The Ironman Wisconsin: Miss America is Crowned

A year ago, I got into a drunken argument with Shawn Killebrew. After a "happy hour" turned into a "happy night", he told me that he would be on the Ironman Wisconsin course all day long to see me finish. This was after he caught a glimpse of The Trucker Cap.

The Trucker Cap is a hat that I don't wear. It has an Ironman logo emblazed on a black front and a white mesh back. "That is a sweet cap," he said, inspecting it, "Just think. You'll be able to wear this after you finish it. You can't wear it now. I can wear it. See? You want this cap? You want to wear it?" His devilish smile told me that if we were thirty years younger and we were on the playground, he would be holding it in the air while I kept trying to leap to grab it while he backed up. Taunting.

The beer and emotions behind that race that was a monkey on my back for so long brought tears to my eyes, "Shut up, Killebrew. Give it to me when I finish the race."

He puts it on, "Oh, I will." He slouched in his seat with the hat on, smiling. Raising his eyebrows. Laughs. Claps his hands. 

* * * * *

I rummaged around the shelves in the back stairwell at 4:20 on the morning of the 2011 Ironman Wisconsin. I found an old block of lemongrass soap. The thought occured to me on the very morning of Ironman Wisconsin when I woke up. Bruce and his wife Christina were on their way around 5AM or 5:30.

My hands lathered the soap and scrubbed my face with the suds; the day had come once more. I was more than convinced, "If I don't finish," I thought, "then I won't ever try again. It's only right." My hands rinsed under the water and then splashed onto my face.

I realized that the smell was gone from the soap. All that "good juju" from lemongrass was gone.

My bike and transition bags were already at the race site. They were placed in rush of yesterday's drop off period. All night they sat patiently, quietly like the mice on the night before Christmas. The moon was waxing to full and dew collected on the seat of my bike.

Bruce sent me a text from outside, "Here."

I woke up Franny and told her to get up so Ian didn't wake up alone. I hugged Franny and told her I would see her out on the course. Franny had become invested in my Ironman experience and she was ready to stay out on the course all day to see it through.

Aimee was coming over soon to take the kids to the starting area to see me off.

We arrived downtown and walked up the street to the square. We threw the last of our bags into the bins and directed ourselves to the Monona Terrace starting area. We split up for a bit and I walked around the water line alone while the competitor and spectating crowd began growing.

The sun was trying to come up and I peered at the water. How many times did I hate this water? I contemplated it for a moment. How many times did I have to get into this water to meet this challenge? What changed inside of me from 2007 to 2011? I went outside this race and studied myself...out of body experience. I was so confused by it and lost that I looked at my watch, "Ooo!" It was getting later. I wondered how the heck to get to the information desk where Bruce and I planned to meet. There was no time for an out-of-body experience.

Inside, Bruce and Christina were at the meeting point along with Franny & Ian and Aimee & Holly. It took my breath away to see them all there together. They all looked up at me. If they were flavors of ice cream, it would have been a huge, delicious banana split and Ian, in his bed head and smile, would be the cherry on top.

I pictured 2007--Bruce and I sat in this very spot quietly and listened to music delivered in headphones or the thoughts that rushed inside the quiet of closed eyes--alone. Today, it was a stark contrast with so many there who wanted to be there. 

We had a time, 6:30AM, when we were going to walk down the winding cement drive to the start. Bruce asked me if I was ready to go. "Sure," I answered. My wetsuit was on halfway (my legs) and I carried only a bag of dry morning clothes, race swim cap and clear lens goggles. I gave hugs and kisses in case we lost each other.

Killebrew showed up before our walk. He asked if he could carry my very last drop bag. I'm usually someone who doesn't like others to take work from me. This was one day that I thought it was ok to take advantage of that.

As Shawn was sort-of behind me, Bruce and I led a small parade of our most loved people down into the ground level of this lake, meandering through the concrete hallways of this parking garage. The light brown of the structure was glowing orange as the sun was still rising on our way down.

