It just wasn't our day...

Pre Race

I woke up this morning and feel okay, but dripping sweat. My stomach is much better. I’m just really hungry. Sore stomach hungry and an elevated heart rate. The real test will be in 2 hours.

For those that want to follow the race online, you can track our progress at www.ironman.com . You will see an area called “athlete tracker” for the Ironman China race. It should be in the center on the home page. Due to the time zone shifts, the race starts in North America at 6 pm EST / 3 pm PST. You enter the last names for, John Barclay, Bryan Payne or Simon Cross. The results may not start appearing until after 7 pm, when we get out of the water. Then for the rest of the race you’ll be able to follow our progress live.

Post Race

After getting back to the room and sleeping for a couple hours, I feel well enough to blog about the race. I’m sure a lot of people, including Heather and Alice are wondering what happened.

First the good news, I accomplished my goal of finishing with a 10:10 and they have me in first place on the 45-49 age group leader board. The bad news, is I had to quit at the run turnaround point and because I ran through the finishers chute, I screwed up their timing system. With only 6 Kona spots in my age group, the 7th place guy is going to be happy when he finds out he actually qualified for Kona.

Today definitely didn’t go as expected. Actually, it did start off on somewhat of a positive note. I did make it to the start line. I didn’t have a sore stomach from the food poisoning the day before, but I did have major hunger pains.

Yesterday, all I ate was some cereal and toast for breakfast, and Chinese noodle soup and half a clubhouse sandwich for dinner. Plus, what ever I ate the day before was flushed down the toilet. Essentially, I hadn’t eaten much in the last two days.

I slept about 7 hours and for a brief period during the night, my head and body was dripping wet from sweat. When I woke up and put my heart rate monitor on, it was initially reading in the 70’s, not good. Ideally, it should have been in the 50’s. Eventually, at times it got to the 50’s and that gave me hope of having a good race.

I ate as much as I could before the race and still had hunger pains. I had three banana’s, 2 Ensures and a cliff bar. Surprisingly, except for a brief moment, I had no nerves about the race. I was also very disappointed that I wasn’t able to have my customary pre-race bagel and large cup of coffee.

We got to the race site and everything went according to plan. Next thing I know we were standing in line for the time trial start. My group went off and I just focused on finishing. It was a four-loop swim and the first loop was the toughest, with people banging into each other. At one point, I had my goggles kicked off. It’s to be expected. The triathlon swim is a “full contact” sport.

The first lap, with all the people in front of me, I did a poor job sighting. I did the first lap in just under 16 minutes, the second lap, I was able to sight better and the second lap time was better. I ended up finishing with a 1:07 and was really happy with that, considering my previous PB at Louisville was a 1:16.

I got out of the water feeling good and knew the real test was going to be how I felt on the bike. For the first 20 km, I was feeling strong. I was averaging around 33 kph, mostly into a head or side wind. I was also passing people. I was concerned about my heart rate; it was in the 150’s. I’m supposed to be less than 143 bpm. I assumed it was reading wrong due to wind interference. Now, I’m not so sure.

By 40 km’s, or two hours, into the race, everything changed. Even though I was eating as much as I could, more than I normally do, I lost my power. Guys I had previously passed and some in my age group started passing me. I had nothing in the tank and got discouraged. I realized at that point, my dream of qualifying for Kona was probably over. But I did still have a little bit of hope.

I finished the first loop at 2:45. I knew I couldn’t maintain that pace, but thought if I finished with a 6 hour total bike, I still had a shot of breaking 11 hours and maybe getting a Kona slot, if I could do a 3:30 run. At the 100 km point those dreams were dashed.

Where on the first lap I was riding 32 – 35 kph with a side wind, I was struggling to do 22 kph. I was no longer racing the Ironman; I was now just trying to survive it. It was hot, with the humidex, it was 36-40 C. (100 – 104 F) Not the ideal temperatures for a Canadian boy who trained through a Canadian winter. Frankly, from what the Ironman China brochure said, I was expecting 26 C at the most.

It was a struggle to make the mental transition from racing to surviving and trying to enjoy it. As I was trying to do it, there was a loud bang, my front tire blew. I knew it was bad, but rather than try to change it, I tried to fix it with compressed foam. It worked briefly, until the foam started coming out of the side of the tire. I had no choice but to changed the tube.

