My name is Tommy Morrison.
Let me start with a little bit about myself. I am 47 years old. I live in Ashville, AL which is about 60 miles north of Birmingham. I am married and have a 9 year old son. I have struggled with my weight all my life pretty much, more so during my childhood years. Waterskiing was my passion since a teenager, and I skied a little at the collegiate level at Auburn University. After college the weight started creeping back up.
I have been over 200 lbs for the last 25 years. I was heaviest at 262 about 10 years ago and managed to shed 50 lbs doing Weight Watchers. Since then I have hovered around 225. I know I don't have it as bad as some folks, but I enjoy an active lifestyle and at times it keeps me from doing things I want to do.
I also suffered many years from a heart disorder known as Atrial Fibrillation, the first symptoms of which appeared in college, but was not diagnosed until 1995. It was chronic by this time and I found myself unable to do simple tasks such as climbing a flight of stairs without leaving me seeing stars, or feeling like I was going to pass out. Sometimes heavy lifting would start my heart racing like crazy and leave me short of breath. Waterskiing was definitely no longer part of my life and certainly not enjoyable when I tried.
The doctor who diagnosed my Afib sent me straight to a cardiologist, Dr. Michael McKinney of Cardiovascular Associates at Brookwood Hospital in Birmingham, AL. I had many tests done, including a nuclear stress test, and a heart catheterization procedure, because I have a family history of heart disease going back several generations. Good news was my arteries were ok. However they shut the treadmill down in less than 5 minutes. Over the years I was treated with different medications, and was on blood thinner due to the higher risk of having a stroke. Folks with Afib are 3 times more of a stroke risk. They even tried an eletrocardioversion where they shock your heart in an attempt to put it back into normal sinus rhythm. That didn't work either.
In 2006 I told Dr McKinney I had just about had enough. I was very depressed. Exercise was critical, and I knew the inability to do it would greatly shorten my life expectancy. I was at the point where I knew just treating the condition was becoming more ineffective, and I was wondering if it was going to get me.
My only son Quinn was 5 years old at the time. Being 43 and raising a 5 year old was always scary enough for a guy with heart disease in the family, but being 43 and having this problem made me worry even more so. I honestly could not imagine being around long enough to see him through college.
Dr. McKinney sat down with me and told me there was something they could try, but was more invasive, was relatively new, and that I should be an ideal candidate since most folks at the stage I was at are too old to tackle the recovery. It is called a Wolf Mini-Maze procedure, a heart surgery done through incisions on either side of the rib cage, less invasive than splitting the sternum. The first Mini-Maze procedure was done as recent as 2003. I was sent to a surgeon, Dr. Ronald Ronson in the same hospital. He was one of only 2 doctors in the State of Alabama who knew the procedure. He told me he had done only 12 before me! That was not so encouraging. He was the first doctor to tell me, very bluntly I might add, that I was not going to live as long if I didn't cure the Afib. I said let's do it. So we did, in November of 2006.
The recovery was not smooth. I could write a book about the recovery, but this is not the time. They deflate your lungs during the procedure, and I don't know why, but I could not breathe normally for months following the procedure. To make matters worse, my heart took off racing again on New Year's Eve. My pulse was over 120-140 and I did not sleep all night. First thing the next morning I drove myself 60 miles to the emergency room in Birmingham.
I was hospitalized again, and was told I was suffering from Atrial Flutter. A couple days later I underwent another procedure, an ablation, which put me back in sinus rhythm again. It was the happiest day of my life next to my son being born.
Though my lungs were still recovering well into the spring from the first procedure, we took a snow skiing trip to Steamboat Springs. I managed, but did not enjoy it very much. It was still too soon. But I was still so happy to be in normal sinus rhythm for the first time in years.
It was this year during 2007 that my best friend Gregg McAdams, whom I skied with in college, told me he was training for Ford Ironman Florida in November. I knew what an Ironman was but could not comprehend how he would do it. He's a fit guy, but he had never run more than 5 miles in his life. Besides, he is the tightest penny pincher on the planet, and I cracked up when he told me he paid $550 to sign up. Man I knew he must be serious then!
Fast forward to November 2007, the morning of Ford Iroman Florida. I woke up in north Alabama with him on my mind. I knew he was about to jump in the ocean and swim 2.4 miles. I put on my running shoes and headed to the track. I jogged 5 miles that morning. It was only the 3rd time in my life I had ever jogged that far. I figured if my buddy was going 140.6 miles for over 15 hours, the least my fat ass could do was jog for 1 hour. I went about the rest of my day just thinking about how his day was going, putting himself through probably the most physically demanding challenge I can think of. I spoke to him a couple of times on his cell phone during the race. I watched him finish on the webcast from my home PC. He finished in around 15.5 hours.
