Smile, You’re an Ironman
Race report from Ironman Wisconsin 2017
Just over twenty miles into my race at Ironman Wisconsin, I was standing next to my bike somewhere on a quiet country road south of Madison. Things were not going well.
At this point of the Ironman, I had been riding my bike over an hour. This is just a fraction of the 112-mile bike course that traversed the farmlands outside the state capital. The bike leg would take me nearly six hours of continuous cycling to complete. This, of course, is only one leg of the Ironman. I had already completed the 2.4 mile swim in cool calm waters of Lake Monona. I still had to run a marathon.
At 6:50am, my wave of 40–44 year olds plodded into the lake and scrambled to get into position. As I treaded water behind the start buoys, just left of a water ski ramp, I waiting for the start signal, I did not feel ready. I felt sluggish and tired. I’d been looking forward to this race all year but I wasn’t excited the way I’d expected. I remember how I felt before my first and previous Ironman at Coeur d’Alene back in 2014. Back then, I felt strong and energetic. This time was different. I knew what I was in for. And I was worried.
I’d had a miserable, cold, windy recon ride two days before. I was supposed to go for an “easy spin”. Riding up and down a short portion of the hilly course was way more taxing than it should have been. Afterwards, I felt exhausted. I questioned my preparedness. Maybe I missed too many workouts. Maybe I should have worked harder. I hadn’t been getting enough sleep. My mind was starting to believe my body wasn’t up to the task.
As I treaded water, surveying the long swim in front of me, my thoughts were racing.
I’m not ready.
Suddenly, I hear “Go! Go! Go!”. Mike Reilly, the venerable face and voice of Ironman, was shouting. My race had begun. Calm turned to chaos. Hundreds of bodies began swimming at once. Arms, legs, bodies thrashing. Mouths gasping for air. Heads turning and lifting for a glimpse of the horizon. I was one of them. A speck among thousands. If I didn’t quit first.
I swam as hard as I could sustain the entire swim. It felt too long and too far. At times I had open water in front of me, only to be sideswiped by a faster swimmer; other times I’d plow directly into a clump of slower swimmers with whom I’d caught up, only to be forced to redirect my way around. I couldn’t find a clean path close to the buoys, so I strayed off to the side, mostly to my detriment. By the time I finally made it back to shore and lapped my Garmin, I’d been swimming for an hour and 13 minutes, over five minutes longer than expected.
According to GPS, I’d traveled over two hundred extra yards. More negative thoughts: I’m not having a good race.
Now it was time to hop on my bike. I’d been concerned about some mechanical problems I’d been having. I’d had the bike serviced about a week prior to repair the shifters, adjust the derailleurs, and tune the brakes. Unfortunately, the brake had been rubbing the back tire during my recon ride. I adjusted it then, but, in a fit of obsessive-compulsion, I fiddled with it just before the race without testing it out. Big mistake.
Within minutes of starting my ride, I heard the unmistakable, unwelcome squeal of the brake pad on the wheel’s brake track. It happened every time I added a little extra torque on the right side. I told myself, it’s not that bad. I wished for it to go away. I didn’t want to stop—this is Ironman!, this isn’t supposed to happen! I’ll wait until the special needs stop… in 56 miles. I felt my energy sapping away with each rub—this is not good.
By mile twenty, I couldn’t take it any longer. I hopped off to attempt some on-course mechanics. I felt the whooshes of other competitors flying past me just a few feet away. I fiddled with the rear brake and hopped back on the bike. I pedaled and few times and heard more squealing. Damn! I tried again. Off the bike, more whooshing, and I tried rotating the caliper just slightly to one side. Let’s hope this does it.
Before getting back on the bike, I paused. I realized, up to this point, I hadn’t been enjoying myself. I had let a few setbacks dictate my attitude and I acknowledged I wasn’t responding well.
It’s not what happens to us, but how we respond that matters.
I’d spoken these words less than three months prior during my talk at GORUCO, a talk about handling adversity. I suddenly realized how quickly I’d forgotten what I already knew coming into this race. I knew Ironman was going to be hard. But I also knew it’s all in the name of fun. There are a lot of reasons grown adults choose to subject themselves to 140.6 miles of grit and determination, but if none of those reasons are fun, it’s all going to hurt.
So, right there, standing next to my bike, losing time to scores of other athletes, I took a deep breath. Then I smiled.
Let’s do this.
In a flash, I was back on my bike. No squealing this time. I felt a surge of adrenaline. My smile widened.
Game on.
For the rest of the bike leg, I raced the way my coach, Robbie, and I had planned. I watched my power meter, kept pedaling, ate cookies, and drank Gatorade. I held back when others raced ahead on the uphills. Then I turned on the juice to maintain momentum on the downhills. The course was hilly, windy, and winding over rough roads—tough—but after my attitude adjustment, I loved every minute of it. As the race wore on, I felt like I was getting stronger while others around me were slowing down.
