One Handed

On Sunday August 3rd 2014 I competed in my first New York City Triathlon (@nyctriathlon) and won!

OK, so I didn’t win the race itself, but then that was never the purpose, instead I won by setting a personal record for an Olympic distance triathlon of 2 hrs 37 mins, versus my previous best of 2 hrs 57 min at the Pacific Grove Triathlon a few years ago. I’d set out to finish in under 3 hrs and blew that away by 23 minutes and since you should never leave the scene of accomplishing a goal without setting a new one my focus is now on 2 hrs 30 mins and then 2hrs 20 mins.

This really was an enjoyable and well put together race, especially as there were 40+ other paratriathletes racing…and boy are they fast. These guys inspire me to push harder given some are clocking in at 2 hrs 4 mins and placing in the top 50 athletes overall…NO EXCUSES!

Accenture sponsors and puts up the only prize purse for paratriathletes in the US and the race organizers in partnership with Accenture really roll out the red carpet for us paratriathletes, love it…I got to be part of the 2014 Accenture Challenged Athletes International Championships (#AccentureCAC).

Up at 4am, got dressed and onto the bus to transition to set everything up. By 5:30am most people are walking the mile along the Hudson River from transition to the swim start. The river is starting to flow pretty fast as the pros set off followed by the first wave of age group athletes. For the paratriathletes, our race starts at 7am. Standing/sitting out onto the pontoon are a bunch of athletes missing upper or lower limbs, that are partially blind/blind or paralyzed…all ready to jump into the Hudson River to start the race. Can you imagine being blind and standing there about to jump into a fast flowing river? Respect!

It’d usually take me about 36 mins to swim the 1.5km…with a little assist from the Hudson I was done in 18 mins! And that was despite the fact I had to catch my breath for a minute after trying (unsuccessfully) to keep up with a 26-year-old upper limb amputee…good lesson learnt, you’ve got to swim at your own pace, not someone elses.

Out of the water and a quick jog 400m to the bike transition. It had started to drizzle as we jumped in for the swim, now it was definitely raining. At least it saved time in transition as there wasn’t much point drying myself off for the bike ride.

The bike course is a rolling course along the West Highway, there’s very little that’s flat. Admittedly compared to the climbs back in Northern California the hills are pretty gentle, but it still meant I had to push hard on the bike. I wanted to try and average 20 mph but couldn’t quite keep that pace with the hills and rain and there just not being enough umph in my legs. So after 1 hr 20 min I finished the 40km ride, averaging 18.6 mph (definite room for improvement).

Which left my least favorite part, the 10km run around Central Park. The atmosphere and the crowd was just electric, this is such a spectator-friendly event and so many people line the run course that you can’t help but keep smiling.

I didn’t know what my overall time was, I just knew I had to push. I’m normally happy if I can manage a 8:45 min / mile pace, but for this race I wanted to get closer to 8 min / mile. It’s also a rolling course with very little flat, you’re either climbing or going downhill all the time, which spikes the heart rate. I ended up running with an Israeli guy who ran Central Park all the time and he paced me and pushed me, describing each hill in advance, my thanks to this man for helping me achieve a 8 min / mile pace and finishing the run in under 50 mins for an overall time of 2 hrs 37 min 55 secs.

What a fun and exhilarating day. I can honestly say I felt as much of a sense of achievement from this 2 hrs 37 mins of effort as I did from the 15 hrs 41 mins it took me to complete  Ironman Lake Tahoe last year! It’s never about the destination, it’s how you show up for the journey that counts and racing with 40 other paratriathletes reminded me why I fundraise each year for the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF). Many of my fellow paratriathletes wouldn’t have been there alongside me if it wasn’t for the grants they got from CAF to buy the specialised prosthetics and equipment they were using that day – and in my small way I played a part in that and for those that have supported me through the years so did you too, so thank you, it means a tremendous amount to me.

The race will be aired on Saturday, August 16, 2014 @ 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. on Fox/WWOR.

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If you’d like to support my efforts and donate you can click the button below, the money I raise goes to help those with disabilities continue to lead even more active lives with the aid of prosthetics and adaptive devices that often aren’t covered by medical insurance.

