JW IMVineman Epilogue: A Wife's Perspective
I sent the following to JW today - coincidentally, our 14th anniversary - after reading his IMVineman RR last night. I'm posting it here with his permission as "The Other Side of the Story.... " Not just a wife's perspective, but that of a fellow Ironman and someone acutely aware of the lifestyle and training stress, and, hopefully, to add some insight for those who may occasionally find SAU's hard to come by. 
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Epilogue: A Wife’s Perspective
Those of you who have met JW in person have likely realized that his online persona is 100% accurate. He tells it like it is, but is unfailingly upbeat and manages to be positive in the most frustrating of situations (he can’t help it – his blood type is literally B+!). He encouraged me to do my first sprint tri along with him in 2010, knowing full well that I couldn’t swim and had never run two consecutive miles in my life. He then convinced me, along with at least 12 others, that we could cross the finish line at Ironman Louisville in 2011. He shattered his goal of raising $1,000 for each mile we raced at IMLou that year, AND he went sub-12, something he never thought possible for his first Ironman. The following year, Team ReserveAid had doubled in size, and I crossed the finish line at the one-and-done Ironman New York. I had a newfound confidence thanks to my husband. If I could finish an Ironman not once, but twice, anything really WAS possible.
Fast-forward to 2013 – JW had one more IM under his belt after racing IMFL along with a friend who had put in the training, but wasn’t able to join us for IMNYC. After Florida, JW had applied to race Ironman Lake Placid with the XC, and his application was accepted. He was in, and Kona suddenly became a real possibility… but he still had some serious competition and knew he had to put in the work. We spent a long training weekend in Placid in early July, and he was feeling good. I, on the other hand, was experiencing a multitude of injuries and beginning to sound like a broken record. Everything hurt. I couldn’t feel my right leg. My left shoulder was barely functional. The end result was a combination of my becoming slower, and JW becoming stronger and faster… I began to dread the hills where we trained together in central PA as he surged ahead and I fell back. He never left me, though. As always, rather than becoming frustrated with how much slower I’d become, he found the silver lining and used the opportunity to do hill repeats.
A LOT of hill repeats.
By this time, our boys were 5 and almost 7. They were still young enough that they didn’t mind that mom and dad were out on their bikes every weekend. Of course they didn’t mind – at our weekend home in PA, their grandparents were next door and happily spoiled them while we trained. In the meantime, JW had become just as serious about recovery as he was about training, often spending well over an hour or two “recovering” when we arrived home from our rides, while I quickly showered and was off to be Mom (if this sounds like a source of contention, it was… but keep reading… ).
Lake Placid didn’t go well for either of us that year. I received a Mike Tyson-level punch to my left calf on the first loop of the swim and subsequent cramping like I’ve never felt in my life. I hung on to kayak after kayak… thanks to this, my slow swimming, and the fact that overnight temps had been dipping into the 30’s that year and Mirror Lake was COLD… well…. I enjoyed my first (hopefully ONLY) experience with hypothermia. I vaguely recall three men pulling me out of the water, onto a boat, and one of them bundling me in his winter coat and gloves (like I said, it was cold… this big man was wearing a WINTER COAT in July). What felt like an eternity later, we arrived at the opposite side of the lake and I was put on the back of an ambulance to have my temperature taken.
It was 90.2°F (32.3°C).
After some hot tea in the med tent, a walk of shame back to my hotel room, and the hottest and longest shower I’ve ever taken, I walked back out to see JW finish. I did my best to stay conspicuously hidden so he could focus on his race and not wonder and worry why I was standing on the side of the road with our friends. My heart sank as I realized he’d been passed on the run course by the athlete he knew would be his biggest competition. I made my way to the finishing chute, where, as a perk of the XC, I was allowed inside the chute to give him his medal…
He was in BAD shape. He’d turned himself inside-out and was completely shattered… his knees buckled as Troy from the XC and I tried to hold his massive frame upright. A volunteer asked if he was going to be ok… Troy calmly told him no… get him a wheelchair NOW. We wheeled my husband, gray, ghostlike and semi-conscious, to the med tent where I did my best to calmly watch and wait from a quiet, out of the way corner. I waited almost an hour, and when it was clear he was fine, I walked over and sat next to him. He had no idea where I’d come from and that I’d been sitting just ten feet away for the past 60 minutes...
His face was still completely drained of color as he did his best to smile at me from behind frighteningly sunken eyes. I was simultaneously relieved and furious. He was a husband, a son, a father… didn’t he realize that a Kona slot wasn’t worth his health???
It was a long ride home from Lake Placid to New Jersey, but I know my husband perseveres like no other and that he wasn’t about to give up. He wanted that Kona slot more than ever, and after a tongue lashing for his appearance at the finish line, I was prepared to support him while he went all in for IMMT in 2014…
But I was also prepared to lay down at least one ground rule: Figure out this recovery thing. No more hour+ with your legs propped up in Normatech boots and a computer on your lap while your boys bounce around whining and wondering when you’ll be ready to take them to the pool… the playground… to play mini-golf….
