So my first IM didn’t go quite as planned, but here’s a quick recap with a bit more medical information than you might hope. Had a chance to quickly meet a few STers - johnnyo, Fleck. Started the race on Sunday morning on schedule. It was insane. I spent the first 1200m or so protecting my head while trying to maintain forward progress. I can definitely see how easy it would be to panic. You’re getting pushed under, kicked in the head, your goggles are coming off and there’s nothing you can do. There is no clear water ahead, behind, or beside you for as far as the eye can see (when it can see!). You just move forward. And you hope it will ease off! Swim time was 1hr 8mins and change - right on schedule.
The bike went fairly well. The weather was quite cool for this time of year in Penticton which was a good thing. It was pretty darn windy on the back half, but all in all it went very well - I paced the 180k nicely to arrive at the run with strong legs. The only minor mishap was passing by the special needs bag and having to pull over to have one of the volunteers run back to get it and bring it back up. Bike time was 5hrs 48mins. Interesting note was that I took in between 40-50 salt tabs on the bike alone. Was slamming them back like candy! But they sure did the trick.
The run. That fateful run. This is where the fun for my day really started. The legs felt fantastic, I had a lot of strength in them so was pretty excited about what was to come. However, I had a little nagging pain in my groin area which I quickly summed up as a mild groin strain. It was manageable so started the run a little slower and hoped it wouldn’t gain strength. Well, I managed to run through the pain for 30k at which point it was getting out of control. Being within 12k of the finish line, I wasn’t about to throw in the towel but quickly had to adjust my finishing time expectations. A little dissapointing, but that’s life. I started walking and figured I’d walk for 20 minutes or so, jog for what was comfortable, then walk again. The goal: just keeping moving. Forward progress. Well, to skip a lot of the pleasant details - I managed to walk, then hobble for about 7 more kms before my body finally gave out on the sidewalk. I was fortunate enough to have two dear friends by my side at that point and I am so thankful for that. I have a feeling it wasn’t a pretty sight - the most excruciating pain of my life. The pain was making me vomit, which of course only increases the pain. And my body had pretty much cooled off so violent shivering kicked in too. Yum!
So it turns out (if you don’t want to read the more detailed medical stuff, skip this part…) that I had an incarcerated hernia. Basically, an inner lining in my lower abdomen gave way and a large section of my small intestine had pushed through and was unable to get back. It had actually pushed down into my right testicle and had completely stopped the blood flow to both that section of small intestine and my right testicle. The intestine had necratized and so they had to surgerically remove 8" of it and said that if it had been a couple more hours, my right testicle would have had the same fate. At the time of the surgery they didn’t know if they’d be able to save it, but that I shouldn’t worry because many men go on to live normal lives with only one testicle (we all know that is in fact true)! At the time I was in too much pain to really digest all this properly and just wanted to be knocked out. I was dissapointed in Morphine - two shots didn’t do anything!
Basically, they performed the surgery, I spent the next four days in the Penticton hospital, and have made it as far as Vancouver now.
I will be back to finish IMC in either 2008 or 2009.
I have unfinished business to attend to. What I have learned from all this? I just don’t know.
