“Shouldn’t these guys know each other?” worked its way around my thoughts as I looked back and forth between my two teammates. As it turned out, they didn’t. Instead, the most random of relay teams was forming on the spot. I was about to be reminded how the unexpected can change everything, even if only for a short moment.
A few weeks previous I received an email from a friend asking if I’d be willing to fill in as runner for a relay team. I’d be racing with two complete strangers. I’ve raced the Kingston Triathlon in the past, but hadn’t signed up this year, this being the year of my early retirement from racing. It is such a beautiful location, and I knew I needed to get myself moving again, so I agreed. Craig, fresh off his first Ironman and still riding the post race high, was to swim, and Dan (some alleged horse of a biker) was to ride. I was expected to slog along to the finish line. With a fill-in runner, neither Craig nor Dan expected us on the podium.
I met Craig at transition. He had just stopped by Dan’s house to pick up his gear as Dan was planning on riding to the race in order to loosen up his legs. The transition area was really filling up and everyone was getting into their wetsuits. Craig and I anxiously looked at one another and wondered, “Where’s Dan?” The idea that “He really must have had some trouble if he’s this late,” wasn’t a satisfactory explanation for our situation. Every rider who rolled their bike into the transition was momentarily Dan. The truth, however, was that the start was minutes and we didn’t have a rider or even a bicycle. Softly, I heard, “Does anyone know where team 814 is?” I turned and saw a guy pushing a loaded touring bike as he made his way along the racks toward us. By loaded, I mean the whole deal: huge bag on the front and bulging panniers on each side of the rear wheel. It didn’t seem promising when I failed to see a spark of recognition in Craig’s eyes. Moreover, looking at the man’s bike, I thought to myself, “Great, he might as well be riding a recumbent… This is our rider?” He wasn’t…yet.
Ben, not Dan, stood before us and he had brought company. Another man dressed more for a long day in the saddle instead of a triathlon. Ben hurriedly tried to explain what was going on, but nothing made sense. Dan wasn’t coming, but he could ride for us…he and his friend were touring around Lake Ontario…Dan wasn’t coming. My mind was swimming. So would Craig in just a few moments. We quickly tried to piece together that Ben and his friend had stopped to check on a guy with a flat. It was Dan, and he wasn’t going to make it. They had offered to be his messengers and for some reason, Ben was now willing to ride for us. The swimmers were getting in the water. Ben said “I can only do 30k, but I’ll ride if you want me to.” The distance was 56k and Craig and I looked at each other thinking “What, he thinks someone else can just finish the rest?” As it turned out, he was telling us what to expect for KPH. We knew that he was ready to ride the distance. Craig and I nodded to each other and it was settled. Craig headed off to swim, and I was left to meet my new teammate.
Ben told me that when they had come upon Dan, he had just flatted for the third time and was a mess. He wasn’t going to get to the starting line and he knew it. Even if he got a ride, he was at a place in his mind that we’ve all visited before, and the return trip takes some time. He was absolutely and irreversibly frustrated. A friend once told me how he’d come upon a man in a in a similar state of mind sitting in a Volkswagen nearly to the top of a steep hill in San Francisco. Apparently, he had burned out his clutch and now could only stare straight ahead and repeatedly shout the F-bomb to no one. A Nascar pit crew materializing out of nowhere couldn’t have made him snap out of it. He was done and no one could have talked him down. This is how I imagine Dan at the point when the two riders stopped for him. Ben and his friend said that they would deliver the bad news and rode off. At some point, Ben’s buddy said something that must have sparked Ben’s inner triathlete. “Why don’t you race it?” They turned around, took Dan’s number and here they were.
I learned that Ben was starting out on a trip to ride around Lake Ontario. This was the last of the Great Lakes on his list and the trek was to last somewhere around ten days. The previous day they had ridden about 200 kilometers and had woken up planning to ride about 150 or so today. First, however, the two of them would ride to Kingston to see the start of the K-Town Tri. Now, here he was getting body markings and stripping the heavy packs from his bike’s racks. Ben explained to me that he figured that he could tack on an extra 56k while his friend (who was recovering from some health issues) did some sightseeing. He told me that he was 56 years old and retired from General Motors. “Retired?” I thought, “He doesn’t look a day over 40!” He also let me know about his artificial hip. These were bits of information which would have surprised me on their own, but were shocking to me in sum.
Before I knew it, Craig was out of the water. We wrapped the timing chip around Ben’s ankle, pointed him towards the transition exit, and he was on his way, leaving Craig and me to wonder how this had all happened. I filled him in on what I had learned during the first leg of the race. Craig seemed more amazed than I. I spent some time trying to do some metric conversions in order to figure out how long our newly minted teammate might take. Two hours, two-fifteen? I had no idea what to expect. Our rider was a retired stranger with a bionic hip and was just “Getting in” a third of the kilometers he had scheduled for the day. As it was, we shouldn’t have worried.
One hour and forty-seven minutes later, Ben and his artificial hip RAN his bike through transition. He had that wild look of intensity which you often see in the eyes of those who race. A mixture of exhaustion and exhilaration that is impossible to fake. Although his real love was touring, here he was at this moment, a racer. I took the chip and ran.
My part of this story isn’t important. Neither is Craig’s. Triathlon is what we do, and we usually know what to expect and how we’ll feel. In some way, perhaps, that’s the reason for my taking a year off. Triathletes love routines and predictability. We practice laying out our towels and transition gear before races. We visualized every part of every event we enter. We meet challenges and changes as they arise, but the “Expected” is what holds it all together for us. Ben, on the other hand, allowed a sequence of events sparked by his initial concern for a fellow cyclist and an offhand comment from a friend to morph into something unexpected and beautiful: a spontaneous desire to compete, if only for about two hours’ time. He made a decision and his scheduled plans were thrown by the wayside and replaced by the thrill of the unknown. Do we all have the ability to take that leap and accept the consequences? In the long run, I think that I have learned that it may be worth it to take that chance.
I imagine that at some point, shortly after the high fives, the taking of pictures, and the exchange of emails, Ben unconsciously became a touring cyclist once again. He continued his loop around Lake Ontario knowing that he carried a K-Town “Competitor” t-shirt tucked in one of his packs, a cell phone picture as proof, and one hell of a story to tell about his day at the races.