Challenge accepted. JW handled it like a champ. Normatech boots were either donned in the evening when the boys were in bed, or he played a game of chess or did another activity with the boys while in his boots and stuffing his face full of pickles…
That wasn’t the only thing he handled like a champ. At the time, we still lived in New Jersey and he suffered through an hour and twenty minute commute into and out of NYC five days a week. This meant his workouts started at 4a.m. so he could catch the train and still have evenings free to spend what precious little time he could with our boys. Weekends were no exception. In order to maximize family time, he was wheels down before the sun fully made its way over the horizon. But our boys were getting older and wanted more time with their dad… and repeatedly answering, “Where’s Daddy?” began to wear on me. I was torn between being fully supportive of my husband’s quest for Kona and my boys’ desire to spend more time with their dad… and their disappointment when my answer was, yet again, “He’s on his bike.”
Training started early and intense that year. JW needed to be ready for “Man Camp” in late February, and in true JW fashion, he was. Two more camp-like long weekends followed in the next few months, where he put up a ton of mileage and I answered the “Where’s Daddy?” question more times than I care to remember. I feared I’d become one of “those” wives… the unsupportive wives, the wives who didn’t “understand” why their husband was “obsessed” with this Ironman hobby. How could that even be possible? I WAS an Ironman! I got it! But here I was, dealing with the resentment that I had allowed this hobby to take priority over everything… especially our kids.
I did the best I could to continue to be supportive without hiding the reality of the situation. Even though JW was doing everything he could to decrease the impact of his increased training load on his family, it was a strain, whether I liked it, wanted to admit it, or not. I had given up training and racing altogether at this point. Not just as some heroic, martyr-like sacrifice to be with our boys while JW trained and raced, but also because I knew my body needed a break.
I began to focus more and more on nutrition and preparing meals for both of us as we continued down the rabbit hole of fat adaptation… JW was following his strict, self-imposed lifestyle devoid of Recreational Sugar and free of any alcohol, save the random beer on Friday or Saturday. His ability to recover after the volume and intensity of the work he was putting in was downright astonishing. His newfound obsession interest in all things biohacking – anything to give himself the edge he needed – was also astonishing. When I hugged him, the strong, muscular physique of the wrestler I’d married was replaced with a leanness almost skeletal in comparison.
He was ready to race.
I had one job at IMMT – keep in contact with everyone back home who could actually do math, and shout an update at JW when he came out of T2. Numbers and I don’t get along, and I have literally never been so nervous that I would screw something up in my life. I was on edge the entire day, but I had my trusty Sherpa sidekick, Tovah, along to help me keep my head on straight.
And he did it.
Tovah captured the emotion of the past year in a short video after the finish line… JW turned to me, his face twisted with emotion and tears in his eyes as he reached out to hug me…. It had all been worth it. He was going to KONA!!!
Kona was the experience of a lifetime for any triathlete, racing or spectating, and deserves a post entirely of its own. The remainder of 2014 was a whirlwind of JW resigning from his job, putting our home on the market, JW “surviving” his third IM in less than four months at Cozumel, and all of us moving halfway across the country.
2015 was a year for “fun.” I’d asked JW if he had any IM goals left now that he’d been to Kona, and he replied that he’d like a 9-handle. It was definitely within the realm of possibility… We talked about a two-year plan to get there, with him racing seriously again in 2017. In the meantime, he kept busy becoming the first person to finish an Ironman on a Fat Bike (why not?) and ran Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim to celebrate his 40th birthday. We were loving life in Minnesota and JW was able to structure the majority of his training around his commute to work.
We saw a LOT more of him.
As 2016 rolled around, he awaited the announcement of latest XC race – a race Troy had told him would “peak” (intentional misspelling) his interest. Consider it “peaked.” We’d been discussing IMBoulder as a stepping stone toward that 9-handle with no talk of Kona whatsoever, but when IMVineman was announced, JW decided he was in. To say I was a little disappointed would be an understatement…. I am a notorious creature of habit, and when there’s a plan in place, even loosely, I like to stick to it. I began to have visions of IMMT 2.0 minus the supportive grandparents in the trailer next door.
And then our lives were turned upside down in an instant.
JW had told me on several occasions that he’d been feeling light-headed on his bike. He’s NOT one to complain. Ever. So I took him seriously, but it wasn’t until a night in mid-January when he woke and started to walk from our bedroom into the bathroom that I realized something very serious might be wrong.
When a 200lb man collapses, you FEEL him hit the floor.
He says he heard the sound his body made when he landed, but in the brief seconds he laid there, my heart started to pound. I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t getting up, or why he’d fallen in the first place… I shouted, “JOHN!” He groggily answered, “I’m ok…” as he stood and shuffled the rest of the way into the bathroom.
