Re-Entry

No question, I’ve learned a lot about myself during the past four months. I’ve learned what pulls on me the most.

I had two “Blink” moments in this whole episode – two flashes in my head that have dominated my life, as well as numerous other insights into who I am, where I fit in the world, how my life is intertwined among so many people.

But those two moments were: when I first found myself kneeling on the asphalt, head spinning, arms numb, lip draining blood, voice hoarse and cracked. The very first thought that went through my brain was: how soon am I going to be able to start squeezing myself back into training? A day? Two? Maybe three if they have to stitch me up? By training, I meant going full bore, getting (staying) in tip-top shape for my next Ironman, which at that point was three weeks away.

The second moment was when I woke up 24 hours later, in the ICU at Madigan Army Medical Center, surrounded by the trauma team, explaining my injuries to me, and my wife, holding my hand. Even before I heard anything anybody was saying, two thoughts whizzed by: Boy, I really must have done something to myself! And, I’m so glad my family is here; I can’t do this on my own.

Those two moments have driven me all my days since then. The primacy of our love in my family in my life. And the profound impact triathlon, racing, and Ironman has had on shaping who I think I am and want to be. I used to feel that way about skiing, and being a doctor, and other things, and they are still there, driving and motivating me. But the number one target I have in my life is being able to swim, and bike, and run, faster than anyone else my age, and many younger than me.

My family instinctively knew this, and papered my room with four items: a bike jersey from the Ironman in Hawaii, and three pictures: me getting out of the water at Dig Me Beach in Kailua Kona, me riding along the Queen K Highway in full aero gear and position on my unnamed but steady companion, my round-tube break-apart titanium time-trial bike, and me running along the sea wall on Ali’i drive across from Lava Java.

I lost a lot of things on September 18th, 2010 and in the two weeks after. Nine teeth, 15 pounds (all muscle), some key spinal cord nerve connections to my arms, a bunch of sleep, all my speed and strength on wheel, in the water, and in my feet. But the thing that hurt the most, that caused the deepest pain and regret, the one thing I had to bury deepest so it wouldn’t overwhelm me, was not getting on a plane to Kona on September 29th, flying to Kona, and racing once again in Kailua Bay and through the lava fields.

Getting to Kona  and racing, for any triathlete, is never a given, always a gift. I’ve been given that gift 6 times, and readied to race there three times, started twice, and finished once. Those pictures on the wall reminded me every day of my hope and goals and what I’d lost and may never find again, but knew I could not yet stop trying.

In the four months since, I’ve been trying to haul myself back to the triathlete I used to be, I used to feel within myself. I’ve tried to celebrate each new plateau, each step I’ve mastered to get me back to whatever reincarnation I’ll have as an athlete.

In the hospital, the first steps were literally first steps, just walking to the door of my room on day 3, then around the nurses’ station on day 4, down the hall on day five, and farther each time, longer each time, a little faster each day. It was all I could do, so I did it. Getting the tubes out of me so I could move more freely, feel more like me and less like some cybernetic extension of the health care machine.

Out of the hospital, the walking continued, a little farther and longer every day. But my size and shape had evaporated somewhere, and my inner sense of how much space I took up, and how hard the earth was pulling on me – gravity vs my mass – told me I had shriveled up. The smaller me would never have the strength or stamina to do anything except shuffle around, so I upped the calories I was getting through my “feeding tube” 20% over what the nutritionist recommended, and started to gain weight.

Once the tube came out and the rigid neck collar came off, I started lifting weights, put my bike on the trainer, and began to walk harder and think of running. I even tried swimming. But everything was so dismal – I was moving and feeling like 40% of my former self. In the weight room, when I saw how little I could lift, I wanted to hit myself on the head with the tiny little dumbbells I was using. I wanted to just sink to the bottom of the pool, my hands and forearms felt so useless. Ten minutes on the trainer was enough to exhaust me, even at a toddlers’ effort level.

I felt at the time that what I was doing was harder than anything I’d done while training for an Ironman – and with no sense of positive reinforcement from feeling strong or powerful while I was doing it. Somehow, I just shoved all those feelings aside and kept on going. If I had been all alone, in isolation, I know I would not have kept it up. But my wife, and kids expected me to be normal, and started treating me that way. My triathlon team buddies, both in Endurance Nation and in the local South Sound Triathletes, followed and cheered my progress. And once I started working again, a month ago, I learned how much my colleagues there expected from me, as a person.

I was just starting to make progress on all fronts, when I had jaw surgery on Dec. 29th. Another blow I couldn’t do anything about, but I gave myself 5 days off, and went right back at it, now following the trusted “OutSeason” training plan from Rich and Patrick at Endurance nation. I was biking slower, and running slower, but it felt just as hard. I was starting to wonder if I would reach a ceiling. I’d always felt before that there were no limits to what I  might do – I just had to keep training, day in and day out, and I would always keep improving. It had never occurred to me there might be limits, that I might not get back to where I was, in the sense of feeling less accomplished than I knew I was able.

An added burden has been my bike. I’m realizing that my bike and I went through this accident together. As my recovery slowly progressed, I started to suspect my bike’s return would be a part of my own healing process, in a physical sense. I never thought I’d be one who developed that level of personal attachment to his bike, but it’s true. I took the bike in to get repaired in early December, and resigned myself to riding my clunky commute bike on the trainer for a while. It does not feel right, and offers an easy excuse for feeling weak.

In the pool, an easy measure of strength, apart from pure speed, is the number of strokes it takes to get from one end of the pool to another. For me, that has been 14-15. I knew, without counting, that my swimming was weaker, and I knew exactly why – the specific upper and lower arm muscles which weren’t working the way they used to. I decided that if they were going to be like that, if they weren’t going to cooperate, I’d have to do two things: make the remaining muscles as strong as they could be, and resign myself to going slower on the swim. If I wanted to maintain my overall triathlon speed, then, I’d just have go that much faster while biking and, especially, running.

So I’ve been feeling pretty glum, literally not myself, both physically and psychically changed. But the last two days, exactly 4 months after my accident, I’ve turned a corner.  The details of my weight lifting, biking, swimming and running are not that important, the numbers in their specificity probably of interest to no one but myself. But the numbers are brutally honest, one reason why I like this sport (another is that the numbers can be overcome during a race with a little patience, humility, and wisdom). And my numbers, while not making any dramatic leaps, are now within a zone where I feel comfortable calling myself a “Triathlete” again.

I can now, for the first time since Sept 18th, see, and feel myself acting like, the athlete I used to be. Two things epitomize this. I no longer feel the need to treat myself like a China doll, which was holding me back – I can pump up the volume more, so to speak.

And, at 3 PM today, I got this email from Bill, the bike builder who’s been reincarnating that machine for me: “Pretty much done just arm pads left to get. They are on order. We have improved the bike, it’s lighter now over 1 lb. It also got a bit of an overhaul and the frame polished up, looks new again.” He says I can pick it up on Tuesday.

Bill’s not much on careful English, but, along with my new numbers in SBR, those words almost made me cry. My bike and I have gone through a lot together, and we’ve got some more to do.