It's mid-afternoon on a hot October day in Mexico. Hot for me, anyways. Apparently high 80s is temperate for the local folk here. I've been swimming for about 7 hours in an outdoor pool, and already the sun has scorched my back.
The nausea started 4 hours ago. Eating has been almost impossible. Nothing tastes good and everything makes me feel like unleashing the beast from within my stomach.
I come to the end of the pool, and stand up. Unsure of what to do next, I launch out of the water like Kevin Costner in Waterworld, and puke on the nearest tree.
The Deca has welcomed me early, in its own special way. Thanks?
Hopping back into the pool, I hope that's a one time deal, but no dice. I spend the afternoon swimming, trying to eat, and getting out periodically to stop the nausea.
The mileage melts away painfully slow. I'm burning off all the fat that I WORKED to put on in the last 6 weeks.. in the first damned day because I can't eat. Those reserves were supposed to help me out a week from now. Shit.
Late in the night, I'm somewhere around 15 miles into the 24 mile swim. I can't take the dry heaves anymore, and I'm spent from eating so little. I need to get out of the water. The temperature has dropped and my depleted body's core temp drops instantly. I look like a trembling wet chihuahua as my Dad throws towels and a sleeping bag over me. Sitting there in a lawn chair, watching my counterpart Simon of Great Britain swim with no issues whatsoever, I burp. And heave. And get more frustrated by the minute. My Dad knows I'm screwed up, so he just says nothing. The silence is accepted because my internal dialogue is doing all of the talking for both of us.
I want to quit.
But it's the first night of many. You're just getting started.
I can't keep going without food.
Your body will come out of it.
This sucks.
Don't forget you said you were racing to honor Adrianne's life. How would quitting at the first onset of adversity look?
True.
Hey Kale, get in the fucking pool.
I jump in and freeze my butt off for the rest of the night, just plowing through mileage, and eating if and when I can. The sheer distance does not play a role in my headspace until the final 4 miles, which feel like I'm swimming through quicksand. Each stroke more tiring than the previous; each pool length mind-bendingly longer with each lap. I try not to think about the current pain...but try to start wrapping my head around the pain about to come: 1120 miles of cycling.
Finally...about 8 hours longer than expected, I swim my last lap. Sweet, sweet survival. I cannot explain how elated I am to be on dry ground for the rest of the event. In the quintuple, I was happy to have completed a 12 mile swim...but it was just a 12 mile swim. 24 miles is serious business.
It's longer than the English Channel.
It is 11am Monday, 27 hours into the event, I decide to not sleep after the swim and get right on with the cycling portion. I figure there's no time like the present to get on with cycling a distance equivalent to going from Maine to Georgia.
The day goes by fast, and before I know it, 36 hours have passed on the race clock. My Dad and I determine it's time for a sleep....and then starts what I have begun to call Bike Blur Time. Let me explain.
When swimming, a person is engaged. The mix of having one's face in the water and the nonstop personal checks of technique keep a person alert. While running, especially at the ultra distances, there's very little "zoning out" because every step hurts.
On the bike, however, things are different- especially at these distances. You simply sit there and move your legs. It is possible to drift away mentally to a faraway place(good or bad), especially on a 1 kilometer course, where after only a few hours of riding, you know every bump, turn, and hazard by heart.
Of the bike, I remember certain key events, and only those events. The five and a half days I spent on the bike all blend into one major mix of extreme physical pain, fatigue I have never seen, and mental torture.
During the first couple of days riding, Simon and I sided against common sense, and slept as little as possible. Why did we do this? Simple. To literally beat the piss out of each other for every waking hour, for days on end. Too hot in the afternoon? So what. Too tired to keep going? Oh, Simon's still out on the course, so no sleep allowed tonight. At one point, we had amassed 300 Kilometers in 10 hours...suicide pace on that course, at those distances.
It was fun when I was on high points, and incredibly dreadful during valleys. People in the other races were telling us to stop. We couldn't. We both knew the damage we were inflicting upon each other, but neither of us would break.
