The Idiot in me, high after my Peru trip and the tandem Palace to Palace ride, committed to doing the T100 Triathlon on a single speed bike. This was a natural progression of my (in retrospect) crazy cycle to Brighton.

For those who don’t know, the T100 is just about the equivalent of a middle distance triathlon¹. It consists of 3 legs: a 2 km swim, followed by an 80 km bike ride, followed by an 18 km run, making up a total of 100 kilometres.

In theory I gave Myself enough time to prepare : 24 weeks to re-learn swimming² and get my fitness up to speed for such a demanding event.

As life goes though, I was faced with many difficulties in those weeks, culminating in the most stressful moments of my life to date in the 8 weeks leading up to the event. Things were crazy up until the night of the triathlon, where at 5 am I was a split second away from sending the following message to the WhatsApp group I had created for people to come and support me:

“Hi everyone, I’m not feeling well and I therefore won’t be participating in the triathlon tomorrow. I’m sorry for the late notice :(“

I’m very glad that my hesitation against my hesitation pushed me to participate.

Dead of the Night

I wasn’t hungry, despite needing fuel.

I had already prepared a big breakfast for the morning before the race and did not feel like eating anything. It was 8 pm, and the Overthinker in me was stressed that if I ate a substantial meal, it would disrupt my sleep.

Perhaps you can chalk my feelings up to nerves. However, in reality something deeper was happening: My cells were anticipating a break with myself. They were preparing for death. The death that I had dreamt of years ago, of joining the 27 club.

I always find it fascinating that the body is so much smarter than we give it credit. It knows what you choose to ignore. But there I was, out of the moment and in my head.

I remained so until the Mother in me forced me to eat. It was a silent meal. I ate slowly and then excused myself for bed. I think I went to sleep around 9:30 pm, with a deep melancholy that I couldn’t explain.

I woke up for a piss at 12:30 am, still deep in sadness. The feelings I had, had not gone away, and now I couldn’t get myself to fall asleep. The Overthinker was on overdrive, and my mind, in its beautiful complexity and chaotic organisation, much like the depictions of baggage handling systems that you see in cartoons, was not letting up: I had to confront the Other voice in my head.

I got up and took to my diary to bring out the conversation that was stuck in my brain into reality. I expressed my grievances with blue ink, and the Other responded with red ink that had gone dry. The words were vicious but neither me nor the Other took them personally. We had grown tired of this dance. The inks merged into one, and after a long and difficult war with myself, the Other and I made peace: He would stop trying to change me, and I would stop trying to convince him that I am enough. This necessarily meant that we wouldn’t share dialogue together. That we would exist in my body, but as separate entities that never cross paths. That I would stop my brain if I caught myself talking to the Other.

By 3 am, exhaustion had finally gotten the better of me. I slept hugging myself, as if to hold what existed one last time. Or maybe to hold my wounds. The deep wound of feeling like the person I was is not the person who survived the Four Lagunas circuit. That I was not the person that can perform under pressure.

I woke up at 5 am from my alarm, almost about to send the message I had drafted.

I hesitated.

And for the first time after a very tough year I could hear a voice deep from within. A voice that had been hiding from the Other. A voice that was with me in my lonely hike in the Andes. It urged me to go on.

And unlike the Devil that urges me to take reckless risks, this one came from a place of reason. It told me to trust myself, and trust the process that I had gone through to get to where I was. It told me to do my best, and if my best meant not being able to finish the race, then it would be ok.

I measured my heart rate to confirm that it wasn’t much higher than my normal resting one.

And within 5 minutes I was out of the house.

Cracker Hours

Getting to the centre was a rather fascinating process. I took the bus and was shocked to find Commercial Road so packed in the early hours of the morning. It has got to be one of the most horrible roads in the world, where concrete and exhaust have consumed all potential for life.

The only life I saw beyond soulless machines was a cracker with his big bulldog that had me a little scared. Though I was so sleep deprived that I reacted without emotion to my dark fantasies of being mauled to death on the sad London street.

The trek from the bus stop to the centre was long, but it was helping me wake up and confront the reality of my decision. The skies were grey, which I found strangely comforting.

I felt good.

The deep voice in me was not present but it seemed to have transformed itself into a confidence that was long lost.

Once I got to the centre the weight of the steak from the night before and my large oat breakfast hit: I took the most important dump of my life for it would have terribly ruined my race otherwise.

