Born to Perform (10 page)

I always find it fascinating, when going on a long training cycle in a group, how most have their two large jumbo bottles full of concentrated carbohydrate drinks, plus their pockets filled with energy bars and energy gels, and all types of goodies to fuel their journey. It's like they need all that junk to survive. It's their crutch, insurance that they will finish the ride. I am the opposite. Maybe I am a masochist.

A long cycle is more of a spiritual, almost out-of-body experience for me. All I need are two water bottles, one banana and a testing 100-mile course. Nowhere, with the exception of being out on the Hawaii lava fields competing in the Hawaii Ironman, can I learn so much about who I am, what I am and what I want in such a short period of time.

On such a cycle, the first 60 to 70 miles are a breeze, but with only half a mashed banana left in the back pocket you hold on to it and ration that 3 or 4 inches of carbohydrate like your life depends on it. And it does. That is your life line to make it back to base. The legs weaken; the mind questions. You start to wonder if you can stay upright on the bike. If you stop, it's over – you'll never get back up. You must keep going. Body and mind feel like two separate entities. You are only half alive, only hanging on by a thread. It's a temporary state of being – nothing that a good feed of pasta can't cure – but still a feeling close to a near-death experience.

When you are in such a place, you draw on your inner strength. It tests you physically to the limit, plus your ability to suffer and to endure. More importantly, it tests you mentally. Like a sick person, you have a choice: you can take your chances, fight the good fight or throw in the towel and give up. Like the ill person, it becomes very clear to you what you want to do with your life and who you want to spend time with for whatever time you have left. You realise that you have been living in the comfort zone, taking the easy option, chugging along. You have choices. The reality may be hard to swallow, but the choice becomes clear on a long bike ride, when reaching home can feel a little like arriving at the top of Everest. You have not just finished a 100-mile cycle; you have found direction, purpose and something meaningful. You have found your true self.

13

Life beyond Triathlon?

Six weeks after regaining my All-Ireland Triathlon title in Sligo, I was in San Antonio, Texas, competing in the most competitive triathlon in the US: the US Triathlon Championship – a 2-mile lake swim, 50-mile bike ride and a 10-mile run. It was dry and very hot – 103°F, in fact. I had arrived from Ireland just three days earlier. I knew I needed to return to international competition to try to claw back to where I was in 1987, before injury derailed my progress.

When you are a weak swimmer, swimming in a lake can make you even weaker. The water is dead heavy, unlike the salt-water buoyancy of the sea which gives you some lift. Without a wetsuit, I was sinking to the bottom. But I placed seventh overall in that triathlon, and there was some life coming back into my legs again.

A few weeks later, I was in Hawaii on my own: no RTÉ, no funding, just me on a shoestring budget. One part of my mind was concentrating on the athletic feat ahead, while the other was trying to picture what I wanted to do with my real life. I was to get plenty of time on October 14, 1989 to tackle my demons.

I exited the water in one hour, one minute – an eight-minute improvement on my 1985 Hawaii Ironman swim performance. I stormed into a 4 hours and 48 minutes bike split, some 42 minutes faster than in 1985. A 3-hour marathon would have given me a finishing time of 8 hours and 58 minutes to 9 hours – still allowing 6 to 8 minutes for transition time. But it wasn't to happen.

My cycle time had been one of the fastest of the day, but when I stood up from putting on my running shoes, a bulge the size of my thumb protruded out of my stomach. I had torn my gut and got a hernia. The pain came on sharp and sudden. I could not run a single step. The gun was put to my head for the first time in such a situation and I said to myself, “Don't deal with the negative; answer the question, are you an Ironman?” The chance of a top finish having dissipated, I walked out of the bike park and bent over, clutching the right side of my stomach. I had made up my mind to finish out the day in true Ironman spirit, and drag myself mile after mile towards the finish line, walking all the way. I crossed the finish line on Ali'i Drive in 244th place in 10 hours, 44 minutes. I had covered the marathon in 4 hours and 58 minutes, a near crawl to me.

The performance at the top level in triathlon was reaching staggering levels. Ironman 1989 is still considered the most competitively stacked Ironman ever. It was a dramatic race, with Dave Scott and Mark Allen running stride for stride, mile after mile, not once looking across at one another but just focused on the task in hand. For eight hours they had been going at it hammer and tongs, not separated once by more than a body length. As Allen and Scott moved closer and closer to the finish at Kona, the thought of a sprint finish had to be going through each of their heads. At 24 miles, Allen surged on a hill and opened up a gap. He held it right to the finish line, having to run the marathon in 2 hours, 40 minutes and 4 seconds, off a 51-minute swim and a 4-hour, 37-minute bike ride. It was a truly awesome performance.

