I awoke that morning sick as a dog. I had been training for this race for over 6 months. I was in the best shape of my life, but my immune system was taxed. Despite feeling so sick, I made it to the start line. I hadn't come this far to give up now.
I wasn't alone. Despite the dangerous conditions, you had 2,500 athletes who had all be training for months and paid a price to be there. Besides, we're tough as nails... what's a little wind? 50 MPH winds!
At the inaugural Ironman in Provo, Utah weather conditions turn dangerous just as the race begins. Race organizers were warned of the dangers. When the wind picks up, conditions on a shallow lake (8-10 feet in the deepest spot) become extremely dangerous. When strong winds hit a shallow lake, 5-10 foot swells are the result. Imagine 2,500 swimmers trying to follow a course they couldn’t see.
A 3-time triathlete (RIP John Boland, 53, of Redondo Beach, CA), known as a strong swimmer drowned less than 30 minutes into the event. He might have been kicked by another swimmer, had a panic attack, or suffocated on a big gulp of water. Nobody knows for sure what happened.
But when it was determined that the conditions were too dangerous (the anchors on the bouys to mark the course became unattached and drifted away). Getting 2,500 swimmers back to shore proved to be a challenge. First of all, the swimmers couldn’t see over the 8-10 foot swells. A helicopter was overhead with a loud speaker telling swimmers to head back to shore, but for one thing, we couldn’t see where the shore was did, in addition to that face, many of us didn’t even hear them (most of us wore earplugs to keep the water out of our ears).
Eventually, we began to realize that bouy wasn’t getting any closer (in fact getting further away). I took my earplugs out and heard that the race was cancelled and to head back to shore. By now, I like many of the swimmers I was following were pretty far out into the lake. It took us 45 minutes to get back to land. The real pandemonium was with the spectators who were waiting for their loved ones to return.
It would be 90 minutes before I would get back. Many of us were wearing the same popular Ironman wetsuit as the one who drowned. He was a similar build as I was, and was wearing the same age group colored cap. I was not a strong swimmer and my wife was convinced it was me. She had to go look in the face of the drowned swimmer to confirm it wasn’t! It was the first and hopefully the last time my wife will ever see a dead body. Needless to say, after that experience, she wouldn’t attend another triathlon and was definitely not interested in supporting me in doing another Ironman.
Here he is at the finish of Ironman Canada.