Ironman Wisconsin: The Run

Love me faster than the devil
Run me straight into the ground
Drowning deep inside your water
Drowning deep inside your sound
~OAR~

Those are the words that were playing as I ran out of T2, as I left the most difficult and dreaded Ironman leg behind me.

There are those moments in life when things seem to get real slow, when time almost stands still, and when you know -- when you intuitively know, way deep down -- that everything is going to work out just fine.

Running out of T2 on September 9th, I felt like that. It was a year of worrying up worst-case scenarios -- from cold and rain to flat tires to breaking an ankle crossing the street a week before the race. A year of having to explain, over and over again, both what I was doing and why. A year of battling sustained fatigue, deeper and longer-lasting than any other I'd ever experienced. A full year of being fueled by doubt and fear and only a tiny, tiny bit of hope.

One whole year. All leading up to this.

And my god, did it ever feel good.

Turning onto Pinkney Street, I found my crew near the Old Fashioned. I hugged my mom and dad, Chief of Stuff, and my friend Melanie who had traveled from DC to be with me that day. I wanted to hug all of them, but I was sweaty, and time was ticking, and so I just said "thank you" over and over again, shared a few high-fives with the rest, and kept trucking. There were a lot of miles to cover still that night, after all.

My legs -- somehow -- felt fresh and good. No soreness. No cramping. No thick, thudding hurt with each step. All of those double bricks were paying off now. And except for a slightly elevated heart rate that stubbornly just would not come down, things felt...well...great.

The plan was to run from aid station to aid station, alternating Gatorade (or Cola after the halfway point) at one, food and water at the next. The plan was also to keep running. I had conserved enough on the bike that I hoped I wouldn't have to walk any large chunks of the marathon. I knew if I did, I'd be disappointed with myself afterwards, and in case this was my first and last Ironman, I wanted to do it right.

The first 13 miles ticked by quickly. Every time I'd be tempted to walk, every time I'd be tempted to complain to me, I'd remind myself, "You're running! You've been waiting all day for this. And how much fun is this? All these people, the great weather? What more could you ask for?!" And then I'd think of other people's race reports I'd read, where after the first few miles, things started to feel overwhelming, or their body started shutting down, or they would cramp up.

I was having none of those issues. I reminded myself as such, often, and that unless I was having any of those issues, I would keep running. Because if I kept running, the sooner I'd experience that finish chute, the sooner I'd get to my Jamba Juice that Melanie was going to pick up for me (and real food that didn't consist of cookies, chicken broth, grapes, or pretzels).

One of the aid stations was themed "Back to the 60's." Leading up to it were banners that read, "Turn, turn, turn," "Legalize GU," "No Drafting," etc. As I write this, they don't seem all that funny; but after 100-some miles and eleven or so hours of constant movement, I thought they were freaking hilarious.

Walking through the aid station at dusk, I felt someone sort of staring at me. More intently than spectators stare at athletes. "Erin, is that you?" It was my physical therapist from the UW Sports Medicine clinic who helped me through my bout with bursitis post-Green Bay Marathon. She was (and still is) quite simply, one of the best physical therapists a girl could ask for. Having done a handful of Ironmans herself (including Kona), she just got it. She had been focused only on getting me back on the road as soon as humanly possible, and for that I could've kissed her several times over.

She asked how things were going. I told her I was just thrilled to be off my bike. "I know exactly what you mean," she said. We had talked before, during my sessions, about how we'd take running over biking any day. Two hours of biking or two hours of running? Give us both the running shoes. Doesn't make sense, it just is. But since I found that out about her, she had seemed like a kindred (albeit much faster and in better shape) spirit. After inquiring about my hip and how it was holding up, she wished me well. "Get running!" she said, and I did.

Until Observatory, that is. Still not done with my dinner (a Mojo bar) and having the chewing difficulty of an 80-year-old who'd misplaced her dentures, I slowed to a walk again up the first Observatory hill. I feel it's important to point out that I didn't need to walk...I chose to. Tactical decision to get fuel in as opposed to trying to wing it. I didn't always like my plan, but it had been working for me all day, so I stuck to it.

Running up State Street to the half-marathon turnaround, Chief of Stuff and Melanie ran with me for a bit. They asked how I was feeling, what kind of Jamba Juice I wanted, and what I wanted for dinner. So many questions! I told them about the chewing problems, and requested something I could gum if need be, like pasta.

Melanie and CoS, giving some moral support and taking a dinner order.

I also tried complaining to Melanie about my feet, which at the moment, I was hoping would just up and fall off my body. Hot spots from my bike shoes, combined with half a marathon, equaled screaming dogs for Erin.

"I want to cut them off," I whined to Mel.

"Yeah, we'll take care of that later. Right now, you run."