But that day stands out in my mind, too, in that my almost-great day in the Hawaii Ironman race still turned out to be one of the most important days of my life. Competing in the swim and bike ride had been all about pumping adrenalin and focusing on performance. Once a top finish was scuppered, I wore the hat of just another middle-of-the-packer, trying to survive a long, long day in the sun. That same day, I was meant to be in Little Rock, Arkansas for the wedding of my best friend Frank O'Mara, but I'd reckoned the triathlon and the Hawaii Ironman were far more important.

Walking along the highway, I watched other souls straining their bodies and pushing themselves to their limit in the bid to beat time, rob a second here and a second there, to clock a respectable time for the Ironman distance. Many of them were simply trying to survive. For the first time, I was out of the competition mindset; my focus and drive had gone. So I could observe. I started asking questions that had already been troubling me: what was this all about? It was only a game, a us-against-the-clock game, to achieve a time that today was sensational but in time would only be average.

There is no doubt the Ironman experience had been exhilarating, but I was gradually realising I needed something more substantial, and more meaningful, in my life. Athletes, at the best of times, can be selfish, and I could see that in myself. Life gets thrown out of balance as your every moment is consumed with yourself – your training, eating, sleeping – and with measuring everything by how fast you can swim, bike and run.

It took a few more triathlon experiences to get me into a more decisive mode.

Ogie Moran, the eight-time All-Ireland football winner with Kerry, was my physical education teacher when I was in secondary school at the Salesian College Pallaskenry, Co. Limerick, and he contacted me. He was employed by Shannon Development. They had sponsorship funding from Heineken and wanted me on board to compete in a triathlon in Tralee, which they planned to make into an international event. Ogie reckoned that, if it could work up west in Sligo, why couldn't they have an international triathlon down south in Kerry?

The Tralee Triathlon, set for June 3, 1990, attracted a large entry. I had been paid to compete, and £500 was the first prize. It was a sprint distance event. The swim was utter chaos; two canoes manned the water at Fenit, while swimmers tried to navigate around moored boats. I got out of the water with a minute lead, leaving Eamonn McConvey from the North and better swimmers behind.

I had a lead of five minutes when the police lead car failed to see the course marshal directing traffic left around the town to the bike-to-run transition at Tralee Sports and Fitness Centre. The Garda car went the wrong way up a one-way street and got jammed in by traffic coming the opposite way. I was practically on top of his back bumper, stopped in my tracks and waiting for him to get moving. I came up beside the car and banged on the Garda's window. The window was let down. I shouted, “For Christ's sake, where are you going?”

The Garda looked dumbfounded and replied, “I'm lost!” He was a blow-in on duty for the day and hadn't a clue. By the time we had re-routed, five athletes had got going on the run. I kept my cool, put it down as a bad day and stood at the finish line with Ogie Moran cheering in the winners.

The Kilkee Triathlon that year would serve as the National Championships International Distance Qualifier for the upcoming European Championship. The top Northern Ireland athletes travelled down for the race. Tom Heaney had distanced himself from the sport, but Noel Munnis came second and Kevin Morgan third, and I won it by cycling the 28-mile hilly course in 1 hour and 7 minutes, and then just cruising on the run.

The All-Ireland Triathlon in Sligo, four weeks later, was a race that showed up bad sportsmanship at its ultimate. The field at the top end was the weakest for many years. I came out of the swim in fifth place and flew through the transition area and onto my bike to get out on the road a close second. Within a few pedal strokes, I knew there was something wrong. I dismounted, centred the back wheel and got going again, but the wheel was rubbing against the brake blocks. I was cycling with the handbrake on. While the swim was on, someone had sabotaged my bike, nipping two spokes on my back wheel with cutters.

I have my ideas who orchestrated the mean trick, and a number of years later, while I was on a cycling trip, I met a former competitor from Belfast. He himself was in the water competing at the time, so had no evidence, but he relayed that it was common knowledge in his neck of the woods who had “got Hartmann”.

Sport is not always straightforward; sometimes it can be dirty like that. I decided at the 1990 All-Ireland Triathlon to get back to Florida and put my head into the books.

