I always read everyone's race report so I decided that I would write my own. The only thing is I am not your typical ST'er. I am bigger at 6'6 220 pounds, I do not eat, sleep, live triathlon, and I am slow, like BOP slow. But I like coming on here and reading about other racers and triathlon related stuff.
Back story:
Wanting to do an Ironman has been a life goal for me. I remember growing up ( I am 25 for reference) and watching the hour long shows on TV with my brother in awe, and always wanting to do one. I liked doing things in sports that others did not like, I liked running longer and faster than all my friends growing up, to the point where they thought it was annoying. I loved running, but I did not have a typical runners body and by high school I had given up running competitively. I was a football and basketball player early on in high school and then switched to only basketball and worked on getting to college on that one skill. During the latter part of my junior year in high school I started having some digestive issues with blood in my stool. As a perfectly healthy 18 year old I thought nothing of it. Then the blood started coming out in bunches, and my family and I thought there was no way this was a normal thing. It was then I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis, an auto-immune disease with no cause and no cure, although there were medicines you could take to bring the disease into remission, for most people. I was not one of those "most people", nothing I took whether orally, or intravenous helped me with my disease. The doctor told me that it was highly likely I was forming precancerous cells and the decision was made to have my colon removed, have a colostomy bag for 9 weeks and then have another procedure to reverse it back. I had my colon removed on December 17, 2009 and was sent home on December 20th. That night I could not sleep, I was throwing up blood and could not control my breathing. The next day I was taken back to the hospital against the advice of the paramedics and was run through an assortment of tests, which showed nothing. But meanwhile my temperature was rising and so was my heart rate. I spent the night in the ICU where nothing ever stabilized, the next morning at about 5AM it was decided that I would undergo an emergency surgery so they can see what was wrong with me, I was convulsing at this point and spitting up white liquid. I thought I was going to die. I pleaded with my surgeon to not let me die. I told my mom right then and there that I loved her and I told her good bye. My surgeon went in looking for a needle in a haystack. After putting me to sleep he examined my body and found a black mark on my behind that should not have been on my skin. That is where he decided to cut, and that is where he found the Gastric Gangrene that had been in my body for 24 hours. During this time he had to cut out a large portion of my butt, and some more intestine that was supposed to be used to connect everything back together at some point amongst other things. He went back into the room with my mom, and girlfriend (now wife), sat down and cried. Yes my surgeon cried right in front of my family and told them he had done everything he could do and that it was up to me at this point. He told them that I had three critical organs shut down and that usually means less than a 10 percent of survival. I was airlifted to another hospital that had a hyperbaric chamber to help with my now extensive wound and I was placed in a medically induced coma.
That was almost 6 years ago. Obviously I am not dead but I had to go through a lot to get where I am at. I had 8 surgeries, was in the hospital more than 10 times spending more than 40 nights. They were never able to reconnect my intestines like the plan was but I now have a BCIR. Which allows me to stick a tube or catheter into my stomach when I need to drain it. So no bag! This makes life a lot easier.
I always knew in the back of my head that I still wanted to do an Ironman. My wife and I did some sprints in 2014 and then I declared I wanted to do an Ironman. Picking Chattanooga was not a hard choice, it is in my region of the US, (live in Florida), I hate saltwater swims, and the charity that it supports is the Crohn's and Colitis foundation, so it was an easy choice.
March 1st kicked off my official Ironman training plan, I ran a half marathon in November, but I don't know if I should count that as training for the race or not. Nonetheless I chose the intermediate Iron Fit plan. If I would have had a coach, he probably would have fired me. In the early stages I did not take it too seriously. I would skip my long bike or cut it short frequently. I started to get serious with the plan during the middle portion. I attempted the Lake Logan Half and DNF'd. I think I could have finished but I was in the back of the race and they were running out of HEED and Cola at the aid stations (my Doctors warned me that just water is not as beneficial to me since I have so much of my guts taken out), so I looked at my wife after running 6.1 miles and told her that I can finish this race and go to the hospital or stop, so I stopped. Looking back, and if I am being honest I probably was not in the best race shape going into that. So I got more serious about training, hitting every long ride and run up until 2 weeks before Chattanooga.