Had she not flown all the way in from DC for this race, just like she said she would on the day I signed up, I might have wished (at that moment) for bad things to happen to her. As it was, I could only grumble on my way. She was right. Less whining, more running.

At some point on State Street, either before or after my talking-to from Mel, I saw Xt4, who nearly frightened me with his exuberance. In the times I've met him, he's struck me as a deep, introspective guy. Thoughtful. Reflective. I was expecting some words of wisdom or genius inspiration from him -- something he wished someone would have said to him during last year's race when he most needed it. Instead, you could imagine my shock when I got something along the lines of, "Wooooooooooo-hoooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah, baby! You're doing it, aren't you?! Whoooooooooooo-hoooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!" very loud and in-your (or my) face. It seemed to cause a bit of a scene. I loved it. Made me smile all the way to the next aid station.

And I needed it just then. Because we were sent back out to purgatory. Out along the lakeshore trail. They're not really going to have us do this whole part of the loop again, I thought. And I tried to convince myself that was, indeed, the case. That we'd just run along the trail for a bit, loop back up around Observatory, and be done with it -- skipping the long, dark run out to the turnaround at Lake Mendota Drive. But no matter how many times I tried to do the fuzzy math I knew that's exactly what I'd have to do. The whole loop. Again.

CoS ran with me for a bit on my way back out. I asked how I was doing on time. My figuring skills are fuzzy at best on a normal day, but at the moment, they were shot to hell. He told me what my bike time was, what time I had started, and that I was on pace to run a sub 5-hour marathon. "Sweet!" I said. "I'll finish in time to hit the 'Bou (a dive bar that we all have a soft spot for just around the corner from my condo) afterward!"

He seemed a little shocked. "You sure you want to go out after?" I assured him I did. That was one of the things keeping me going. Mike Riley. Hot food. Finishing in time to hang out with my people afterwards at the 'Bou. Pretty simple, really.

There were lots of people walking now, so I started to make a game out of picking them off. I looked down at my Garmin. Thirteen minute miles. What?! I had no idea it was possible to actually run a 13-minute mile. Oh dear god. At this rate... Just then, a spectator, concealed by the dark, called out -- to me? "Forward progress. It's all about forward progress tonight. You're going to be an Ironman. Just keep moving forward." She was right. My shuffle was faster than what my walk would've been. I got real okay with my 13-minute miles for a spell.

I picked up a middle-aged guy named John who slowed to my speed. We chatted about our days, the weather, and if this was our first Ironman (Mine, yes. His, no). I asked how this compared to Florida, the last one he'd done. He started to fade. "You go on ahead, I'm going to walk," he said. And as I ran out into the dark ahead of him, he called, "You're doing great you know, for your first one! Really impressive!"

That was all I needed. My footfall picked up, and so did my pace. 11:30 minute miles. It felt like I was flying. I thought about all of those runs that had gotten me to this point...and about one in particular, back in August when it was in the high 90's with 100 percent humidity. It was a six-miler after a mile swim and two-hour bike. Stupidly, I had decided not to bring a water bottle with me, and by the second mile into the run, I thought I might die. But I could hear Mike Riley's words in my head that day -- "Erin Celello from Madison, Wisconsin...YOU are an Ironman" and everything those words stood for kept me going. Now, instead of hundreds of miles separating me from hearing them, there were only a handful.

Up Observatory Drive once more, I walked briefly. I chatted with a Notre Dame student doing his first Ironman, too. He had to get up and drive back the next morning at 7 a.m. to make an afternoon class. Yikes. Another woman came up on us and joined in the conversation. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop," she said, "But there's not a whole lot else to do out here." That too, made me laugh. I was either easily amused or easily annoyed at this point, and there was no telling which direction I'd go at any given moment.

Up ahead, I saw Lisa, Ann, and Joel. They told me there was another group waiting at the bottom of the hill. "So you mean I should start running again now?" I joked.

"Oh no, not at all," Lisa said. "You do what-ev-er you want." Later, they would tell me there was a guy cheering just a little bit earlier near them; often obnoxious, he apparently had one gem: "This is Ironman. If it were easy, everyone would do it! The only thing easy about Ironman was yesterday."

The plan of the Fighting Irish rep I was running with was to walk most of the rest of the way so as to save himself for the finish. But I was ready to get going again, and so I started up. One foot in front of the other. Each time, one step closer to that finish chute.

The group wasn't at the bottom of the hill, but they were near the State Street turnaround. On the way back down State Street, CoS called out to me, "This is it! The rest of the day was a warmup. Now the race starts."

In my head, I mocked him and wished him the same fate I'd wished Mel not long before, even though I had read something similar on IronWil's blog and told him that was my plan. "Race my ass," I said to myself. "Insensitive asshole." Apparently, constant movement for longer than most people are awake in a day makes me crabby. Or maybe it was the lack of coffee in my body. Or food. Either way, I told him about my silent outburst and apologized for it afterwards.

