One More Step

by Bonner Paddock

  “It’s the least important,” Welchy advised after my admission that I hadn’t done all my homework. “After all, mate, if you can’t finish the swim and bike, then who needs the run anyway?”

  In August, I geared up for my first race, the Pacific Coast Triathlon. It was a sprint-distance race, the easiest of the triathlons. It didn’t sound so easy to me: a 0.5-mile swim, 16-mile bike, and 5K run. A few weeks before the race, Welchy finally told me I was ready for a real bike and gave me the address of Billy Ruddell, the Cannondale marketing director in the West. Cannondale was sponsoring me, thanks to Welchy’s efforts on my behalf.

  The next day, I drove up to Billy’s house in Los Angeles, keen to avoid another session on the RevMaster. A former motocross rider, Billy radiated fearlessness through every inch of his five-foot-five frame. In his garage he pointed to two Cannondale road-racing bikes. To me, they looked roughly the same.

  Billy pointed to one: “That’s the Ferrari,” he said. “And that’s the Honda Accord, but it’ll be more comfortable for you.”

  On each bike he showed me how to shift the gears and adjust the seat height. Both had clip pedals, but I was wearing flip-flops. Billy wanted me to give them a try anyway.

  “If you crash, you crash.”

  I climbed onto the Ferrari first. It weighed almost nothing, and as I rolled down Billy’s driveway and onto the street, I felt every bump in the pavement.

  “There’s movement now,” I cheered, so happy to be on a real bike that actually rolled.

  I struggled to change the gears and to balance my flip-flops on the clips, but it was a thrill. I tried the Honda Accord next. It felt more solid underneath me, and the fit, Billy advised, was better for me.

  “Learn on this,” he smiled. “Then we’ll go with the Ferrari.”

  That night, I shuffled out to my garage in my clip-on shoes, excited to get out there on the road and a little scared to be locked into the pedals with the clips. Welchy had told me, “There are only two types of people who ride bikes. Those who have crashed, and those who are about to crash.” There was a lesson in life in that statement somewhere, but I was too focused on staying upright on my bike to get it.

  Outside, I straddled my new Cannondale Synapse, slipped the sole of my left shoe into the left clip, and then pushed off the pavement a couple of times with my right foot before securing it as well. Now attached to the bike, I pedaled forward and shot down the street like an arrow, the wind rushing past. I promised myself I would never get back on the Yellow Beast again.

  I did what Billy suggested for my first outing and stayed in my neighborhood. It was good advice, particularly since my stability on the bike was tentative at best. I had enough trouble looking behind me to see if traffic was coming, never mind taking a hand off the bars to scratch my nose without losing my balance. I was nervous about stopping, because then I would have to pull the balls of my feet out of the clips before I tipped over onto the pavement. This would be a challenge for any able-bodied new rider. With me, with my equilibrium issues and pigeon toes, it was an ordeal. Nonetheless, I returned to my garage unscathed.

  A couple of days later, on my first ride outside my neighborhood, I almost crashed headlong into a $200,000 Bentley that cut me off on a turn. Coming to an abrupt stop, I locked up my back tire and barely managed to free one foot from its clip before falling over. Maybe the RevMaster wasn’t so bad.

  While I was mastering the bike, I also needed to prepare for my half-mile ocean swim. “Get out there in the Pacific,” Welchy told me. It was one thing to body surf and tread around in the water by the shore. It was another to swim far outside the break line for long distances.

  I definitely didn’t want to be out there by myself, so I did something I hadn’t done in a long time: I called my older brother and asked for his help.

  “Will you swim with me?” I asked Mike.

  “When?”

  In late August, two weeks before the sprint-distance triathlon, my brother and I parked on the Pacific Coast Highway and headed down the steps to West Beach—Bompa’s beach. I was nervous, both about the swim ahead and about having Mike beside me for it. It was not because of his ability as a swimmer. Mike was a beast in the water, and there was nobody I trusted more in the ocean. We had met several times since Easter, but I was not yet confident that the “old Mike”—the one who didn’t show for my Kilimanjaro training, the one who disappeared for long stretches without a warning or call—was really gone for good.