I wore my wetsuit and made it to the swim start, blind as I had to take my glasses off. A nice Italian chap named Gabriel reassured me that he also could not see, though the reassurance dipped considerably after I found out that he had already completed a few full Ironmans… this was going to be a cake walk for him. And on top of it he was “concerned” about the size of the centre:

Try to imagine a cute Italian accent:

“It’s weird man, the centre is so big like normally in Ironman it’s all self contained you know what I mean?”

And I was nodding along as if my concern was the 15 extra seconds that a big transition hall was going to add to my total time… and not, you know, drowning in the bottom of the Thames so that I can add my set of germs to the nutritional profile of the diet available to the 125 mutated species of fish that live in it.

They gave us some instructions about what buoys to aim for in the water, but it was delivered so badly that my ears just turned off, and turned on again as soon as I heard “just follow the person in front of you”.

One by one, we walked to the platform, as if we were criminals to be publicly hung.

Ready. Set. GO!

And it went south from there.

Swim

I got so stressed with the speed at which everyone around me jumped in the water that I started going as fast as I could.

The wetsuit helped give me speed and confidence, but the green water that tasted like engine oil prevented me from seeing anything in front. All the clean strokes I had mastered in the pool turned into frantic splashes, and maybe not even 50 meters in I was out of breath.

I had to change my technique and go breast stroke. I dropped all wishes to meet my time goals and focussed on regulating my breath so that I could take control of the dread that I was feeling.

It was difficult to see where I had to go without my glasses, and I kept doing zigzags:

left… right… oh I shouldn’t hit the rescue boats… left… oh no I’m going to hit the buoy… right… ouch, that hurt!

My focus on survival made me forget that I was in the water with masochistic maniacs who wanted to go fast. People were not nice in the water and I kept getting hit. A few times I go hit simultaneously which forced me into the water.

I thought that one of them might even be Gabriel, but I gave him grace because he’s also blind like me.

I focussed to the best of my ability on keeping consistent with my strokes, and after what seemed to be a very long and non-ending swim, I was making it out for the first lap. As soon as I got out of the water, I regained the confidence that I had lost. I knew that I would be able to finish the second lap.

I jumped in, this time without fear. Kept consistent with my strokes and fought the other swimmer when they tried to waterboard me.

I made it out and was running towards the transition zone for my bike.

I was a feeling a little drained, until I heard a voice calling my name. I was confused – what crazy person came to see me at 8 in the morning? I couldn’t see but after squinting I was able to make the shape of my ex-colleague Veera!

I felt so happy and loved and suddenly a burst of energy was created from within.

I got to my bike, setup my gear and cycled out of the centre. I was delighted to see on my bike computer that I had completed the swim in less than an hour. This was another boost of confidence: my goal was now within reach again.

I hooded up with my neck gaiter like the gangster that I was on my single speed bike, and started the cycle with the dumb confidence of a man.

Bike

I was feeling very good.

All the fears and frustrations were replaced by a strict cadence on the bike, and expertly timed nutrition.

The apprehension that I had prior to the race from not knowing how steep some of the tunnels and bridges were evaporated as soon as I did one course of the lap. I quickly learnt the effort required and paced myself accordingly.

I was reminded again that cycling is by far my strongest discipline.

That said, it was not a cake walk. Loneliness started to creep in, and I could almost see the sadness I felt at 3 am.

But, in the time of my most need, my brother showed up on the track to support me!

“Good pace good pace” he may have shouted but my ears were not listening: Instead I felt a fire burn inside me and juice flowing through my veins again. My mouth widened to a caricature of a grin. I could not speak much but in my head I communicated a deep love to him. I felt really grateful that he was there for me, and through him I connected to my family who couldn’t be here: to my sister, to my mum and to my dad. To my grandparents in Iran and to my deceased uncle.

I felt very loved even if people were away. Seeing him even reminded of my previous manager who sat with me the week before and told me that he and everyone else were all so proud of what I was doing.

Seeing him reminded me of my friends who love me, even those that I’ve pushed away. He reminded me of those from the past with whom I no longer have contact, who loved me and respected me, even if it’s not in the way that I might have needed.

I felt connected to another part of myself that had long been locked away. A deeply grateful one and one that has lots of love to give. The man that only good fathers become: the only man who wants you to do better than himself.

I felt invigorated, and more confident of being able to finish the bike ride.

On my second lap I saw my brother again, but I also imagined the Other there with him, screaming in support.