Going into the event I was feeling prepared, but had the thought of the DNF in my head, and also wondered how my digestion would hold up. My entire family went, all 15 of them, we rented a house in Decatur and had a great time. My wife had custom shirts made and on the front it said "no colon and still rollin" which is my slogan I use. She said she got a lot of comments from people during the day.
Anywho, the morning of the race came and I was pretty calm, it was wetsuit optional and there was no way I was going to wear one. I thought it may have been wetsuit legal since it rained the night before but the water temp was 77.1. Once we reached the swim start, I got to the end of the long start line and walked and talked with my family. When it was go time, got all the hugs and love and knew it was go time from there. I jogged back to my place in line went to the dock and jumped in.
Swim Goal: 1:15
Swim Actual: 1:13
My swim at the half was 38 minutes but I knew I had gotten faster and would also have the current pushing me a bit. Jumping in and getting started I had to calm down my HR. Took it slow and just swam. I cannot swim in a straight line in open water to save my life, I try but just cannot do it. I ran into a few people and almost got ran over by the wetsuit swimmers but I was able to manage. It felt like forever getting to the bridges but once I got to them it was no time until I was being pulled out on the steps.
T1: 13:40
My plan was to move quickly but not rush, and it was terrible. The rain the night before completely soaked my bib and jersey and they were tough to get on, I guess I will know for next time to double bag then transition bags or something. Oh well rookie mistake. I put my bib on and jersey on and realized I forgot to put on my HR monitor, the wet clothes made it hard to get clothes on and off, really did not want to take this long but oh well.
Bike goal: 8:00
Bike Actual: 7:57
I am new to biking this long. Before Ironman training the longest I ever rode was 40 miles. My training partners who have done a few 140.6 races think my riding has come a long way but I don’t know. I don’t really like going more than 4 hours because I get bored. Having said that I knew this was going to be a long day. I got on the bike and just tried to ride easy and not very hard. 116 miles was easily going to be the longest ride I had done and I knew patience was the key. I was getting passed a lot within the first 40 miles but I just tried to stay consistent. My brother, my wife, and my friends and others were at mile 43 on the bike screaming for me and that gave me probably the biggest boost of the whole day, and then my mom, step dad, mother in law, brother in law, sister and niece and nephew were another mile up the road so that was very cool. Meanwhile, I was chaffing, and it was terrible. Everything in T1 was soaked, so I could not dry my hands off enough to be efficient on the chamois cream. At special needs there was a guy holding a sign that said “free lube”, he saved me. At special needs I grabbed my flat coke and some gu was off. Did not want to use too much time there and kept going. On the second loop I started to fatigue bad. I was not drinking like I should, nor downing the GU’s like I should and I needed to go to the bathroom. Obviously my bathroom break was different than most people’s and took a little more time. Once I got done with that around mile 88 it was back to refueling and I started feeling better. I took the hardest hit on the way back into town. With about 11 miles to go on the bike I was getting passed (nothing new), by an older man (70), on a mountain bike. On one hand I thought he was awesome to be able to do that, on the other hand I thought very little of myself. I came into transition and knew that I was still a long ways away.
T2: 12:31
Not going to sugar coat it. I was done, I did not want any more of this. But I needed to psych myself up, I do this all the time as a high school basketball coach for my players and now I needed it. I told myself that I spent too much time and money to stop now, and now only was I invested so was my family and my friends. They each had taken several days off and spent a lot of money to watch me, so the run was no longer about me, it was about them. I got out of the tent and told myself to walk for 10 minutes and find your legs. I crossed the timing mat and looked over at a volunteer for the time, she told me 5:30.
