3:30am.  My wife has a quasi-military term that she calls the times of the day I rise to do these types of events…0-Dark-Early.  3:30am is even early for me.  I wasn’t really sleeping much anyway, so why not get the show on the road?

Yesterday, at the check-in, one of the Ironman officials suggested that I get there early.  1,500 participants are all going to be trying to get on the single road into the event, set up their running gear in Transition 2, then get on buses to get to Transition 1 where they set up their bike gear and get their wetsuits on for the swim.  Lots of people with potential anxiety and the ability to make you late.  I figured I could get there, take a little nap, and then proceed onto the rest of the stress-induced rituals of preparing for the day.

Upon arrival, as predicted, the temperature was as cold as a can of Lone Star Beer in a cooler on ice.  39 degrees!

After a nap, starting the car back up for some heat, another nap, and one last heat fest in the car I ventured out in the Texas ice box to Transition 2 to set up my run gear for much later in the day. I then proceeded over to the line of school buses taking everyone two miles down the road to Transition 1.  This is where I would spend the next few hours preparing and hoping hypothermia would not set in.

Fortunately, I had seen the forecast the day before.  A quick trip to Kohl’s provided me with a light-weight down coat that could be stuffed into a little bag after use.  Being a Californian, I needed a new “warmish” coat anyway for those five days year where it dips below 50 degrees.  It was now 5:45am and the last minute Kohl’s outerwear purchase was doing the trick nicely with two other layers beneath it including an old sweatshirt I had packed just in case there was a chill in the air.

Immediately, as I approached Transition 1 with my gear, I had to disrobe all the layers of warmth so that a team of people could write my race number on my arms and my age on the back of my calf.  They are called “The Body Marking People.”  A group that is clearly ok with getting intimate with strangers.  Fortunately, it didn’t take long and I quickly layered up again.

Inside Transition 1, 1,500 people were busy setting out their gear, pumping up tires, offering encouraging words to their neighbors that they would likely never see again, and putting on wetsuits while the Ironman company representatives pumped out some rockin’ tunes on the loudspeakers to keep us awake.

I followed suit with the same process but waited as long as I could to disrobe and roll on the wetsuit.  Until that time, I was toasty in my Kohl’s down puffy jacket.  Out of my layered cocoon, it was a different story.  Icy, damp air against my exposed skin was not comforting.  This was such an opposite experience from the last few weekends down at Mission Bay sweating as tried to pull on my wetsuit in the California sun.  After my neighbor zipped me into my neoprene exoskeleton, I quickly layered up for the third time.

Finally, we were asked to exit Transition 1 and walk down to the lake at 7:15am.  Keep in mind that it is still 39 degrees.  Keep in mind that it is dark once you get outside Transition 1 area.  Keep in mind that you are now barefoot.  Brrrr.  I stashed all my layers except the old sweatshirt as I had heard you could ditch it at the last second before getting in the water and they would give the clothes to a local charity.  This did help, but not much with nothing on my head but a swim cap and nothing on my bare feet that were now standing on top of cold, damp, grass.

At 7:30am, just as the sun finally peeked over Decker Lake, they shot off the cannon for the pro men.  At 7:40am they shot off the cannon for the pro women.  At 7:45am they started letting the rest of us get in the water.  We can now see the steam coming off the lake due to the difference in temperature between the water and the almost freezing ambient air.

By this time we had all self-seeded ourselves into the line.  You needed to know your estimated time to finish the swim and then make your way to signs that featured similar times.  You would then wait to get in the water with people who had similar speeds so that everything is much more orderly and there is less chaos.  No faster swimmers trying to get over/around slower swimmers.  This organization I truly appreciated, even though it would obviously take me longer to be allowed to enter the much warmer 68-degree water everyone was so anxiously waiting to embrace.