My friend’s brother showed up when my legs were starting to reach their limit, and hyped me up as the hype man he is. Through him I felt connected to her, 3000 miles away.

In my final lap, when the fatigue was getting to me, I saw a friend whom I’d never hung out with before. Despite our tenuous connection, he made the effort to come in support before making his way to the airport. This gesture was felt deeply, and it contributed to my assertiveness on the final bridge before the end of the cycle. I zoomed past 10 grand bikes and pushed through the pain by muttering “come on, that’s too easy”.

And on the top of the arch, I felt the crazy satisfaction that single speed riders feel.

My confidence was high when I reached transition and prepared for my run.

This is where my real test began.

Run

A few weeks earlier, I had a very real dream. I was inside my head, seeing all its complexity, some of which I alluded to earlier. At some point though, in my search inwards I saw my immense anger and resentment. It manifested itself in my brain as a million demons that looked like red painted Gundams with Emperor Zurg faces. They had exhaust nozzles for arms, ready to spew the fire and heat into the outside. However, as I was unable to express the anger outwards, the fire travelled down, burning the entire circuitry of my body.

My run started and ended with pain.

My quads were cramped from the last push on the cycle, and I was feeling nauseous throughout: the combination of electrolytes and sugary gels was not sitting well.

My reaction was to go inwards like in my dream.

For almost two hours I sat with my thoughts and feelings while my body and mind were under severe distress.

I had no music to distract me, and it was hard for me to keep my head up to get distracted by the sights around.

Each four kilometre lap felt like forty, and by the third one I was doubting my ability to finish. My brother and friends had reassured me with their cheers that I was good for time, but their voices were now very far away. I was not sure that I could make it.

It wasn’t my mind that was failing me. My muscles and joints were strained but they were stronger than I gave them credit.

The nausea was just too much, so I walked a few times. Me and a guy would take turns: “you got this bro” at every other swap.

I could tell that my brain was melting for I could not connect one verse of Shook Ones Part II to another.

Scared to death scared to look… it’s similar to Vietnam… if I die, I couldn’t choose a better location… when the slugs penetrate… feel a burning sensation… getting closer to god…

I talked lots to the clouds.

I felt that I had beside me both my Devil and my Ancestor.

I felt like I was the only one who could tolerate this much pain.

I had a brief conversation with the Other, but the anger that I had in my dream had died – I was forgiving all those who hurt me and most importantly myself and all my voices.

I wished that if my heart stopped right there and then that my wishes would continue to live on, and that the positivity that I was feeling would live beyond me. And I suppose this is the duality of man, both darkness and light coexist, and extreme duress can activate one or the other. In the past year I knew only my Satan, but the total pain I was feeling had brought out a balance in me.

My brain continued to melt: I am white… I am a fucking bum… I do live in a trailer with my mom… I did get jumped… by all six of you chumps… and Wink did fuck my girl… I’m still standing here screaming fuck the free world… but I know something about you… you went to a Cranbrook that’s a private school… your real name is Clarence… living the life that of diamonds and guns… there ain’t no such things as half way crooks…

I really resisted any temptation to rush the last kilometre, because I knew that I would not last. Only when I was 60 meters away did I give it my all. I ran as fast as I could and in my head I imagined that I must look quite good.

The videos show something else: a possessed maniac that is running towards you, and not away.

Post Race Recovery

I felt a great sense of euphoria after the race, as one would, but something more permanent changed. It certainly feels like a part of me was killed, a part of me died and a part of me I killed myself.

This “death” coincided with two major stressors of my life vanishing in less than 24 hours, giving me space to remember who I really am. I’ve now been feeling as light as a feather, and for the first time, maybe ever, truly understand my dad’s wisdom of “don’t take it hard”.

I have a lot of energy and I feel a strong desire to connect with the world around me. I feel like I am in a state of absorbing energy from my surroundings but also radiating it back. Perhaps one day science will explain this feeling.

The Pessimist in me believes that this is a temporary phase, but the Emotional voice, that has learnt to pick up on the most subtle changes in my body, recognises a permanent shift.

Regardless of who is correct, I’m very excited to ride this headspace.

1. Example: a half-Ironman ↩︎
2. I say re-learn because even though my dad taught me how to swim from the age of 3, my technique had lots to be desired. I was generally fit prior to the start of my training, easily able to run or bike for long distance, but I could not swim past 25 meters! Luckily a few YouTube videos and my colleague Joe who’d learnt swimming somewhat recently got me going. ↩︎