"Tell Me" about the Ironman

There is a little joke in my family that my mom, sister, and I all have what we call the "'Tell Me' Gene".  It seems as though wherever we go and however much we're keeping to ourselves, some random person is going to stop us and have an in depth conversation as if we have "Tell Me" stamped across our foreheads.

Sunday, I went out for an evening run, hoping to catch some of the finishers of the Wisconsin Ironman up by the capitol building, and apparently my Tell Me Gene was feeling particularly dominant. On my way there, I jogged along the lake path and while I was running, a dweeby twenty-something guy asked me how far I was going.

Runnin' on the lake path with my dad. People only tell me their life stories when I'm alone.

"Oh, not far, just jogging. Hoping to watch the finish line of the Ironman for a bit."

I tried to be as vague as possible. I have a rule that when I run, I don't wave, let alone speak to men between the ages of 18 and 60. Purely for safety reasons. Friends who fall into this category should not take this personally. The only reason I made an exception was because he was clearly talking to me and I was too startled to say, "no hablo ingles".

Even though I kept going at a slow trot, this guy still wanted to chat. He said, "Oh yeah, I've been volunteering at the transitions today. The leaders finished about an hour ago. I'm also a triathlon coach. I don't do Ironmans, but I do sprint triathlons."

At this point I contemplated trying to halt the conversation altogether by just sprinting away, but as if he was reading my mind he said, "I was wondering if you would try a coaching technique I've developed and sprint to that post up ahead."

Maybe I'm a little too obsessed with having interesting anecdotes for you guys to read, but I thought, "well, this is a really busy path and I could definitely blog about this."

So I said, "Well, I mean, I'm not a runner. Like, I'm not fast. At all."

He replied, "That's okay. Just stand here, count backward from ten, and after you count '1', start your sprint."

"10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1". And I bounded off.

After I passed the post, I turned around to gauge his reaction and he beamed, "That was actually really good."

He explained that when you count down it helps the body relax so it is easier to get a faster start, as opposed to being crouched down with your feet in starting blocks. I smiled and nodded and said, "Well, I'm glad your trick works! I'm going to keep running. Have a good day!" And I set back out on my merry way.

At the next stoplight, a woman rolled up next to me on her bike while we were waiting for the walk signal. We smiled politely, but then she asked, "Are you an Ironman?"

It was at this stoplight! I also never got any more feedback on what this guy may be.

My first inclination was to laugh, and my second was to say, "Yeah, I finished about an hour ago, but I just decided to go for a light jog afterwards."


I prudently chose to keep the sass in check and replied, "No, but I am hoping to watch some of the finishers come in for a bit."

She then relayed to me that she has also been volunteering at the "swim to bike" transition, and she saw a woman doing the first leg of the swim and someone kicked her hand and broke her wrist. She had to be pulled out of the water and couldn't finish the race.

After hearing so many accounts of the race in the very short amount of time I had been outside of my apartment, I decided to go check out all of the fuss. I moseyed through swarms of people with matching t-shirts, scarily skinny (and simultaneously muscular) men wrapped in metallic blankets, and huge tents full of bananas and Papa John's pizza.

Can you tell I went out without my iPhone again?

But then I approached the finish line archway, and people were getting in just under the eleven hour mark. A 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and a 26.2 mile run? All in under 11 hours? Blows my mind.
And on top of that, the guys I saw finishing weren't exactly spring chickens. I can't imagine being fit enough to do an Ironman in the near future, let alone when I'm 57 years old.

So here's the thing - some of you might remember that I'm a huge cry baby, but only when it comes to life-changing amounts of weight loss and when people cross finish lines. Sunday wasn't any different. I was at the finish line for maybe three minutes when the announcer said some guy's name and said, "Randy Random, you are an Ironman." And the tears welled up in my eyes. I don't know what exactly it is about this stuff that makes me turn into such a softy, but I let it happen, because I'm dead inside when it comes to everything else.

At that moment I was really hoping there was someone else around with the Tell Me Gene because I wanted to explain my weird emotional response to self-motivated physical accomplishment. But alas, Liza went home Sunday morning. All I could do was cheer through my tears and watch people become Ironmen before my eyes. Makes me think running 13.1 miles in November isn't such a big deal after all.