I have THE best wife in the world! Olivier can say the same thing about his sister-in-law, but he didn't choose her... : )
She summarizes well the day
Well, David didn't get to finish the Ironman today.
He's well, in Frankfurt with his brother and the friends who joined him.
Recap:
The goal was to qualify for the World Championships in Hawaii, and in order to do that, he needed to finish in the top 15 of his age group (40-44)
The swim was great and David came out of the water 1st in his group and 18th overall with a swim time of 47.17 for 3.8 k swim.
Then came 180k biking. At the end of the biking, his time was 5:16:19 (5 hours, 16 minutes and 19 seconds of racing, including the swim). I think at that point he was 12th in his category, so all was well.
The kids and I went to church but I called Olivier (David's brother) to make sure things were going ok since we wouldn't be able to have news during the service.
After church, Olivier told me that David started the marathon run (42.2 k) without any problems. Now, the problem with a marathon is that if something goes wrong, information takes a while to get to spectators because of the size of the track. You see the runners once each time they run the circuit. Olivier was stationed at a specific spot during the footrace to keep track of David each time he came around. Online, I could track him at the various checkpoints because the athletes have an electronic band that signals the computer and logs in their times every 1-3 kilometers. I called Olivier again and he said last time he saw David (after the 3rd lap) he was not doing too well .
The kids and I tracked David's progress online and David had passed the 25.9k checkpoint but there was no progress noted online. I let it go because sometimes the electronic information is slow. After about 20 minutes I called Olivier to see if something was the matter. He told me David had called him, he was not well, he was on his way to find him and that David was with the doctors. I hung up right away so he could concentrate on making his way through the crowd to try and figure out where David was on the circuit.
The waiting was hard. I told the kids, that David had given up the race and was with the Doctors and that Olivier was looking for him and would call us when he had news.
I ended up falling asleep on the couch for about 2 hours and OF COURSE when David called, the call went directly to my voicemail. I woke up to find I had just missed his call by 10 minutes.
SO, I called David (no answer), then called Olivier. He had seen David and he looked ok and he was off picking up his bag and bike, etc. I asked him to have him David call me when he came back.
David called a few minutes later. He said that during the run, he began to feel nauseous every time he ate his energy bars or drank his energy drink. He stopped and walked a bit, but every time he tried to get nourishment to his body he felt ill and got dizzy. The only thing he could keep down was water. This type of endurance race requires that you continuously supply your body with small amounts of nutrients to keep you energy level up. With nothing but water in his body, he eventually had to stop at the medical tent because he had no strength. From what I understand, after resting a half hour in the tent they told him it was not an emergency but his choice was to have a perfusion or abandon. He still couldn't keep anything down so he decided to give up the race.
He said in hindsight, he doesn't regret not qualifying for the world championships, but regrets perhaps not resting an hour longer to see if he could have finished the race. We'll never know if that was even possible for him physically.
He is positive and said "I did my best which is all I can do". He told me that before the start of the race, there was a pastor who gave a short message and blessed the athletes and said "I can do anything in Christ". David said it brought him to tears. He cried again as he told me the story and of course I cried with him then, as I am again crying typing this to you.
The thought that Jesus is with us, no matter what we accomplish is overwhelming. To know that David can have a disappointment and tell me "I did my best" and be ok with that, after training for a year is great.
Maybe that is what God needed him to accomplish with this race.
Maybe his gift of physical ability was given so he could be a witness to others when plans don't work out the way we expect.
Maybe to be a positive role model for his non-believing friends that are with him today.
Or, maybe for David himself, to know that no matter what the effort, to trust that the outcome is what God wanted.
Maybe it was for me or the boys.
Who knows.
I do know that I am glad David is not hurt physically, is strong spiritually and he'll be home tomorrow.
We're so proud of him!
Love to all of you and have a great week!
Sandy
She summarizes well the day
Well, David didn't get to finish the Ironman today.
He's well, in Frankfurt with his brother and the friends who joined him.
Recap:
The goal was to qualify for the World Championships in Hawaii, and in order to do that, he needed to finish in the top 15 of his age group (40-44)
The swim was great and David came out of the water 1st in his group and 18th overall with a swim time of 47.17 for 3.8 k swim.
Then came 180k biking. At the end of the biking, his time was 5:16:19 (5 hours, 16 minutes and 19 seconds of racing, including the swim). I think at that point he was 12th in his category, so all was well.
The kids and I went to church but I called Olivier (David's brother) to make sure things were going ok since we wouldn't be able to have news during the service.
After church, Olivier told me that David started the marathon run (42.2 k) without any problems. Now, the problem with a marathon is that if something goes wrong, information takes a while to get to spectators because of the size of the track. You see the runners once each time they run the circuit. Olivier was stationed at a specific spot during the footrace to keep track of David each time he came around. Online, I could track him at the various checkpoints because the athletes have an electronic band that signals the computer and logs in their times every 1-3 kilometers. I called Olivier again and he said last time he saw David (after the 3rd lap) he was not doing too well .
The kids and I tracked David's progress online and David had passed the 25.9k checkpoint but there was no progress noted online. I let it go because sometimes the electronic information is slow. After about 20 minutes I called Olivier to see if something was the matter. He told me David had called him, he was not well, he was on his way to find him and that David was with the doctors. I hung up right away so he could concentrate on making his way through the crowd to try and figure out where David was on the circuit.
The waiting was hard. I told the kids, that David had given up the race and was with the Doctors and that Olivier was looking for him and would call us when he had news.
I ended up falling asleep on the couch for about 2 hours and OF COURSE when David called, the call went directly to my voicemail. I woke up to find I had just missed his call by 10 minutes.
SO, I called David (no answer), then called Olivier. He had seen David and he looked ok and he was off picking up his bag and bike, etc. I asked him to have him David call me when he came back.
David called a few minutes later. He said that during the run, he began to feel nauseous every time he ate his energy bars or drank his energy drink. He stopped and walked a bit, but every time he tried to get nourishment to his body he felt ill and got dizzy. The only thing he could keep down was water. This type of endurance race requires that you continuously supply your body with small amounts of nutrients to keep you energy level up. With nothing but water in his body, he eventually had to stop at the medical tent because he had no strength. From what I understand, after resting a half hour in the tent they told him it was not an emergency but his choice was to have a perfusion or abandon. He still couldn't keep anything down so he decided to give up the race.
He said in hindsight, he doesn't regret not qualifying for the world championships, but regrets perhaps not resting an hour longer to see if he could have finished the race. We'll never know if that was even possible for him physically.
He is positive and said "I did my best which is all I can do". He told me that before the start of the race, there was a pastor who gave a short message and blessed the athletes and said "I can do anything in Christ". David said it brought him to tears. He cried again as he told me the story and of course I cried with him then, as I am again crying typing this to you.
The thought that Jesus is with us, no matter what we accomplish is overwhelming. To know that David can have a disappointment and tell me "I did my best" and be ok with that, after training for a year is great.
Maybe that is what God needed him to accomplish with this race.
Maybe his gift of physical ability was given so he could be a witness to others when plans don't work out the way we expect.
Maybe to be a positive role model for his non-believing friends that are with him today.
Or, maybe for David himself, to know that no matter what the effort, to trust that the outcome is what God wanted.
Maybe it was for me or the boys.
Who knows.
I do know that I am glad David is not hurt physically, is strong spiritually and he'll be home tomorrow.
We're so proud of him!
Love to all of you and have a great week!
Sandy
1 comment:
Yes, I can say that I have the best sister in law in the world but don't tell her I said so!
You did great David, in many ways.
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