  On the beach—me in my spanking new TYR wet suit, Mike in casual board shorts—we went over the plan. It was just as Bompa had taught us: we would swim north first, against the current, so that when we were coming back, tired, we would have the current with us. Mike, who had once been a lifeguard on this very beach, told me that the key to ocean swimming was orienting yourself to a point along the coast. Every ten strokes, he wanted me to raise my head, to make sure I was on the right line. He advised me to stay relaxed. The tighter I was, the more uncomfortable I felt, the harder I would need to work.

  “Surreal that we’re here,” I said. “On this beach.”

  “Bompa taught us here,” Mike replied.

  With a lump in our throats, we pulled on our goggles, waited on the edge of the surf for a calm stretch of waves, and then swam out past the break. For a minute, we bobbed in the water. I pointed out Camel Point cliff, about a half mile away.

  “Try to maintain the same distance between us and the beach,” Mike said. “Who do you want to lead?”

  “You.”

  “I’ll swim slightly ahead and to the side of you. Okay?”

  On my nod, Mike took off like a torpedo.

  Not two minutes into the swim, I was struggling. My goggles had fogged up. I couldn’t see anything but the bubbles from Mike’s wake, and with no little black lines to follow, the ocean swells tossed me back and forth, and the current pushed back against me. Soon I was breathing heavily. I felt absolutely rigid in the water.

  Finally, I slowed to a halt, and Mike and I treaded water as I tried to clear my goggles. During the thousands of times I had been in the ocean, the ocean I loved, I had never felt so uncomfortable. First, we were far out past the break, where I usually stayed to body surf, and this left me on edge. Second, there was no way to orient myself unless I looked up, and each time I did that I lost my rhythm and balance in the water. As it was with my CP, rhythm and balance were not my strong suit. Then add in the rolls of the waves, the ocean current, the salty water, and the fogged goggles. All this—and I was trying to concentrate on each element of my stroke, pushing my brain (which, given my faulty wiring, was never good at multitasking) into overload. I was in deep trouble.

  “Settle down,” Mike said, his voice calm, easy. He sounded as if he was taking a dip in the baby pool.

  I grunted.

  “Relax.”

  We set off again. I kept reminding myself to ease up, to relax, and this helped for the first few strokes. But then when I next raised my head to spot Camel Point, the waves were too high to see it. I kept swimming, my goggles fogging up yet again. A swell rolled me over while I was taking a breath, and I swallowed some seawater. Frustrated, tiring, I fought my way ahead. My hand hit something in the water, and I freaked. It was only some floating kelp, but it heightened my awareness of how vulnerable I was out in the ocean. Finally, we reached the halfway point and stopped for a break. As we bobbed in the water, I tried to pull myself together. This wasn’t some lane in the pool. This was the real deal.

  “How do you feel?” Mike asked.

  “Not good.”

  “You’re kind of weaving back and forth like a big snake.”

  “Okay.”

  “Pick a spot to track to for the way back.”

  “Table Rock,” I said, pointing to a stretch of coast to the south.

  “Try to relax more, and you lead,” Mike said.

  I gave him a thumbs-up and then began. Swimming with the current now, I felt my body gliding easil
y through the water, and my stroke eased. Then Mike caught up with me.

  “You’re way off,” he said.

  I looked toward Table Rock Point, then toward the beach. I had veered off course big-time. My zigzagging was adding a lot of distance to the swim.

  “If you go off course, I’ll tap you on one foot or the other, depending,” Mike said.

  “Let’s go.”

  Every couple of minutes or so, Mike tapped me on the foot, usually my left one, as my dominant side was pulling me toward the shore. It was reassuring to know that he was leading me in the right direction, but I grew frustrated at being unable to keep a line. With a third of the way to go before we were at the beach, we stopped yet again.

  “Follow my feet, close,” Mike said. He promised that, over time, I would get a feel for what was straight. My body would know it.