I may never have ventured back to college were it not for Frank O'Mara, the two-time world indoor 3,000-metre champion, who first spotted my talent in 1988 and encouraged me to return to the US to study physical therapy. Frank is always direct and to the point, with a dry sense of humour. He once stated: “Hartmann, you are like a big elephant in a china crystal shop, totally unsuited to being tied up in a suit and tie standing behind a shop counter. You know more about the body, performance and sports injuries than all the physios I have ever attended.”

It was clear to me now: there was no turning back, no second thoughts, no worries about explaining myself. I had seen the light. I knew what I wanted in life. The year 1990 would be when I would put my head down and give triathlon a side berth as I adopted a new focus, and new challenges. I was turning my back on the family business. And going back to being a student at 29 years of age, with no guarantee of qualifying or of knowing what prospects lay ahead, was daunting, to put it mildly.

Frank gave me the push that I needed. I had the wings. I was like a juvenile bird needing a push out of the nest.

14

A Life-Changing Day

It was a Saturday in February 1990 and I was in the O'Connell Centre in Gainesville, Florida – a large indoor basketball and track arena. I was doing a practicum in sports therapy at the University of Florida, and I was assigned to the medical room along with four other trainees. Our role was to provide various treatments to athletes, from pre-race limbering up and injury assessment, to post-race massages and general stretching at the two-day indoor collegiate meeting.

A tall, lean girl wearing a Villanova University track top edged over to me. She was shy, looked about seventeen years old but was probably about nineteen or twenty, and she had a teenager's giddy disposition when she spoke to me.

“I know you,” she said. “You're Gerard Hartmann, the Irish triathlon guy. I loved watching you on television in the Ironman.”

She was injured, and had been for almost two years since leaving Cobh with so much promise. Yet now she was just a journey runner with the team, trying to keep her interest in the sport. She explained how frustrating it was to be in the US with all her friends back home thinking she was having a great time and living it up as a star athlete. She'd had stress fracture after stress fracture in her lower legs, and was repeatedly sidelined from training and competition. She was not soliciting any professional care; she was just a lost soul longing for a chat with a fellow Irish person and was excited at seeing a face she recognised.

I told her that in Arkansas, where I went to college, my coach John McDonnell singled out the injury-prone athletes and never allowed them to train twice a day. He would drive them in his pick-up truck the five miles out to the golf course, where they would train on the soft grass perimeter. She said she would mention it to her coach, Marty Stern, but she was concerned as there was no grass facility at Villanova. I urged her to give it a try for a few months, that surely there was a golf course within a few miles of campus. She warmed to my concern. I recognised a good girl, stuck in a rut, and searching for a way to get back on track and use her talent.

I also told her to watch out for the golf balls, and shared the story of my college friend Keith Iovine and the accident that befell him on the Arkansas University Golf Course. It was a hot August day and we had stripped down to our shorts and discarded our running vests. Suddenly Keith was like the Lord on the cross, spread out flat on his back with his arms outstretched. It was a sight to behold. Coach John McDonnell ran down: “Hey, kid, you okay?”

A big boy on the university golf team named John Daly had teed off, the ball going over 100 miles per hour and hitting Keith on the ribs. We were in stitches laughing, and so, too, was my Cobh friend when I told her the story. Big John Daly went on to play in the Professional Golf Tour and later won the British Open, and the young girl from Cobh was Sonia O'Sullivan.

Little did I realise that, in just over a year, my triathlon career would be over and that young Sonia would go on to be a global star of athletics, and become like a sister and friend for life. A top-class person – and the greatest athlete Ireland has ever produced.

One of the advantages of being a student again was that, in some ways, it felt like being the full-time athlete. At the University of Florida, I had access to an indoor 50-metre pool at the O'Connell Centre, or an outdoor 50-metre pool nearby. I joined the masters swim group and, within a few short months, my swimming had improved to a much higher level. From always struggling in the swimming, I was now comfortable swimming 1,500 metres in under 20 minutes. With a wetsuit on and in the open sea water, I knew swimming was my new ace card. I met a professional triathlete named Cyle Sage, who in 1995 held the Ironman swim record at 44 minutes, 12 seconds. He had just finished a Master's in Exercise Science; he had the knowledge and was the inspiration I needed.

Time management as a student is key, and so my training became streamlined and focused. Each bike ride and run had a specific purpose. I started using a heart-rate monitor for the first time, and each training session was scientifically measured and recorded. I also had physiological tests done at the university, and recorded a VO2 max test level of 87.2. The VO2 max text is the standard physiological parameter for measuring the optimal oxygen uptake of the endurance athlete, and my result was the highest they had ever recorded.

