Iron Heart: The True Story of How I Came Back From the Dead (21 page)

The next day, I get a call from Andy Giancola, the Ironman sponsorship manager who will fix me up with a Cannondale triathlon bike.

All this is great news, but then the Boyles are hit hard by another setback. My Grandma Gladys is rushed to the hospital because of severe stomach pains. When I visit her in the hospital, many of my relatives are already there. As soon as I walk into her room, I smell her rose-scented perfume, which stops me right in my tracks. I move closer to her, sit down, and hold her frail hand.

She speaks first. “Brian, your Uncle Pat was telling me about your big race coming up.” Her voice is weak.

“Yeah Grandma. But we can talk about all that later ... how are you feeling?”

“I was just having a lot of pain in my stomach. More than usual I guess. I’ll be okay,” she says in her positive voice.

“I’d rather stay and be with you than go somewhere to do a triathlon.”

“No, no. I’ll be fine; don’t worry about me. You have to do the race. I want you to tell me all about it when you get back.”

I hold back tears and attempt to smile.

Over the next few days, I continue to train but I have Grandma constantly in my thoughts. I keep to a regular schedule of an hour on the stationary bike, an hour on the treadmill, and an hour in the backyard pool. I’ve also been receiving boxes of free gear from Ironman sponsors: PowerBars and PowerBar gels, TYR triathlon swimsuits and swim goggles, Cannondale bike clothing, Newton running shoes, Foster Grant sunglasses, and hydration belts and duffel bags from Nathan Sports.

I get a call from the local bike shop in Waldorf, Maryland, called the Bike Doctor. Chris Richardson says that my Cannondale CAAD8 bike is ready. My dad drives me to the shop. The bike has sleek racing features with aero bars jutting out from the handlebars like high-tech antlers. This exotic racing machine intimidates me.

Chris takes out a pair of bike shoes and demonstrates how to clip them into the pedals. It looks confusing.

I hop on the bike in the store, and Chris does some minor seat and handlebar adjustments for proper fit. He starts flicking through the gears while giving me a quick rundown of its features.

My dad helps me load the Cannondale in the back of his truck and we head over to the same high school track where we used to do our walking sessions after I was released from the hospital. The track’s rubberized surface will be more forgiving should I take a tumble.

As he watches me get on the bike, I feel like a young kid riding a bike for the first time. The results are nearly the same. As soon as I push off, with my feet on top of the pedals, not inside them, I run into a fence.

I get back on the bike, kick off, and creep along. But I can only get one foot in the pedal and the bike halts. I fall. Oops.

The third time, I manage to get both feet into the pedals. I ride one lap but when I press the brakes and unclip my left foot, I lose my balance and slam into the fence. How am I ever going to ride fifty-six miles?

I’m back on the bike, riding along, flipping through the gears by clicking the metal shifting levers on the handlebars. I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing. It’s a guessing game which gear I’m in. When I try riding crouched over with my forearms cradled in the aero bars, I feel like a praying mantis on wheels. The bike begins to wobble, so I lift my arms out of the aero bars and return to riding upright.

I end up riding for thirty minutes, which is all I will have time to do before the Michigan race. I hope it’s an easy bike course without hills or sharp turns.

The next day, we drop off our bulldog puppy, Daisy, at the nearby kennel and then visit my grandma whose health is rapidly failing. I give her a hug. “Grandma, we’re leaving tomorrow for the race,” I tell her.

“I know you are,” she says quietly, smiling.

“I’m going to finish the race for you, Grandma. I promise.” I do my best to hold back tears.

My “Rushed” Two-Week* Training Diary for Steelhead Half-Ironman

MONDAY

TUESDAY

* I did the same workout for the second week, adding thirty minutes on the bike at the track.

WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

SUNDAY

Rest

We get up early at three o’clock to catch an early flight to Kalamazoo, Michigan. Airport security at Reagan National rifles through my black TYR duffel bag and removes all my PowerBar gels. Inexplicably, they are on the forbidden list of TSA carry-on items.

