10 Minutes Too Long

Yesterday I experienced failure. Failure to achieve my long standing desire of becoming an IRONMAN

I had been training for over 6 months to get the coveted IRONMAN title.

I am a good runner and a pretty decent athlete. Run the Marathon in approx 3 hours and 30 minutes. Have done back to back Comrades ( for the non-runners, it’s an iconic 89 km race in South Africa in the valley of a 1000 hills to commemorate the fallen soldiers in WW 1).

On the whole I am fairly fit , not just for my age of 43. I give 20 year old runners a run for their money in sprints too.

After having achieved reasonable success in my running endeavours, with 9 odd years of running and having put more miles under my belt than the length and breadth of the country: a couple of times over: I switched to triathlons. I have been a decent swimmer for more than a decade. That is to say I can swim 50 laps without feeling out of breath. Dabbled in cycling ever since I was a kid, moving onto brevets a couple of years back. But in my heart , I have always been a runner. Rain or shine, good day or bad day, joy or sorrow, I have to run… it makes me feel alive, beyond just existing. When I run, i fly, I soar beyond my physical limitations. I experience each breath, I hear the sound of my heart beating to the rhythm of my legs .I experience each pore of my body, my cells come alive. My spirit soars and watches the world beneath with wonder and joy.

Enough about me: let’s move to the core of the story.

So, my first IRONMAN on the 27th of August, 5000 kms away from home in a country I had only heard about… France, an exotic and beautiful country….well neither the beautiful women nor the enticing landscape were the decision makers…. it was the chance to swim in a lake as part of the IRONMAN… like I told you , I am a decent swimmer, not a great one. I enjoy the pools and the workout of swimming for hours; well put me in open water and suddenly I encounter amnesia as far as running is concerned … oops, I meant swimming. Unlike other sports , swimming changes texture the minute you move out of the pool… your stamina, strength or form doesn’t make much of a difference… your mind does.. it searches for hidden dangers in the depths of the lake or the ocean…crocodiles can appear in the arctic and sharks may spring a surprise in the lake… well, there is a reason they say that your mind is the most creative of tools. It creates a world of its own. We encounter it every day but usually our mental realities are not too much out of sync from other people… the Venn intersection is fairly high.

But the minute you enter the open water, it takes a journey into new worlds, especially for people who are not in love with the water.

I am one of those travelers.

Knowing this, I decided to confront my fears by heading for a lake swim, some 40 kms from home, with friends who were planning an IRONMAN in the near future. It meant getting up at an ungodly hour, drive for an hour and then hike to the lake some 5 kms away on foot.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man: well not really, the minute I waded into the water I started hyper-ventilating, which meant simply that my swimming went for a toss… after few minutes of acclimating and friendly coaxing from my friends I let my body free and started to swim… voila, it worked, I could swim, even in a lake which was a million miles deep as far as I was concerned…

Having taken the baby steps I decided to take the longer stretch in my stride or rather my stroke, and I ended up swimming till the end of the lake… having sighted land, I could empathize with Christopher Columbus. The promised land was 10 feet away, and my friend was beckoning me to join him on dry land. In my eagerness to wade across, I got onto the vertical position when reality hit me that the water was deeper than my tall 10 foot frame and I started going down, to be entangled with weed which clamped its iron grip on my legs and more so my mind… to say that I panicked , would be an understatement. My life flashed before me in the 2 dips I gulped water in. Thankfully my vocal chords were in full flow to get the accompanying life guard to my assistance before I went down, the 3rd time and possibly the last time.

How life flashes in a second is to be experienced to be comprehended. Well, I saw the light and came back, courtesy the 5 ft tall lifeguard with the heart of a lion.

Back on land, alive but not full of life, I decided to plunge again… no, I am not a sadist, rather a rational guy who understood that if I allow fear to make its home in the nook and cranny of my heart, it will be a difficult tenant to evict, if not an impossible one..I swam the way back, thankful to be alive and yet even more happy that I had defeated fear, at-least in this battle. In the back of my mind i knew, there would be many more.

Having taking precautionary measures of right safety equipment for my future swimming endeavors I embarked on the physically and mentally arduous journey of becoming an IRONMAN.

After much research, decided for Vichy France, the swim was in a lake and the bike course wouldn’t sear my lungs too much.

The rigmarole of early mornings and long workouts started.

An IRONMAN training requires anywhere between 10 – 17 hours of intense training in a week. Which means that your Saturday and Sunday mornings are bestowed at the altar of the God, IRONMAN. Which means that you not only become a social pariah but get to miss out on some quality time with family..or so the wife tells me…. it’s a different thing, that many a time when you reach home after a 3 hour workout the kids and wife are waking up to a lazy Sunday morning and you are pumped with Adrenalin to take on the world , where as for them lifting an eyelid needs Hercules assistance.