Person by person by person by person, I found friends all along this concrete slide. High fives, cheers were echoing everywhere. I thought I wanted anonymity but this felt like it could help me. All of this love was amazing because I need to be reminded that I'm loved. I need to be held by the shoulders--shaken--yelled at--reminding me that I am loved by people whom I love and trust.

And, in the end of the twirl to Lake Monona, Bruce and I said goodbye to them as we joined the exclusive parade into the starting waters. Bruce moved a bit to the front right of the 2,400 people while I moved a little to the back right. We looked at each other like we were walking away from a heist. The grins were knowing and smart. 

The canon blasted and jumped. We went. And I got this before I reached the start line:

1. Elbow

2. Fist

3. Elbow

4. Pushed under

5. Elbow, then kicked 

6. Elbow

7. I swam for a little bit

8. Elbow

I was incredibly surprised that people in the far back right would be so agressive. I looked up to sight for the first time and I saw that I was just crossing the start line. The crowd was there but I wanted only to see green water and sighting buoys.

Time was not my friend. Racing the clock was something that I had to achieve but it could only be achieved with piece of mind. Ironic. Before the race, I put my watch under my wet suit so I couldn't check on any splits. Time is not my friend. It only makes me anxious when I'm swimming. Anxiety makes me less efficient.

As I found my space, only a few people messed me up. There was the occasional 'drunk driver' who would swim back and forth, pushing you aside or cutting in front. I promised myself that I would not hit legs or arms or heads intentionally and I followed through with that. Tempting though. One guy was swimming and he was rubbing up against me like he was a cat in heat. My Irish temper wanted to knock him so bad. 

As I turned for the finish, my arms were strong and ready for speed. I ran down the very stretch I had swam so many times before (in Open Water Swim class) into the Ironman Wisconsin finish. It was clear and ready for me. The threshold was bright red and volunteers stood there, almost bored. They were waiting for me! I came up on the rigid footing!

I jokingly got on all fours and pretended to kiss the ground and the volunteers picked me up by my arms. One yelled at me, "YOU OK?" 

YES! I'M OK! I laughed. I got up running and yelling, smiling, "YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAA! YEEEEEEEEEES!" I pointed to people who I wanted to tell, "Thank you."

Famed Ironman announcer Mike Riley even took notice when he spoke over the loudspeaker, "Here's one guy who's happy t'be out of the water! Steve Donovan, Madison, Wisconsin!"

I ran up the circular cement way to the first transition. Many of the people walked. They were winded and wonder why I was screaming and yelling at everybody there.

So many people stuck around to see this part of the race. I was glad they did. I gave them a show they'd never forget. Laughing, running, high fiving were all part of it.

I remember that when I walked up this helix in shame four years before, there was only one woman with whom I gained eye contact. In no way is this fictional--but she was there. She looked at me. This time, she was smiling and clapping and cheering. And my fists were fists of joy in the air.

Swim: 1:52:57

My swim was so slow that very few spectators were left on the helix up to transition 1. If you held a 'don't know steve' magnet onto the crowd of the start, it would have left only these people watching me fly up the circular drive. The only people left seemed like my friends. And they were all in their original spots. Did the Rapture happen while I swam? I didn't care when I ran up that thing. Other swimmers were confused why I was so excited. They didn't understand. But I did. My friends did. Franny did. Aimee did. Ivens did. Breanne did.Ken did. Lauf did. Sherman did. So many people understood what was happening here. I flew up that helix.

I knew nothing about the transitions of the Ironman Wisconsin. I got into this large room with adequate seating and was served by someone who was very attentive. 

"Can I dump out your bag?" he asks. What am I going to say? No?

T1: 9:17

"DON'T MOUNT IT!" She told me. I called out my number for my bike like it was my trusty horse. When I found it, I wanted to just get on it and get going. She reminded me loudly, "DON'T MOUNT IT! Wait until the Bike Out."

