"Race the Race you Get."

Back in 2003, I volunteered as a medical student at the Blue Devil Ironman. As exhausted triathletes crossed the finish line, I escorted the most dehydrated and hyponatremic of the bunch into the medical tent. I remember thinking you'd have to suffer from significantly altered mental status to sign up for such insanity. And I was totally right.

For the uninitiated, an Ironman is a very, very, long race. According to triathlon lore (and Wikipedia), its ridiculous distances descend from combining three 1970's era Hawaiian races - the 2.4 mile Waikiki Roughwater Swim, a 115 mile Oahu bike race, and the Honolulu Marathon - into one massive race. When the first competitors shaved 3 miles off the original bike race's course to create a Transition Zone, the now iconic "Swim 2.4 miles! Bike 112 miles! Run 26.2 miles! Brag for the rest of your life!" ethos of Ironman was born.

I had trained for my race – Ironman Louisville on October 14, 2018 – almost every day for over a year. When race day finally came, the 12 hours, 32 minutes, and 2 seconds I spent swimming, cycling, and running around Kentucky taught me five lessons I'll keep for the rest of my life:

1. Race the race you get. I'd trained for a full 2.4 mile swim and sweltering heat. I got a current-shortened swim, 48 degrees and rain. The universe didn't care, so that's what I raced. More often than not life works the same way.

2. Never clip into your pedal when there's a Gatorade bottle standing between you and the road. Self-explanatory.

3. Runner's GI distress is real and unstoppable... and like most unwelcome and unstoppable things in life it's best to accept it, deal with it, and move on. No further comment.

4. Just stay in the game - your break is closer than you think. No amount of grit, determination, and perseverance is more valuable than a little luck at exactly the right time. That said, it sometimes takes a ridiculous amount of grit, determination, and perseverance to not give up until you happen to get lucky. Twenty-five miles into the bike leg, I was incredibly lucky to find a volunteer who thought Mylar-wrapping my entire hypothermic body might be a good idea. It was, and I'm convinced there's no way I would have finished the race without her help. I'm also convinced that it took an enormous amount of motivation to stay in the race long enough to make it to that aide station alive and catch my lucky break. Which brings us to number 5...

5. Having a lot of people counting on you is incredible motivation. Some say triathlon is a lonely sport, and it's true that no one else can swim, bike or run for a triathlete. That said, it's not possible to finish an Ironman without a whole universe of other people's help. From the legions of volunteers, to friends and family cheering me on in-person and back home, to the thousands of other triathletes supporting, comforting, and cajoling each other ever forward towards the finish line - it may be possible to feel lonely on an Ironman race course, but it's impossible to ever really be alone.

Before the weekend of October 14th, I didn't even know Ironman had an app that lets you track athletes during a race. But my friends did. As a result, throughout the day I knew I had people from across the country watching my progress. I also had my wife and kids braving the elements and twelve hours of total boredom just to be there for me. Knowing they were all watching me, counting on me, and believing in me meant I simply could not let them down. It lit a fire deep inside that I think was best captured in lines from the song Jim Henson's Muppeteers sang at his memorial service:

And when all those people believe in you, deep enough and strong enough, believe in you, hard enough and long enough, it stands to reason you yourself will start to see what everybody sees in you... and maybe even you... can believe in you too.

I am deeply grateful for the chance to have trained, traveled, raced, and finished an Ironman. I am grateful for the volunteers, the police, the organizers, and the other triathletes who all helped make October 14, 2018 a special day in my personal history. But more than anything else, I am now and forever grateful for having so many people believe in me that failure was simply not an option. Despite the dehydration, hyponatremia, and hypothermia (or perhaps because of it), the experience was truly indescribable.

Dr. Chris DeRienzo is a physician from Asheville, NC and author of the book Tiny Medicine – One Doctor’s Biggest Lessons from His Smallest Patients, available for purchase on Amazon and at your local bookstore. Follow him on Twitter at @ChrisDeRienzoMD, on Instagram at @TinyMedicineMD and right here on LinkedIn.