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Why then are we offended? Why do we complain? This is what we’re here for.

Seneca

A Year Later

On June 9th of 2019, I participated in IRONMAN 70.3 Eagleman, which is hosted in Cambridge, Maryland. To say that life got ahead of me, with rapid changes in my personal and professional life, would be an understatement. During times of change and transition, I find that things often fall through the cracks and one of the many interests that was deemed “non-essential” during the chaos was updating this page.

It’s been about a year and a half since my last post which only made writing another all the more daunting. No one enjoys the feeling of failure, especially when, once it has been internalized, it becomes shame. The longer I went without writing the worse I felt and the more shame I felt in not posting, this cycle grew exponentially by the day. It has taken me a long time of self-reflection to return to the intention of writing and posting.

I started this page to learn and grow through the process of training for triathlons but I realized recently, that writing to this page is also a form of training. Not a destination but a process. A journey. So without further ado, I present my race report on the 2019 Eagleman.

Cool Caps

It was Friday afternoon and I was headed up 95 to Alexandria, VA as a question slowly became clear in my mind: “Are you really doing this?”

The day before I had over-packed up my gear into my car and sat in my apartment reading my Athlete Guide for the hundredth time. Reading — or rather re-reading — my Guide had became a meditation. Whenever my mind wandered or I was feeling anxious, I would instinctively find my Guide and read. So as I found myself driving on the way to pick up my mom on my way up to Cambridge, I was left alone with my thoughts, without my trusty safety blanket Guide. Left alone to answer: “Are you really doing this?”

Once I picked up my mom and we began the drive to Cambridge, we talked about small things: the weather, traffic, memories of growing up in Virginia. I was simultaneously the most focused and aware of my surroundings that I had ever been but also the most reserved and furtive. I hate to admit how much ego played a part into the conflict I was experiencing but I think it’s hard not to admit that I was trying to maintain my “cool cap” on instead of admit how nervous I was.

We stayed at an AirBNB about a 15 minute walk from the Race Expo at Gerry Boyle Park at Great Marsh (GBP). We unloaded the car, did some unpacking and headed to the packet pick-up. I was like a nervous kid in a candy store. So many sights and sounds that I had dreamed of and envisioned suddenly there in front of me, just seeing IRONMAN 70.3 logos everywhere made my adrenaline start coursing.

Looking back on it now, a part of me was scared that someone would look my way and know that I didn’t belong or out me for a phony. When you are in the throes of impostor syndrome, it can take some time to realize what is happening, so my cool cap stayed on. I walked as if I knew what I was doing and I went to athlete check-in.

“You’re Going to Do Great!”

I am always surprised by the kindness of strangers. Kindness cuts through BS and gets straight to the heart and let me tell you, IRONMAN volunteer are KIND.

Athlete check-in was organized alphabetically, so I walked to where the Ls started. Under the sign, a middle-aged gentleman was standing behind a box filled with folders and forms. As I walked up we made eye contact and he smiled.

Let me tell you about this smile. This smile wasn’t a simple “hello” of greeting or of polite indifference. This was a smile of brilliance and joy, kindness and compassion, a smile that has seen people at their best but also at their worst and that knows every moment is precious. Even looking back on it now, I don’t know what I did to receive such a smile.

This man could’ve been anyone in his life outside of being a volunteer but in that instant, with that smile, he disarmed the fortress of self-doubt that had isolated me from diving into my FIRST IRONMAN 70.3 EVER and experiencing the wide range of emotions that comes with that.

I gave him my name and he asked me if it was my first time in Cambridge and racing a 70.3. I smiled and laughed and said it was and that I was a little nervous. He looked at me again, smiled and said: “With a smile like that, you’re going to do great! Just remember to look around, soak it in, and have fun. You’ve earned it.”

It’s moments like that which remind me of the power of kindness. In a smile and a sentence, that volunteer changed my life and yet I don’t and will never know a thing about him. So for the rest of the race weekend — and ever since — I tried to smile, look around, soak it in, and start having fun.

