The Day Before

There’s always something surreal about the day before a race. Maybe it’s nerves, maybe it’s not. It feels more like being suspended between two worlds. I’m here, but I’m also somewhere else... awake and asleep at the same time.

I watched people paddling laps in a tiny hotel pool with their swim caps on, like they were afraid they’d forget how to do it by morning. Others moved with that effortless confidence, the godlike ones...powerful, carved, imposing. They made me wonder why I was here. Or maybe someone looked at me and wondered the same thing.

The desert added its own strange energy. Dust and wind. Hot and cool in the same breath. Electricity in the air like the moment right before a storm breaks, calm and not calm all at once.

Race Morning

Race morning was cold, dark, and dusty. Traffic into the parking area was so backed up that I reached T1 with barely thirty minutes before it closed. Thankfully, almost everything was set up the night before.

I noticed an old friend racked right next to me. We exchanged a few words, but he was on another level entirely. He went on to finish 3rd in his age group (Hell yeah brother). The silver lining? By the time I came in from the swim, he was long gone, and I had space to work.

The 58° water was a shock. More people than I expected panicked and had to be pulled out. The first 500 yards were nearly blind. The sun rising directly in front of us, goggles fogging instantly from the cold. I had to flip onto my back just to clear them.

The water was clean but strangely milky in the light. My feet went numb early, and I had that quiet fear that if something cramped, I might be in trouble. It never happened. Once I felt the lake bottom under my feet, I ran.

T1 was slow, confusing, and the wetsuit peelers I was told about seemed to vanish. Not elegant, but done.

The Bike

Five minutes into the bike, the day took its first unexpected turn. I was trying a new between-the-arms bottle mount...more aero, supposedly better. I hit a bump, and the bottle ejected like it had something to prove. It shattered on the pavement.

Half my calories, gone.

Not a catastrophe, but a quiet, persistent gut punch. You can’t help doing the math:
That was 300 calories. That was sodium. That was part of the day I planned.

The bike course itself was beautiful. Wide open desert, mountains framing the horizon, long stretches of mostly flat road. The pavement had that familiar rhythm. Smooth, bump, smooth, bumpy, but nothing technical, but plenty to torch my legs. No real breaks, no decisive climbs. Just honest speed.

Despite the early nutrition loss, I was still moving well over 21 mph for most of the ride. One section cut through a race track in La Quinta, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do there. The roads were pristine, and I wanted to extract every bit of speed they’d give me. So I stayed tucked. Deep. Still.

For fifteen to twenty minutes, I skipped nutrition entirely just to stay aero and keep the speed above 22 mph. I was alone for most of that stretch...no wheels to chase, no distractions. Somewhere in there, I slipped into a flow state. Everything outside my peripheral vision blurred away. Everything straight ahead snapped into 4K clarity. The world went quiet.

The bike was fast, but not free. Cold pockets, warm pockets. Nothing ever fully settled. And even in the smoothest moments, I knew the cost would catch up to me later.

T2 — Resetting

Coming into T2 behind schedule, low on nutrition, and a little scattered, I made a decision I’d never made before: I didn’t rush.

It was half discipline, half disappointment. My support crew saw me take longer than usual and looked worried, but this was necessary. Reset or unravel.

The Run

And then I started running.

Every one of the 26,000 steps I took hurt. The undulating golf course terrain punished every muscle fiber. The voice in my head begged me to stop, and for the first time in a long time… I almost listened.

But I remembered something I’ve learned over the years:
My body can go deeper than my mind wants to let it.

So I said it out loud:

“It’s just pain. You can keep going. You are safe. And you are NOT walking today.”

That was the line in the sand.

And despite the suffering, the last six miles were faster than the first six.
Not fast.
But unbroken.

The Finish Line

In the final half mile, I emptied whatever was left. My watch flashed a sub-8 pace. I heard people calling my name, but some voices were missing this time. I kept my eyes forward.

In the food tent, my mom handed me her phone. My wife was on the line. Hearing her voice cracked something open. I had to earn this day, inch by inch, and the emotion finally caught up.

Kenny, my sherpa for the day, stayed through the long, chaotic aftermath. Over two hours waiting for gear bags that hadn’t arrived yet. I told him I wished I’d raced faster.

He replied, calm and simple:

“It doesn’t matter.”

And he was right.

What matters are these days.
These experiences.
The people who show up for you, even when you struggle to show up for yourself.

Sometimes they carry you the last few miles.
And that’s worth more than a medal, a podium, or a finish time.