I’m not going to lie. I was hurting on the run before I even got out of the chute. In the tri’s I did this summer my feet hurt for a little bit and the pain went away. This was way different. I jogged out the chute and once again the crowd cheering made the steps manageable. As I made my way up the hill I saw Suzy and Rex. I stopped to give them a kiss, had a quick cry and headed out for what was about to be the longest night of my life.

After the first mile my coach came riding up on his bike and told me I was doing great. All I had to do was 15 minute miles and I would become an Ironman with plenty of time. I thought no problem, I had never been even close to that in my training runs. I was in or so I thought. I also had never had to run a marathon after riding 112 miles in any of my training runs either.

At the first aid station I grabbed some sponges and soaked my head and neck with cold water. I grabbed some Gatorade and water and chugged them down. About 20 steps out of transition I vomitted. I continue to vomit for several minutes. When I reached the next aid station I did the same thing. Again, several steps out of transisiton I began to vomit. This routine would continue for the next 20 miles. I know I threw up at least 80 times throughout the night. I was not able to keep anything down. We tried pretzels, powerbars, oranges, nothing would stay down. In attempt to stay hydrated and keep going I simply repeated the process the whole time. Aid station, drink, eat, vomit. Unfortunately vomitting was the least of my problems.

I reached the 5 mile turn around as the sun was going down. A guy came up to me and handed me a glow in the dark band that I had to wear so cars would see me. This was the when it really sank in just how much further I had to go. Jim had said that I only needed to do 15 minute miles to finish. It took me 1:45 to get to the 5 mile check point. You don’t have to be a math major to figure out that I was falling behind.

I was at around mile 6 when this guy came up behind me on a moped. He informed me that he was the sweep and that it was his job to pull people off the course who weren’t on pace to finish. If I stayed ahead of him I would be fine. If I didn’t, I was done.

It was about that point that I was going past a little beach area with a sea wall. I seriously considered jumping off the wall right then. I remember thinking “Maybe I’ll jump that wall, hopefully I will just break an ankle and this will be over.” It didn’t take much to talk myself out of jumping that wall, but at that moment it did seem like a viable option.

I kept going and got back into town. As I was passing a restraunt I heard some guy yell “Maybe you should try losing another couple hundred pounds fat ass!” I don’t know why it happened, but at that moment I became severly self-concious and started breathing hard, like I did when I weighed over 350 pounds. All of those old insecurities came roaring back into my mind. Here I was doing an Ironman and all I could think about was how out of shape I use to be and it was affecting me in this moment.

I gathered myself and realize that the guy was an idiot sitting in a bar drinking and I was out doing an Ironman. I had to get over it and I did. I came up on one of the last hills out of town and saw my wife walking along the side of the road crying. She knew I wasn’t doing good she asked me if I wanted to walk with me. I told her no even though I did, I was starting to get a little crazy in the head about this time. At the same time I saw her, a van with flashing lights came pulling up beside me and a couple gals got out to ask me some questions. You know you are going slow when you are the guy racing and the medics are walking beside you asking questions and not even getting out of breath. They let me continue.

Once I got to the top of the hill it was a left out to the energy lab turn around. I was still vomiting, but at least now it was dark enough that no one would see me. My coach Jim and good friend, Joe Lotus, magically appeared again and told me it was time to pick it up. Not only did they let me know, but the sweep scooter came up and let me know exactly how fast I needed to do my next mile in order to stay in the race and not get pulled. This act would continue for the next 9 miles. I was always just fast enough from aid station to aid station to not get pulled.

The darkness on the Queen K is like nothing I have ever expereinced. There are very few lights and you can’t really gauge where you are on the course. That may have been the hardest part for me. Not having a way to visually gauge where you are going can be frustrating and emotionally draining but so can throwing up over and over.

At about mile 20 my coach raced ahead to an aid station to tell them to dump a garbage can of ice cold water over me. I’m talking a huge can that most people use to put a week’s worth of trash in. As I came into the aid station two big huge Hawaiian guys picked up that big plastic garbage can full of Arctic Ocean temperature water and dumped it on my head.

It took my breath away and my entire body felt like it was convulsing, but it felt great and it seemed like my body woke up. I posted one of my fastest miles of the night after that and even better, I stopped vomitting! From there on out I got an ice bath at every aid station the rest of the night. I was the last guy on the course so it wasn’t like anyone else was going to be needing it.

Come back tomorrow as I take you with me the rest of the way!

Biggest Loser, exercise, fitness, Ironman, marathon, Matt Hoover, triathlon

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