After we land, we check into the hotel in Benton Harbor, which is on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan and also the administrative home of the triathlon’s title sponsor, Whirlpool Corporation. In the hotel room, my dad and I try to reassemble the Cannondale bike but we’re hopelessly confused. The following morning, we drop it off at a local bike shop, then register for the triathlon at race headquarters in Jean Klock Park.

I definitely feel out of place among all these tanned, super-fit triathletes. They appear confident, which is one attribute I desperately lack. I wish I wasn’t so bulked up from weightlifting. I have to ask several people where I must go and what I need to do for the race.

I decide it would be a good idea to practice swimming in my Blue Seventy wetsuit for the first time. Squeezing my 220 pounds inside a skintight wetsuit requires my parents’ assistance. It feels like the wetsuit will burst at any moment, but once I’m in the water, the neoprene wetsuit acts like a second layer of skin; it’s insulating and adds buoyancy. There are other triathletes in the water and I follow their lead, loosening up with twenty minutes of freestyle. I swim to the beach to practice running in and out of the water, priming my legs because I’m used to just jumping off a starting block in swim meets. Here, it’s a running beach start.

Once we get back to the hotel, I lay out everything for the next morning: wetsuit, race suit, ankle timing transponder, goggles and swim cap, bike helmet, bib number on race belt, bike shoes and socks, running shoes, sunglasses, visor, another pair of socks, watch, PowerBar gels, and sunscreen. For dinner, we drive to a local Italian restaurant for take-out spaghetti. I’m not really sure what triathletes eat before a race, but I always ate spaghetti on the eve of big swim meets.

It’s still dark when we arrive at the race site. Dense knots of triathletes mill about, getting their bodies inked with race numbers, setting up their individual transition areas, fiddling with their bikes, pumping air in tires. Huge bright lights make the scene look like a movie set.

I go over to my bike in the transition area. It rained earlier, so I take a towel out of my bag to dry the handlebars and seat. I then place my bike and running shoes on the ground next to my bike, take out my helmet and place it on my bike’s handlebars, and spray some sunscreen on my arms, shoulders, and face. I position my sunglasses and visor next to my shoes. I can’t help but wonder if I am forgetting something.

I walk over to the beach starting area. Oasis’s “Wonderwall” is blasting from concert speakers. Armies of wetsuit-clad triathletes are massing everywhere, numbering at least two thousand. I’m 99.9 percent sure that they all have more than several weeks of training under their belts.

Race officials align everyone on the beach in separate age-group-determined waves, denoted by the color of our swim caps. I’m in the eighteen-to-twenty-four category and wearing silver. We will be the third group to enter the lake for the 1.2-mile swim.

Beep
! The sound of the air horn goes off and I stare in awe as the first triathlete group—the pros—make a fast dash across the sand toward the water, pushing and aggressively shoving one another.

Beep
! The next group, all wearing red caps, go in at a much more relaxed pace. I think they are the women in my age group, but I’m not quite sure because I can only see a blur of people running toward the water.

Beep
! It’s my group’s turn to make the rough voyage out. There is pushing, shoving, bumping, colliding. As soon as I hit the cold water, I find a surge of adrenaline and start cranking. I look for a safe patch of water where I won’t get bludgeoned and bashed by other swimmers. The water is churning as if by a frenzied pack of starving piranhas.

Instead of all-out speed like in a fifty-yard freestyle race, I focus more on gliding with each stroke since the wetsuit’s increased buoyancy allows me to ride higher in the water. This is unlike pool swimming. After about a minute, a hand strikes my cheekbone, which pops off my goggle’s right side, letting cold water dribble in. “Dammit!” I yell underwater, though only bubbles explode from my mouth. Enraged, I keep swimming with limited vision, catch up to that guy, and swim past him while giving him a forceful nudge. I then feel a hard kick by my hip and I realize there are people swimming all around me. Smack! Another blow—to my neck and shoulders. I’m being flutter-kicked repeatedly. I quickly do a few strokes with my head poking out of the water while fixing the goggles. I finally find water where I’m not getting kicked or hit. I regain my rhythm. One stroke, two strokes, three strokes, breathe, repeat.

Some swimmers are drafting right behind other people’s feet. Is this to go faster? It looks difficult to swim that way, especially when all those bubbles explode in your face. What if the person you’re swimming behind is going off course—then what?