I was so worried I’d have problems getting to Kathey and Allene’s hotel what with road closures that I thought I better get there early.
Assuming best case scenarios for us all, I reckon my marathon leg of the relay is a good 12 hours+ away.
Turns out I didnt have any trouble getting to the hotel; parking on the other hand proved problematic. K&A have me a paper guest pass from the front desk but alas I had no room key.
Fortunately I found street parking not too far away that was free on Sundays… but all this is to say I probably could’ve slept another 8 to 9 hours easily. Although, what kind of a teammate would I be if I had done that? Besides a well rested one, I mean.
***
I weighed my options for killing time. I figure I’ll be waiting so long this might be out before I start…
The waiting really IS the hardest part.
From dawn to dusk…
And thus it begins:
***
Ya know, I have time to drive to Nashville, tour the Grand Ole Opry and be back before my marathon leg.
However, they apparently aren’t doing tours today — good thing I checked before hopping in the car.
***
Kathey finishes the swim and Allene heads off on her bike.
***
I took an hour layabout nap drifting in and out of consciousness in K&A’s hotel room. The AC was much appeciated. Too many pretzels and a Publix sandwich for lunch as my pre-race meal gave me about five hours to have it all settle before my run.
Kathey and I took the spectator bus out to mile 55 to cheer on Allene.
We weren’t too sure about the tracking estimates… but we actually DID see Allene zoom by. She was looking really strong.
I still don’t think the mat placements are at the distances they say they are. I’m pretty sure Allene passed mile 60 at what the app says is mile 57. But we will see… as it stands, I’ve got about three and a half hours to kill. I guess i could watch Avengers Endgame again…
***
It feels like 99 degrees outside. Allene is biking 116 miles in this.
***
While waiting in the relay holding pen, a lot of teams were just barely making the 10 hour cut-off for the final transition to the run. We had eight minutes to spare. I grabbed the timing ankle bracelet and set off.
It was still in the low 90s. By the time I finished it would drop to a cool 85 degrees.
***
There aren’t any photos of the course — no phone and no cameras means all I have are memories. It was a tough thing — I felt like a real fraud and a cheater. And I was called as much by competitors along the course. They’re entitled I suppose — while they’d been racing and kicking ass for 10 hours to get to the marathon, I’d been sitting on my ass. And I was already feeling weird having folks cheer me on now and again from the sidelines. I’d sheepishly say I was “just” a relayer. In the opening miles especially I’d pass some triathletes on my fresh legs and I’d cheer them on, telling them I don’t know how they were doing all 3 legs, how I’d have died in the water and the bike ride would’ve killed me. Some were very nice and appreciative and even encouraging of my running just the marathon. And some were profanely not. As I was already feeling guilty this only opened up a larger sense of taking away from the IronMan journey so many were enduring. It was a weird run.
On top of all of that, my foot was bothering me around mile 8. And I felt guilty that I was struggling in any way when all these other people had been out racing since 7:30 AM. They’d been pushing through pain for 11, 12 hours and here I am an hour into a run and complaining to myself about a nagging, lingering injury. It was tryingly difficult and worse demoralizing to think I wasn’t worthy of being amongst these triathlete superheroes.
The heat and a couple of long stretch inclines took their toll as well. I was on a not stellar but super good 3:30 pace at the halfway mark. But once the sun set and the darkness crept in, I found it much harder to go on. Part of that was a dispirited sense of self and part of that was the reality of the day… er, night. I hadn’t brought a headlamp as I usually would just use the flashlight app on my phone to light my path… but of course I had purposefully left my phone with Kathey and Allene so as not to be tempted to pull it out and snap a photo and be disqualified. Long stretches of the course were in near darkness and I was worried about footfalls. All the more given that the designated trash zones got awfully loose as the night wore on and folks were tossing sponges, cups, and various items hither and yon. It was supposed to be a penalty if you littered outside of the trash zones; either folks took A LOT of penalties or the judges had long ago packed it in and we were all on the honor system/in the wild west. Point was, I tried to rationalize my need to walk out of safety concerns. The reality was, I kinda just didn’t have it in me today.
Heading into the finisher chute, I wound up with an inconceivable time — 4:00:00 exactly.
It’s not a sub-4. It’s not an over 4 hour marathon. It’s exactly 4 hours.
Amongst the swag for finishers were Little Debbie bonnets/hats. Allene wanted a photo:
At the end of the long day, I was glad I could be a part of the team. Kathey swam a PR; Allene biked through hell and crushed it. And me? Well, I finished. We had talked about hanging around to cheer on the finishers until the close of the line, what Kathey referred to as the magic hour of 11 PM to Midnight. But Allene had an early flight and I was feeling less than stellar. I made it back to my hotel room at 11:06 PM… or about 19 hours after I left.
To think some competitors were still racing… that’s mindblowingly humbling.
To the IronMen and IronWomen of the class of 2019 – I doff my Little Debbie bonnet to you all.