  An hour after starting, we emerged from the water and toweled off. I was mad at myself, and Mike was quiet. After hiking back up to our cars, we settled on a place to have lunch and rehash the swim. As I stared at my food, my frustration with the swim felt palpable. Swimming had been the one thing I thought I would be the most comfortable with in the Ironman, but my inability to relax, stick to a straight line, orient myself, keep my balance, and maintain a good rhythm—all of it was deeply unsettling.

  Finally Mike spoke, saying he wished he had the secret answer for me to become a better ocean swimmer, but there wasn’t one. It would take time.

  Looking up at him, I could see how much he wanted to help, and for the first time since I’d emerged from the ocean, my body started to relax.

  For a while we talked about his life, mostly about his unhappy relationship and the intensity and isolation of his day trading. He wanted a new direction in both his love life and career, but felt stuck in both.

  After we paid the check, I asked him. “Are you free next weekend?”

  “Yeah, definitely.”

  “Do this again? A swim and lunch?”

  “Yes. I’m here for you on this. Anything you need.”

  There was such determination in the way he said it—particularly compared to all the other uncertainty in his life—that I knew he would be true to the promise.

  First time?” asked the stocky triathlete next to me. It was September 11, 2011, and I was struggling in the dark to get my bike in the rack before the start of the Pacific Coast Triathlon.

  “What made you guess?” I asked.

  He laughed.

  It didn’t take a genius, given that I was the only one out there without a headlamp, bumbling around, not sure where to put anything, and carrying a Macy’s paper bag for my bike shoes, running shoes, goggles, towel, wet suit, and BodyGlide.

  “Nice suit,” remarked another racer.

  “Thanks,” I said, feeling a little embarrassed about my TYR Cat 5 Hurricane wet suit.

  “New bike!” whistled another, checking out my Cannondale Synapse road bike. Welchy had done a fine job of setting me up with some amazing sponsors who had supplied me with top-of-the-line gear.

  Everybody around me was talking about other races they had competed in recently. None of them ever spoke about winning or losing. Rather, it was all talk about target times and personal bests/records (PRs). A lot of it sounded foreign to me. I was definitely the rookie. A few of the guys helped me set up my bike, commenting again on the high-end gear. I tried to explain.

  “It’s my first triathlon. I’m shooting to do Kona Ironman in 2012.”

  “Really?” one asked, in disbelief.

  “That’s the goal. This stuff is from my sponsors.”

  “Your sponsors?”

  Now I had them confused. “I want to be the first person with cerebral palsy to do Kona Ironman.”

  “Oh!” was the collective response.

  They were nice guys. One of them helped me zip up the back of my wet suit after I finally squirmed my way into it. The suit felt three sizes too small.

  We walked down the hill to Crystal Cove Beach in Newport Coast, and as I looked at the triathletes around me, it was hard not to get swept up into thinking about how I’d fare in comparison. Ever since I was a little kid, I had been supercompetitive, but it was clear from looking at the trim, hardened bodies around me that I was outclassed in every way. My original goal had been to finish the sprint triathlon in less than two hours, but now, my nerves intensifying with every second, I just wanted to finish.

  Sand cold on my feet, I pulled my swim cap over my head. It felt so tight that I thought it was going to squeeze my brains out of my ears. Certainly, it made me a little light-headed. Maybe I should have eaten more than a PowerBar for breakfast, I thought. Amateur.

  Easy, Bonner. Easy.

  With the others in my age group, I headed to the shoreline and up to the water for the start. Then the gun blasted, and we were off. The first hundred yards was a thrashing, ugly mess of arms and legs. I kept bumping into people. They kept hitting my feet and sides. I felt as though I was in a moshpit, hurled back and forth. Finally, I freed myself from the mass of swimmers and found some rhythm with my stroke. I swam near the outside, nice and calm, and began picking people off on my right, my competitive drive kicking in hard. The two outings with Mike, particularly the one in this same cove the previous week, helped with my orientation.

