THE FINISH
I start to line up my finishing posture. Let’s see, no one in front for about 75 meters, and she’s going my speed – I won’t catch her, so I’ve got a clear path for the photo.
But then I hear heavy breathing off my left shoulder. I sneak a glance there, and see a blond head bobbing. Joe had blond hair – maybe it’s him! Whoever it is, they are trying to ruin my finisher shot, so I turn on the jets – I always save a little for just this reason. I pull away from the heavy breather, into the roar of the crowd. Mike Reilly’s got plenty of time to get my name straight. As he clears his throat for another “You are an IRONMAN!” shout, I hold up both hands with four fingers each, signifying either my eighth Ironman finish or my fourth time here at Coeur d’Alene”
“And here comes Al Truscott, from Gig Harbor WASHINGTON, in his fourth Ironman here at Coeur d’Alene”. I fall into the arms of the catchers, grateful for once they are here. Get my medal and Tee shirt and bag and hat, and magically Cheryl walks up to me, saying “You look pretty good, Ironman.”
……….
My time, 11:55, is 15 minutes off my best from last year, but then, it’s about 15 degrees warmer. It’s the same time as two years ago, when it was about 10 degrees cooler. So I feel good, all in all.
“How do you feel?” Cheryl asked. “You look pretty good. You don’t look like death warmed over.” Ever since I finished the Pacific Crest Half at 3 PM in the blazing mountain sun, and nearly passed out in the cooling tent at the finish line, she’s remembered how bad I looked then, all dehydrated, salt crusted and pale from exertion and exhaustion. She hasn’t forgotten that sickly death pall my face had as I pulled into the finishers’ tent, and has tried to avoid the finish line ever since. She’s convinced I’m trying to kill myself, I guess. So she checks my color: no pallor, not about to die.
“Actually, I feel pretty good. I’m just a little drained from sprinting at the finish to get ahead of a guy who was breathing down my shoulder, so I’d have a clear finisher photo. I actually fell into the arms of the catchers, first time I’ve ever done that. But I don’t feel bad. I feel pretty good. Things got better there in the last mile or so. I swear the temperature must have dropped at least five degrees about 6:45, just as I came up the hill from the lake. I wish it had been like that for the last 10 miles, instead of just the last one.”
I hobbled a bit as we wound our way through the maze to the pizza tent. I grabbed two slices, a Gatorade, and went back to the tree where Cheryl was waiting with in the shade.
I looked in the bag to see what goodies we got this time: in addition to my medal and T shirt, I now had another wetsuit bag, and another finishers’ running hat. No LIVESTRONG replica wristband, like last year. No towel, no nothing. No helicopter, fewer goodies … I’m sensing a trend here.
Done with the pizza (Cheryl ate the crusts), we headed into the park to pick up my stuff. We carefully crossed the run course, with people going in both directions, all on their second lap by this time, about 2 hours after the bike cutoff. Walking all the way around the transition zone, I entered through the security gate. Went right to get my bags. As I entered the men’s tent to change, I noticed they were striking the women’s tent. “Where are they going to change after they finished?” I asked. Got no reply. Getting my bike, I waited in line to exit. The guard noticed my wristband had no number left on it – must have been washed off by the wet suit, the arm coolers, and the sweat on the run.
……….
As I was waiting, I saw Mitch on the other side of the fence. His hair was washed and combed, and he was in clean shorts and a finishers’ shirt – he must have had a great time. Telling Cheryl, “I’m going to go over and talk to Mitch,” I leaned my bike on the outside fencing and gave him a big smile.
“Hey, how’d you do,” I asked.
“It’s over,” he said with a smile.
“You can’t fool me, you’re already changed and all cleaned up, you must have had a great time.”
“Well, I finished in 10:55.”
“Oh wow, that’s great. You’re going to Hawaii for sure! Do you know what place you were?”
“I think I got fifth.” The top four in his age group would automatically qualify for Hawaii. He’d have to wait for the roll down to find out for sure.
“So are you going to the roll down? You never know – there’s a really good chance you’ll get in, you know.”
Mitch seemed a little resigned. He certainly didn’t want to get his hopes up.
Just then I saw Tom Herron, coming out with his bike. I asked him about his finish. After trying to avoid any semblance of feeling good about his result, he said “I finished in 11:16.”
“What was your run? Did you break 4 hours?” As a sub-3:20 marathoner, he possessed the perhaps unrealistic belief that he ought to be able to run the Ironman 26.2 in a “respectable” time.
“Ah, I was still over 4 hours.” His only previous Ironman, the Grand Columbian, had finished with a 4:07 run.
“That’s great, Tom! You should feel really proud of that. What was your place?”
“I didn’t look. I’m still trying to find out how Verna is doing” – his wife, Verna was attempting this race 6 months after foot surgery – “and I want to be there at the finish line for her.”
“HMM, 11:16 – that might get you to Hawaii. I’d look up your place, ’cause you just might make it in the roll down. Are you going to go tomorrow?”
“I don’t know – we’re staying in Spokane with Verna’s sister, and I don’t know if we want to come back here again tomorrow. We really want to get home to our kids.”
“Well, check your place. If you’re 7th – and you may very well be seventh with that time – you’ve got a good chance to get a roll down spot.”
Tom didn’t seem convinced, either that he might have finished as high as 7th, or that he should go to the roll down. He did seem to be convinced that his day was not so hot.
“Tom, I’m really impressed with your race. Wow. 11:16, great bike, great run … you ought to feel so good about that. Certainly better than I’ve ever done.” Which was true – my personal best is 11:41, done when I was 6 years older than Tom. “Well, if I were you, I would go to the roll down – you never know.” Tom looked skeptical.