Help me raise $2000 for the Challenged Athletes Foundation

 

Back in 2008 I signed up for my first Triathlon at Pacific Grove, a 1.5km swim, 40km bike & 10km run. I’d not done any endurance type sports in my life up to that point and whilst I wasn’t exactly unfit it felt a daunting challenge…to complete my first triathlon. This was 2 years after losing my arm in a paragliding accident. After contemplating doing a marathon or cycle event, triathlon seemed the ultimate challenge for someone with one arm…swim, bike & run…what fun!

I remember my first training session with Team In Training, I turned up at the pool with my mountain bike, nobly tires and all. I hadn’t really been swimming since my accident and front crawl had never been my favorite stroke prior. However, in the pool I jumped, struggling to swim 30 lengths (at least I didn’t go around in circles). Then off for a 50 min bike ride. I had to stop after 20 mins and rest for 5 mins before heading back…not a great showing. Later in the season I was so proud I had run 5 miles in an hour, the final “long” run in preparation for race day, I’d never run that far before. And race day was a huge achievement, 3 1/2 months of training and 3 hrs 23 mins to cross the finish line.

Fast forward 5 years, one bike accident, many Half Ironman triathlons, century bike rides, marathons and 2 full Ironmans later and what a difference. After completing Ironman Lake Tahoe end of last year and moving to New York City from California beginning of this year I thought I’d take things a bit easier and entered for the NYC Triathlon this August. Going back to where I started distance-wise, it’s “just” a 1.5km swim in the Hudson River, a 40 km bike along the West Highway & 10km run in Central Park.

And it’s that “just” that caused me to pause and reflect. What had seemed so daunting then I now viewed in a whole new light, in contrast to the time and energy to train for a 140.6 mile Ironman, training for the NYC Triathlon felt like a respite…only a 2 hour bike instead of 6 or 7 hours at the weekend…no problem. Sometimes it’s good to look back and marvel at how far you’ve come, too often we lose track of how we’ve grown, the progress we’ve made.

How far have you come…why not go celebrate a bit?

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If you’d like to support my efforts and donate you can click the button below, the money I raise goes to help those with disabilities continue to lead even more active lives with the aid of prosthetics and adaptive devices that often aren’t covered by medical insurance.

Help me raise $2000 for the Challenged Athletes Foundation

 

That photo about captures it (courtesy of my good friend Creighton Wong), Ironman Lake Tahoe 2013 an EPIC race of grand proportions.

The day before we’d have been doing a 2.4 mile surf, not a swim, with 30 mph winds and the first snow of the season dusting the peaks, not an auspicious prelude. Thankfully come the early hours of Sunday morning the winds had dropped just leaving a chilly start to the day with temperatures in the low 30s and water temperatures in the high 50s. Up at 4am, onto the shuttle bus at 5am and at the start area by 5:30am…still pitch black.

Have you ever stood on sand so hot you had to keep jumping from foot to foot? Imagine doing the same except this time because the sand is so cold. By the time I finally entered the water around 6:50am, after having stood waiting with over 1700 other athletes for the race to start, it felt decidedly warm on my numbed feet.

You have to walk the first 100 yards into the lake before it gets deep enough to swim, all you can see is swimmers disappearing in to the mist in the early dawn light no sign of the buoys marking the course, you dive in and start to swim blindly following the other swimmers in front. I was all good for about 5 mins and then after getting kicked and knocked one too many times I just couldn’t catch my breath and was left bobbing in the water gasping, unable to swim, the combination of cold, altitude and 100s of other swimmers had got to me. I had to rest, get my breath, flush cold water down the front of my wetsuit to acclimatize and then just stick my head back in the water and damn well swim or this was going to be one very short race. It was shaping up to be one tough day.

You have to make two loops to complete the 2.4 mile swim, as I came around on the first loop the band that I use to fold the sleeve of my wetsuit on my left arm came off, leaving the arm flapping as I swam. In of itself not a problem, however with these temperatures I now had cold water flushing down my sleeve with each stroke, I was quickly getting pretty darn chilled. The next 40 minutes I focused on keeping swimming, keeping moving. I could feel myself starting to shiver and after 1 hr 40 mins in the water was super glad to finally exit and head to transition, ranked 1622 overall. I guess I must have looked cold as I was immediately dragged into the warming tent, thankfully Kerry my darling wife & handler for the day, was with me and as I started to shake uncontrollably wrapped me with me towel.

It took me nearly 24 mins to warm up enough to get changed and grab my bike and head off. I was still mighty cold and it look me at least 30 miles (nearly 2 hours) on the bike before I started to feel some warmth coming back in to my body.

