Keep Moving…
Over the next several months I plan to race in two half distance Ironman triathlons as well as a full distance Ironman in Madison, WI on September 11th. The full distance Ironman is a total of 140.6 miles which includes a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike and 26.2-mile run. I am dedicating these races to the James Schuster family and have set a fundraising goal of $14,060 that will be donated to the Ethan Schuster Memorial Fund for Suicide Prevention and Mental Health.
Please consider making a donation and I welcome you to read about the journey that led me to this goal.
Reshaping…
On August 10, 2020, I had surgery to repair a herniated disc in my back and I genuinely believed the procedure would resolve the pain I'd been experiencing for nearly two years. Ironically, the injury was originally diagnosed as a sprained hip flexor which is where most of the pain was located. Surgery was the last step of a two-year journey that included chiropractic, hot yoga, weight loss, PT, and steroid injections. One month after surgery and still no signs of success I decided to redirect my attention. I shifted my focus from the pain and set a goal of completing an Ironman approximately one year from surgery.
Well, I came close…. On September 12, 2021, I tapped out around mile 19 of the run at Ironman Madison, WI. The journey that led to Ironman was more rewarding than I could have imagined and in retrospect, I gained infinitely more by coming up short of my goal.
After returning home from the race, I consulted with my coach and committed to Ironman Madison 2022 – no big surprise there. I also committed to a rigorous off-season training plan which started almost immediately after the race. I was eager to jump right back in and was highly motivated by my DNF in Madison.
The excitement that accompanied my renewed commitment quickly faded as the days got shorter and Ohio winter set in. To be completely honest, the last seven months of training have been hard. It’s a lone journey which means spending hours upon hours hanging out with my thoughts which have often been a rerun of race day’s dark moments.
Ironman is all about training and discipline - having a plan and executing the plan. Well, by 9:00 a.m. on race morning my plan was floating away in Lake Monona and the next 15 hours were pretty much the opposite of everything I had romanticized in my mind leading up to the big day. To my surprise, the day that unfolded gave way to some very powerful moments that are now permanently chiseled into my mind.
There were moments that reshaped how I view friendship, random acts of kindness, and generosity. It forced me to recalibrate my perspective on asking for help and more importantly, accepting help. When it was all said and done, the journey to my first Ironman served up some hard truths about life, happiness and tragedy. I worked extremely hard and came up short on my goal, but I also grew in ways that I didn’t know I needed to grow. None of it would have been possible without my friend JJ Schuster who has without question made a profound influence on me and my family and I am forever grateful.
I Quit…
As for the actual Ironman, I’m going to skip to the ending. I didn’t finish my first Ironman attempt. Let me rephrase – I quit. I quit before making it to the finish line. These words are hard to write but the truth is I made a conscious decision to stop moving forward. I didn’t get pulled from the race. I wasn’t told to stop by race officials. My health wasn’t in danger (relatively speaking). I simply quit. If I’m being brutally honest, I legitimately quit at least four times during the race. It just so happens it was the last quit that stuck.
I was able to walk back to the hotel room so I could clearly keep moving. And I still had enough energy to argue with my parents who were annoyed that I wouldn’t get medical attention. Then JJ came to the room to check on me (or perhaps to show me his finisher medal) and I’ll never forget the look on his face. It was a look of disappointment. He wasn’t disappointed in me, but he was disappointed that I quit because he KNEW I could keep moving.
My body wasn’t done but my mind had taken over and convinced my body to stop moving. That annoying voice showed up a lot earlier in the day than I anticipated. You know the voice, the one that just starts fixating on excuses – all of which are garbage. At one point later in the evening and during the second half of the run I remember thinking that no one even knew I was in a triathlon. The crowds disappeared, the aid stations were pretty lean at this point and I was convinced that the college students roaming campus probably thought I was a drunk guy stumbling around in a strange onesie. That thought just became one more piece of garbage on the pile.
I saw my wife around mile 15 and she told me she would be at mile 19. Got it, get to mile 19 – no problem. But mile 16 the wheels had completely fallen off, my mind had given up and I remember starting to get a little worried about actually getting back. By the time I got to mile 19 I was so relieved to see Bam because this time I was done – I quit. Truth be told, she wouldn’t let me quit. She refused to accept my decision. She was a machine and dumped every ounce of her energy into that day to keep me going. But that’s where it ended….my first attempt at an Ironman ended after 133.4 miles with only 7.2 miles to go.