ON TO MIDNIGHT
Back at the motel, while Cheryl showers, I open my laptop to read the grim news of my placement. Fourth in the last 3 Ironman races I’ve done, I’m a little worried I’ll lose my string on the podium. Ironmanlive.com is up and running, and I move through the Athlete Finder to check my results. I go for the Age Group view, rather than looking at my individual page.
I’m stunned, almost catatonic by what I find. There, at the top of the list of 55-59 male finishers, is my name. Not believing, I check carefully at all the finishing times, to make sure they are all slower than mine. I drop down the list of names; Evensen in 3rd, Nordquest in 4th – where’s Joe Anderson? He’s there in 5th, more than 1/2 an hour behind me. What happened to HIM? I was only doing 11 minute miles from the time I saw him to the finish – he would have had to averaged over 25 minutes a mile to come in that slow?
Confident I really am first, I open the bathroom door, and adopt as deadpan an expression as possible as I tell Cheryl, “I’ll give you $400 if you guess what place I finished.” The $400 was a subtle clue to her to guess 4th, as she assumed that’s what I meant. True to form, she tried 4th, then 5th, then gave up.
“Nope, I WON the damn thing. Unbelievable. Jaw-dropping.” In truth, it felt better to get a Kona slot, but, it’s hard to argue with winning. The problem with my personality type is, when I win, I tend to start setting higher goals, meaning harder work. Positive reinforcement is an evil taskmaster. Oh well, as my mother used to say, “It’ll look good on your resume´.”
……….
We meet up with Joan down by the finish line. She’s trying to connect with Pat, who spent some time in the med tent. Thanks to the miracle of cell phone technology, we all gather outside the transition zone, and review our races. Cheryl has cautioned me not to blurt out my good fortune to Pat and Joan, as they are trying to deal with his IV hydrated recuperation at the moment. That’s easy to do, because I know that one’s placement is more dependent on the performance of others.
By the time we get Pat’s bike, and walk up the hill to where our cars are parked, it’s nearly 10 PM.
I blurt, “You know, last year Cheryl and I ate a pasta dinner right on Sherman Avenue, while the late finishers were coming down the hill. Then we went over to the finish line to cheer in the final half hour to watch the last people come in. You’ve gotta see this – it’s part of the Whole Ironman Experience. Mike Reilly pumps up the crowd, the winners sometimes parade down the chute while we wait for the stragglers, and they throw stuff into the stands.”
“Yeah, I’m feeling surprisingly good now that I got two liters of fluid in the Med Tent. I think I ought to do that after every long race I do – it really perks you up, ” Pat allowed.
“It’s a real tonic, just like a blood transfusion. So you’re awake and alert?”
“Yes, I’m up for it, ” Pat said enthusiastically. With that, Cheryl and Joan could hardly argue. Among us, Pat had had the most trying day, and if he was willing to press on, who were we to stand in his way. We walked down 3rd Ave. The building next to us had been facing the sun all afternoon. Its blank cinder blocks oozed back all that heat – they were quite warm to the touch, and felt sauna-like a foot or two away. It suddenly seemed very hot to me. I had forgotten the searing sun I’d labored under all afternoon. The skin on the backs of my shoulders, the place where the sun tan lotion never seems to work well enough, sizzled and stung, prickling with the onset of a good second degree burn.
We cruised into Tito Macaroni’s. They were, of course, doing a booming business. Every five or ten minutes, another Sound Sound Tri guy came by, and we traded war stories on the day. Most everyone felt good about their finish, if not their time. Survival was the simple mark of success at 10:30 PM on an Ironman day when the temperature was still above 80.
About 11:15, we started up from the table, and ambled through the indoor mall to the street. It was lined with people, cheering an alarmingly large number of finishers home. Every ten or fifteen seconds, another one came down the chute. Some were beaming, some were struggling, some refused to run, no matter how loud the imprecations. But all looked proud. We crossed over to the other side, and went up into the stands.
Still they came, more than a hundred in the last hour, way more than I’d ever seen this late. There were so many, there was no time for the Ironman crew to come onto the finishing carpet and throw stuff up at us – or maybe they were just short on supplies this year.
At 11:59 (16:59 on the big finishing clock), Mike shouted, “Yeah, baby, we’ve got another one coming in – I can see her up near 5th or 6th. Come on, folks, let’s bring her in!” The crowd, which had been cheering, whistling, and beating the barriers for the last 15 minutes, went berserk. A slightly plump lady, with a severe hitch in her gait at this point, was being pulled down that chute by the sheer force of the crowd. As she entered the spotlights, we could see the growing grin and tears on her face. This amped the crowd up even more. She moved as fast as she could – which was fast walking speed, really, but she was truly running. She was a first timer. Who knows what had conspired this day to keep her out on the course for seventeen hours? But there she was, going under the banner at 16:59:49 – certainly the latest finish I’d ever seen. Talk about cutting it close! Much emotion is showered on the family feeling of Ironman finishers, and the joy we all feel for everyone who makes it, whether sub 8 hours, or barely within 17. I’d thought it was a bit bogus before now.
I mean, really, what could I possibly have in common with these people who swim slower than I can breaststroke kick, bike on the flats at the speed I go uphill, and walk most of the marathon? Aren’t they doing a fundamentally different event than I am? I used to think so, but no more. Everyone comes to the race at their own level – their life’s experience at athletics, their level of fitness from whatever training they’ve been able to do, and their reaction to the day’s vicissitudes. We all succeed or fail on our own individual terms, no one else’s, and coming in under 17 hours, for the final finisher, is the crowning achievement of a very intense episode on one’s life, no less than my first place after ten tries at this ultimately draining activity. I was as proud of her as I was of Pat, as I was of myself.