I watched Sam Laidlow’s YouTube video about his progress coming back after Hawaii last year and I’m not sure there’s anything physically wrong with him. Back when I was a Corpsman, I dealt with a ton of heat injuries and dehydration and the like. A couple guys who were studs before, had trouble getting back to the same form they were in before the heat injury but there wasn’t anything physically wrong with them. Their vitals were fine and everything seemed fine but they struggled. I think something similar is happening with Sam. When one pushes one’s self to the absolute brink like he did last year or my Marines did back in the day, I think it’s difficult for the brain to accept the fact that it’s going to have to happen again so the self-preservation mechanisms we all have take over when they notice that we are gearing up to do it again. Anyway, just a theory. strong text
Interesting theory. I went as far as passing out deep into the marathon of an ironman under extreme heat, 3 years ago. My performances have never been the same as before since then. I had never envisioned this as a consequence of that…
Johnny Brownlee has recently posted up something about him never being the same in the heat since Cozumel, and I’m pretty sure Emma Pallant Browne has had recurring heat issues. Don’t think it is anything novel, but not sure if it is what Laidlow has had.
Tommy Zaferes nearly died in an itu Conti cup and spent a week in hospital with severe heat stroke. I saw him finish and collapse and thought “he’s dead”. ITU makes athletes pass yearly physicals and itu would only allow him to race under certain temp thresholds or he wouldn’t be medically cleared. JB’s issue happened 3 years after that episode but I think it wasn’t as “severe” and he was always cleared medically for all races.
Regardless of how actual severe it was, heat episodes of that degree seemingly always leave your body worse off, even if you feel “fine” moving forward afterwards.
Same here, Ironman Cozumel 2022. I didn’t quite pass out, but I suffered from severe dehydration and head edema. I had swollen extremeties like the Michelin man, a severe headache, and was extremely dizzy. Ever since, I have strugged big time with adapting to heat (and cold). I just can’t seem to regulate my body temperature anymore.
Just another good reason to not cheer on or glorify pros(and age groupers) to finish at all cost. Because at the time you do not know the costs, they only become apparent either just after the race, or down the road…This part of our sport was always misplaced and was just an emotional part, not a practical one…
But it did get legs early on and to this day it still persists, catching out so many of us of which most are unknown and never counted. We just celebrate the determination it takes to keep going, while that person often is doing severe damage, sometimes lifelong…
Monty hit the nail on the head
I never understood the rational of finishing at all costs.
Especially for pros who are clearly no where close to the front and yet push themselves to the brink just so they don’t DNF
And it negatively effects their next race if not the rest of their season
In this case there was $$$ on the line. Without a finish, his bike course record would not count, hence no bonus
Wonder if he had it to do again he would finish for the money he received
Would the bonus still be available if he took 5hrs to complete the run course?
Once its apparent he’s going to finish down the rankings, take a minute, sit in one of those kiddie pools full of ice water and let the core temp come back down, recover for a bit, and then walk it in?
Yes, there is a middle ground between dnf and finish like a zombie.
I don’t think your stopping for a few mins to sit in a kiddie pool though if your truly in the issues he’s now going through… So maybe you can go 100% walk and take aid at every aid station, but I think the moment you go full blown recovery + stopping to truly drop your core temp, I find it will be hard to restart. Especially in that type of moment when your probaly getting actual medical people talking you about what’s going on and they likely saying “bad idea” to continue. If an athlete went into that type of recovery mode, where they are getting tons of iced dumped on them, there would a strong case of not letting an athlete finish in that type of scenario. That would seem pretty easy a case of medics doing their job for the well being of the athlete, screw a “record” at that point.
So imo it would seem like at best all they can do is walk it in and take as much aid at aid stations without essentially get medics involved. The moment you lay out in a kiddie pool and have a bunch of ice dumped on you or trying to cool your body temp, you are very likely going to end in medic DNF.
Obviously it wasn’t the same thing, but Ditlev said he blew up on the bike, nearly passed out in transition then sat and rest for 4 minutes and salvaged his race.
Huge example for all the pros to remember.
