As I headed to the first turnaround for the run (about ¼ mile from the start) I saw Trevor and my dad once again taking pictures. Trevor yells at me “Easiest thing you’ll ever do!” I’m not sure if this was sarcasm or not. I mean, yeah, a marathon following everything else isn’t easy, but it’s also like, yeah, this is it and I’m an Ironman. So really, it’s not THAT hard. And the first mile, that’s exactly how I felt.
Then the gas came back. And worse this time. I suppose deluging your guy with pain killers, energy boosters, heavily processed gels and snack bars and sugar drinks may not be the BEST thing for your digestive track. So I suffered my way to the first aid station a little past mile 2, and decided I’d take as long as I needed to make the gas go away. Outhouses on a sunny day aren’t the funnest places to be. You tend to sweat a little, Throw in that I’d just biked 112 miles and run about 2, and had put massive amounts of thermogenics in my body, and I was sweating a little bit. Or a lot. I was probably in the outhouse close to ten minutes, listening to pretty much everyone I’d passed on the bike run by, with kids yelling “Water! Gatorade! Gels! Pretzels!” I thought to myself ‘If this persists, this run is gonna be the most miserable 6 hours of my life.”
I got done, pounded about 5 cups of Gatorade to rehydrate myself, and got back on the run course. I made it about another mile before the gas came back. Just as bad. I actually ran past the aid station about 100 yards, then realized I wasn’t going to make it another mile, turned around, and ran back to the porta-john. Another 8 minutes in that one, and I felt like I was done. But I told myself no more pills (those salt tabs are packed with magnesium too. Probably not the best either), no more Gatorade, and no food for a while. Just water.
This seemed to work s after that the gas was gone. Apparently my first 6 miles, though, I averaged 13 minute miles. I guess that’s what happened when you spend 15 minutes in the shitter. But had I not done that, it woulda been a much longer day.
The run course was pretty nice, starting on the beach and winding through some residential areas of Panama City Beach, before ending with a loop around St. Andrew’s State Park and then heading back the same way. Every mile had an aid station with all kinds of stuff, like cookies, grapes, water, Gatorade, pretzels, gels, power bars. I guess we really got our $500 worth, ya know? A lot were themed, like one was “That 70s Station” with people in afro wigs and 70s music playing. One was MASH themes, with the theme from the show playing and everyone dressed in army fatigues from the 1950s. I yelled at one volunteer as I went by “Man, you must be getting REAL tired of that song.” “Ugh,” he responded, “you have no idea.” I told him I’d trade him, which he didn’t take me up on. I think my favorite aid station, though, was the one with the unintentional theme of “Bad Part of Town” Like it was across the street from a ship-freight loading dock with some empty, run-down industrial buildings around it and some small houses with overgrown lawn. Oh, and the staff manning the station was a little, um, ethnic? Needless to say, there was nobody at this aid station the second time I got to it. It was dark. Nobody’s hanging around there after the sun goes down.
As I ran back from my first loop of the course, Trevor caught me on his bike, and I gave him my souvenir order. Then Justin, whose dad was doing the race, caught me on his bike and interviewed me on video. That was all kinda fun. Trevor even gave me my split for the first 6 miles, which, as I said, was awful. The urn back to the finish line/turnaround went right by the condo, so again my dad and Trevor were out there with cameras. I later learned they’d also been drinking pretty solid from the time Trevor left me on his bike until then. Or about an hour and a half. That section of the run was motivating, though, as it was lined with people heading out beer and playing music. Panama City, like everyone who lives there comes out for this race, so the streets were just lined with partiers.
I hit the turnaround and saw the finish line. For some reason, the MIley Cyrus song “I Can’t Wait to See You Again,” then proceeded to be stuck in my head for the next hour. But it was true. I saw the bright lights and heard the crowd and the announcer, and the adrenaline started going. Even though I had 13.1 miles to go. But fuck it. All I had was 13.1 miles to go. And it was all over. I got my special needs bag, changed into my 1st Battalion Drill Instructor PT shirt from boot camp, and headed out for the home stretch.
Trevor decided to run the beer mile with me, which was fun. He even gave me a Michelob Ultra to chug, which I did. It made me feel slightly better, actually. Got some good pics of me running backward, gave me some advice that I don’t remember, then it was all me for the next 2 and a half hours. My quads were hurting, it was dark, it was cold, but I felt fine.
When I got to the park, I was running in complete darkness for a couple of miles. This really allows you to focus on your running and actually made it easier. But at about mile 20, I was walking and stopping briefly at every aid station. I needed it, my legs were dying. At every one, though, I just said “Ok body. Look. You give me 6.2 more miles, and you can take the rest of the year off.” My body liked that deal, and kept going. Getting out of the park (which featured a giant digital message board where people could send messages to encourage the athletes, mine saying “Run, fat man, run!”) it felt like the home stretch. But it was easily the hardest part for me.
I just wanted to bet to the beer section. That I knew I could just breeze through like nothing. But the 4 miles through the residential areas was boring and tedious and I just wanted to get done. This was the only time in the race I started getting cranky and irritated. When the fuck was I getting out of there?!
But I finally did. I hit beer mile, and the crowd starting doing the Tomahawk Chop for some guy in an FSU jersey. It made me wish, for the only time in my life, I’d gone to Florida State. That shit had to be motivating. Of course, the guy stopped and walked, so maybe not. Then a guy with a megaphone gets in the middle of the road and yells at me “Hey, this guy wants a BEER!” I said “Fuck Yeah, I want a beer!” And his group went nuts. They handed me a beer, I chugged it (it was like a Dixie cup of beer, not a whole can) and I kept on. I saw the lights of the finish line. I could hear the crowd and the announcer. Another 5 minutes, and I was an Ironman. I heard some lady yell “12;50!” as I ran by my condo, so breaking 13 seemed pretty certain.
As I headed down the final stretch, I somehow missed that there was a short turnaround I had to do before I could turn into the finishing chute. I mean, it was like maybe 20 yards, but some volunteer had to steer me back to it. Just as I got steered back, Trevor runs up to me with a plate and a slice of pizza.
“This is your finish line pizza,” he told me. “You gotta take a bite of this when you cross the line.” Great fucking idea. For a year, I’d thought about what to do at the finish line, and this seemed perfect. Given my penchant for pizza for which I am constantly mocked, and my perpetual demanding of slices at the end of the night, it seemed only fitting. So, slice in hand, I turned the corner down the finishing chute.
The lights hit me in the face and my eyes got wide like a little kid seeing a baseball
stadium for the first time. This was it. The end. The crowd I’d been a part of the year before, and seen when I saw Trevor finish 2 years prior. Thinking “I want that feeling. I want to cross that line and feel like that.” And there I was, running down the finishing chute at the Ironman. It was surreal, and I only wished that more people could have seen it. I heard my name, followed by someone else’s, and then those four words I’d been waiting to hear….‘You are an Ironman.”
With that, I took a bite of my slice, looked at the camera, and crossed the line. Not the adrenaline rush I’d expected, but great nonetheless. I ended up finishing at 12:55:14 just making my goal (the marathon took me 5:26). I had done it. As my dad told me when I first walked out of the Athlete’s area at the finish line “An Amazing Feat.” And it was. No matter how mad I fuck up the rest of my life, whether I’m a roaring success or a miserable failure or just a slacker who never tried, nothing will ever take away what I did on November 7, 2009.
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