Thank God for Redheads
Ok, so back to the beginning – the swim. When I was about 10 years old my mom had to save me from going under in a strong current while playing in a river near Lakewood, WI. From that day forward I was always nervous in the water and never learned how to swim. My ironman goal meant not only learning how to swim but learning how to relax in the water. Well, neither came easy and despite working my butt off for a full year my ability was questionable in terms of being ready for a full Ironman swim.
I felt good about completing the swim, but I also knew I needed conditions to work in my favor. There was no chance I could have completed it without a wetsuit and choppy conditions could have been a deal breaker.
The swim is 2.4 miles, and the Madison race is a two-lap course. I passed the buoys completing the first lap and felt like I had found a rhythm that I could hold for the second lap. With about 1000 yards to go making the final turn I started feeling motion sick. I swam to a nearby volunteer on a Kayak and thought I’d rest for a minute to let the feeling pass.
When I stopped to rest, I could barely open my eyes, my head was pounding, and I was sick to my stomach. Whatever it was hit me like a ton of bricks and it seemed to come from nowhere. I was feeling fatigued from the swim, but it wasn’t anything I hadn’t felt during training. In an instant I went from “I’m not feeling well” to “I think I’m in trouble.”
I honestly don’t remember how I finished the swim, but I remember walking out of the water and not being able to see very well. I could barely stand and the ground below me was spinning. Everything was a giant blur except for one thing….my beautiful wife and her unmistakable red hair. It was her red hair that did me in almost 15 years ago and it was her red hair on race day that gave me enough of a jolt to stay on my feet.
The swim exit at Madison is lined with crowds as you make your way up the helix at the Monona Terrace to the first transition – the energy is crazy. This was a moment that I was really excited for but instead I wanted to collapse immediately after trying to walk on land. I remember telling myself that I could quit when I got to the transition but don’t fall apart in front of your wife. I slowly zig zagged my way up the helix to T-1, found my gear bag, flopped on all fours, buried my face in my hands and knew my day was done. I quit!
Gaylord Focker
The number of volunteers it takes to pull off an Ironman is in the thousands, and they are truly a source of energy for the athletes. Just recently I volunteered as a wetsuit stripper for Ironman Texas while JJ was racing. It was a great experience, and it gave me a whole new appreciation for the event, and I’d volunteer again in a heartbeat.
Gaylord Focker was a volunteer at Madison in T1 and he was on me the moment I stopped moving forward. I wanted to tell him I had already quit but there was no way he was letting me end my day in transition. He had a confidence in his voice that kept reassuring me this would only be one of many experiences I’d have during the day. He kept saying, get on the bike, start moving, get some air and you’ll feel better. He kept saying, “keep moving, keep moving, keep moving.”
At one point I remember seeing a medic walk towards me and before he could get a word out of his mouth Gaylord Focker turned around and without hesitation told the medic that I was fine. I don’t know who this guy was, but he found a way to breathe life back into me. He was wearing a ballcap, face mask and a name tag that said Gaylord Focker. I’m pretty sure he told me his real name, but I will always remember him as Gaylord Focker. He walked me to the entrance of the bike racks and said, “I’ll see you at the finish line bro!”
Unfortunately, I never started to feel any better on the bike and the first hour was nothing but white knuckles on the bars. I made it to the first aid station around mile 15 and again tried to quit. I got off my bike, went to my hands and knees on the grass and started the process of quitting all over again.
Another athlete stopped right next to me and he didn’t appear to be in that bad of shape but he was laying on his back right next to me asking for help. A volunteer rushed over and started to take his vitals. I vividly remember this volunteer telling the athlete that he was also an EMT but what stood out more was when the volunteer said, “I can’t find your pulse.” He must have said it at least 5 times and I could tell he was worried…or maybe embarrassed because he was an EMT. Regardless, it didn’t take long for the race paramedics to arrive with an ambulance. At that moment and without hesitation I was on my bike and on the way. I can’t tell you how it happened, and I’m pretty sure I wanted to quit, but before I knew it, I was back to peddling down the hilly countryside.
The next 100 miles didn’t get much better and I finally made it to T2 very late in the day. The volunteers told me I had at least 10 minutes to hit the run out before cutoff, but I wouldn’t find out until the next day that I already missed the bike cutoff by 2 minutes. My race was over and I didn’t even know it.
JJ Schuster
I couldn’t tell you when I first met JJ. It was probably at Bridge Day in the early 2000s. Or perhaps it was at the Couch Freaks Skydiving Boogie in Fort Dodge, Iowa. We’ve been friends for a long time, and we’ve been on some wild adventures mostly involving skydiving and BASE jumping. I was intrigued when JJ started participating in triathlons and I was in awe having watched him completely transform his health in the process.