I rode John Nolen Drive. How many times have I witnessed people getting on bikes for this race on John Nolen Drive...! I was (emotionally) heading to the finish line but reigned in some of those feelings because I had finished only a very, very small portion of the race.

But, in my mind, I had finished a very big piece of the race.

70 Year Old Male. Michael. Bike Jersey with the word, "Ireland" on it. Like.

29 Year Old Female. Lindsay. 

35 Year Old Female. Dawn.

On the bike, slow swimmers have the advantage of passing slow bikers who are fast swimmers. As you get closer, you see their age written in marker on the back left calf. Their name is printed on their bib number.

"Nice job, Robert." I pass.

"Nice work, Jim." I pass.

Soon, my stomach rattles and yearns for a porta potty. Each station is about twelve miles apart. I'm basically holding my cheeks together to ellude any disturbance. When I made it into the bathroom, I tried to mentally coach myself into not rushing it. "You have all day. Calm down. You have all day." But after a while, I have to cut my losses and exit the bathroom--hoping that my body will understand that I'm done with that.

The boy holding my bike hands it back to me to be mounted once again. I zoom off.

45 Year Old Male. Jim.

49 Year Old Female. Alison.

I occasionally asked bikers off to the side of the road, "You ok? Need anything?" There's always a possibility that they need a tube or CO2 air cartridge and I could potentially help save their race.

One woman off to the side yelled at me as I asked, "Yea, I'm waiting for the SAG wagon," in hopes that Ironman Wisconsin's bike course mechanics would find their way to her while there are close to 2400 bikers still pedaling on the course at that time. I noticed that she had a tire lever turn backwards in an effort to change the tire. That was my sign. I could at least spend a few minutes to get her tire changing started. My bike slowed down, turned around to meet her on the side of the road.

"I can't seem to get the tire out!" She was frustrated.

"Do you know how to change a tire tube?" I asked.

"Yes!" She stood there while I got the lever under the tire and buckled it to the spoke. 

I looked around, "Where are the other two wrenches?"

"That's what I had," she quickly replies as she continues to search from her spot for a SAG wagon. I look down on the ground and see the other two wrenches in a little yellow plastic case. I grab one and put it under the lip and start opening up the tire's tube-filled cavity.

She was so high strung and I believed she could finish if she just calmed down, I decided to make small talk while I finished the tire, "What's your name?"

"Dawn."

"Is that a family name or did your parents just like the name?"

"My father's name is Don."

I started putting the new tube's valve into its aligning hole and turned the securing nut.

"What's your last name?"

"Johnson."

He. He. He. Dawn. Johnson. "Really?" I ask as I stop reparing the wheel.

"Yes!" She finally got around to looking me straight in the eye. I saw over her shoulder the SAG wagon and I stood up and waved it towards us. A kid with a plaid hat jumped out and I told him where I left the tire.

I got on my bike and told her, "Good luck, Dawn Johnson." I rode off.

56 Year Old Male. Timothy.

39 Year Old Female. Vonda.

27 Year Old Male. Daniel.

Oh, boy. My stomach had some unfinished business before I got to the three big hills outside Cross Plains. I turned into Bourbon Road just outside Cross Plains where the street was decorated with a Luau theme street and costumed vounteers at the aid station. I stopped my bike for the porta potty and a young woman held it for me when I ducked into it--to try to finish the job.

The decorations from the Luau theme continued inside the portable bathrooms. Pictures of macaws were cut out and taped up while Hawaiian leis hung off makeshift hooks. The colorful fixtures were all over but had been abused by the frantic athletes who trampled through here. Mysteriously, odd substances made their way onto the decorations and they sadly drooped. They were ready to fall to the ground.

The downside to being in the back of the race pack: everything you visit on the course has been used a few times. In the porta potty's case, it was more than a few times. When I sat down on the toilet seat, I noticed a see through sandwich bag that contained, what seemed to me, somebody's feeces. I kept looking because I kept thinking, "That can't be...is it? No! I think it is..."