Wristbands, Swag, and Pedialyte

A part of check-in is receiving your wristband. This wristband is stamped with your bib number and identifies you as an athlete for the event. You need it to get into transition, check your gear in and out, and makes you feel like an absolute bada**.

The next day and a half were spent going to the supermarket to pick up food, picking up my sister and brother-in-law from DCA, checking-in my bike and some gear to the transition area, and hanging out. And by hanging out I mean drinking pedialyte and buying IRONMAN 70.3 merch.

Aeolus and a 70.3*

I woke up on Sunday, June 9th feeling…normal. I slept well and was surprisingly alert and calm. I made a quick breakfast of a bagel with peanut butter, a banana, and sipped on gatorade as I walked from our AirBNB to GBP. It was 5am and the street were deserted save other athletes headed to the transition area. In the eternally noisy summer air it seemed even the bugs were still asleep, as all I could hear was the sound of my own breathing and my footsteps on the sidewalk.

As I got closer and closer to GBP, I began to hear music as if a concert was well underway. When I arrived to the transition area something remarkable happened — nothing. In my head, I believed through all of my hours of training, that the second I arrived to transition on race morning I would feel different. Worthy. Confident. Certain. As if I would find a hidden part of me that would suddenly emerge and take over making me…different. But nothing happened.

I walked/danced/sang along to the music and listened to the MC pump people up, provide time and weather updates, and generally provide words of calming advice. I went to my spot in transition — 1661– laid out my gear under my bike and looked around.

It was a beautiful sunrise followed by a call from the MC to listen to an announcement. The previous day had seen some rain bands roll through town and with them some blustery winds. The rumor-mill diligently circulated rumors that the swim would be canceled due to rough conditions on the appropriately named Choptank River. And the MC’s announcement confirmed those rumors.

The Coast Guard release a small craft advisory due to the high winds and choppy conditions. This advisory prevented the safety teams to get on their kayaks and paddle boards and if they couldn’t keep us safe during the swim, it would be better to cancel it. So the race would start with a rolling start onto the bike leg instead of a 1.2 mile swim, making the race a 69.1 Bike/Run (Brick).

I was disappointed, but focused on enjoying the day so I grabbed a banana from my bag, split it with my transition neighbor, and got out of my wetsuit.

A Fish Out of Water

In the blink of an eye, I heard a cannon-shot, the MC start the race for the pro’s and I found myself riding my bike like a scooter closer and closer to the transition exit archway. I scooted and scooted until I reached the timing mat, heard a sharp BEEEEEP and was directed to clip in and ride.

The first turns on Eagleman’s bike course are through the neighborhood next to GBP. The streets are lined with trees and their canopy’s create surreal lighting as you travel under.

A couple of turns later and you are in the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. With the wind, a few angry looking storm clouds also rolled in, but for the first 5 miles, I was feeling good. My target pace for the bike was between 16 and 18 mph, and while I was closer to 20mph for those first 5 miles, I still felt comfortable and confident.

Every 15 miles you would encounter aid stations along the side of the road with volunteers handing out water, gatorade, fruit, gels, pretty much anything you could need from a nutritional standpoint. I rode by the first aid station as I had plenty of gels in the pockets of my kit and didn’t need extra hydration than what I already had on my bike. It wasn’t much later after that aid station that everything changed.

The rain cloud decided to open and unleash a typical summer rainstorm. In an instant I was swimming in my bike as water streamed down my face, arms, legs, and even pooled inside my bike shoes. With the rain came a headwind and slowly my pace went from 20mph, to 17mph, to 15mph, to fighting to stay at 12mph. I am not quite sure how long the rain lasted for. What I do remember though is how demented I must have looked as I was smiling ear to ear as I slogged through the rest of the course.

I didn’t see any eagles during the Eagleman bike course, but what I did see was kindness. As I took a turn down a bumpy stretch of road, I noticed that athletes ahead of me were pointing down to the ground as they would pass hazards to let the athletes behind them know to be careful. It didn’t take long for me to start pointing as I would pass water bottles, water bottle cages, bento boxes, aero-bars, and other bike paraphanelia that had rattled loose from other bikes.