I was on the side of the highway, it was hot, no shade and I was sitting on the ground working to get my tire off. It was new and very tight and difficult to remove. I eventually did get it off and at that moment, a bike repair crew showed up. He changed the tube for me, put it back on and “bang” it went flat again. On closer inspection, it was the sidewall of the tire that had a puncture. The mechanic put some fabric inside the tire wall and tried it again. This time it worked. Now I was down to no spare tubes. If I flatted again, it may have been the end of the race for me.

It took just over 20 minutes to repair the tire and when I got on the bike, I started cycling a little stronger and my attitude was improved. I convinced myself to become a participant, as opposed to a racer, and soak in the atmosphere. It worked. I had 70 km’s left and I knew that wouldn’t be a problem. For this period, my heart rate was in the 126 – 136 range. I guess the heart rate monitor was working properly after all.

Big “kudos” to Ironman China for excellent course marking. It was impossible to get lost. Every 500 meters to 1 km, they had police officers standing along the side of the roads. Even on baron, straight, parts of the highway. We also cycled on the entire 3 lanes of most roads and interstate highways. They closed down all traffic. One advantage of having a communist government and a population that does what they’re told.

Not including the 20-minute stop for tire problems, I averaged 29.6 kph for the ride. Not bad, all things considered. For about half the ride, I was up from the aero position, I just didn’t have the energy to stay aero for the entire time. I was also fighting big time winds, gusting up to 27 kph. A few times, I almost got blown off my bike. To help cool down, for the last 70 km, I stopped at every bike rest stop and the young kids poured water on me and rubbed ice on my back. They were really committed to doing a great job.

I transitioned and started my run off strong. For the first kilometer it was just under a 5:00 pkm pace. I decided to do a 10 minute run, 1-minute walk. That lasted about 20 minutes. Then it became a 5-minute run, 30-second walk, which lasted even less. The final result was walk 5-10 minutes with a 30 second run. I just couldn’t run. My legs were strong, but I just didn’t have my “heart light”. Every time I tried to run, my body would shut down.

The run was hot with no shade. I stopped at every aid station and took on water; ice Gatorade, Coke, banana’s, cookies and sponges. I can’t say enough about the young kids at the aid stations, they were most helpful. The only problems I had been in communication. I’d ask for a banana and they’d give me ice or anything but a banana. From the 7 km mark I walked to the turnaround.

I had 8 hours to go until the cut off time and my plan was to walk the entire marathon. I had 2.5 hours until sundown and was hoping it was just the heat that prevented me from running. Once the sun went down, maybe my body would allow me to run?

By the 12 km mark, I was beyond wanting to walk it. A couple of times, I stopped and sat on the curb. I was hoping one of the volunteers would ask me if I needed help. I had 7 or 8 km to the turnaround and would have gladly taken a ride. But every time I stopped, they’d gesture to keep going. One old lady, put her fist on her heart, like “get going, you gotta have heart”.

I was wearing my Captain’s hat and was popular with the crowd. Kids were high fiving and truck drivers where honking their horns. A few of Aussie athletes called me “skipper”.

I saw one person lying on the side of the road, flat on their back, on the side of the road. They looked dead. I was going to help, but realized they must be okay; a police officer was feet away. After I passed that guy, I wanted to do the same thing, except I couldn’t find ANY shade.

As we were getting to the turnaround, I started to run. It was through the City and there were hundreds, if not thousands of people lining the street. I didn’t feel comfortable walking through all of them so I ran. Less than a kilometer in, my kidneys started to hurt. It felt like I was hit across my back with a baseball bat. When that happened, it made my decision easier, “whether to quit or do another lap?” I quit.

I know knew I was now having medical difficulties. During the run, I took one pee after 8 hours of racing and drinking everything I could for the entire time. The pee color was a dark yellow; I’d never seen it that dark before. Then I felt like I needed to take another pee, but literally, less than 10 drips came out. That experience earlier, combined with my sore kidneys was a sign that going on would not be a good thing.

Mentally, it wasn’t about “proving” I could do an Ironman, it was about not causing severe damage and “allowing myself to fight another day”. I also didn’t want to “taint my Ironman experience and never want to do another one by forcing myself to complete this one”.

