The 2012 Inaugural Witt’s Warriors Challenge was planned and training began month’s in advance. It was such an amazing experience that I began to plan the 2013 challenge while still covered in mud standing at the finish of that first challenge. With each year since I’ve planned and begun training a year in advance. I feel like this gives me purpose – a goal to work towards all year. But last year was different. I had registered for Ironman Wisconsin and it fell less than two weeks before the challenge. Unless you’re the Iron Cowboy it takes a minimum of two weeks for your body to recover from an Ironman. I struggled to come up with something that would be challenging yet be physically possible while still recovering from an Ironman distance triathlon. So I decided to spend the year training for Ironman Wisconsin with hopes that somewhere along the way an idea for a challenge would come to mind.
Already thinking about the next challenge
I trained hard all year in hopes of beating my time from the 2016 Ironman Chattanooga race. With the exception of a knee injury that kept me from running for a month my training went pretty well. During my training, I had personal records (PRs) at the Ironman 70.3 and Half Marathon distances and was feeling pretty good going into Ironman Wisconsin. But I still had no idea what I would do for the 2017 Witt’s Warriors Challenge.
Then, despite all my training and hopes, Ironman Wisconsin didn’t go well at all. Early in the swim I was crippled by horrible cramps – cramps so bad that I thought at one point I would have to flag down one of the emergency boats. Several times during the swim I had to float on my back and wait for cramps to pass. On top of the cramps I was kicked in the face, punched in the head, stiff armed, and swam over a couple times. This swim became more about survival than a quest for a a PR. Ninety minutes later I reached the end of the swim and was happy to be moving on to the bike. But unfortunately the cramps would follow me onto the bike and then later on the run I became so nauseous that I couldn’t take any more fluids or fuel. Instead of a PR I came close to quitting but eventually finished an hour behind my time from Ironman Chattanooga.
Wisconsin swim start
Back in Tennessee, I thought a lot about my race, what had happened, and where those cramps had come from. I had never experienced cramps like that during a swim. I kept coming back to the thought that the swim had derailed my entire race plan that day. When you train for a year for a race like this and go into the race with such high hopes it can be hard to move on after a bad performance. And that is when it came to me… I needed to put this swim behind me – to erase the thoughts that the swim had beaten me. For the 2017 Witt’s Warriors Challenge I would swim – swim a lot. I wouldn’t just swim the 2.4 mile Ironman distance. I would bury that distance and the thoughts of that Wisconsin swim that I couldn’t get out of my head. I would swim twice the Ironman Distance – 5 miles.
With the challenge now decided I began to think about the logistics. Ideally I would have liked to do the swim in a lake. Five miles in a swimming pool seemed pretty monotonous and boring. But to do it in a lake would require a boat and a support person and that just wasn’t going to be possible on a school/work day. So I decided that the monotony and boredom of the pool would just be part of the challenge and planned to begin my swim at the Williamson County Indoor Sports Complex at 5am on Witt’s Heart Birthday.
The day of the swim came and I arrived at the ISC a little bit before 5am so I could start as soon as the doors opened. I estimated that it would take me three to three and a half hours to complete the swim. A few of my friends showed up to get their swim workouts in and support me. I grabbed a lane, lined up my hydration and fuel (mainly gels), plunged into the water, prayed, and began my first trip across the 25-yard pool. Before the day would end I needed to make this trip 360 times. The longest I had ever swam was 2.4 miles so I had no idea what this was going to be like.
Years ago, when I first started lap swimming I had to keep my lap count in my head. If I didn’t focus on that count I would quickly forget what lap I was on. But now I had a Garmin Triathlon watch that counted my laps for me. Now my mind was free to think, dream, and pray. I settled into a rythmn – 15 strokes, touch the wall, turn, and do it again. I spent a lot of time reflecting on what Witt had been through, what a blessing these last eight years had been, and what God had done in my life through all of this. There are so many amazing facets to Witt’s story and I thought about each one of them. Most of all I thought a lot about the sweet child whose gift had made all of this possible.
The minutes and laps went by and soon I entered hour three. Other than aching in my shoulders I was feeling pretty good. Freestyle is the only stroke I can swim well and all of the shoulder rotating strokes (over 5,000 in the end) was starting to take its toll. That last hour was tough but 3 hours and 42 minutes after I started I touched the wall one last time and I was done.
This was a tough challenge for me. I spent equal amounts of time thinking, praying, and battling boredom. I got tired and my shoulder ached badly in the end. But it was the perfect challenge to close out my 2017 racing calendar and go into the offseason with the Wisconsin swim in the rear view mirror. Now my mind was free to dream, plan, and train for next year’s challenge.
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