As I made my way through the “Stick”, the homestretch of the Wisconsin bike course, I passed some familiar faces. My sisters, my parents, my son, and our extended family of my son’s surrogate birth mother had been waiting for me. Heyyyyy family! Another surge of energy.
Bring on that run.
The final leg of the Ironman is a marathon. It looms over your swim. It taunts you on every hill of the bike. Like the final boss of a challenging video game, you arrive depleted to face an impossible task. You’ve lost hit points for 114.4 miles. Congrats. Now you have to run 26.2 more.
As I rode back to the transition area, though, I knew I was ready. I remembered how exhausted and beaten I’d felt as I finished the bike ride in 2014 at Coeur d’Alene. This time was different. I had energy. I let out a whoop as I climbed up the Monona Terrace parking lot ramp back into transition. I was anxious to see how far I’d come in my training. I handed my bike to some helpful volunteers—our Ironman valet— and jogged inside to find my running shoes, getting my game face on.
The immediate switch from cycling to running is disorienting. I, like many triathletes, feel for the first mile or so, disconnected from my legs. After several hundred yards, my brain tells me you’re running too slow, pick up the pace!, but my watch shows my pace already a full minute faster than my plan. It took some steady will power to slow myself down. Couple this with the fact that the first mile out of transition at Wisconsin is predominately downhill, and some of my fellow competitors were “flying” through the first mile. I let them all go. Maybe they’d be able to keep up that pace, though I suspected I’d see quite a few again as I caught back up with them. Tortoise and hare. We had hours of running on the road ahead.
I had run this course before last August when my son was born here in Madison. In my head, I broke the course into segments and just focused on running one segment at a time. After a few miles of mentally slowing myself down, I braced myself for “the wall”, the huge collapse of energy I encountered at CdA when it became difficult to move my legs at all. I told myself, if it comes, I’ll deal with it.
So I kept running. And I waited. Around mile 5, the road turned sharply uphill onto Observatory Drive—it’s got an observatory for a reason—and all the athletes around me started walking. I could’ve walked too, but I wanted to run up the hill. Being careful not to overdo it, I jogged past other athletes. It took a long time to get to the top. But as I crested the hill and started down the other side, I was surprised by what happened.
I felt stronger. And I started smiling again.
I couldn’t believe I was still running. My confidence started to rise. I had twenty miles to run and I was looking forward to it. I drew energy from the crowds of spectators on State Street. People seemed surprised to see an athlete smile. (That made me smile even more).
I thought of my family and friends. I though of what how lucky I am to be blessed with a beautiful baby boy. To have the opportunity to do this race in the city where he was born last year.
I felt lucky to have had Jen in my life. Even though she is gone, I am eternally grateful to love and have been loved by an amazing woman. Thinking of her gave me strength. Perhaps because I had given so much of my physical and mental energy to the race up to this point, all that was left was emotion. I gave into it. I spoke to her and she carried me. When I felt pain, I thought of her and smiled. The pain dissolved. I felt more alive than at any point in the past year since she passed away. I was crying and smiling at the same time. And I ran better than I’ve ever run before.
When I crossed the finish line, I was overwhelmed. My sisters, my parents, my son, and his birth mom were all there. Mr. Reilly was there, as he would be for every single finisher that day, to proclaim:
Ross Kaffenberger, YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!
He also called out a dedication: For his wife, Jennifer.
She was there with all of us. And what Mr. Reilly said is true. I did this for my wife, as an expression of perseverance, to let her know, I am ready to carry on for the both of us. I’m going to take care of our boy.
I’m going to be okay.
This race has made me believe I can run. For awhile, I’ve believed in my potential to be a great swimmer and cyclist. But at 6'6" and nearly 200 pounds, I’ve also talked myself into accepting running is my weakness. All those “little” people are built to be runners, not you. But with this race, that’s all starting to change.
At Wisconsin, I finished the marathon in under four hours, over twenty minutes faster than my first and previous Ironman in Idaho. And I nearly set my personal best for any marathon. Even more telling than the finishing time is how I compared to the field. At Idaho, I lost ground to the rest of the field throughout the day, from swimming to biking to running, finishing 283rd out of 2,466 athletes (top 12% overall). At Wisconsin, I gained ground at each leg. Compared to the field, the run was my strongest. Only 166 people out of 2,898 ran a better marathon. I finished in 170th place (top 6% overall), 20th in my division, 40–44, one of the toughest in all of triathlon.
Boy, am I glad I got off the bike to reset. Sometimes, all we need is a pause, and a deep breath, to remind ourselves what is important.
Also, it doesn’t hurt to smile more.
I completed Ironman Wisconsin (IMMOO) on September 10, 2017. For the nerds, here are the links to my swim, bike, and run data for IMMOO.
I’m looking forward to tackling my next Ironman in 2018. More to come. Follow me on my triathlon journey here.
