Matthew Germain: Ironman

I’m one month postpartum, and from before I even had Iris, my main goal for the one month mark was to be healed and fit enough to “Sherpa” Matt’s Ironman with three kids. This meant taking it really easy while also getting to work on reconnecting with my core ASAP. Since I had so much knowledge from prior experience, my physical body has healed better than any other pregnancy and as a result I was able to walk all over town, and manage the kids while supporting my Ironman. I did not do this alone, though! Special thanks to Jeff, Jack, Chris, Frank, Sarah, Mandy and Matt’s coach Cyle for supporting Matt and/or me during the event! Each person served a key role in making the day a positive and memorable experience.

My husband is no longer on social media so I took it upon myself, with his permission, to share his story. In this blogpost I took the multi-part instagram posts and combined them so they are all together in one spot and so he can access and share with a link if he wants (also professional photos came in and I was too impatient to wait for them when I shared on Instagram so I want to rectify that with this post!)

I’m so proud of him and all he’s overcome and accomplished. The Ironman is just the physical representation of the depth of the well he is willing to go to for the things, and people, he cares about.

​We are beyond lucky.

Prerace Reflection

After my miscarriages when Matt and I discussed trying for a baby one last time, he thought his goal of doing an Ironman was probably not going to happen. But I had just taken the absolute craziest Road to Boston, and he supported me every step of the way…(even when it felt like we were gambling our whole life savings on a Hail Mary trip to a Wyoming for botox …. Which actually worked!)… so I encouraged him to sign up for Lake Placid and told him we’d figure it out...

I was an absolute anxious mess most of pregnancy which made him uneasy leaving me for long stretches of the the day training for multiple disciplines. But, if there was **one thing** I could give back to him for all the support he gave me in the last years and months while I was at my absolute lowest, it was holding the fort down for his blocks of training. When he got home, though, he would immediately shoulder the rest of the load because this pregnancy was really hard for me.. mentally and physically.

I’d like to say it was a team effort, but I only had the bandwidth for the bare minimum. He did it ALL; cooking nearly every dinner, mowing the lawn, making sure the girls had their lunches made for school, reading stories for bedtime and homework because I had reached my “teaching quota” for the day… he made sure to get up early enough that he didn’t miss seeing the girls and I go to school.. and stayed up late to pretend to enjoy my crap TV choices so I didn’t sit by myself. He also got a promotion during this time to the Regional Sales Director for the brand On, which everyone now knows about in part due to his hard work for the last 7 years. He only missed three workouts the entire time, and one was the day Iris was born.

He’s been stronger than a rock for us, he’s been Iron. The goal is obviously to finish… but to us he’s already an Ironman.

The Swim: 2.4 miles

Completing an Ironman is a huge achievement for anyone, but it’s been extra inspiring to watch Matt make progress.

Maybe we should have done this before signing up, but after he registered, the first thing we did was check the cutoff time for the swim with one very pivotal question: Could he make it? The cutoff was 2 hours and 20 minutes. Matt couldn’t swim more than a couple lengths of the pool in what looked like the equivalent of a child trying to transition from doggy paddle to freestyle for the first time.

Many people don’t know, but Matt has a physical disability. When he was three years old he was involved in an accident that almost cost him his life. He required record breaking time under anesthesia, blood transfusions, skin and vein grafts; months and months of surgeries and overnight stays. Fortunately, especially for us, he didn’t lose his life, but instead lost significant function of his left arm limiting his extension to 90 degrees. Additionally, he lost three fingers and the ability to bend his index finger. This puts him at quite a disadvantage in the swim which was the first task.

So Matt started showing up at the pool regardless of any deep seated insecurity that came to the surface. He watched hours of tutorials, asked questions, and opened up about his limitations so people could trouble shoot with him. He did endless drills, swam in open water alone, in the rain, with my mom, and even with manatees with his coach in Florida. He was committed and started coming home excited about the progress he was making… even though he was still (self proclaimed) “slow”

So many sports require eccentric contraction of the arms and the full use of hands, but running does not. It’s always been a perfect sport for him but at 40 years old he has no performance goals left and it gets draining to always be be slowing down.