7:45am the line starts to move.  8:00am comes and goes with very little additional advancement.  8:15am comes and goes as the line continues to slowly edge forward.  8:30am the same.  9:00am the same.  Most of us in the back cannot now feel our feet.  9:05am.  9:10am.  Then finally, two hours after we had stepped out of Transition 1 with our bare feet into the sub-40-degree temperatures, at 9:15am we slow pokes get in what felt like a freshwater bathtub smelling of essence of bass and crappie.

I have watched, and I have heard, the start of the swim can be chaos.  This was my first time.  I have to say the self-seeding concept worked.  Plus, they only let about 15 people in at a time and then held the others to make a little breathing room between the groups.  We all knew we were slow, and we were all very accommodating of each other.  I am happy to report the back of the pack is a very friendly and supportive group.

I told myself before that there was no reason to be in a hurry.  Just swim your own pace.  I took that advice and kept to the outside away from the more experienced/aggressive folk.  It seemed to work and I settled into a steady, lumbering stroke.

All went as planned until we made the first of two turns.  As we turned right, Mr. Sun was now in full force gleaming off the lake right into our eyes.  Many of my fellow swimmers just stopped to see if they could see the next buoy.  Others kept swimming, lost direction on the course, and had to be intercepted by volunteers in kayaks to redirect them.  I was lucky enough to have some sort of built-in GPS and kept slogging along on course like a chubby tugboat.  Nothing pretty, but getting it done.

You could hear a collective sigh of relief when we all hit the second turn.  By that time our retinas had all burned out though and it took a while to be able to adjust to the new course.  Fortunately, the final line of buoys was a different color so you knew you were on the right track.  Just follow the orange buoy trail and it would take you home to your bike.

By now I realized that I was going to actually finish my first triathlon swim!  I picked up the pace a little as most others did.  As I approached the shore I remembered my Triclub San Diego beginners swim training to keep swimming until you could touch bottom.  I popped up at the end to see if anyone was in front of me and I was happy to see that it was all open.  What I didn’t see were the photographers.  Keep mind that knowing no family members were going to be with me I paid extra for the course photographers to catch some pics.  I emerged disoriented slowly walking out of the lake like a Sleestak from the Saturday morning show Land of The Lost trying to get my land legs back.

Crossing the finish line of the swim I heard the beep that meant it read the timing chip on my ankle.  It was 57 minutes after I had entered the water.  About 7 minutes longer than I had anticipated, but I was fine with that.  I just wanted to complete it before the cut-off time of an hour and ten minutes.

The next stage I was looking forward to.  They had told us that there would be wetsuit strippers about 25 feet up the trail to Transition 1.  Sure enough, they were there.  My wetsuit is very tight and it is hard to get off.  Here were three University of Texas students that unzipped, snapped, and peeled off my wetsuit in less than 30 seconds.  Go Longhorns!

With wetsuit in hand, a soggy bottom from the soaked bike pad in my tri-shorts, shirtless in the crisp now 50 degree-ish air, I headed straight to the porta-potty.  Forget trying for an impressive transition time.  I have been out there for three hours now without a bathroom break.  After dropping a little water weight, I was off to my bike that much lighter.

First, stash the wet stuff in a bag that I will retrieve later.  Second, suit up for the 56-mile bike.  Third, run with the bike out to where the bike course starts and get the sunscreen team to spray my back so I make sure I don’t get a sunburn even though I applied early this morning at 3:30am.  Fourth, hit the road.  What?  No sunscreen team?  I remember reading about it in the athlete guide and asked an official about it yesterday when I checked in.  However, the volunteers I encountered said not at this transition and to please move along.  With no other choice, I hit the road and hoped the application from six hours ago would hold up.

Within the first half hour of the bike, I knew I had found something I liked about triathlon.  I was passing people.  A lot of people.  Apparently, those at the back of the pack in the swim can’t cycle very well either.  I am not a great cyclist, but apparently, I’m a pretty good cyclist.  It was exhilarating.  Back home in San Diego I rarely get to pass many cyclists.  Too much competition from seasoned sun worshiping cycling addicts.  Passing en masse was a new feeling I never had before and one that I could become accustomed to.  Good for the confidence and all that comes with it.

