What the heck is going on here?
This shot — that captures me in the “pain cage” — was taken somewhere on the IRONMAN course in February 1982.
As IRONMAN historians recall there were two races in 1982: this one in February (made famous by Julie Moss’s crawl to the finish line) and a second in October, both taking place in Kailua-Kona on Hawaii’s Big Island.
As suggested by my position on the bike, I was suffering from a wicked hamstring cramp, and ended up finishing 2nd behind Scott Tinley. The cramp hit me as I was running up the ramp at the end of the swim, and plagued me for the rest of the day (By the way, that’s not an excuse: ST had a fantastic race).
What lessons can be learned from this experience?
Looking back, I might say that I should’ve stretched my hamstring and back more regularly to avoid the cramp in the first place! Or, if I had a wrench with me, I could have moved my seat forward a bit to alleviate my discomfort and improve my limited pedal stroke.
But that’s not my big takeaway.
The real lesson is what I tell my athletes still to this very day: Do what you can do in the moment.
If I had worried about how far I had to go on the bike and the run while in my painful condition, I probably would have given up. But I didn’t. Instead I focused on the next tree, the next mile marker, the next aid station.
By breaking the race into manageable chunks, and staying within the moment, I found myself on the podium at the end of the day.
