The gap went back to five
minutes and Pete’s face was getting tighter and tighter.
When Cam Widoff caught him he managed to find a little more
and kicked it up a notch. Soon he was in second. At mile
eighteen he was still just five minutes off! Farris was
having the race of his life, Pete was suffering and Farris
was not pulling away. It was a strange feeling sitting out
there watching your friend going through hell and at the
same time feeling so proud that he was!
Cam Brown was running
like he stole something and I think he stole it from Chris
McCormack because he was absolutely flying!!
Rutger Beke was also
making head way. I would rather have put pins in my tongue
than watch all those guys catch Pete and was glad when only
Cam did.
At mile nineteen he
yelled at me “I can’t hear a fuckin’ word you’re saying.”
This was due largely to the fact that I’d stopped saying
anything. I yelled back “5:20”. I couldn’t come up with
anything more interesting than that. I mean, what can you
say? My mouth simply refuses to spew out the clichés “Go
man! You look good! Keep going! Pick it up!” and after 18
miles of a five minute gap I figured he wasn’t much more
interested in splits.
Pete stayed with Cam a
bit and then even managed to pull him back some but on the
down hill into town, Cam let the dogs lose. Beke ran out of
juice with a mile to go and McCormack ran out of road –
luckily for Widoff, who was fading fast.
It was after the race
that I was witness to what you don’t see on Ironmanlive.
Pete, like scores of other athletes, was in stress when he
crossed the line – I mean real physical stress. He wanted
water and, as god is my witness, they had none at the finish
line! We were both yelling for water and an official
approached me and pointedly said “There is no water at the
finish line. He’ll have to leave the area to drink water!”
Of course they had Gatorade, the race sponsor, for the
athletes but no water! Some people need water. This
reaches a level of stupidity that is almost criminal and
it’s a problem on more levels than just a health issue. If
you know anything about drug testing you know that false
positives can occur when a person is stressed or
dehydrated. Imagine finishing the Hawaii Ironman and they
won’t give you water! A very stressful, dehydrating time if
I do say so myself. Fans were handing him water bottles
from the stands but unfortunately none of these had the seal
intact so he couldn’t drink those either. He eventually
made it to the medical tent where he got a bottle of water
and a fresh IV!
Mark Allen sat with him
for awhile and after about ten minutes he was laughing and
smiling. From there we had to go to drug testing. All the
other guys were there with their representatives. They were
all going over the race and laughing at different things –
no different than any other group of finishers I’d sat
around with. Beke was there and we talked quite a bit with
him. I was imagining he was pretty nervous. He was
recently cleared of a positive drug test so I suspect he’s
pretty suspicious of the whole procedure. Now wrap your
head around this – we sat there, as did everyone else for
over two hours!! Imagine trying to recover from an Ironman
sitting in a cramped hot little room for two freaking
hours!! I’m surprised that not one of those athletes got
testy. I guess they’re used to it. I personally found it
disrespectful and even hostile. They weren’t even allowed
to talk on their cell phones. Some of the girls were
shivering and wrapped in blankets. Other athletes, Pete
included, were doing the “gotta go” dance but they wouldn’t
let you pee until it was your turn. We finally got out of
there and Pete was instantly asked to do three telephone
interviews which he did and then it was off to the press
conference.
Farris Al Sutan was
gracious and humble. He’s a good champion, but the most
moving moment of the evening was when an Australian reporter
asked Beke to talk about the trials and tribulations of
coming back from a false positive test. He spoke about
asking someone how far ahead the leaders were and the guy
responding he wouldn’t tell him because he was a cheater and
then the age grouper who swore at him, also calling him a
cheater. He was close to tears as he told the stories and
so were most of us in the audience. At a time – when you’re
innocent until proven guilty unless, of course, you don’t
want to bother with the facts and you think you raise
yourself up by cutting off someone else’s legs. I hope he
wins this race one year!
Finally it was time to go
home. I was shattered from the long day. Taking Pete’s
suggestion, we laid it up at Wendy’s and grabbed a couple of
large Frosties and some burgers. Then Pete got the idea
that maybe we should shower up and go back to the finish
line to cheer on the glow stick crowd. He obviously had a
lot more energy than I did.
Luckily for me it hit him
when we got home and it was coma city for the both of us.
Day over.
Oh, and the female pro in
the pool on Friday – she had a great swim but was unable to
finish the day.
See you next year!
