When we were pregnant with our child we found that most women loved to share their excruciating pregnancy stories pertaining to the pain, soreness, endurance, body function, etc. and all that comes with the experience. After many of the stories I was truly amazed when they told me they had several children… and looked forward to more! This blew my mind until I decided to compete in another Ironman race after my last excruciating experience. I guess the memories of the pain fade and the feeling of accomplishment prevail, and the lore of another Medal around your neck and Finisher’s T-shirt draws you in again. Hence I did another one.
I have 5 races I want to complete in my lifetime… and a triathlon in another country was on the list, therefore a trip to Cancun, Mexico was a must. As we faced the rising sun, rising out of the Gulf of Mexico, at 6:36am on a Sunday morning the horn sounded for my male age group (all 375 of us) to take off at the same time in our black swim caps. I had never been in a more chaotic swim start in my life. We were swimming against the waves trying to keep each other’s feet and fists out of our faces while trying to swim straight. And my advice concerning swallowing salt water is… “Don’t.” I learned that my gag-reflex is 100% operational.
After the swimmers began to spread out it wasn’t too bad. I could see the ocean bottom and plant life and water life, which was very cool. I was keeping a dead eye on the furthest buoy because I am notorious for swimming off course and vowed to stay on course this time. As I neared the buoy I saw a swimmer with a white swim cap on, meaning he was an Elite Pro, which started 6 minutes ahead of us. I immediately felt bad for him, because if he was near me, he must have gone the wrong way or made a wrong turn. After looking at the buoy again I saw another swimmer with a white cap and immediately became suspicious. It was then that I heard a man in a canoe shouting “Negra! Negra!” (Black Cap! Black Cap!) and pointing to his head. I lifted my goggles to look around and saw him pointing to the buoy I was supposed to have swum to and witnessed all the other swimmers swimming toward the correct buoy. So after fighting the waves back out to the correct buoy and swimming an extra 250 meters more than everyone else in the field, I finally ran up the beach and out of the water.
After a 500 meter run to the transition area, I hopped on my Bike and took off. I had a goal of averaging 17.5 – 18 mph on my bike, which is pretty good for me. However, Mexico is much flatter than anticipated and I don’t think I had had to climb anything bigger than a molehill. I made it out to the first turn at 22 miles in exactly One hour, therefore averaging 22 mph! I couldn’t believe it and I still felt great. There wasn’t much to look at, because we were riding a flat road with no turns through the Mexican Jungle. Later I met up with a cyclist from Houston and we rode together for almost the rest of the trip. Off in the distance you could see the black rain clouds coming and it was fun to try to out run them, but it only rained twice while on the cycle trip, and neither of them lasted more than 15 min. The rain felt really good and cooled things off.
After an enjoyable bike ride I wasted no time in transition and shot out onto run. The problem, however, was my running shoes had been sitting out in the rain and had gotten really waterlogged. I felt like I was wearing lead weights on my feet. With each step water squished out and I could feel the shoes begin to lighten up. But, heavy shoes change your stride and I felt a piercing pain right in my hip that stopped me in my tracks. I stretched it out and started to run again and made it about 10 steps before it pierced me again. After stretching again I made myself run with perfect form and posture like I tell my marathon runners to do everyday, and the pain never bothered me again.
On the two-loop course I got to see Christie many times and she had many encouraging words for me as well as every runner that passed by. There was no one that passed her by that didn’t get a handclap or encouraging word, and that inspired me to do the same out on the run course. Each person I passed I made a point of asking how he or she were doing and telling them how good they looked. This made for an enjoyable and quick Half marathon. I made young Mexican children run after me by hollering “arriba arriba! Vamanos!” They would bring me pretzels and water each time and huge toothy grins. I made the mistake of stopping to walk through an aide station at the 10th mile, because stopping to walk felt soooo good. It was hard to get running again, until I saw a Mexican man on his first loop of the course that was running with 1 leg and a prosthetic. Immediately I knew how lucky I was to be healthy, able bodied, married to an encouraging wife and totally in the moment.
I took off toward the finish line.