Run goal: 6:30
Run actual: 6:24
Doing the math in my head rather quickly I realized that in order for me to finish before midnight I would need a 15 minute pace. My spirit picked up quickly after realizing this. I knew it would be long but I could easily keep that pace. So I walked for 10 minutes and then did a run for 4 minute walk for 2 minute ordeal for a long time, while walking each aid station. I couldn’t keep the 4 minutes so I quickly went down to running for 2 minutes, but all was good because my Garmin kept telling me I was ahead of where I needed to be. I was feeling good until mile 6 where my digestive issues would come up again. I needed to use the restroom and when I did I had problems with my tube and that took a while. It ended up taking enough time that I was not on pace anymore. I was feeling good, and saw my family at mile 8, and I told them my plan. They understood it and I was off for the hills. I had heard about the hills for a long time, training in Florida I do not get hills, so I knew once I got to them my pace would drop to a walk going up those hills. They were long and brutal but I got through them with little pain. That was something I was not prepared for, I thought by now I would be in a lot of pain, but I really wasn’t I was feeling good despite being on the course for so long. At special needs I wanted to change my socks but knew it would take too long so I took my gummy worms and was off. I saw my brother in law and my nephew and him being 5 he really wanted to walk with me for a little bit. So we walked for about a quarter of a mile and he loved asking me questions and me answering them. I love my nephew and was really glad he could take my mind off of was I was doing for 5 or so minutes. At about mile 14 I saw my friend Anthony who had traveled with us, Ant is my go-to on a lot of stuff, and once he heard that I was doing an Ironman he made sure he got to go. Anthony wanted to stay with me for a while, even though I know it is against the rules I did not mind. If someone told him he had to stop he would and that would be that. Anthony told me I was cutting it close and sped me up a bit for 5 miles. At 19 miles he was done and I was back on my own in the dark. Every person I saw I kept asking the time and for some reason I thought I was behind schedule and not going to make it. I started running more and picking up my pace. I came to the hills again and knew I could not walk up them anymore. So I started running them little by little and walking some too of course. Usually what I would do is run to a light pole then walk to the next, and I did that over and over. After the hills section I had about 1 mile left, I asked someone the time and they told me that all I had to do was the last 1.2 miles in 20 minutes. I knew I could walk that pace and did not mind doing so. By this time both of my legs were cramped up. Once over the bridge I ran into the shoot to hear them calling me an Ironman.
Finish time: 16:01:05
Post race: I went to the med tent to get an IV. I thought surely because I do not have a colon I would be dehydrated, but the Dr. said he thought I was fine and good to go. The only thing disappointing about this is that I did not get my picture with my medal with the Ironman logo in the back, oh well guess I need to do another one then. Afterwards we headed back to the rental house where I got a bath and went right to sleep. The next day we had to drive back to Florida. Right after the race I told anyone and everyone that I would never do another Ironman, but now I would not be so quick to rule one out anymore.
Back story:
Wanting to do an Ironman has been a life goal for me. I remember growing up ( I am 25 for reference) and watching the hour long shows on TV with my brother in awe, and always wanting to do one. I liked doing things in sports that others did not like, I liked running longer and faster than all my friends growing up, to the point where they thought it was annoying. I loved running, but I did not have a typical runners body and by high school I had given up running competitively. I was a football and basketball player early on in high school and then switched to only basketball and worked on getting to college on that one skill. During the latter part of my junior year in high school I started having some digestive issues with blood in my stool. As a perfectly healthy 18 year old I thought nothing of it. Then the blood started coming out in bunches, and my family and I thought there was no way this was a normal thing. It was then I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis, an auto-immune disease with no cause and no cure, although there were medicines you could take to bring the disease into remission, for most people. I was not one of those "most people", nothing I took whether orally, or intravenous helped me with my disease. The doctor told me that it was highly likely I was forming precancerous cells and the decision was made to have my colon removed, have a colostomy bag for 9 weeks and then have another procedure to reverse it back. I had my colon removed on December 17, 2009 and was sent home on December 20th. That night I could not sleep, I was throwing up blood and could not control my breathing. The next day I was taken back to the hospital against the advice of the paramedics and was run through an assortment of tests, which showed nothing. But meanwhile my temperature was rising and so was my heart rate. I spent the night in the ICU where nothing ever stabilized, the next morning at about 5AM it was decided that I would undergo an emergency surgery so they can see what was wrong with me, I was convulsing at this point and spitting up white liquid. I thought I was going to die. I pleaded with my surgeon to not let me die. I told my mom right then and there that I loved her and I told her good bye. My surgeon went in looking for a needle in a haystack. After putting me to sleep he examined my body and found a black mark on my behind that should not have been on my skin. That is where he decided to cut, and that is where he found the Gastric Gangrene that had been in my body for 24 hours. During this time he had to cut out a large portion of my butt, and some more intestine that was supposed to be used to connect everything back together at some point amongst other things. He went back into the room with my mom, and girlfriend (now wife), sat down and cried. Yes my surgeon cried right in front of my family and told them he had done everything he could do and that it was up to me at this point. He told them that I had three critical organs shut down and that usually means less than a 10 percent of survival. I was airlifted to another hospital that had a hyperbaric chamber to help with my now extensive wound and I was placed in a medically induced coma.
