Ironman Coeur d'Alene: Part 2

Swim + Transition 1

A horrific and terrifying sight greets my eyes. The lake has spontaneously transformed into an angry monster, foaming at the mouth as it swallows hundreds of swimmers in the blink of an eye and daring the rest of us to follow like lemmings. The water is literally boiling...churned up by the fiercely competitive guys and gals who are trying to win age-group awards to qualify for the world championships in Kona.

Then there's me. Still on dry land. My plan was to follow some advice I had received from a fellow racer concerning my first mass swim start. "Over the course of 2.4 miles of swimming, 10 seconds doesn't matter. When that cannon goes off, slowly count to 10, and then enter the water calmly." Best advice of the day. I counted....slowly. 1.......2........3.......

.....8......9.........pause..........10. Ok.

I begin to walk into the 60 degree water. It hits the feet....cold, but not bad. Thanks to my full wetsuit, I won't feel it again until it hits my face. But when it does.....oh boy. 60 degree water certainly has a kick to it. Luckily, Del and I had both swam in the lake a few days earlier and knew exactly what to expect. A minute or two of "Oh dear God" and then your body warms up with activity and you never notice the cold again.

Face down into the water. Start swimming. But oh yeah.....all these people. I guess just do your best. Stroke....breath.....stroke.....bump....kick......elbow.....stroke.....breath.....stroKICKke.....
breaELBOWth......there's really no way around it. If you stop, you get the swimming version of "trampled". So you don't stop. You "trample" other people because it's better than the other way around. Everybody is jockeying for some space to swim in, and after an unknown amount of time, I find it. I lift my head to sight for the buoys and Holy Crap there's nobody in front of me. I don't know how long this will last, so I make the best of it. Lengthen out my stroke and gliiiiiide. I find a rhythm FAST, and now to get my breathing under control. Long, slow exhales underwater and slow, relaxed medium deep inhales when I turn up to breath...each time trying to find the same cloud that I looked at last time. It's a silly mind trick, but it forces me to take my time and not rush the breath. Gotta find that cloud....look at it....has it changed at all since I first looked? Sweet....good rhythm, and easy, controlled breathing.

Every now and then I bump into somebody, catch up with somebody I have to pass, have my feet tickled by the person behind me, or my favorite...being behind somebody who doesn't sight at all, who is swimming damn near sideways across my path. Makes me giggle.

Somewhere in that first out-stretch of the first lap, I realize something profound. I'm having fun. A lot of fun. This startling revelation is coupled with me realizing that I'm SMILING underwater while I'm swimming. The realization that I'm HERE and DOING this has filled me completely with the joy of living and I'm almost giggling to myself.

The swim course is 2 laps. 900 meters out, 100 meters across, and then 900 meters back. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. At the start, the pack of 2400 racers was spread out across about 50-100 yards of beach. There is ONE turn buoy 900 meters out, and every single one of us is swimming roughly in that direction. Translation: This is going to get rough, just the way Alex Trebek's mother likes it.

My plan was to take the turn buoy WAY wide to try and avoid some of the inevitable carnage. It worked......kinda. Approaching the first turn buoy, I'm a good 20-30 feet wide and it still closes in...much worse than even the beginning of the race. Out here, there is no option of waiting for everyone else to pass. Stopping means instant clobberification. Yet it is nearly impossible to maintain your stroke because there is somebody in front of you kicking like a maniac, somebody behind you is pawing at your legs and pushing them down, the person to your left has hooked your arm while coming through on their stroke, and the person on your right isn't sighting and is swimming into you. I'm not sure there is a name for the style of swimming I was employing around that corner, but I'll suggest a few....The Flail, The Orgy, The Knife Fight In A Phone Booth, and the Freestyle Drown. It's all I can do to keep my cool...I keep telling myself that this is normal, I am fine, it will be over soon, calm thoughts, quiet mind, happy place...over and over.

I hear a woman yelling....no.....screaming. And not just "Eeek I'm scared" screaming.....this was full-fledged "Holy shit I'm going to die here, please somebody help me" screaming. I could hear the hysteria, the fear, the utter panic of her most basic survival instincts trumping her higher brain functions. I wanted to help, but knew that I couldn't. That's why there are lifeguards. Luckily she was near the inside, where an army of floating helping hands would be there to pluck her out of the water, or at the very least give her a place to rest while she caught her breath and contemplated whether or not she wanted to finish this race.

I swam on. The second turn buoy came really fast, and I couldn't actually see it because of where the sun was. A fellow swimmer actually said out loud, "Hey, there's the turn buoy." It's pretty rare to hear other swimmers actually speak because there's just no room for it. No explanations, no apologies, no howdy-dos. But I was glad to hear it...I looked where he was pointing, and sure enough, I had completely missed it. Happy to be wide, I turned back towards the beach and found my breath and my rhythm again.