The following year he kept trying to talk me into doing a sprint, the WetDog triathlon in Decatur, AL. So I purchased a road bike that spring and started riding and swimming. In July '08 I completed my first sprint triathlon. It was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life. I did it again in 2009 and another sprint that year too. By this time Gregg was telling me I should sign up for IMF. Sure Gregg, I've done 3 sprints in my life. He would just tell me, "You can do it T Mar" (my nickname). I kept telling him the swim alone would get me if not the sharks. He would say, "The swim is the easiest part T Mar. Besides, you don't have to outrun the shark, just the guy next to you!" I didn't give it a second thought. I was not signing up for an Ironman. After all, Gregg had a half IM, and an Olympic distance under his belt prior to signing up for IMF.
Fast forward to November 2009. I am sitting at my PC at home with Gregg on the phone and 2 more friends of his on conference call. We’re all waiting for the online registration to open for IMF 2010. I did it. I signed up. Then I went down stairs and told my wife, "I am going to be an Ironman". I just spent $570 for a monkey on my back for the next 12 months!
That's not all I spent. When spring rolled around I purchased a Cervelo P2 bike. I was really committed now. I figured if I was going to go 112 miles on a bike I better be comfortable. I was taking the minimalist approach, doing a 13 week training program that would just get me to the finish line in less than 17 hours. But to do this I still had to get some prelim training in before summer. I was still in no shape to just jump into the 13 week program. I had some setbacks with injuries in January and March. I had planned on getting my running pace increased through some interval training, but then cracked a bone in my foot, and tore my calf. After all that healed, I couldn't afford another injury so I skipped the intervals at the track. I would just have to make the best of my 12 minute mile runs.
Every time I got off my bike from one of my long rides I would say, “There's no way I can go 112 miles!" But every week I went longer. It wasn't until my last long bike ride of 80 miles that I said to myself, "I may not finish the Ironman, but I can do the bike." The same thing happened after my last long swim which was only a mile. I knew I could do the swim that day, but not until that final long swim. Strange how it just jelled somehow. I was happy at just how far I had come and how much better I felt. I thanked God a lot during my training, for Him allowing me to ride this far, swim this far, just be healed from the Afib and having the quality of my life back. I had already won the race in my mind.
Race day November 6th, 2010. I'm up at 4 AM having my smoothie and water, and we are off to get our gear to the drop-off locations and body marking. I'm mostly nervous about the temperature. It was only 39 degrees and windy. I lost Gregg during the chaos but told him to meet me on the beach by the clock. The sand is really freezing cold on my feet and I am on the verge of shivering, but some of it was a case of the nerves too. As I stand by the clock and watch all of the people coming through, I see a lot of them overcome with emotion, crying. I must admit I was holding back myself. The day was here.
I could not find my wife and son. Gregg is not showing either. Am I going to start this day alone? I really felt I needed to see my wife and son, and felt jealous as I watched all the other athletes giving their last well wishes and hugs. The crowd is still thick with athletes trying to make it onto the beach. The gun has already sounded for the pro start. Finally Gregg appears and we go find his family for a couple of photos, and then our gun sounds.
The water feels sooo warm on my cold feet I can't wait to immerse myself in it. That eased my tension about the temperature immediately. Van Halen's Panama is now blasting on the PA and nothing else could have gotten my adrenaline any higher. I have played guitar since I was 17, and EVH is my guitar hero. Man I was pumped! Gregg and I walk into the water and wished each other luck, and off we went.
I don't know how to describe the swim. Mostly like every other swim story you read I guess, a little rougher than some but I enjoyed it. I was mostly just glad it was not brutal cold as I had imagined it might be. Like Gregg told me, it WAS the easiest part after all. I will say that at about 200 yards from the swim finish I did see a shark. I guess the water was about 15 feet deep, and it was not long after you get to where it’s shallow enough again to see the bottom. It was approximately 5 feet long and just cruising along the bottom. I didn't freak out as bad as I thought I would. I could just tell it was not paying me any attention. It was moving in a straight line the opposite direction in which I was headed. I might have been more wigged out if it had been swimming in circles, or nearer to the surface.
Anyway, I made it onto the beach and I heard someone yelling my name as I crossed the timing mat. It was a friend of mine I had not seen since 9th grade, Tripp Weeks from Atlanta. I gave him a high five and headed towards the showers. Then, there was my wife and son running towards me yelling. She's holding this poster that says "ITS IN YOU TEEMAR". A little inside humor for the Brain Regan fans. That made me laugh, and happy I saw them before getting on the bike. Swim time 1:40. About what I had planned.