When I came out of Oscar the Grouch's answer to a Magnum P.I. Fecal Matter Tribute Party, I only remembered one other bathroom that bad. It was in 1995 at the HORDE concert in the Poconos. At the end of the night.

I got up to the hiliest part of the race where most of the spectators were waiting with costumes, noise makers, EZ Up tents and drinks-in-hand. I got up to the top of the second of three major hills. People were at the crest, jumping and woohoo-ing and claping. High fives were easy to get. There was barely space for me and my bike to make it through on that first lap. I want to especially thank the man, who was dressed in Native American headress and a speedo, for running up the hill with me.

My bike coasted for so long. My allergies were difficult and I continually shot 'snot rockets'. I tried to stay on my nutrition plan. Salt tablets, Gu Chomps, Clif Blox, bananas, Powerade Ironman were on the menu along with water for a drink.

Eventually, my gastro-intestinal issues passed and my stomach no longer felt like it wanted to push a watermelon out.

The second loop of the Ironman Wisconsin bike loop got lonely. There were people sidelined by the high number of steep hills. There were people sidelined by cramps when the temperatures became hotter than expected. At first, it was making my ego only bigger to see people off to the side. Their underestimations were helping me feel like my training was not in vain. 

Then came mile 100. It was around there. My legs were getting tight and fatigued. I took Tylenol and a salt tablet with hopes of elluding cramps and extreme pain. I also needed a cure for boredom as I began the solitude of riding back to town. There were no aid stations. Nobody spoke to each other, though I tried.

29 year old female. Lindsay.

"Nice work, Lindsay." I told her as I passed. 

In order to not get a penalty, all bikers must remain in a straight line, with a bike length apart. I am somebody who tries to follow rules. So, I would pass Lindsay, the only person for miles around me, and slow down. While we passed each other, we would talk. This went on for a few miles. It helped me for a while until her friends showed up on this leg of the bike.

"OH MY GAAAAAAAD!" Lindsay squealed as she saw her friend drive up with her male companion in the passenger seat.

Her friends were intent on cheering for her in the car and out of the car. Driving down the road or stopped. I realized that I should just leave. So I took off. I picked my butt up off the seat and started pumping the pedals and heard Lindsay say as I left, "You guys are so sweet!"

My thoughts turned to focusing on nutrition and strategy for the run.

39 year old male. Sanjay.

"Nice work, man."

"Thanks. Let's get this over with."

"Yes."

A sudden feeling of something came over that I had never felt. As Sanjay's words told me that we're going to finish, I denied it and reminded myself that I had a marathon left to run. I didn't want to give myself the satisfaction of thinking that I had almost finished this.

I made up my mind a long time ago that I would respect the distance. And that's what I intended to do.

Bike: 7:56

There was a different feeling to the next transition when they seperated men and women. Maybe they seperated us after the swim and I just didn't remember. At the very least, my mindset was very different. I was beaten down and now the day had gone into 5:00PM. For me, this was right about the time I would open a beer. Today, it was when I was starting a marathon. 

I was aided by a man who asked me, "Do you need this?" Typically, my answer was no.

Coming into running was like going home for me. This where it started. This is where I like to be. This is my skin. 

T2: 8:04

I ran out and had two things in mind: Run 4 minutes, walk 1 minute and take care of yourself. If I could run 4 and walk 1, then I could carve enough time to finish in time. I kept chipping away at it.

The sun was blazing and, internally, I begged for it to go down. I needed it to cool down so the sunburned areas of my body found some rest. Though I fed my body and took care of not taxing it too much, it still felt like a raisin versus the lucious grape that popped out of the water eight hours earlier.

Once again, my stomach turned against me only a few short moments into the run. It felt like a cinderblock and objected to any solid food.

I reached the first few miles and there was a great amount of support while the sun was up. Including Shirley and April, who seemed to pop up everywhere yelling my name, "STEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVE! STEEEEEEEEEVE!" The smile wiped off my face during most of the run but their screaming always managed to bring it back again. Franny ran with me. Aimee ran with me. Jessica ran with me. Will was yelling from a patch of grass on his old cruiser bike, "STEVE! KEEP GOING!"