The training schedule became a part of me, it was not something which I did, it was something I had become.

50 km bike rides were fun rides, a weekend typically implied a 20- 30 km run on Saturday followed by a 100-150 bike ride on Sunday. In June it meant, that not only was my body transforming, so was my appearance; I had become a chameleon; that’s what I deduced from the baffled looks of my family one particular day I walked in after a long tandoori ride.

Swimming sessions became fortnightly visits to the charming lake, it had finally accepted me; besides alternate days of a couple of kms of swim. These swims were in the building pool frequented by boisterous kids and aunties taking a leisurely walk in the pool, courtesy it’s depth of a mere 4 odd feet. Timings had to be managed so that I could do a 100 laps in peace. I moved forward in my quest for inner peace.

I believe, nothing teaches patience the way lap swimming does. No scenery, no distractions, no music, absolutely nothing to do but swim… and trust me it requires all your focus and more. Because, effort doesn’t count as much as form does. This is the closest I came to learning ballet. What Grace and poise I thought, although my Garmin thought otherwise. And yet I could do 4 kms in an hour & 40 minutes… not bad , given that IRONMAN cutoff was 2 hours & 20 minutes for 3.8 kms.

I was still struggling to up the ante on my bike speed… I was still riding an Aluminium bike whereas carbon bikes were in fashion… in this case fashion had it’s functional advantage, it improved speed and reduced fatigue, prerequisites, as on race day i would be running a full marathon after having my arse on a sliver of a saddle for close to 7 hours. My prayers were answered; wife was to attend a conference in San Francisco. She thought that the company trip was an all expense paid one till she saw the bill of the bike she was supposed to get back….and for what, so that her husband could finally proclaim what he always thought of himself, an IRONMAN.

New bike and a new man… suddenly I was flying… and for a change Garmin( a GPS tracking watch) agreed. My 100 km plus rides became shorter and smoother.

The cross training worked wonders for my running. But then that was the side dish.

The main course was to be served on 27th August in France.

Finally the day arrived for heading for the exotic shores… 24 hours later I was in the French countryside asking myself the question, what am I doing here? My 6 months intense training kept my mind from wandering too far… it would go to the depths of the lake and then bounce back…but, there was interesting news headed my way, it wasn’t a lake but a river….and water wasn’t cold enough for a wet-suit, which meant more effort especially with the current.

By the time I reached the queue for starting the swim leg I had achieved ” inner peace”, or so I thought….the minute I jumped into the water the peace went to pieces as cold water shook me like a rag doll and drew the breath out of me.. at that moment it was all about getting in control of your mind, the body would follow… well the mind kept meandering and I kept pulling it back. The tug of war continued for 800 odd metres, when I finally tamed it and started my proper freestyle swim… I knew i had lost time but knew it was well within my capabilities to pull it back. The first half of the swim was finished in 1:10 minutes, more than 20 minutes more than my training swims, but I knew I had it under control as I was swimming with ease now, using all my training tips and pirouetting like a ballet dancer. I was confident that i would finish the 2nd half in under 50 minutes with almost 20 minutes to spare for the cutoff, unless the Loch Ness monster made a once in a century appearance and gobbled me up.

And there I went, one stroke after the other following a bright pink cap, unsure about the identity but sure about the gender. Good motivation. 2.5 km came and went…that’s when something weird happened, i got a cramp in my left triceps, never happened before, didn’t even know it can get cramped…. which meant I was careful with how much strength I was applying and how was my form…i couldn’t do breast stroke anymore to release my cough or get some breath, as it hurt a lot and I was unsure whether it would cramp enough for me to bail out and call the canoe. Soon enough I crossed the 3 km mark, the pain didn’t go away…. my younger son’s earnest appeal in his voice kept prodding me to complete. It had done wonders for me in finishing comrades the first time. I kept going on, not fast but steady, sure in my mind of finishing it in the stipulated time. I had the swim in the bag as far as i was concerned.

The distance seemed to take its own sweet time to finish… after meandering a bit I sighted the promised land… what a sight…seemed like 100 metres to go…

Touchdown, and I walk up the ramp like Daniel Craig…cool, calm and confident…till I turn my wrist to see the Garmin.. .

The world fell apart, comprehension went for a drive and insanity prevailed. Garmin displayed a total time of 2:29:56 seconds… I had missed the cut-off by approximately 10 minutes. Soon I heard my name on the loudspeaker, evoking hope that technology had failed and I was still in the race.

Well, such endings rarely occur.

I was pronounced 10 minutes late.

I have never experienced such a level of calmness in me, as I walked away from the arena without a backward glance or a hope. I just kept walking, and chanced to see my watch displaying that I had swam 4.56 km… 750 m more than the stipulated distance and i went numb. There was no thought, no regret and no hope but a calmness of acceptance.

I was not successful but I was not a failure.