Passing the Inspiration jumbotron on the Lakeshore Path heading back toward Madison, I hoped for a message. I knew Carla, Mel, and the Eggplant had written one. I saw them do it. But next to my number, I saw this: "Erin Celello: Just do it. Bill wants you to."

I have no idea who the hell Bill was. And, in consulting later on with Carla, Mel, and Eggplant, found out that they didn't either. Must've been someone else's message. What they had actually written was, "Brian Vigue, more wine!" to remind me of our past girls nights spent downing wine and chatting, and to give me that to look forward to once again. Regardless, trying to figure out who Bill was and what "it" was he wanted me to do took my mind off things for at least a mile or two.

After that, I started the game of trying to add my times up and estimate my transition times to see when, approximately, I'd finish. Again with the figuring. Again with the faulty math. Finally, I figured out that all I had to do was check at the next mile marker and find out what time it was. If I had a few miles to go, and it was before 10 p.m., I could likely pull off a sub 15-hour finish -- a silent goal of mine all year that I had kept only to myself, for fear of getting tied too closely to it.

Running up the hill near Camp Randall, I asked a couple waiting patiently on the sidewalk for the time. "9:15" they told me. With a little over two miles to go. More fuzzy math. More confusion. Was I figuring this right? Was it only 9:15?

I didn't want to miss that 15-hour mark. I wouldn't miss that cutoff. There would be no more aid stations. No more walking. I would run this in.

The return trip on the Pedestrian Path was lonely. Behind me, someone was running faster than I could've willed myself to go. "Great job!" he called out. "You too," I answered back. "Almost there. Finish strong." Then I saw he had a volunteer shirt on, which he called back to point out. Duh. Crabby? Check. Slaphappy? Check. Delirious? Yup, that too.

Coming through the tunnel and up the bike path, I heard a voice. "Erin? Is that Erin Celello?"

I had no idea where the voice was coming from. The path was deserted except for the volunteers behind me, and a man standing way up ahead.

Then I saw Darcy, who had coached me through this whole dizzying process, sitting on the ground, nursing her week-old baby. She started yelling for me. "You're going to do this, Erin! You're doing it. A few more minutes until you're an Ironman. I'm so proud of you!" I tried a feeble wave as I passed. I attempted a smile. And now, I wish I could've said something, smiled more. Because she and her husband, both Ironmen themselves, with their little baby out there taking pictures and cheering at 9-something at night, was the lift and inspiration I needed. I couldn't show just then how much I appreciated it; I can only hope my saying it now is enough.

A couple more turns, then onto the bright lights of State Street. My name yelled out a hundred times over by people I'd never met. People who were rooting for me now. It was all. so. much.

This...this was it. These last few blocks. They were what I'd been inspired by initially, and for so long after I first saw people and read about people -- people just like me -- taking these last steps toward being something other-than on the opposite side of that chute.

I tried to slow down to take it all in and speed up to ensure a sub-15-hour finish all at once. I looked those calling out to me in the eye. I looked around me, seeing the way the glow of the finish chute fell on US Bank building and Capitol lawn. I let it sink in that in just a couple minutes, I would be in that chute. Finally. It was finally here. And I had done it.

I slapped people's hands on the way in. This I know. But the rest was a blur. I didn't hear the music, or the cheering. I never heard Mike Riley say, "Erin Celello, you are an Ironman" (although I'd later learn that he almost didn't say it either, what with all the vowels and "l's" in my last name).

But I remember looking up at the clock: 14:41. I remember feeling the tape whisper across my torso. I remember smiling. Just smiling. I couldn't have smiled any more. Any bigger.

There were no tears then. I had shed my last Ironman-tear a handful of hours before. I had left those on the early spring and summer roads of the IM-Moo loops, on the roads of Dodgeville and Barneveld, on countless stretches in between, and finally, just outside T2 on the Monona Terrace. No, the knowledge that I could, that I would, do this had finally dried any tears...even those of joy.

Looking back, I think that knowledge had been there all along. And looking back, I now realize that all along, deep down, I had believed the quote, "You're already an Ironman; the race is just a celebration."

But the race isn't just a celebration. It's more than that. It's a validation in the purest sense of the word.