  I finished the half mile in twelve minutes, feeling strong. Striding up the hill from the beach, I tried to pull down the string on my wetsuit’s zipper, but the sucker wouldn’t budge. When I managed to get it down, the wetsuit itself wouldn’t come off. Once again, I twisted, yanked, and squirmed to free myself. Racer after racer jogged past me up the hill, and the sight of them made me try even harder to get moving onto the bike course. At the top of the hill, I finally got the wet suit down to my waist. In the transition area, I tossed it into my paper bag, which quickly fell apart, dropping my gear out the bottom. Brilliant move, Bonner. Paper? Seriously?

  I sat down to put on my shoes and realized I didn’t have any water to wash my feet free of the sand from the beach. My fellow triathletes had plastic containers full of water for that purpose. When I stood in my clip-on shoes, I felt off balance and suddenly very tired. After another couple of minutes trying to put my bike jersey on over wet skin, I was exhausted. Finally a guy from a later wave pulled it down for me. Ugh!

  Although I had finished the swim in good time, the transition area was almost empty when I finally climbed onto my bike. At this point, the stress and strain had worn me out. I hit the first hill in the lowest gear, barely moving as my feet spun on the pedals. Anybody who had been behind me now seemed far ahead on the section of the Pacific Coast Highway that was closed off for the race. Any rhythm I did find was constantly broken by the up-and-down course. The hills were killing me, and I would have summited faster on all fours. Over an hour later, legs weak, shoulders tight, I entered the transition area again. This time I only needed to change my shoes, thank God, since I was in no shape for another wrestling match with my gear.

  Now for the 5K run—or jog, or walk. As I settled into my stride, I was surprised to discover that I felt okay. Sure I was tired and hungry, but I wasn’t crawling. My fifteen-minute miles were nothing to boast about, but they were forward progress. Approaching the finish, I high-fived Greg LeFever, who had come out to support me, and then I kicked it into high gear. Exhausting everything I had left in the tank, I crossed the line in one hour, fifty-three minutes—seven minutes under my target goal.

  Sure, I had bumbled my way through the transition areas. Sure, I needed to do a lot more hill training on my bike, as I had really struggled on the ascents, my legs burning, my balance uneven. Sure, I should have eaten more before—and during—the race. Sure, there was still a long way to go, but all in all it was a great first race. Later that night, on the phone, Welchy congratulated me. The time had come, he told me, to head to Hawaii for the 2011 Kona Ironman.

  A week before flying out to Kona, Mike and I met for another swim in the ocean and lunch afterwa
rd. I was telling him about the upcoming trip and about how Welchy wanted me to train on every part of the course while there for ten days.

  “Who’s going with you?” Mike asked.

  “Solo,” I said.

  “Really? Don’t you think you’ll need help? Are you going to swim alone? How are you going to get your bike from place to place? What if something happens?”

  To be honest, I hadn’t even thought about those things.

  Mike gave me a look and laughed.

  He was right. I would need help. A lot of it.

  “I could come,” Mike said. “I need a break.”

  A week later, October 1, we were struggling to roll my hard-plastic bike case to the check-in desk at LAX. The sucker was big enough to hold a pair of dead bodies, and its four wheels rolled like thunder across the terminal floor. I realized already how much I was going to need Mike. We arrived at Kailua-Kona airport on the Big Island of Hawaii and faced another battle with the same bike case when we tried to maneuver it into our rental Jeep. Thank goodness it was so dark that nobody could see what a pair of bumbling fools we were.

  The next morning, we had a meeting with Welchy. We left our kitschy 1980s rental house a couple of miles south of the Kona town center and drove along the coast to the Oakley house. On the way we saw a number of swimmers cutting through the water beyond the surf. We also passed scores of triathletes biking and running on the side of the road, having arrived far in advance of the race to acclimatize themselves to the heat. They were all corded muscle, tanned skin, and flawless technique. Over the next ten days, there was probably no place on earth with a higher concentration of fit and trim human beings. And this included their supporters—wives and husbands, children, and friends—and the assembly of people who made their living from the competition.