That was almost 6 years ago. Obviously I am not dead but I had to go through a lot to get where I am at. I had 8 surgeries, was in the hospital more than 10 times spending more than 40 nights. They were never able to reconnect my intestines like the plan was but I now have a BCIR. Which allows me to stick a tube or catheter into my stomach when I need to drain it. So no bag! This makes life a lot easier.
I always knew in the back of my head that I still wanted to do an Ironman. My wife and I did some sprints in 2014 and then I declared I wanted to do an Ironman. Picking Chattanooga was not a hard choice, it is in my region of the US, (live in Florida), I hate saltwater swims, and the charity that it supports is the Crohn's and Colitis foundation, so it was an easy choice.
March 1st kicked off my official Ironman training plan, I ran a half marathon in November, but I don't know if I should count that as training for the race or not. Nonetheless I chose the intermediate Iron Fit plan. If I would have had a coach, he probably would have fired me. In the early stages I did not take it too seriously. I would skip my long bike or cut it short frequently. I started to get serious with the plan during the middle portion. I attempted the Lake Logan Half and DNF'd. I think I could have finished but I was in the back of the race and they were running out of HEED and Cola at the aid stations (my Doctors warned me that just water is not as beneficial to me since I have so much of my guts taken out), so I looked at my wife after running 6.1 miles and told her that I can finish this race and go to the hospital or stop, so I stopped. Looking back, and if I am being honest I probably was not in the best race shape going into that. So I got more serious about training, hitting every long ride and run up until 2 weeks before Chattanooga.
Going into the event I was feeling prepared, but had the thought of the DNF in my head, and also wondered how my digestion would hold up. My entire family went, all 15 of them, we rented a house in Decatur and had a great time. My wife had custom shirts made and on the front it said "no colon and still rollin" which is my slogan I use. She said she got a lot of comments from people during the day.
Anywho, the morning of the race came and I was pretty calm, it was wetsuit optional and there was no way I was going to wear one. I thought it may have been wetsuit legal since it rained the night before but the water temp was 77.1. Once we reached the swim start, I got to the end of the long start line and walked and talked with my family. When it was go time, got all the hugs and love and knew it was go time from there. I jogged back to my place in line went to the dock and jumped in.
Swim Goal: 1:15
Swim Actual: 1:13
My swim at the half was 38 minutes but I knew I had gotten faster and would also have the current pushing me a bit. Jumping in and getting started I had to calm down my HR. Took it slow and just swam. I cannot swim in a straight line in open water to save my life, I try but just cannot do it. I ran into a few people and almost got ran over by the wetsuit swimmers but I was able to manage. It felt like forever getting to the bridges but once I got to them it was no time until I was being pulled out on the steps.
T1: 13:40
My plan was to move quickly but not rush, and it was terrible. The rain the night before completely soaked my bib and jersey and they were tough to get on, I guess I will know for next time to double bag then transition bags or something. Oh well rookie mistake. I put my bib on and jersey on and realized I forgot to put on my HR monitor, the wet clothes made it hard to get clothes on and off, really did not want to take this long but oh well.
Bike goal: 8:00
Bike Actual: 7:57
I am new to biking this long. Before Ironman training the longest I ever rode was 40 miles. My training partners who have done a few 140.6 races think my riding has come a long way but I don’t know. I don’t really like going more than 4 hours because I get bored. Having said that I knew this was going to be a long day. I got on the bike and just tried to ride easy and not very hard. 116 miles was easily going to be the longest ride I had done and I knew patience was the key. I was getting passed a lot within the first 40 miles but I just tried to stay consistent. My brother, my wife, and my friends and others were at mile 43 on the bike screaming for me and that gave me probably the biggest boost of the whole day, and then my mom, step dad, mother in law, brother in law, sister and niece and nephew were another mile up the road so that was very cool. Meanwhile, I was chaffing, and it was terrible. Everything in T1 was soaked, so I could not dry my hands off enough to be efficient on the chamois cream. At special needs there was a guy holding a sign that said “free lube”, he saved me. At special needs I grabbed my flat coke and some gu was off. Did not want to use too much time there and kept going. On the second loop I started to fatigue bad. I was not drinking like I should, nor downing the GU’s like I should and I needed to go to the bathroom. Obviously my bathroom break was different than most people’s and took a little more time. Once I got done with that around mile 88 it was back to refueling and I started feeling better. I took the hardest hit on the way back into town. With about 11 miles to go on the bike I was getting passed (nothing new), by an older man (70), on a mountain bike. On one hand I thought he was awesome to be able to do that, on the other hand I thought very little of myself. I came into transition and knew that I was still a long ways away.