I think I spent 20 minutes in T1. Too long for sure. Hard to put clothes on when you just aren't quite dry enough. I had a tight singlet to put on under my bib and I had to get the guy next to me to help pull it down over my shoulder blades. I was wearing an extra layer due to the cold. I had no arm warmers, so I had a pair of long compression socks I cut the toes out of. They worked great.
The bike ride was windy and chilly but not miserable. It was pretty uneventful until around mile 40, I notice my left eye seems kinda foggy. Now I remember in training one day when I got off the bike, I thought one of my contacts had fogged up. But when I got home and took the contact out and put my glasses on, it was my eye that was foggy, not the contact. At the turnaround it has really gotten bad. I stop and ask for my special needs bag and they had trouble finding it. Wasting time. I am also trying to phone my wife but can't see to dial the phone. My left eye is worthless and I fear that whatever is causing it will get to my right eye eventually. It's was like trying to see through a fogged over windshield on a winter morning. I finally manage to dial the number but get her voice mail. One of the volunteers calls a race official to ask if it is ok for my wife to bring my glasses to T2. They said they would ok that. All I need to do now is pray she gets the message. I don't know how much time is wasted here, probably 15 minutes.
Well guess what? At mile 70ish I notice the right eye is getting blurry. It’s hard to say how blurry because I can't compare it with the left eye. The left is even worse than before. I stop again at an aid station to pee and ask a couple of guys if they have ever experienced anything like this. They don't know. One guy is kind enough to offer me some kind of supplement to try. I don't remember now what it was, maybe just a salt tablet. All I remember is it was no help. By mile 90 I am struggling to see so badly I am fearful for my safety more than finishing the race. If a dead animal were to be in my path it would send me over the bars before I would see it in time. I am trying to keep other bikes in my sight so I can tell which way to go, but there are so few I am mostly on my own. I yell up ahead at intersections at the cops to tell me which way to go, or if it's clear to cross, because I can't see their hand signals at all.
I down a whole bottle of water at the next aid station thinking maybe my problem has something to do with dehydration. As I make my way towards the bay bridge I see a couple of girls on bikes just in front of me about 20 yards ahead. I follow them over the bay and back onto Highway 90 and try to keep them in my sight so I don't hit anybody or miss the last turn onto Thomas Drive. There are a lot of people and cars on the beach road (Highway 90) and some walkers that were walking against traffic literally had to jump out of my way. They assumed I could see them and that I would move. I yelled to them I was sorry, that I can't see. I finally get onto Thomas Drive. I did it. I went 112 miles on the bike, but how will I continue? Right before I come to a stop in T2 I hear my wife yelling. She is so happy. But I had bad news. I told here I was literally blind, and didn't think I would be able to continue. She has no idea what I've been dealing with the last 4 hours on the bike.
I head to T2 and they take my bike, and ask me if I need anything. I tell them I need to find the med tent to see about my eyes. I was told that if they took me over there they would disqualify me for that. I said forget it. I'll continue the best I can. I sit down and dump my T2 bag out on the floor, and the one thing I need the most is not there, my glasses. I go ahead and change and start putting my stuff back in my bag. And just as I am about to walk off, I see my glasses under the chair I was sitting in. I take out my contacts and toss them on the floor, then put on my glasses and head out. I still couldn't see, but I felt that if the contacts had anything to do with my problem then at least my problem couldn't get any worse. I was not hopeful they would get better either. As I remembered back to that day in training when it happened in that one eye, it didn't clear up until I woke up the next day. I knew I was in for a miserable marathon in the dark, and I was getting a late start. It was about 5:30 I noticed as I headed out of T2. Time wasted in T2. I had planned on starting the run no later than 5pm.
I really struggled on the run. Walked about a mile before I started jogging. Jogged for about 3 miles and noticed my pace was just as attainable by walking fast, and felt better by doing so too. So I started walking and jogging, walking then jogging. I made it to the turn around at the state park. I'm a fourth of the way done I thought. In my mind I split the 2 lap course into four legs; out, then back, then out, then back. At the end of the first loop I remember looking at my time and it was around 8:30. I had done the 1st half of the marathon in 3 hours, now all I have to do is the 2nd half in the same time and I will have almost a half hour to spare, or so I thought. My feet are hurting. The longest run I did in training was only 11 miles.
I stop for my special needs bag for some Tylenol, salt tabs, and pads for my feet. Had to remove my shoes and socks to apply the pads and this took too much time. There was nothing to sit on, and sitting on the ground and getting back up was not fun. As I head out into the darkness for my 2nd loop I notice most runners coming towards me are near their finish. One girl coming in near her finish hands me her glow stick as I head out, and says 'Here, take this! You're gonna need it!"