Fast forward some happy uneventful swimming...I'm at the beach...first lap DONE! I come up on the sand, cross a timing mat, hear the happy chirp of the computer as it confirms it has detected the racing chip that is around my ankle. I spot Jess cheering me on, and I smile. As I turn around to run back into the water, a man is standing there with a stopwatch calling out splits.

"We're just coming up on 38 minutes..."

I do an exuberant fist pump and maybe shout something out....not terribly sure. I did a half Ironman in April, and my time for the same distance in that race was 41 minutes. I'm swimming faster than I've ever swam in my life. I hit the water again, excited to keep the pace high, especially since the pack has thinned out significantly for the second lap.

I'm not a swimmer. Never have been. But today, I'm motherfucking Michael Phelps. I'm the goddamn Mark Spitz. I move through the water with so little effort, that I'm beginning to wonder if this really is just the cruelest race dream I've ever had, and that at some point I'm going to wake up and realize I haven't even begun yet.

No...that's stupid. I'm here, and I'm straight-up rocking this swim. The buoys pass, but time stands still(this is a common theme throughout my day, FYI). I've got space, and I'm moving. The second time out is uneventful....until......

I realize that I forgot to swing wide of the buoys. I am about 5 feet from the turn buoy, and it's getting crowded. Fast. Despite the thinned out pack, it's still just as violent here at the turns...especially this close to the buoy. More elbows, more kicks, more desperate attempts to swim MY stroke, only to have my arms hooked and impeded. I honestly wonder how any of us are actually progressing forwards, as we all seem to be spending more effort injuring one another than swimming. I guess the pack moves forward through combined willpower, but eventually the first turn is over and I jockey for position to take the next turn much wider.

I got punched in the face. By a lady.

Of course it was unintentional. But all the same, it's an interesting experience to feel blinding anger one moment, and to completely recover back to my peaceful swimming nirvana the next. My inner dialogue went something like this, "Oooohhhmmmmmmm......ooooohhhhhWHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!Oooooohhhhhhmmmmm........oooooohhhhhhmmmmmm".

And that's just the way it goes.

The second turn went smoothly, and I angled back towards the beach. My arms were getting really sore at this point, but nowhere near what I would consider fatigued. Knowing that I could probably swim a few more miles if I needed to was incredibly comforting, but I had about half a mile to go. For a good portion of the previous year, I was terrified that I'd be unable to complete the swim portion. Heartbreaking to imagine having to give up so early in my day after spending so much time and money preparing for it. Turns out, once I hit the water, there wasn't a doubt left in my mind.

The final stretch flew by and before I knew it, I was at the beach again. I crossed the timing mat. This time I saw my family as I exited the beach. If I could have taken time to study my mother's expression, I'm sure it would have said, "Dear lord, thank you for not letting my son drown."

Total swim time - 1:17:23.....beat my goal by over 2 minutes.

First stop, wetsuit peelers. All I can say is "deadly efficient". These people don't mess around. To say they "help you to the ground" is the polite way of saying they "just about shove you onto your ass". They grab your wetsuit and RUN. Wetsuit pops off, and By the Power of Greyskull, they LIFT you off the ground, hand you your wetsuit, and may as well have slapped me on the ass to get me running off towards transition.

I entered transition, grabbed my bag, and ran into the changing tent. I found an empty chair, and suddenly realized that there was no room for modesty here. Buck-nekkid men EVER'WHERE! I sat down, intent on keeping a clear mind and not forgetting anything important. I start fishing items out of my bag.....towel first....dry feet....uh.....helmet? Gloves....socks......bike shoes.....there's a naked ass 4 inches from my face. Now he's bending over for something....OH he stumbles, nearly landing on me, but he catches himself. Accidental man-on-man lapdance averted! He apologizes, and I make an inappropriate joke. He laughs heartily and continues to get ready, wishing me good luck racing before he leaves......nice guy.

Ok where was I? Man ass. No, that's not it. OH YEAH, get ready to ride. I finish up, stuff all my swim stuff back into the bag. The volunteer tells me to just leave it there, they'll take care of the rest. I hit the urinal before I exit the tent, and then I goose-step(because of the cycling shoes) to the bike area. I quickly find Lucille, she's sitting there just like I left her. Take a few minutes to stretch. Unrack my baby, run towards the transition exit. I see my family again at the mount line. With a wave and a smile, I mount my trusty steed and take the first pedal stroke of what will be the longest bike ride of my life.

I clip in and start rolling, feeling pretty good about my transition. It wasn't amazingly fast, but I'm confident that I did everything I needed to do and I didn't forget anything important......


.......or did I?

To be continued.....