My body composition was chiselled to 5.2 per cent body fat, when measured by a submersion water test. As a student of physical therapy, I now had a whole new approach to training. I was learning about the human body and sports physiology, and in many ways I was my own guinea pig. Four- and five-hour bike rides that were mainstream in the previous years were replaced by fast time trial training and interval training; the weekly 25-mile time trial every Wednesday afternoon on a measured out-and-back course on Highway 441 was the yardstick for improvement.

Cyle Sage designed a training workout, where he assembled 10 to 12 University of Florida Triathlon Club members and, after a 30-minute warm-up, he had them lead out one minute apart to replicate a time trial, with Cyle always going second last and with me having to start motoring exactly two minutes after him. He called the university triathletes “Gator Bait”, named after the mascot for the University of Florida, the alligator. My mission was to catch up on everyone, himself included.

It was powerfully effective, as it got me to ride in the time trial specific position at maximum effort, recruiting the very same muscle fibres as in a race. When I recorded 53 minutes for the 25-mile distance by May of 1991, I had all the evidence I needed that sports scientific applied training works.

I was now eager to return to Ireland in June for the All-Ireland Short Course Triathlon, to be staged in Kilkee. Kevin Morgan had won the Sligo Triathlon the previous year and came in second in Kilkee, but my cycling was at a completely new level. I cycled the 28-mile distance close to 5 minutes faster than Morgan and ran the 10 kilometres at a canter to win the event at my ease.

The All-Ireland Triathlon in Sligo was on August 18 and, aside from wanting to put my new-found swimming form to use, I knew I had reached a peak in my cycling too. On the day of the race, I had my sister stand beside my bicycle to guard against any potential sabotage. I left my normal cycling and running shoes and attire beside my bike, but for extra caution I also put extra gear beside the bike of fellow triathlete Timmy McCarthy's. I was ahead of any unsporting types this time. My good friend Pat Curley, Timmy McCarthy and my family were the only ones who knew what had happened the previous year. I just told everyone else that my bike had mechanical problems. There was no value in giving the cheaters any satisfaction.

As Pat Curley used to say to me, “Gerard, my man, your ears should be burning. When they are talking about you, you must be doing something right. When they're sniping at you, you must be doing something very right. Never apologise for excellence. Excellence is perseverance in disguise.”

Little did I think that a week later I'd be far from excellent, and it was going to take a lot of perseverance to get back to even feeling alive again. That All-Ireland Triathlon in Sligo, on August 18, 1991, over the Half Ironman distance, would prove to be the last competitive triathlon I would have the physical capability to compete in at an elite level.

As a race, it could not have been a more perfect swan song. I exited the water in front for the first time in a national championship. The next swimmer or two getting up out of the water behind me may have got a glimpse of my back, but within minutes I was powering around the course on the bike – almost as if I had a motor propelling me. I recorded a cycle time of 2 hours and 17 minutes for the 56-mile course, on heavy and undulating second- and third-category roads. The next fastest triathlete recorded a time of seven minutes slower. There was no contest for first place.

Cyclists dream for the day when their body and machine work in unison, when they can pedal with power and finesse and push the bigger gears while making it look easy. In fact, I suspect that may be why cyclists are tempted to take drugs: they strive for that moment when body and machine are in perfect harmony with one another, with the bike being an extension of the body, the two flowing as one – a powerful unit. On that day in Sligo, I experienced that unique harmony – little did I realise that it would be the last day I'd have that feeling of peak fitness.

Happiness is a strange thing really. It amazes me how some people are always happy and self-fulfilled, while others are down in the dumps, all the time moaning and groaning about something. One man's idea of happiness may be kicking back on the couch slugging on a six-pack of beer. Another might find happiness sitting around the dining table with family and friends.

As children, we see everything in a good light; we are innocent and happiness is ours for life. When I travel into Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya – the largest slum in Africa with upwards of 1.5 million people living in abject poverty, with no hope and no future – it amazes me to see how happy the children are. As a child, I remember how happy I was day in, day out, with not a worry in the world, full of thoughts and dreams, and fulfilled by the simple things in life: standing by the lake shore and skimming stones across the top of the water; playing Batman and Robin; getting immersed in the world of Enid Blyton's storybooks. To hold on to just some of that happiness is the secret; keeping the spirit alight and alive.