One particular night after we had been ripping around the course for about 5 hours RACING, Simon rolled up to me, and we both just looked at each other and started laughing. We knew were being stupid. At that point, we called a truce. The truth was that the bike wasn't even close to the START of this thing. 262 miles of running is no joke. Anything could happen and probably would happen.
This wasn't the only time Simon and I would have a mutual moment on the bike. At one point we were riding together, and I had recently hit 1,000 miles. We were both thinking aloud about how amazing it would be to finish the bike. It seemed so impossible just a few days ago, and here we were, within a half-day of getting it done. I couldn't hold it in. I just lost it, and he did the same. 2 grown men crying like little kids. I'm sure when we rolled by our crews just minutes later, they were wondering what the hell was going on out there on the course.
I also recall the Friday night before I finished the bike.. I was making a late-night push to get extra mileage in. I had been making shitty time all day, and I did not want to see a Sunday morning sunrise while I was still on the bike, so I went to the well and dug down deep. Around 2am, my Dad stopped me, pissed off.
"Hey, were you just sleeping on the bike?" Apparently I had dozed while going down the small hill on the course.
"No, I was just listening to my MP3 player on the backstretch."
"That has nothing to do with what I'm talking about."
"Whatever, I'm fine."
I pedaled off, swearing like an irrational demon. 2 laps passed, and it hit me. I could not, for the life of me, remember what had happened between my Dad yelling at me, and the current moment. No recollection whatsoever of those last 2 laps.
I elected to go bed, only to wake up a couple hours later, and live the same nightmare that I had gone through the last 3 days.
On Saturday night, I couldn't take it anymore. I was turning myself inside out to average 10 miles per hour...and the bike finish was a stone's throw away. The fatigue was so much that even the prospect of finishing the bike couldn't move me faster or keep me awake. My dad and I went to bed around 10pm. I awoke at midnight, feeling much clearer. Dad was so tired that I chose to let him sleep...a decision I would later regret deeply.
Once I got on the bike, all I could think was FINISH FINISH FINISH FINISH. It consumed me like nothing ever had before. Ever. I pedaled my ass off for 4 hours. Alone. It was weird to me at the time, but I couldn't understand why. All I knew is that I was finishing. Soon. The final beep of the computerized lap counter came through my ears, and I stopped, just across the line.
The nightmare had come to an end. It was a strange feeling, and now that I look back on it, I know why. I had just biked 1120 miles, and the only person to see the end of this major achievement was the timer. Not Simon. Not Pete, Simon's crewman. And most importantly, the guy who helped me do it, my Dad. I did a lap of the run course and decided I was going to sleep again for a long while, because I was not right mentally. When I came into our room where the tent was set up, Dad was just getting up. He thought I was getting ready to go out on the bike and finish. Rightfully, he was very upset when he learned that I was already done. I was thinking about him when I let him sleep longer that night, but I failed to realize that he would've wanted to see the end of the bike. I felt and still feel terrible about that. I can't stress enough how skewed a sleep-deprived mind and overworked body can be. Logic of a mid-race deca athlete is not the logic of a normal person.
The Run.
4 hours later, I crawled out of the tent, energized. A 262 mile run is hardly the "home stretch" of a Deca, but it is a small pinpoint of light at the end of a very long tunnel. I figured it couldn't be much worse than the mental torture of having a bike seat shoved up your ass for 5 days.
The first 5 or 6 hours of the run were bliss, just riding the high of the bike finish, but the bliss was tempered by the 100 degree afternoon, and the start of my largest run issue: the shits.
The heat during the days on the run was at times unbearable. The original goal was to sleep during the hottest part of the day, but that went out the window when I learned that I simply COULD NOT stay awake from 4-6am. I had to sleep sometime, and unfortunately my body was too hardwired for those hours. This meant sucking it up and dealing with the heat. I dunked a shirt in cold water and wrapped it around my head, spending the afternoons staggering across the shadeless backstretch of new pavement. Some afternoons, the heat reflecting off the pavement had to be 120+.
The heat would come and go, but my bathroom issues were around the clock. I found myself carrying toilet paper around the course, stopping sometimes 2-3 times an hour to expel what I had eaten just an hour ago. It was madness.