T2: 12:31
Not going to sugar coat it. I was done, I did not want any more of this. But I needed to psych myself up, I do this all the time as a high school basketball coach for my players and now I needed it. I told myself that I spent too much time and money to stop now, and now only was I invested so was my family and my friends. They each had taken several days off and spent a lot of money to watch me, so the run was no longer about me, it was about them. I got out of the tent and told myself to walk for 10 minutes and find your legs. I crossed the timing mat and looked over at a volunteer for the time, she told me 5:30.
Run goal: 6:30
Run actual: 6:24
Doing the math in my head rather quickly I realized that in order for me to finish before midnight I would need a 15 minute pace. My spirit picked up quickly after realizing this. I knew it would be long but I could easily keep that pace. So I walked for 10 minutes and then did a run for 4 minute walk for 2 minute ordeal for a long time, while walking each aid station. I couldn’t keep the 4 minutes so I quickly went down to running for 2 minutes, but all was good because my Garmin kept telling me I was ahead of where I needed to be. I was feeling good until mile 6 where my digestive issues would come up again. I needed to use the restroom and when I did I had problems with my tube and that took a while. It ended up taking enough time that I was not on pace anymore. I was feeling good, and saw my family at mile 8, and I told them my plan. They understood it and I was off for the hills. I had heard about the hills for a long time, training in Florida I do not get hills, so I knew once I got to them my pace would drop to a walk going up those hills. They were long and brutal but I got through them with little pain. That was something I was not prepared for, I thought by now I would be in a lot of pain, but I really wasn’t I was feeling good despite being on the course for so long. At special needs I wanted to change my socks but knew it would take too long so I took my gummy worms and was off. I saw my brother in law and my nephew and him being 5 he really wanted to walk with me for a little bit. So we walked for about a quarter of a mile and he loved asking me questions and me answering them. I love my nephew and was really glad he could take my mind off of was I was doing for 5 or so minutes. At about mile 14 I saw my friend Anthony who had traveled with us, Ant is my go-to on a lot of stuff, and once he heard that I was doing an Ironman he made sure he got to go. Anthony wanted to stay with me for a while, even though I know it is against the rules I did not mind. If someone told him he had to stop he would and that would be that. Anthony told me I was cutting it close and sped me up a bit for 5 miles. At 19 miles he was done and I was back on my own in the dark. Every person I saw I kept asking the time and for some reason I thought I was behind schedule and not going to make it. I started running more and picking up my pace. I came to the hills again and knew I could not walk up them anymore. So I started running them little by little and walking some too of course. Usually what I would do is run to a light pole then walk to the next, and I did that over and over. After the hills section I had about 1 mile left, I asked someone the time and they told me that all I had to do was the last 1.2 miles in 20 minutes. I knew I could walk that pace and did not mind doing so. By this time both of my legs were cramped up. Once over the bridge I ran into the shoot to hear them calling me an Ironman.
Finish time: 16:01:05
Post race: I went to the med tent to get an IV. I thought surely because I do not have a colon I would be dehydrated, but the Dr. said he thought I was fine and good to go. The only thing disappointing about this is that I did not get my picture with my medal with the Ironman logo in the back, oh well guess I need to do another one then. Afterwards we headed back to the rental house where I got a bath and went right to sleep. The next day we had to drive back to Florida. Right after the race I told anyone and everyone that I would never do another Ironman, but now I would not be so quick to rule one out anymore.
Last edited by:
nocolonstlrolln: Oct 5, 15 12:21