"NICE RIDE!" What little sarcasm I had left, I used poorly on his bike.

"THAT'S WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT YOU TOO!" he yelled back. Laughing at his own joke.

I had a reply back ready, "THAT'S WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT YOUR MOM, TOO!" but decided that there were far too many kids in the crowds and I fell silent, laughed along.

More often than not, Clint rode his bike beside me. Typically, this is a big no-no during the race. But he had a media pass and took photographs before the race, during the swim, during the bike, during the run and at the end. He worked not just as a photographer but as somebody who just talked and reminded me gently from time to time what an amazing thing this is. The distance was long and the years have stretched. 

The sun started to set as I came to the second loop. At this point, you get to see the finish line but you are told to run 13 more miles before coming back to finish. My legs had lost just about everything and I resorted to walking 4 minutes and running 1 minute. 

Clint rode beside me in his old Surly bike. Two large lens cameras hung around his neck and torso, making a large black canvas X on his chest like a superhero. Sometimes we would talk and sometimes we would not. Our conversations had very little to do with this race. Then it would go back again to the race and my training.

Killebrew biked right up to me along with Clint. As I slowly jogged, they chugged along. Will found me again and jogged up and talked with us as I crawled along. It had suddenly become a boys' club stroll in the night.

As they fell away and went to other places, I found for the first time today that it was quiet. No noises while I tried to get up Observatory Drive. The slight chill told me that I was getting close. I was incredibly tired and wanted nothing more than to sit down and fall asleep. My stomach was terribly angry at me by now.

I believed that this was the appropriate time to reflect on the past year as well as the past four years. It's hard not to feel like a failure when you're struggling financially as a divorced father. I tried not to focus on that but on what I've accomplished in this. But when you're tired and sick, you can't help but feel bad things. I cried because I was about to finish this race as a person who is categorically losing in the most generic terms of normal. What I am is not what I was raised to be. And that's what I've always been doing. Bucking the system over and over and over again. Everybody lets me. I let myself do it. Simply because I think it makes me fiercely independent. In fact, breaking rank is, for the most part, only breaking rank. It is what it is. Maybe it's time for me to be boring. To accept more than things than not. Limit my social life. Stay at home. Worry about my things and my bills. I cried. I cried. I wept. And walked.

I came up behind the Overture Center, nearing State Street. I looked over my shoulder and I saw a firefighter handing a racer a flag to carry to the finish line. I read the runner's lips, "Thank you." He unrolled it and began to jog. I started up running again to keep with him and his flag. We turned up State Street where the people sitting out in the warm evening were cheering with their drunk voices, "USA!" or "Never forget!" They started singing up the street the nation's anthem.

I stayed with him and we got to the square where he slowed down and looked down then up at me. He said, "They're right."

A pause from him gave me enough time to prepare myself for the moral of this fifteen hour, forty minute less that will be spilled out from this flag bearing fire fighter on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. He looked straight ahead, "The square does go uphill here."

SINGLE FILE. SINGLE FILE. EVERYONE LINE UP SINGLE FILE. The man yelling at us was trying to organize us.

The firefighter told me to go ahead and I crossed into the finish area. I didn't cry and didn't get the chills.

RUN: 5:33:32

FINISH TIME: 15:40:22

I was happy to relax. Surrounding me were good friends who worked for the race. I received my medal, my finisher shirt and my finisher hat.

I held onto Franny very tight. I hugged Aimee very close. 

Killebrew delicately held The Trucker Cap in his hands. I told him to put it on my head like it was a tiara and I was crowned Miss America.

Bruce put his arms around me, "You did it." 

PHOTOS, COURTESY FOCAL FLAME PHOTOGRAPHY

Comments

[Maggie, dammit]

Jesus I loved reading this.

More proud of you than you could ever know.

[Krista]

This makes me so happy. Congrats, dude. You had such an amazing day. You are an Ironman.