While I dealt with heat and diarrhea, Simon was dealing with blisters. I knew those were coming, so I just plugged the miles away and tried to take care of beginning blisters the best I could: shoes and socks off, slit and drain, duct tape, shoes and socks back on, GO.
Around 150 miles, the pressure of the upper part of my shoe was too much: my feet were swelling. It was time to fish out the Big Boys from my luggage. Size 13 running shoes...I normally wear size 11. Instantly the relief amazing.
200 miles in, the real blisters started...not the ones in between or on your toes, or even on your achilles. Those are nothing. The REAL blisters that can ruin your entire life are the ones on the balls of your feet. Every footstep misery.
At one point, I had to get out of my shoes. My feet were wet with sweat and that wasn't helping the blisters at all. I had a pair of thong sandals that I had worn to the race. I ripped off the thong part and duct taped the sandals to my foot. Within 2 laps, the blister on my right foot had exploded. It is not normal how much fluid came from that. My whole foot and sandal was soaking wet, but finally the pain and pressure was gone. Shoes back on.
Somewhere around mile 220, I was wrecked. I had just watched Simon finish, and I really couldn't go anymore. Feet: unbelievably sore and in pain.
I didn't want to stop, but had to. I was too tired. Stopping was easy, but getting going again was another story. Every time I stopped, it took 2 miles of absolute hell to move normally again.
When I woke next, I decided that I wouldn't be stopping again until I finished. I couldn't bear the prospect of getting started again. I just couldn't do it. I went to work. I ate on the run. I drank on the run. I forced myself to only use the bathroom once an hour. I didn't care if it killed me.
70 kilometers later, on that Friday afternoon, I was running with my new friend Caleb, and was less than 5 miles from the finish. He was a local guy who worked outside the park we were racing in. A marathon runner of 25 years of age, he had come out on his lunch break and run with me for the last couple of days, and I was very lucky to have him. Every time he showed up, I was in the mental lows, and every time, we would chat about his culture, our similar music tastes, and life in general. It was a welcome reprieve from the race itself. My Dad told me to slow down.
I didn't understand why. I was almost done. He explained that all of the racers from the other events were headed to the course to watch my finish. I chilled out and walked a few laps. On the start of my last lap, I came through the arches and saw them all there, cheering. The last week and a half, all racers had an unspoken agreement to stop their current race and hang out at the finish line if someone was about to finish another race. It's a small part of the camaraderie we share.
Grabbing the American flag, I began the last lap, running up the steep hill that I had walked 419 times before. I got to the sauna of a backstretch and started crying. I had to stop and stand there in the heat because I couldn't catch my breath because I was so emotional. In just 5 more minutes, this insane journey would be over. The cold, pukey night of the swim seemed like a lifetime ago. The mind-bending bike ride didn't even seem real.
All that WAS real was each footstep during that last kilometer. I didn't feel the pain in my feet, the cramping in my stomach, or the fatigue that had me staggering just hours ago. As the finish line came closer, random memories of the whole race flashed before my eyes:
-the time Wayne Kurtz and his wife forced me off the bike to eat 2 massive chicken sandwiches.
-riding and chatting with all of the other participants in the other races and watching them cross their finish lines
-the stray cats tearing the bird apart, and the mystery mammal rodent armadillo beast that some of us saw.
-the strange, strange workout routines of some of the locals every morning.
-the terrible food, but incredibly nice kitchen staff
All of it was finished. I came through the arches one last time, and stopped, unsure of what to do. Beer was poured on me. I shook hands with the Race Director, hugged the other athletes and my Dad, without whom I would not have finished this race. He put himself through the ringer to get me through this. Bad food and no sleep, scary taxi rides, and a language barrier were just a few things he had to face, and no one could have done it better.
Special thanks to him, as well as my other family and friends for all of the support the last few years. That one night on the run when I checked my messages, I was blown away. It took a week to catch up, and because of you all, I had a mental boost whenever I needed it. All I needed to do was check my Facebook. Thank you, thank you.
Also, please check out the sponsors next to this post on the side bar. I wouldn't have even been able to get to the start line without Meineke Car Care Center in Laconia, NH, MC Cycle of Laconia, or Northern Physical Therapy in Presque Isle, ME.
