Coming of Age in Monterrey: The Quintuple Report

It's 7:30 on a warm evening in Mexico.

My eyes and face burn from extended chlorine exposure.
It's a challenge to hold my tired body up on my bike, while I attempt to follow the police car through Monterrey- my escort from pool to race course.

I've just swum 12 miles and am now preparing my mind to race for the next 5 days.

I pass an armed guard every hundred feet during the mile from the pool to the Olympic Training Center, and each one mumbles something into his two-way radio, probably saying "He's here", or "He's on his way to you".

The police escort signals for me to go left, I enter through a gate, coast 150 yards, and the sudden realization that it's going to be a long week sets in.
I won't be leaving this course for a while.

Before I start the 560 mile bike ride, I grab my MP3 player, a few drinks that I pre-made before the race, and snag some beans and rice from the kitchen located directly off the course.

I pedal around the course for a few hours, trying to mentally relax my arms and shoulders, which are totally spent from the swim.
Not being able to use MP3 players in the USA, the new feeling of being in an event with my own music in my ears is a HUGE boost.
I'm rapping and swearing out loud and loving every minute of it. Probably the other guys are thinking,"Who is this crazy American?!"

Around midnight, I'm pretty tired and itchy still from the chlorine, so I choose to run up to my dorm room- only a hundred yards from the course- for a nice shower and nap.

Set my alarm for 3am. 2.5 hours sleep, right? Wrong.
I sleep through the alarm and bolt upright at 6am.
Make that 5.5 hours of sleep.

I think, Shit. Nothing to worry about really. It's so early in the event that probably the extra sleep will help me long-term.

DAY 2
I grab some breakfast from the kitchen and jump on my bike, knowing today is going to be one loooooooooooooong day.
It's surprisingly cold compared to what I expected. Maybe high 40s or low 50s.
As the sun comes up, the course(which is not closed to the public) starts filling up with runners, bikers, and rollerbladers.
And ducks... which have an uncanny habit of ambling across the course every morning around 8. They have ZERO fear of anyone, and there are near-collisions every lap and every day until 9 or 10am.
Jorge, the Race Director, had mentioned them at the Opening Ceremonies: "I can't control them. It is nature. If you hit them, we will cook them!"
Excellent.

Every hour and a half to two hours, I have to stop, make my own drinks, and get my own food.
By tonight(night two), I find this to be extremely time intensive and very counter-productive.

In regards to being crewless, normally I would be just getting into a rhythm and feeling great, when I would have to stop.
Getting back into the same mindstate is never easy.
A few other teams(Team Kurtz and Griesen) helped me out here and there, but I could definitely see the benefit of having a crew.

I ride some more, and again retire to the dorm room; this time around 4am.
Shower.
Sleep for an hour and half, and I'm back at it.

DAY 3
Another long day on the bike ahead.
My morale isn't that good. I know that I have to go through at least one more night of cycling.

Most times, I consider myself a night owl...but knowing that I am about to spend the next 22 hours on my bike saddle, with my ass already sore, isn't the best mood-lifter.

Not an easy day. My neck is tired. My hands going numb. My legs feel ok, but overall body and mental fatigue are definitely setting in.

The night is exponentially worse.
I'm frustrated every time I have to dismount for food and drink...for a number of reasons.
1) Everytime I get off the bike, I'm not going forward.
2) My rhythm and mental state gets broken.
3) Removing my aching ass from the saddle hurts, but putting it BACK ON the saddle is 20 times worse.

Wayne Kurtz, racing the Deca, rolls up to me around 11pm and we talk for a while. It's great to finally meet him and chat. We discover that we have a lot in common.
By 2am, I'm smoked, so I opt to hit the room for a shower and nap.

Day 4
An hour and a half of sleep, and all of a sudden, I'm happy again...mostly because I know that this is the morning I finish the bike.

By 4am I'm back on the course, with a bowl of last night's beans and potatoes stuck between my aerobars. By this point, I've mastered the art of eating full meals while pedaling away.
I've got Deca guys asking me every couple laps,"How long 'til you're done the bike?" They all look at me funny when I tell them I have no idea.
The whole week, I've made it a point to NOT know where I'm at mileage-wise. Mostly because in my head, I don't want to know until I'm close to done.
It's a good thing.
Less mind games with myself, calculating and extrapolating lap times.

