The week leading up to Ironman AZ, I had a nasty ear infection, and quite honestly experienced pain I had never felt in my life…
I was on 2 different antibiotics and bed ridden with a relentless fever. On Thursday, we drove to Vegas on the way to Arizona and I told Tarah I wasn’t racing and we should turn around and go home.
She drove to AZ anyway, and once we got down there and I got my first sight of the Ironman Village, the “f*ck it” mentality quickly kicked in…
Ultimately, I figured if Van Gough cut his ear off, I could do the same if the infection got worse and shit got real bad. Nonetheless, I toed the start line on Sunday with a much less than 100 percent charge…
Sure, we would all like to be at full strength each and every single day, but our willingness and ability to perform not at full strength, oftentimes will yield us experiences and lessons much more valuable than when we are at our best.
Ironically, it’s these challenging moments and dark times that truly make us grateful for when we actually get to play with a full arsenal.
My ear hurt, the swim sucked, the bike was miserable and the run incredibly painful, yet something magical happened along the way that made this Ironman different than any other one I have ever done…
If you are an avid Daily Hustler, my training partner in crime #Kowalski needs no introduction…. I have logged more training hours and have done more EPIC shit with this dude than anybody else alive…
#Kowalski has been by my side as a pacer/support crew for Western States, the Triathlon Across America, and the World Record Speed Golf Challenge that covered 106 miles in a 24 hour period.
We have definitely done the same races before and even recently stuck together for the entire Spartan Ultra Beast 30-mile, 60-obstacle extravaganza… That was cool and easy to do because our run paces match up closely and we both had no clue WTF we were doing with the obstacles…
That all said, an Ironman is completely different. It’s 3 activities totally independent of each other and usually has no less than 2500 participants. Simply put, it’s a shit show and rarely will I ever recognize a single person on the course despite knowing 100 people out there… So when I saw Kowalski a few miles ahead at mile 25ish of the bike, I was STOKED to say the least.
I spent the next 95 miles of the bike playing cat and mouse trying to real his ass in so we could ride together, but the f*cker wouldn’t let me catch him and I had no intention of blowing up to do it.
When we got on the run, I saw Kowalski when I was at the 1.5 mile mark and he was at the 2.5 mile mark, so I knew I had about 8 minutes to make up… The next time I saw him he was at the 8.5 mile mark and I was at the 8 mile mark, but when I hit mile 14, he was at mile 15 and increased his lead again…
I tossed out a “CACA” as I crossed paths with him from a distance and could tell he had a look in his eye like a SAVAGE on a RAMPAGE…
If it hadn’t been apparent before this moment, it was obviously ON.
To be totally transparent and to add context to the situation, my best Ironman time is 10:01 and Kowalski’s is around 10:30… Bottom line was that this dude smelled blood in the water and was going in for the kill when he had the chance and I didn’t blame him one bit…
I actually f*cking LOVED it.
Part of me felt like a proud PaPa that had mentored his kid for this exact moment and genuinely would have been STOKED to see him slaughter the rest of the race and take my ass down for the first time… As I relished in my non ego grander perspective, I hit mile 15, stopped dead in my tracks and came to the conclusion that if Kowalski were to beat me, I needed to make him EARN IT.
I also realized that if I was able to catch him, we could potentially cross the finish line together flying Pat Tillman’s #42 ASU jersey…
I then used experience to my advantage and recalled a time when running the Lake Sonoma 50 miler and went FULL SEND at mile 38 for the last 12 miles and flew through the finish line with by far my best ultra finish to that point. What I learned then was that even in a world of hurt, we have the ability to pick up the pace so long as we are willing to deal with the pain…
So let’s just say I was willing to pay the price of admission for this one.
I SLAMMED a Coke, began pumping my arms, got up on my toes and the real HUNT DOWN began.
The next update I got was from Kowalski’s buddy at mile 19 saying that he was about .6 miles up…
I picked up the pace.
Then at mile 22 Kowalski’s brother Matt informed me “he’s 2 up.” I knew the 2 meant minutes (not miles) and the chase was now getting real, very f*cking REAL…
I picked up the pace.
Finally, I came around the last corner at mile 25 and there he was… For the first time all race I had a clear visual of the SICK ass new Let Them Play kit he was sporting from behind.
Kowalski was now just 50 yards ahead, doing the Ironman shuffle looking SPENT…
I picked up the pace.
Within seconds I came in HOT from behind, got right in Kowalski’s ear and unleashed the most ferocious CA F*CKING CA I have ever delivered in my life…
He looked like he saw a ghost. 👻
“Let’s GO dude… We are going to finish this bitch together… TODO JUNTO!!!!!!”
I then ran a few hundred yards ahead to get the Tillman jersey passed off to me by my dude Greg from Ironman and then gave Kowalski a couple emphatic LFG’s….
30 seconds later, he arrived at the entrance of the finishers shoot with a euphoric look on his face… Without saying a word, he grabbed one shoulder of the PT 42 jersey as I held up the other and we crossed the finish line like Thelma & Louise…
Needless to say, that was one of the coolest moments I have ever experienced since I got into endurance sports. Each and every single day we get out of bed, we have an opportunity to experience life in all of its glory… It ain’t always going to be perfect and we aren’t always going to win the race, but so long as we are willing to CHARGE ON, we will continue to accumulate experiences and be left telling stories that start with….
“CAN’T MAKE THIS SHIT UP!!!”
-EB