Over the years I’d ask JJ questions about triathlons specifically Ironman, but it was our trip to Twin Falls, Idaho in August 2020 when the seed was firmly planted in my mind. We took a long weekend to jump from the Perrine Bridge and the trip immediately preceded my upcoming back surgery. We spent a lot of time hiking and jumping in Twin Falls and those conversations were ultimately the best thing for mind to absorb before surgery.
Two years before my Ironman attempt JJ crashed his bike during IM Madison 2019 and he sustained serious injuries to his shoulder. He returned to Madison in 2021 to finish what he started and to help me get to the starting line. When I first started my Ironman journey one of the first things JJ told me was don’t worry about the finish line. Just focus on the starting line. Get to the starting line and you’ll have accomplished your goal.
It didn’t take me long to understand the truth in his words. Training became a part time job and staying healthy another chore altogether. Getting to the start line meant I had put the work in and as JJ would say, “the race is really just the victory lap.”
I ended up entering the water right next to JJ and it was an emotional moment for me. The energy was hard to ignore, and I couldn’t help but feel like an Ironman standing in line shoulder to shoulder with my bro. JJ is a strong swimmer and a monster on the bike so I knew I didn’t have a chance to see him again during the day.
To my surprise, I saw JJ on the course, but it was after one more attempt to quit. I made it to the run course and convinced myself I had a shot at finishing the race. I was so relieved to be off the bike that having to run 26.2 miles felt like a breeze. By mile 3 reality had hit and I was in bad shape. I found a grassy spot right next to Camp Randall stadium where I was back on my hands and knees. This time I was committed to giving up and started walking against the race traffic to the last aid station so I could turn in my timing chip.
I walked back at least 2 or 3 blocks before I turned around and started running again and it wasn’t a conscious decision to do it. In fact, I surprised myself that I was running again.
No more than 5 minutes later, I was grabbed from behind and heard a familiar voice say, “good game.” The run course at Madison is a 2-lap course and JJ ended up catching me on his second lap (my first). He had 10 miles left in the race and I still had 23 to go.
The next 10 miles were without a doubt THE BEST 10 miles of the race. We ran in stride. We talked. We were silent. We pulled. We pushed. We worked as a team. And I never once thought about quitting. Not. Once.
Inevitably we had to part ways when JJ reached the finish line and I set out on my second loop. It was bittersweet seeing him cross the finish line, the lights, the music, the crowd. I could hear Mike Reilly on the microphone announce the famous phrase, “JJ Schuster, YOU. ARE. AN. IRONMAN.”
Shortly before parting ways, JJ shared some advice that I still remember like it was yesterday. He knew things were going to get dark for me and he knew I had to make up my mind and commit to finishing the race. To paraphrase, he basically told me that it’s going to hurt but it’s easier to just keep moving than to explain why I quit. Well, the rest of the race is history and as much as I’d love to say I had the mental toughness to keep going – that wasn’t the case. Truth be told, I’d do it all over again to relive those 10 miles. JJ pulled me from a very dark corner in my mind and kept me moving towards the finish line.
On October 5, 2021, only a few weeks after our race in Madison, JJ’s second oldest son took his own life. Ethan Schuster was 14 years old and was one of five Schuster kids.
Everything leading up to the last paragraph has been easy to write – a fun, cathartic exercise of looking back at the journey. But the last paragraph changes everything. I’ve struggled to write anything following that last paragraph and I just don’t think there’s anything I can say. The real journey has only just started for the Schuster family and it’s a very long road ahead.
A few months ago I made a promise to JJ. I gave him my word that I would keep moving no matter how hard things got. I told him that if I didn’t finish it wouldn’t be because I decided to stop moving. Sure, we were talking about the race, but I think we both knew we were talking about something much bigger.
It’s hard to ignore the parallels of Ironman and navigating life through tragedy. The big difference of course is that one is a chosen path and the other is not. But I can’t help but think that JJ’s double digit Ironman finishes have only galvanized his armor so he can keep his family moving forward through this tragedy. And I can’t think of a better way to help my friend than to dedicate my upcoming race to his family while raising awareness for suicide prevention.
Just as friends, family and complete strangers showed up for me last year, I’m hoping the same type of support shows up to help the Schuster family. Please consider donating to the Ethan Schuster Memorial Fund for Suicide Prevention and Mental Health and in doing so, reminding the Schuster family to keep moving!
*My wife has created an Instagram page to document my Ironman journey but through her unqiue lens. She'll continue to post updates as we make progress towards our goal. https://www.instagram.com/theredheadsbeardedguy/