Around 11am, I know I've got to be close.
The timing dudes confirm this, and I just start going nuts. I'm so excited to be getting off the bike that I start ripping off 3:30 laps. I get so caught up in the moment that I actually finish the bike and start doing another lap without realizing it. After a half lap, they cut across the course and tell me I'm all done.

Cool.
I take my time, eat a good meal, and change into my running gear.
My mood is super high, but tempered by the fact that now I have to run twice as far as I ever have before.

When I think of the bike, I think of miserable nights. Remembering the run, it was afternoons that hurt the most because of the extreme heat.

This first afternoon sets the tone for the rest of them. It is HOT.

I run for about 4 hours before sitting under the tent for a few minutes with a number of drinks and food... just trying to get cool and counting the seconds until sundown.

Completely SICK of beans, rice, and insect-covered food, I order a big salty pizza from Domino's and run until it arrives.
Once there, I fill a bottle with Powerade, grab the entire box of pepperoni and ham Americana, and have the happiest lap of the entire race.
To say it tastes amazing would be the biggest understatement in the history of the world. The Danish Team gets a kick out of the whole scene, and somehow a picture of me with the pizza that they take ends up in a Danish newspaper.

For the first night of running, I just focus on being happy. I do a bunch of laps with Nick Mallett from Australia, which is great because he is coming off the bike and because of that, in a really good mood.
Sometimes I'm annoyed by other people in good spirits, but tonight it's contagious.

At 4am, I hit the tent for a quick nap.

Day 5
Another 1.5 hours of sleep, and this time, I really am not enthused about starting my day. I get some crappy coffee from the kitchen and sit down to a breakfast of about 4 million pancakes.
My policy when I'm not happy is "Eat everything until morale improves."

It kind of works this time.
I don't remember a lot about Day 5... only that it was long and hot and my feet were beginning to swell.
Every couple of laps I would lay down for 5 minutes with my feet up. It seemed to do the trick in the short term.

By nightfall, I just want to be done. I make a mental commitment to myself to not sleep, because sleeping means not moving forward...and what the heck, I can't feel much worse anyways.

At 4am, my feet are aching terribly. It's not a muscular thing.
I can feel it in my bones. I take off my shoes and my feet seem to just balloon out. All I can envision is a million little stress fractures.
No way I'm going anywhere for a while.

Knowing I only have another marathon left, I sleep for a good 3 hours.
Despite my feet aching, I'm kind of happy.
I figure I could be done by noon or 1pm.
A 5 hour marathon should be easy, right??
Wrong.

That last marathon was the physical equivalent of nails down a chalkboard.
Every step hurt worse than the next.

As noon rolls around, I realize that a finish is still hours away. My mind and body are so tired. It is impossible to focus on the fact that I am DEFINITELY going to finish; I can only focus on the fact that I'm not finishing NOW.

I spend a good two hours being a miserable prick. I am angry at not being done, and being kind of irrational, that is, until out of nowhere, I realize that I am within 10 miles of the finish line.
All of a sudden, my legs and feet and shitty attitude don't matter anymore.
I put the hammer down and don't stop for drink or food or bathroom breaks.

On my second to last lap, I see Wayne on his bike, and ask if I can use his American flag to take on my last lap around. Obviously he says yes.
His crewman Rick hands it to me and I start crying immediately, because I know within the next fifteen minutes, this whole journey is going to be over.

The last lap is still surreal, 2 and a half weeks later.

All of the bikers in the Deca and Double Deca are whistling and congratulating me and just making a huge raucous.
Everything that happened within the last year ebb and flow through my mind.
The sacrifices financially and socially.
The tent living.
The couch crashing.
Everyone and everything that had gotten me to this point.

Wayne stops mid lap to give me a hug. A couple minutes later, Eileen does too.
The last half mile, I run some, walk a little, laugh, cry, and take it all in.
It's a celebration of the event...the whole year, actually, and crossing the finish line is a culmination of it all.

While I have larger plans for 2011, I know that this finish will always be one of the most special because during the year leading up to the event, I learned who my real friends were, and how much a community of friends and family can help one person achieve their goals.

I will always remember what people did for me to get to Monterrey. What a year.

krp