The next morning I told him he was seeing a doctor. I found one. I made the appointment. I went with him. He agreed to keep his heart rate below 130bpm and ONLY ride and run indoors until we were able to figure out what was going on. As a life-long athlete with an irregular heartbeat, Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy was a very real, very scary possibility. So was Lyme Carditis and a host of other diagnoses. There was bloodwork, a visit to the cardiologist, an in-office EKG and a Holter monitor, a cardiac MRI, and a cardiac CT scan that we had to wait until April for him to have. He had every cardiac test necessary, and thank GOD everything came back normal. It appeared it was just some strange virus that had taken hold and refused to let go. He was back to feeling normal throughout this time and as soon as he was given the all-clear from the cardiologist, it was on.
He headed to camp in Aspen in late May, but I questioned if he was really ready. He surprised me… I was used to seeing a much fitter, faster JW at this point in training. He was also much more lenient with his diet and that occasional bar of chocolate or beer (or glass of Scotch). Clearly the miles he had stored in his legs over the years were still there and served him well in Aspen. But... at the same time I was back to answering, “Where’s Daddy?” once again. Our now 8 and 10 year olds were really missing time with their dad.
Thankfully, training for Vineman never became what Tremblant had become, and JW was clearly approaching it with a more relaxed attitude. At the same time, I could tell that his mysterious virus and the training time lost to cardiac testing had had an effect. Unfortunately, his mental fortitude is impenetrable, and he either didn’t recognize or refused to accept that he could actually be knocked down a peg by a virus. There were many times I’d ask him how his run had gone and his answer was, “meh.” There were just as many times that his runs had gone great, and, being the glass half full guy that he is, that’s where he chose to focus.
While he says he’s not sure what went wrong on race day, I see things differently.
It started with a virus. It continued with a more relaxed approach to what he ate. And most importantly, it was a prioritization of family over training.
He coached the wrestling team. He was at every soccer game. We weren’t missing church on Sunday mornings. He introduced our boys to skateboarding and frequently took them to an indoor skate park. He was throwing footballs, rollerblading, and in the pool playing with them. He built forts and read books and, much to my dismay, played video games.
This was not IMMT 2.0.
Just as training and racing Ironman can put strain on a family, the reverse is also true. The boys and I and our expectations of John as a father and a husband mean that he’s not able to train as long, as hard, and as often as he’d like. But he finds a way to rise above those expectations on a continual basis. He says that this is it - he’s going into temporary retirement, looking for a new hobby, something he can do with the boys… but I know he loves Ironman just as much as he loves all of us.
There’ve been many times in a variety of situations throughout our marriage where JW, in that borderline annoying, upbeat way of his says, “we can do both.”
Now I’m saying to him, “we can do both.”
This is NOT The End.
Comments
Thanks so much for sharing such an incredibly powerful post! Lots of lessons here for athletes and SO's!
Agree with Coach's comments, thank you.
I have always recognized that JW is a uniquely strong man both physically and mentally playing a key role as a leader within EN....... and I have often wondered what the source of that strength really is, the secret...........
Now we all know, your post has revealed the secret weapon, undoubtedly his spouse........
SS
Truly beautiful to see this through your eyes. The ups, downs, challenges & emotional juggling that you've all done are incredible. Hearing from my daughter that she thinks I like biking more than her, I get it. John & the boys are very lucky to have you in the middle as Ironmom.
Thank you for sharing!
Jess - THIS IS AWESOME!!!!
So many relevant situations/feelings that resonate with me. And your writing skills make it pop so clearly. You have a gift and are a special person to support this with such a balanced and objective approach. JW is lucky to have you by his side.
Jess, thanks for sharing. My wife and I both do this crazy sport but we didn't start until the kids were old enough to leave alone. (And yes, I go ahead of Susan and loop back and do the hill repeats too.) From the outside looking in John has always seemed like a superman, but now I know superwoman has his back. (And I bet it scared the beejebezes out of you that night.)
thanx for sharing this
I am sitting on the LR floor, going thru and cleaning up some of the 2,500 + email messages in my Yahoo account and slowly healing, while watching the World Series - when I came upon your report.
Both you and John are special people - and I am incredibly happy to share the same team with both of you as well as call you friends ?? To read YOUR report was nothing short of amazing! Your perspective and insight as a partner, a Mom and as a fellow Ironman is remarkable - and has given me yet another athletic perspective to see.
Thank you SO much! Please give John a hug from me - and I look forward to seeing you folks soon!!
@Woody - Thanks for bringing this post to the top of the RR section!!
@Jess - Loved reading this. Thanks so much for sharing. Both you and John are special people. You're commitment to one another is a beautiful thing. (It helps remind me of how much my girlfriend has shouldered and given up as a result of my own IM obsession...)
@John - Finally read your IM Vineman report. Powerful stuff dude. While you didn't get the result you were after - which f'ing sucks - you proved to yourself yet again that you're not a quitter. I might have some fast times to my name, but I don't think I could have done what you did out there. Looking forward to seeing what you do next.