Xt4's blog -- one of the original inspirations to me on this journey -- is called "Becoming Ironman." And that's the most fitting description for this process. It's not that at 14:41:40 I was me, and at 14:41:41 that night I was an Ironman. No. It happened a little on the day it took me nearly five hours to go just a little more than fifty miles. Or when I should've been sipping mojitos and baking myself in the sun, but instead spun for two-and-a-half hours in a stuffy gym sans air conditioning in the Dominican Republic. It was the time where, derailed by a flat tire and early dinner plans on one loop of my two-loop scripted workout, I had to set out the next day and do another two loops again. It was every time I didn't want to drag myself to Master's at 7:30 on a frigid, dark night but did it anyway. It was the epic weekend of the Dairyland Dare, when I went up against myself, and barely came out the other side. It was every time I strapped on my goggles, or clipped in my bike pedals, or laced up my running shoes to do the hard work that got me to that chute, to those lights, to that medal, and to everything it all stood for. Ironman isn't a state of "being" -- as in "You are and Ironman." It truly is a becoming.

And like everything else that day that just seemed to fall into place perfectly, the man who's blog titled just that -- becoming -- a man who, through sharing his emotions and trials and writing, inspired me to start my own journey, and whom I hadn't then met but had since become a friend, placed my finisher's medal around my neck.

As soon as I was through the finish, a volunteer grabbed me and wrapped a tin-foil-looking blanket around my shoulders. "Are you okay?" she asked.

I beamed at her. I had a huge, stupid grin on my face that just wouldn't budge. "I'm great," I said.

"Do you feel okay?"

"Perfect," I said. "I feel perfect."

"Well, you seem just fine. Do you want some coke or gatorade, at least?"

Coke, right then, seemed about the greatest idea in the world. And it tasted just as great.

Then, my team was there. And there were hugs and lots of "How do you feel?" and my dad saying he was proud of me.

We visited for a while -- me, and all those who had been out there cheering for me at some point that day. And although that alone was special and I really didn't want it to end, a chill had crept into the air and there was gear to get and a shower and food to be had, and at least one drink to be ordered at the 'Bou.

Walking toward the Terrace with Chief of Stuff and my mom, Scout, the day felt surreal. It had been one of the best -- if not the best -- day of my life in so many ways, for so many reasons.

"I'm exhausted," my mom said, and I laughed at her, then. She was exhausted?!? But I also realized just how much she, and everyone else, had put into this day. They had shared my fears, my highs, my lows, and my little victories -- not just today, but throughout the past year.

As badly as I had wanted it all to be over, as much as I had been looking foward to this feeling for so long, I also didn't want it to end. My mom grabbed my bike from me then, announced that she'd ride it home, tried mounting it, and promptly fell over. I asked if she was okay, which she was. If only she knew how many times I had done the same thing, maybe she wouldn't have looked so embarassed. I didn't get that out, though. Instead, I just said, "Why don't we just walk...together?"

I said this not out of concern for my bike -- it would be put away for a while, anyways -- but because I wanted this day to last just a little bit longer. And so we walked. Chief of Stuff, my mom, my little blue bike, and me, together.

Run Time: 5:18:43

Finish Time: 14:41:41

Posted by Erin 1:57 PM

15 Comments:

  1. ao said...
    You continually amaze me...in a new way, every day.

    Well done, Ironman.
    xt4 said...
    it was an honor.
    Anonymous said...
    Wow. That was something. Really something. To be able to both become Ironman and write about it so thoughtfully is a rare combination. X4t would be proud. He launched you on your journey and now reading your words have launched me on mine.

    Thank you.
    Anonymous said...
    Forgot to add - - My journey starts this weekend with my first HIM.
    Melanie said...
    I guess Bill really DID want you to do it.
    RunBubbaRun said...
    A great end to your race report..

    Yes it is about just about "becoming", somebody a litte different as once before.. Great day for all of us out there..

    ps. Okay, when we cheer for XT4 at IM in '09, I plan to scream at him as well..He shocked me as I ran by.
    Iron Krista, "The Dog Mom" said...
    I just checked out your race pics from your flicker file. You had a great support crew. Those pics are amazing!

    I'd give anything to have my dogs at my race... Thankfully my "fans" had about 15posters ALL over the course for me.... covered in my dogs!
    TriDaddy said...
    Great race report! Great OAR quote too!

    congrats on your race!!
    teekayes1 said...
    Congrats and well done, thank you so much for sharing! I'm now the inspired.
    Unknown said...
    I might have broken rule #1 again....
    Anonymous said...
    Holy cow, girl, that is AMAZING. You will forever be my inspiration now.
    Unknown said...
    Excelent post.
    Anonymous said...
    You are an Iron Niece, big Cousin and human cousin. Congrats. MPC, Ang, Z, Gabey, & Alex
    Anonymous said...
    CONGRATS!!!! MPC, And, Z, Gabey, & Alex the dog.
    Anonymous said...
    I love erin-thelongandwindingroad.blogspot.com! Here I always find a lot of helpful information for myself. Thanks you for your work.
    Webmaster of http://loveepicentre.com and http://movieszone.eu
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