route. I turned around and rode along the lava fields to Scenic View and back, a total of 1 hour 50 minutes. The winds were weak anyway, so I would have gained nothing by going to Hawi.
Finally, another little run, this time down into the Energy Lab and back up to the Queen K. This, for me, comes at miles 16-19.5 of the run, 3 hours into the marathon, and finishes just as the sun is setting. Again, my lungs and legs and heart and feet and knees all seem to be doing their thing with no complaints.
So I’m hugely confident, and know that my hardest task on race day will be Patience and Humility. If I can stay within myself, and if I can remember to keep drinking – a lot – while biking, I think I will be able to finish well and accomplish what will make the day enjoyable for me: running the whole way, not too fast, and not too slow. Just right, the Goldilocks pace.