Thank you for your generous support to the Eric Chase Fund at Woodgrove Brethren Christian Parish. I sent most of you thank you notes already, but I can’t say it too many times. As of today, together, we raised $4,677.60 for the Chase family to help with Eric’s rehabilitation needs. You should be proud of yourselves.
Here’s what you’ve all been waiting for, or at least some of you have been waiting for…the race report. Many of you have heard already that I completed the race and didn’t fall off the bike this time. So here are the details from my perspective.
I looked at the weather a week before the race and the experts at the weather channel said the high on race day would be 65. I looked a couple of days before the race and the experts predicted the high to be 70. The day before the race the high was predicted to be 74. The morning of the race at 4:30 AM the high was supposed to be 83. My son tells me that the temperature he saw consistently on the car thermometer was 87 and saw a spike of 89 for a short time. Since most of you haven’t raced with me, you probably don’t know that I am definitely not a hot weather racer.
The race started out with 2,188 swimmers, the most ever in any Ironman Triathlon. It was a zoo out there and it was difficult to find a place to swim where someone wasn’t hitting you with every stroke. About halfway down the first ½ mile someone’s hand hit my foot and their heart rate monitor watch left a one inch cut on the top of my foot. OK, I’ll stop whining about it. With the hot conditions, my body knew I would need plenty of fluids, so I drank several mouthfuls of lake water. I wouldn’t recommend it. I clenched my teeth so no critters could find their way in. My swim was nine minutes slower than last year, but I was happy enough just to get through it.
I felt comfortable on the bike after I passed the scene of “The Wreck of 2003” on McCoy Road. Most of the potholes and expansion joint separations had been fixed (where were the road crews last year?) but I was still careful driving through there. At about mile 32, on the hill leading into Mt. Horeb, I had a flat tire. That was my first flat during a race and I may have said a bad word or two. Sorry!! I spent several minutes trying to find what caused it so I wouldn’t flat the spare tube, but couldn’t see or feel a thing. I changed the tube, pumped the tire with a CO2 cartridge and it held the rest of the race. Since then I found where something gashed the side of the tire. The tire is ruined ($55 for a new one and this one only had around 200 miles on it), and why it didn’t flat again I’ll never know.
With the hot conditions, I drank as much as I could hold and still was slightly dehydrated. I was near puke sick (sorry to be so graphic) from the halfway point on the bike to the end of the race, a total of around 10 hours. At about the 90 mile mark on the bike I was climbing the second of three tough hills in a row for the second time when I saw my family and friends cheering me on. Of course I had to show off a little. Within a mile I was on the third and final tough hill when both quads cramped. I knew if I got off the bike at that point, they would freeze up and I probably couldn’t get back on, so I toughed it out (Macho Jack took over). I started the run with cramped legs, but the pain was tolerable. However, the more I ran the worse the nausea got. I ran as long as I could until I could sense a barf coming just around the corner, and then started walking. Once I started feeling slightly better, I would run again for as long as I could and repeat the process.
On the first loop of the run, in a construction area, the pavement was uneven and I folded my right ankle over. It’s happened so many times in the past it wasn’t a serious strain, but it nagged at me continuously the rest of the race. I finished the race in 16 hours, 18 minutes, and 54 seconds (53 second slower than my last race at Ironman Florida). I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m just not built for long distance racing. When you see world class triathletes, you generally see fairly short, slender people. I’m neither of those things. With my build, the sport I’m most adapted for is chess, and I’m not any good at that either.
So you’re probably thinking I’m disappointed with the race and I’m not. Even with all those low points, I had an absolute blast. First of all, I completed the race I couldn’t finish last year. In and of itself, that’s probably enough. But more than that, I enjoyed the entire experience. I had all of you, all my friends and family, wishing me well. I had family and friends at the race cheering me up those tough hills on the bike and at several points on the run course. I got to ride through the crowds at Verona with people cheering and shouting “Go Walker (my name was on my race number bib), you can do it”. I got to see the “devil” at Old Sauk Pass running along side each bike jabbing the air with a pitchfork (fake one made of cardboard and tin foil) encouraging each rider to make it up the hill. I thanked every law enforcement officer at every corner directing traffic for being there on the course. I high-fived it with hundreds of people, many of them children (what were they doing up at 11 P.M.?), in the last 300 yards of the race. I had great conversations with people on the race course that I didn’t know and probably will never see again. I had people who knew I was the guy that had the serious bike wreck last year, but didn’t know my name, give me hugs on the run, telling me I was going to make it this year.
Even with all the pain, how much better can life get?
Before you hear this next part from someone else, I should confess my misadventures on Friday night before the race. Roch Frey and Paul Huddle are well known trainers to triathletes at all levels. Roch is married to Heather Fuhr, winner of eight Ironman Triathlon races around the world. Paul is married to Paula Newby-Frazier, winner of the Ironman Triathlon Championships in Hawaii eight times and winner of 30 other Ironman Triathlon races around the world. Roch and Paul are the race directors for the bike and run and present humorous instructional segments for the carbo loading dinner on Friday night and the required athletes’ meeting on Saturday.
I have known them since the accident and have used their on-line training program for Ironman Wisconsin at http://www.multisports.com/. I knew they had started a tradition of an “Underpants Run” at the World Triathlon Championships in Hawaii for the past six years. It breaks the tension for athletes and raises money for some worthy causes. I sent them a note thanking them for their help throughout the year and asking them if there would be an underpants run at Madison. They sent back an e-mail saying “There never has been one, but what do you think about starting one and raising some money for your friend, Eric”? So, Friday night at 8 PM, about 30 of us stripped down to our “tighty whities” and jogged a few hundred yards down State Street and back.
There was a home football game Saturday and the streets were packed. The crowds got a big kick out of it, gave us high fives, and took plenty of pictures. We would stop at the traffic signals like all runners should, and did calisthenics until the light changed. One girl requested that we bend over and touch our toes…yes, I was the only one that did. Paula Newby-Frazier acted as treasurer (she was just shaking her head at her husband Paul and the rest of us lunatics). Underpants runners and spectators gave $427 in cash donations. At the awards banquet after the race on Monday, an individual came up to Paul and wrote a check for $100 to add to the funds.
If you have a morbid curiosity to see pictures of the underpants run, go to http://www.ironmanlive.com/ and click the picture that says “Ironman Wisconsin post race coverage click here”. There is a menu banner across the top and one of the choices is “photos”. Click that choice and, when the photo appears, click “previous” several times. There are lots of pictures of the race and racers, and the underpants run pictures are quite a few back. If you can pick me out, you may win a prize.
Thanks again for your generous support. You have made a difference and, to me, that’s what life is all about.