Which matters when your talking about this type of serious issue. There is zero chance you as an athlete is going to be in the middle of a course and demand to recover in a kiddie pool with people dumping ice on you, and they just let you rest for 15 mins and then let you get up and walk it home. You do that and your going to force the medics to do their job and medically DNF you.
Now you could try and walk it home and take normal ice the rest of the way, but the moment you start to stop and want actual aid for your condition- your going to be medically DNF’d. And you absolutely should in that state.
So there are probaly some things you can do to help yourself, but there probaly is very little actual benefit to walking 13 more miles in the heat when your in that condition and your doing very little to actually improve your condition. Cus again if you go lay in a kiddie pool, wanting ice, etc your going to get taken under medic’s purview at that point, and again an athlete in that situation should.
Moral of the story- I don’t know that there is a ton you can do to help yourself. If you walk it off the last 13 miles all your doing is extending the time your body is in the heat and even though your walking, your not helping yourself much by doing that. So then if you decide you want actual medical help with the condition, your almost assuredly going to be medically DNF’d.
I should say, all this arm chair qb’ing we are doing is also pretty dangerous “advice” for an issue as dangerous as this, so I’d be careful what you are suggesting as huge advice when we may or may not even be talking about the same medical conditions. Obviously “heat issues” has a very wide array of seriousness (I just experienced my 1st heat stroke last Saturday, where I passed out doing a volunteer service in this ultra hot summer heat).
He could have taken 7 hours if he wanted, just a nice walk, talk to the age groupers going by or walking with him, and use that time to come right and not damage himself. It was quite apparent early in the run that it was a death march, only he didnt start marching and kept trying to run, and for nothing more than a nice hike would have gotten him.
And Ditlev did the right thing, he took a break and cooled himself down, and then just went on a lets see what happens when I start running mindset. And as it turned out, he was able to hold a pace and stay cool and get to the finish. I’m sure if that were not the case at some point, he would have pulled the plug once you are only fighting for 20th to 50th place…
Laidlow didn’t look “off” until at least 10k into the run, and he kept the lead until almost the half way point. So it wasn’t as if he was just going to high five everyone out of T2 and walk the next 7 hours. The dude was trying to win a fucking race. If your saying he should have walked it in after being passed the 20th time by other pros, fair enough, but again by that point the damage had been done. Walking it in wasn’t going to save him from any worse damage, he would have needed to be removed basically at that point when it went truly off the rails.
I’ve never understood the whole “Death Before DNF” thing. It always seemed like a mantra for chest thumping wankers trying to be tough guys.
I totally agree with you. Plus he’s very young for this distance. I watched the video about him unable to train at all.
The worst part was that the trainers told him to move in for a couple of months and they would help him get thru. In my opinion they should have told him to go away for a couple of years, XC ski, ride mountain bikes, hike. They do this to race horses-start to young, over race, etc.
Sad to watch
Are you sure about that?
I was in pretty bad shape, way overheating at Frankfurt 2019 km16 on the run, 37deg. Stopped at a cold shower for 5min, my girlfriend brought me to the red cross tent nearby and spent 15min there checking blood pressure and other vital signs + getting cold drinks in the shade.
At the end of this when I asked to announce my DNF to the officials the medic asked ‘are you sure you don’t want to try and finish your ironman?’ which really surprised me to be honest… (I didn’t take the offer, and went on to beat by PB 6 weeks later in Kalmar)
I was in the best shape just before Kona last year. But the race day was difficult from the very beginning. I started the run leg quite conservatively but the tempo began to fade from, maybe, km 10. After Energy Lab, I noticed I stopped sweating despite eating and drinking well during the whole race.
No dizziness, it was just hard but manageable. But I could not run. So, walked to the aid station, cooled myself down and then tried to run - it lasted 400-500m, and then I started to walk again. It continued till the last 4 km of the race, and then it started to rain, so I tried to jog and was able to finish. Felt very weak after finishing, puked the very first time in my races and could not consume even beers/soda for another 4 hours. After collecting my bike, I was able to grab some orange juice and started to feel way better after that.
Prior to the race, I thought I’d take 3 weeks off before starting my next season. However, it took 3 months before I could even train again. And it seems that even 3 months were not enough. Despite I have already finished a half and full one this year, I feel weak and cannot hold the volumes I was able to hold before Kona.