The 112 mile bike is also two loops, each loop ending with two climbs, one up to the Ritz-Carlton at Northstar and the other a climb over the 7200′ Brockway Summit. This means at mile eighty you start climb #3 and at mile ninety climb #4 with over 7000′ of climbing in total! It’s a tough course.

The first section is pretty quick until you hit the first climb at mile 30 through Martis Camp, a section of the course that winds through a gated community that had been closed off to viewing until race day itself. Eight miles later you reach the top and head down from the Ritz-Carlton to then be climbing again three miles later up over Brockway Summit, a three mile, 1000′ climb. Then down again towards Kings Beach hitting over 43 mph (shivering all the way)!

From there you loop down to Tahoe City, past Squaw Valley for the 2nd time and around to climbs 3 & 4. Things are decidedly tougher when you start climbing at mile eighty versus mile thirty. This is when you start to see people walking and pushing their bikes. Despite the fact that both of my legs (right hamstring, left quad) are somewhat impaired I was determined not to stop and kept pushing uphill. There was a big smile on my face as I crested Brockway second time around, ninety miles done, twenty-two to go. You can feel your strength draining away from your legs on those last 22 miles as the rolling hills now feel like mountains and the head wind you have to battle is just adding insult to injury. And through it all you’re thinking, “crap, I’ve still got to go run a marathon, WTF”.

As you reach the Squaw Valley turnoff the crowds are cheering you onwards and it’s just a couple of miles to the Olympic Village and transition 2, 112 miles in 7 hrs 39 mins, definitely slower than planned, but I had passed over 300 others with an overall rank now of 1308.

Time to drop the bike, get changed, this time layering up for a long night-time run, and head out for the final leg of the race. After being so cold first thing I wasn’t making that mistake again, I knew I’d be running well into the night and temperatures would again plummet in to the 30s, so thermal layer, multiple tops and long sleeve jacket were required attire in my mind. Coming out of transition, with spectators enjoying the sun, I was wrapped up snug…initially I thought I’d made a mistake as the first three miles of the run were sunny and I was sweating, then I hit the shady areas and the sun started to set and the air chilled distinctly…it was going to be a long end to the day.

You run along the Truckee river up towards Tahoe City, where you turn around at about mile nine to head back to the Olympic Village, turn around and head out again for the last nine mile loop. The light was fading by the time I reached the first turnaround and it was pitch black running back alongside the river. In the dark all you can see is a precession of tiny lamps bobbing up and down coming towards you as you head back. I reached the Olympic Village at mile seventeen after about 4 hrs, of course no one knows if this is your first or second loop so everyone’s cheering you on to the finish, until you round the turn and hang left instead of heading down the finishers shoot…another nine miles to go yet.

I was doing pretty good for the first thirteen miles, unfortunately after that my ability to keep taking down nutrition diminished, my stomach had had enough of sugary goo and I think the chicken broth, great to warm you up, not so great on a vegetarian’s stomach, was getting to me. I was feeling decidedly nauseous at this point so just pushed on taking on water and a bit of banana along the way. My goal was to keep run/walking the entire course, I was down to a 4 min run, 1 min walk…with some more walking in between! But I was moving.

Reaching the final turnaround and heading in for the last three miles I knew it was almost all over, at this point I was in my own internal world oblivious to everything around me. Each water stop passed by as I counted down the last few miles. It’d been over 15 hrs and it was down to the last 30 mins. Mile 24, then mile 25 and the Olympic Village was ahead, everyone cheering, it was in the bag as I ran up the cobble stones to the turnaround before the finish. There, the smiling faces of the crowd cheering you on, Kerry flying the British flag, a quick kiss and the finish line beckons, a final sprint and across the finish line, 140.6 miles and 15 hrs 41 mins. I am an Ironman…I don’t even hear the announcer calling out my name. It’s finally all over, 9 months of training culminating in finishing one of the toughest Ironman courses out there.

Of the 2700 entrants, 565 decided not to start, some on race day itself. Of those that started 1 in 5 did not make it to the finish! Of those 1719 that started only one was physically challenged and so I took first in class at the inaugural Ironman Lake Tahoe. Sometimes you just gotta show up and take part.

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If you’d like to support my Ironman efforts and donate you can click the button below, the money I raise goes to help those with disabilities continue to lead even more active lives with the aid of prosthetics and adaptive devices that often aren’t covered by medical insurance.

Help me raise $6000 for the Challenged Athletes Foundation