I was always aware that triathlon was just a happy phase in my life, and that it would someday have to be replaced with something else; something purposeful and meaningful that would also bring joy and happiness.

In May of 1991 I qualified as a physical therapist. I went back to Ireland for six weeks, where I won the National Short Course Triathlon and the All-Ireland Half Ironman Triathlon. I was in the best shape of my life and I was glowing with happiness.

It is hard to imagine a road going through a marsh being the place to eke out happiness. The Paynes Prairie, a swampland just south of Gainesville covering miles and miles of wetland and vegetation, is not a place to venture out into. They say there are more alligators in that swamp than residents in nearby Gainesville.

Highway 441 runs right through the prairie. For two years it had become my regular playground. I trained so often and pushed myself to the limit on 441 that I'm sure I left a part of myself out on the asphalt. It was where I measured my day-to-day and week-to-week improvement; it was where I turned up to on a Wednesday afternoon with butterflies in my gut for the weekly 25-mile time trial that I treated as if my life counted on winning it.

It was August 28, 1991. I had warmed up well, doing 40 minutes of steady cycling. The temperature was in the nineties. The pressure was building up. I looked into the sky. Dark clouds were on the horizon – an ominous sign, in more ways than one. I knew I had to get this intensive interval training session completed before the skies opened up with thunder and lightning, because when that happens in North Florida on a hotter-than-hot summer's day, you'd better run for cover. It rains so heavily the cars have to pull over. The visibility is reduced to just seeing your nose. The bangs of thunder are so loud you have to have cotton wool in your ears, and that's when they say, “The Lord Almighty is angry.” The lightning cracks its brightness against the sky and that's when they say, “Satan is on the prowl.”

When I was seventeen, running back in Limerick, I trained with a friend of mine called Frank Madden. He was a quiet country lad, a few years older than me, but we both shared a passion for running. Frank always crossed the Paynes Prairie with me, not in person but in spirit. Years earlier, when he had just qualified as a curate in East London, he got caught out by a storm on an evening run. Frank stood in for shelter and the lightning struck the tree he was sheltering under. He was killed instantly. I always did my fastest cycling across the prairie, and I think it had something to do with the fear of thunder and lightning.

There had also been an incident with a local redneck the previous October. Cyle Sage and I were crossing the prairie when the side mirror of a passing pick-up truck hit my left shoulder. The driver of the pick-up truck had his window down and had slowed beside me, nearly knocking me off the bike. He put his head out the window and shouted, “Fuckin' faggots!”

In reaction, I raised my arm and gave him the American version of the two fingers, what is known as “the birdie”. He slammed on his brakes, jumped out of his pick-up truck, and pulled a rifle out from the overhead cabin. Suddenly, he started shooting at us across a distance of about 50 or 60 metres.

Sage and I rolled onto the grass margin at the roadside and down into a water gully. After a minute or so, the redneck drove on. We picked ourselves and our bikes up, and we pedalled like two lunatics back to town. Our hearts were beating out of our chests for fear he would come and track us down. Never again was I going to give anyone the birdie.

On that day in 1991, I had eight times one mile done, each at an average of over thirty miles per hour, with just two to do. My legs were now crying out. The clouds were closing in fast. I could see the rain was bucketing down just ten miles south down the road, in Ocala. I needed to stay focused. I was travelling north, so I should have been okay to make it home before the heavens flooded me. I lifted myself out of the saddle, pedalling now at full power. The first ten pedal strokes at maximum output are what sets you up, like putting your foot down fully on the accelerator. I took a quick glance at the micro cycle computer: 32 miles per hour. I eased down onto the triathlon aero bars. There were 90 seconds to go – hold the speed above 30 miles per hour, concentrate, focus, hold it, keep it going; 30 seconds to go – I can do it.

I'm holding on for dear life. I won't let go. Then, in an instant, it happens: I hit something and hit it hard. My bike and I are sent flying up in the air. Traffic is buzzing along past me at 70 and 80 miles per hour. I don't know if I have any input or if the Creator above is looking after me, but my bike and I meet the asphalt in one big thud. Normally, when a cyclist crashes, the bike skids or skates along the road, and some of the impact is taken by the continued movement. For me, it was just one hard thud. I'm lying there in agony. I dare not move. I can't move. Cars start to pull up and people start surrounding me. One woman is clearly panicking, screaming like someone is dead. “Please, please go away,” I cry. “I'll be okay…Just give me a few seconds and I'll be okay…Leave me alone.”