Swim

6:45 am - Floating in the water having a pee in the wet suit. There is a crowd of 3000 swimmers around me and another 6,000 plus on the beach. This officially makes it the most public act of urination for me by about 9,000 plus.

In spite of the peeing, and the guy with the bullhorn, and the forced adrenaline from the repeat plays of “Ironman” by Sabbath this moment is full of calm. It has been at least a year building til this point and for quite a few of us a great deal longer.

In 2000 I spent my summer working 50 - 60 hours weeks in food service. I smoked a pack a day (Camel Lights) and weighed 235 lbs. I spent my evenings with some fellas who cycled through jobs like this all the time. They killed them selves for middling pay, made car payments and rent (mostly), drank cheap beer. Repeat. This freaked me out. There was no way I was going to drink cheap beer for the next 40 to 60 years. At 20 years old I was having something that looked too much like a midlife crisis, complete with hacking cough, paunchy gut and a can of warm Miller Lite. What the hell was I doing with myself?

I had a conversation with my dad on one of those summers night. My father has never been accused of bending an ear so when he speaks it is to the point. In fact, to make things easier he comes armed with a handful simple choice turns of phrase, reusable for many occasions, “Everything perceived leaves an impression, the question is ‘how much’” or “Any job worth doing, is worth doing right”. At this point I wasn’t sure I was doing a job worth doing. And I certainly wasn’t doing it right. I told him as much.

He said, “The thing I was doing when I was 20, wasn’t what I was doing when I was 25. The thing I was doing when I was 25 wasn’t the thing I was doing when I was 30.” Out of context it doesn’t seem like much. But they were the right words at the right time.

My parents have always given me the freedom to choose my own path. Providing me with just enough opportunity to make things happen, but never so overbearing that I suffocate under the weight of expectation. I took his advice to mean that things could be different, it just had to be my choice. I quit the smokes and rejoined my college swim team. Oh and met met my wife.

The last part. That’s how I ended up in this water at 6:45 am on a Sunday morning in July.

7:00 am - Cannon. Gun. Bazooka. Loud. Not really sure what it was they shot off. It was a bit of a blur. But there was a big bang and then there was white. And fists. And feet.

It would have been easy for me to freak out. But I didn’t. I went with it. I didn’t try to fight anything. It is as close as I will ever come to being David Caradine. I felt like a Tai Chi master. Fist came my way: DODGE! Leg kick to the left: BLOCK! The swim is two loops of what is basically a rectangle. There is a somewhat visible golden line you can follow, but it is difficult with 3,000 other folks looking for the same thing, churning gallons of water as they go. On the way out things were certainly rough, but I never lost control. I held my ground without being so rigid that I bruised and broke in the washing machine that was the once calm Mirror Lake.

7:28 am - Done with a loop and sailing. In the water there is a muffled hum. You know that just beyond the water there is a buzz. You sense that it has rained a bit. You burst free and there is roaring thunder of 6,000+ fans and friends and family. They’ll have to wait another 30 minutes for me. Back to the muddled hum.

On the second loop I hugged the line and just floated as much as one can float in the middle of an extreme athletic event. I was coy about setting any goal times for the day. I knew about where I could be for each leg, and I knew about where I should be. But deep down inside I desperately wanted to break an hour in the swim. Not so much I was going to let it ruin my day. But I wanted to get there. And get there effortlessly.

I popped up at 59:47. 13 seconds to spare. A smile would come across my face. It would pretty much stay there for the next 12 hours.