The flat and rolling ranch land was a great course for me.  There were very few hills so I could just keep on cranking just like I trained up and down Pacific Coast Highway for the last five months.  When there were hills, I knew how to handle those too thanks to all my mountain climbing last year to prepare for my trip to France.  The only issue was the wind.  I learned that around the ranches of Texas no matter which direction you are peddling it is against the wind.

At the end of the swim, I was 95^th out of 101 in my very competitive 50 to 54-year-old male age group.  By the end of the bike stage, my time placed me a greatly improved 71^st out of 101.  On a macro level, I came out of the water a sad 1,445^th out of 1,541 competitors.  However, my bike time was much a more respectable 960th out of 1,541 sliding up the scale by 485 places.   If I would not have had to stop for the potty twice on the bike course, it would have been even better.  Alas, nature called though.

3 hours, 23 minutes, and 10 seconds later I arrived at Transition 2 to start the run.  My transition would have been faster as all I really needed to do was put on my shoes and race belt and go.  However, another potty stop was in order and just before hitting the course I eyed the sunscreen team finally.  Good thing since it was now in the 70’s without a cloud in the sky.

I hit the pavement with confidence and felt good.  My Garmin watch had me running well under 10 minutes which I was happy with considering the limited training time I had due to injury.

Everything was going well.  It was a 3 loop course of just over 4 miles.  My goal was to simply run the whole thing.  I didn’t have to run it fast, but I wanted to be able to say I ran the whole thing without stopping.

However, the first sign of danger was the second half of the course.  It was mostly off road through rocks.  The sections that weren’t off road in this half consisted of a paved road that had fallen apart complete with crumbling asphalt and giant potholes.  I have no idea what the organizers were thinking, but none of us were happy about it.

Regardless, my first loop was to my liking.  I rounded the corner and went back for more making sure I looked strong this time past the photographers.  I wasn’t going to mess up again like I did coming out of the water at the end of the swim.  I continued on with a slower, but steady pace until just after the second half off-road experience.

Then it happened.  A cramp in the back of my thigh.  I never get cramps.  I decided to not fight it.  If I did, there was the danger of not finishing at all.  This, unfortunately, meant walking.  Not what I wanted to do, but I wanted to definitely finish without transportation by medics on a golf cart.  I walked it off after about a half mile.  I started running again.  It came back, I walked it off.  I started running again.  I walked it off again.  After a few cycles of this, downing water and gel packs at each aid station, finally, it was gone.

Unfortunately, that is when my IT bands started acting up.  The rest of the race was a combination of running and walking.  The nice part about it was I had plenty of friends out there that were doing the same.  We consoled each other and helped each other remember that we were in it to finish.  To finish that big goal we set out to accomplish that everyone said we were crazy to attempt.  To overcome whatever we were trying to overcome on our journey here.

I finally turned the last turn and broke back into a run towards the finish.  It dawned on me that on this day it was almost exactly one year since I started taking swimming lessons to overcome the fact that I didn’t know how to swim and the fear that went along with it.  I was finally completing this goal that took one year of work fighting through the fear, swallowing gallons of pool water, coming back from a very bad foot injury, and getting to this moment where I was about to run inside a rodeo arena outside of Austin and cross the finish line.  This is what kept me running because I wasn’t thinking about running.  That, and I again wanted a decent finishing picture that did not include walking.

Sure enough, the Ironman team had a big crowd cheering on the later arrival age group competitors over the finish line along with the fist-pumping music.  The flashes from the cameras were everywhere.  Across the line, they handed me my finisher medal and took the timing chip off my ankle.  7 hours, 18 minutes, and 56 seconds after I jumped into Decker Lake.  One year after I sucked in pool water again and again at my first lesson where I failed to get to the other side of the pool once.

As I got to the other side of the rodeo arena there were two signs.  One pointed left and said “Athlete Food.”  The other pointed to the right and said “Medical.”  For a moment, it was a tough choice.  As most of you would predict, I chose food.