I knew if I continued, I would become injured and delusional. I had nothing to prove and I came here to race it, not survive it at all costs. I was in such a bad state that even if it was my first ever Ironman, with the pressure of that added motivation, there was no way I could have physically completed it.

If you were tracking me, you saw my name in the first place position of my age group results. The reason is because I had to run through the finishers shoot to get to the other side. I saw no turn off and the amount of people was amazing. Once the announcer caught my number and started announcing my name, I had no choice but to cross the finish line.

The race director was doing the announcing and was all excited. When I crossed they gave me a finishers medal and T-shirt and one of the race media people was congratulating me on my strong finish. I thought for a moment she wanted to do an interview with me. I brushed her off as politely as I could and she knew I was in trouble and guided me to the medical tent.

When I got close to the tent, a medical person asked me if I was okay. I knew I wasn’t but thought for a moment and said yes. I remembered the “food poisoning” I got and didn’t want to jeopardize my health by accepting a needle or having to go to a Chinese hospital. Even though I knew I needed, at minimum, an IV.

As I tried to recover I had Chinese children coming up to me, they liked my Captains hat. Eventually, I took it off and put it in my bag to avoid attention. I tried to get on the bus to my hotel. All I “visualized” was me lying in my bed.

I had to wait 30 minutes until it left. I felt bad about going through the finish line and someone thinking they missed their Kona slot by one position, so I found the timers tent and told them that I crossed the line after doing only one lap.

The guy got “pissed off” at me. I told him I saw no alternative turn off. He said there was one. I then told him that I got major medical problems and I’m just trying to do the right thing, I got pissed off myself. I think I said, “I’m F#@Ked up”, crossing the line is the least of my concerns. I then went back to the finish line and gave back my finishers shirt and medal.

On the bus ride back to the hotel, I was not feeling well, physically, mentally and emotionally. The bus was full of high caliber finishers and they assumed I was one too. I didn’t want to talk to anyone and explain my situation, so I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep. All the others were talking loudly and celebrating.

During the run and on the bus ride, I had the worst gas. I’m surprised I didn’t go faster on the bike with my “rear end rocket thrusts”. Out on the course I probably farted a minimum of 50 times, maybe 100. I lost count. It was tough to hold it in on the bus, although I did let out one stinky squeaker.

Just my luck, the bus didn’t go directly back to the hotel. It stopped for gas. Another delay and all I wanted to do was get under those bed covers. I finally got into the room, and I was cold and chilled. I had a fast shower and put on some clothes and got under the covers and fell asleep for close to 2 hours.

The door opening woke me up. It was John. He too had to drop out of the race. He entered the room shivering and hyperventilating. He was in bad shape.

Apparently, he got a flat tire, the tire itself blew apart and he had to wait 1:15 until someone arrived with a new wheel. This set him back 1:15 and in order to make the bike cut-off time, he had to go hard in the hot, windy heat. He ended up making it back with 15 minutes to spare before they closed the bike course.

He changed into his run clothes and started to run, when he “collapsed”. The top adventure racer in the world, Ian Adamson, was a volunteer and just happened to be there. He sat with John to make sure he wanted to quit and John started getting worse. John was taken to the medical tent where they put 3 IV’s into him. They then just sent him home by himself.

He was still in bad shape and he had to catch the hotel shuttle bus, and then get a new key from the front desk. When he walked in and I saw his condition, I couldn’t believe he made it back on his own and that they allowed him to take a shuttle bus. I told John I didn’t get the IV because I was worried about needles. He had the same thought, but Ian assured him they were all from sealed packages and were sterile.

It took John about an hour to stop shivering and hyperventilating. He also felt nauseous and definitely had severe heat stroke. At this point I was feeling much better and was able to help him out. I ordered us some food and eventually John fell asleep.

Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do for heat stroke, other than drink lots of fluids and stay out of the sun. I’m sure in a couple of hours, after a good sleep, John will be okay.

In general, those are the highlights of our race. We both finished in the 10-hour range. The one thing we did accomplish, was we put in more miles than the favoured pro Chris McCormick. He dropped out during the bike ride. Knowing that, I don’t feel as bad, knowing we’re in good company.

As the next few days unfold, I’m sure I’ll have some thoughts and insights gained from today’s race. I also want to thank everyone for their kind words and well wishes via email, twitter and the blog. John and I did our best. It just wasn’t our day.

Ironman China – Swim, Bike, and half a run.