Trying something new at 40 is terrifying for anyone, but even with all the barriers, Matt “jumped in feet first” and far exceeded the original goal of 2:20 with a time of 1:34, inspiring all of us that watched him progress, me especially, to put our egos aside and never be afraid to do something new.

Even if we’re slow.

The Bike: 112 miles

Matt is pretty strong on the bike. Anytime we went for a drive anywhere in a 20 mile radius of his childhood home, so many landmarks were paired with a memory of him riding there, with his late father, as a kid.

He always talks about riding bikes like it was his first love. As he grew, being asymmetrical on the bike for so long was causing back pain, so his dad made a big investment into a custom bike with uneven handlebars to accommodate his arm, but his legs eventually outgrew the frame. It wasn’t going to work for 112 miles.

Matt was fortunate enough to acquire a bike from a friend who had recently upgraded and was having trouble selling his bike since the frame is so large. Matt may not be 6’5” but this frame was perfect for his 36” inseam. We were able to get it fitted by the best of the best in New Jersey to make it more comfortable for him. Problem solved, right?

Wrong.

My biggest worry for him was always fuel. He struggle with nutrition in “just” the marathon, if he couldn’t nail nutrition on the bike there was no coming back.

As training intensified and rides got longer, Matt started finding out fueling was going to be harder than just absorption. He couldn’t reach down with his left arm because it didn’t extend far enough, but also couldn’t reach down with his right arm because he didn’t have a the grip or correct center of gravity with his left hand; triathlon bikes aren’t known for their stability!

He had to trial and error a lot of different bottles and fueling options, and had to rig things up a bit differently. Even still, it wasn’t going to be enough. There were plenty of aid stations on the course, however they posed the same problem with his reach and grip. As competitive as he is, he came to the very difficult conclusion that the best option was to pull over and stop.

We’re very competitive people and spent years in the running community feeling like stopping meant failure, but stopping and quitting are not the same.

Matt averaged about 17.5 MPH with almost 7,000 ft of gain including his 6 stops. He placed 509 for the bike section out of 1,644. A huge improvement over his swim, which he was 1,428th

If you need to stop, stop.
Just don’t quit

The Run: 26.2

The most fit Matt has ever been for a Marathon was in the pre-super shoe era, 2012, when he trained to run sub 2:30 at the Boston Marathon.

It’s extremely rare for everything to go perfectly in a marathon build, but Matt had one of those magical blocks of training that we all wish for.

The downside of this is that he didn’t learn flexibility, so when the weather report indicated a high of 91, he lacked the ability to adjust his goal, struggled to absorb fuel in the heat, and was pulled off the course with less than a mile to go.

Shattered.

A DNF in the biggest race for a sport he had no limitations in after a lifetime of trying to prove he was physically able, cut deep. Really deep. A gash you may never recover from.

Struggling with fuel in became a theme in the next decade of marathoning. The day I stood on Hereford monitoring the tracker and checking stretcher after stretcher to see if it was him was seared in my memory as a reminder of how dangerous it could be, so although running was the discipline we should feel most confident in, I was WORRIED.

He came by our tent at at mile 2 and 10 of the run. His splits were around 9:00/mi; much slower than he hoped, but he looked good!
But I saw him again at mile 14, he requested a gingerale for stomach distress with 12 miles to go. Shit.

I wouldn’t get to see him again until the finish. A feeling I knew too well, I anxiously waited for the tracker to ping:

Mile 16- 10:48
18.6- 12:44

Oh no. No!

Visions of him not recognizing me at Boston 2012 came over me as I looked at my newborn and girls who had no idea that their dad might be in danger.

12:44? At this stage, you can’t come back from that. Can you? I played it cool and waited for the next updates.

21.2- 10:20
23.7- 9:41
25.1- 8:55

What!??!
How!!?
How did he turn it around?!

RELIEF!
I sobbed waiting for him to arrive.

He came bursting into the Olympic oval like he was running a damn 5k!

FINISH: 7:54!

I don’t know exactly what happened. He hasn’t been able to articulate the place he went to and how he came out the other side, but all the demons from Boston 2012 and from a childhood as the kid who was “good at sports, considering…” were slayed.

“Matthew Germain, you are an IRONMAN!”