I also saw spectators and volunteers out in the pouring rain and wind still cheering and supporting us. There for us.

As I rode back into town, exhausted, damp, and terribly, terribly slowly, I saw most athletes already on the run course, some even finishing or close to finishing, I couldn’t help but feel a pang of shame. My goal for the day was to finish, but I think somewhere in that goal, I had hoped to be “fast”.

Getting back to the timing mat at transition, I switched gear: swapped out my socks, shoes, clipped on my bib, and started the run.

“Smiles Every Mile”

Now I wish I could say that I caught a second wind and crushed the 13.1 mile run but to say so would be a lie. The first 3 miles of the run were some of the most painful mentally and physically that I had ever run. All of my muscles were telling me to stop and rebelled against me, tightening and knotting in such a way that I wobbled and walked more than I ran.

As I walked, I arrived at my first aid station where a volunteer said “You’re doing great, Timothy! Keep smiling every mile.” My brain at this point was locked in a battle between optimism and pessimism, questioning everything that had led to that moment in my life and I mean EVERYTHING. The sudden mention of my name snapped me out of it.

“Timothy”

I don’t really go by that name and was confused as to who was talking to me. I realized that my bib said “Timothy” instead of Tim and this volunteer had taken the extra step to read my bib and encourage me. As my brain cobbled together the rest of the sentence and tried to make sense of it, it dawned on me that I was in fact smiling. I didn’t feel like smiling, everything hurt, I was cold, I was damp, and my race wasn’t going all that great so far. But there I was, smiling.

So I took his advice, I made a conscious effort to stop worrying about the time on my watch, how many people passed me and how few people I was encountering as I turned around; instead, I focused on smiling. I smiled at the volunteers, I smiled at the trees and the blades of grass, I smiled at the sky, I smiled because I could.

At around the 6-mile marker, I began to jog by setting a target on the horizon to jog to and then walk until I could jog again. I warmed up, my muscles loosened, my mind cleared, and through it all, I smiled. There was a spectator with a megaphone telling cheesy jokes to get athletes to laugh — my favorite: why are stadiums always cold? They are filled with fans — a volunteer station was handing out snow cones, a sign held by some very nice young women said “We are looking at your butt as you run by and it looks GREAT ;)”.

Through all of these interactions and more, I felt connected and grounded in the simple act of living. Before I knew it, I was back to the aid station at mile 3 except this time it was mile 10 and I could hear the MC encouraging folks down the finish line chute. In the middle of the road a little boy about 7 years old was giving everyone high-fives and saying…

“You’re Going to Finish”

I heard him, he gave me a high-five as I ran by, then I HEARD him, and in that moment I started to cry. Not because I was hurting, even though I was, not because I was tired, even though I was, but because I had never felt so proud to be alive and so full of living.

Coming back towards GBP you run along the river next to some colonial-coastal homes that look like a ship captain haunts them. Along the mile or so left, I saw my mom cheering me on, then my sister, who was frantically worried I wasn’t going to make the time-cut off — which I had resigned myself to let the fates decide whether I would reach it or not — and then my brother-in-law as I ran down the chute.

I will never forget the feeling of that carpet as I ran across the finish line.

The End

Once I crossed the finish line, I was presented with a medal while a volunteer simultaneously removed the timing chip that was on my ankle (by this point I had forgotten it even existed) and directed me towards a fork in the road. To the left the medical tent and to the right, where the rest of the spectators were. I did a quick systems check and outside of being so tired my brain couldn’t think outside of basic needs, I was right as rain — pun very much intended.

I changed out of my clothes in a port-a-potty — a feat of agility and flexibility that I’m still not sure how I managed to do it — and we started the journey home.

We don’t get to control the world around us. Our judgement of the world around us though, does control us. I learned a lot during Eagleman, about myself, kindness, and life. How I got there wasn’t pretty, but I wouldn’t change it for the world, since it was every lap, mile, and stride that made me worthy to learn and worthy to experience life to the fullest that summer day.