She was right. Not long after I passed her, there was almost nobody running with me, and it was dark. The first lap there were runners everywhere, now you're pretty much alone. There aren't near the number of spectators either. The eyes are bothering me more now on the 2nd lap. One reason is obvious because it's dark, but the darkness didn't bother me as much on the first lap because I had runners everywhere that I could follow. Now I had to struggle to see pylons and markers. They had some areas lit up with some generators with flood lights that would blind me more than help. These lights, street lights, car headlights, all made it harder for me to see. They would blind me even more. It was so glaring. I would see large halos as I approached them, and that's all I could see. I had a visor on with a light attached to the bill so I could at least look down at the ground and see where I was stepping.
I finally see my buddy Gregg walking the other way. He has some homemade poncho made of a big piece of plastic wrapped around him. Wondered where he got that. He's not retaining heat and I could tell. He stops briefly to chat but I tell him I can't. I'm worrying about my time now. Something tells you when you're all alone out there you might be the last one left, and that maybe you're not going to make it. I am really longing for the state park turn around, but man is it ever hard to see. It's pitch dark. I did see one older gentleman in the park. We jogged along and talked a little. Said he was from Chicago. He must have had a better clue of the pace, and how much further we had to go than me, because he finally left me in the dust.
I couldn't read my watch. Luckily I had run out of T2 with my iPhone in my hand. I hadn't planned on that. It had been attached to my bike, but I didn't want to leave it on there, or in transition, so I just took it with me. It has GPS, but I couldn't really read it very well either. The lights I had on my visor helped, but I would have to come to a halt and stare at it for a moment to see it well enough. The mile markers were too few. It was really hard to tell what mile you were on to keep track of your pace.
Along comes JD. I'm somewhere around 3-4 miles from the finish, alone in this dark neighborhood. I am finally out of the state park. I figure I must be the last guy because I haven't seen or heard a soul since that one guy pulled away from me in the park. Then I hear voices and footsteps coming up from behind me. Some guy is running along coaching this guy and girl. The girl passes me. The guy coaching her falls back along side me and introduces himself as JD and asks me a few questions about myself. He starts coaching me. I realize he is with Ironman staff. He tells me if I want to finish I am going to have to pick up the pace to about a 12 minute pace. He called the finish on his Motorola to get an official time on the clock and then told me again, this time with more urgency in his voice, "I'm gonna need a 12 min pace out of you if you don't want to DNF."
“Oh my God, I'm not gonna make it” I thought. He starts running with me. I felt it was impossible. I told him 12 minutes was about my fastest pace in training. This guy is now scaring me, and making me hurt. He tells me to breathe. "Blow it out" he says. He told me he trained a lot of guys in his twenty something years in the Marines. I thought, “Great, I have a former Marine next to me, and I'm complaining about being tired.” He kept telling me to keep that girl in front of me, and for me not to let her out of my sight. He introduces me to the guy behind us and tells him to keep up with me and not let me out of his sight. JD said he was going to go on ahead and help someone else finish and that he would return for me. "Don't let her out of your sight Tom!" he said as he disappeared in the dark. Well, I tried. She just kept getting farther and farther away. I just didn't have it in my tank, but I was still pushing harder than I would have been had he not come along.
Meanwhile, this guy beside me is running totally bent over 90 degrees at the waist with his left hand holding his lower back. I don't remember his name but he said he was from Lakeland, FL. He told me his back had gone out on the bike! He looked like he was going to literally fall on his face at any second, but his determination kept him in step with me. However, from time to time he would start veering to his left kinda like a shopping cart with a bent wheel and bump into me, forcing me almost to the curb a couple of times.
I wondered if his mind was going too because it was like he didn't even acknowledge it, or apologize, or even correct himself when he did it. I felt really sorry for him, and tried to act like it didn't bother me, but I finally just stepped around and jogged along on his other side. We were both lost as to how far we were from the finish and neither of us ever saw a mile marker. I finally saw one facing the other direction on the left side of the road, and as I passed it I looked back and it had a 1 on it. I looked at my phone and it said it was like 11:40. I knew that might not be official but it still calmed my nerves. We would make it after all I thought. Well, we kept going and going for at least another half mile or more and we are STILL in this neighborhood with no apparent exit in sight.
Then up ahead I saw an aid station. I started to panic because I knew the aid stations were 1 mile apart which meant we now had at least a mile to go. Crap! I told the poor guy next to me "Good luck man. I got to go!" I knew there was no way he could speed up. He was barely standing. It had dawned on me; the markers facing one direction of traffic do not mean the same for the returning traffic, because the entire course is not like a trail. At times it changes route from the traffic going the opposite way. As I ran by the volunteers I asked them where the 1 mile marker is. They told me the marker was just a few yards up ahead. I was seriously near panic mode now and forced myself into another gear.
I can now tell I'm almost out of this neighborhood. I can really hear the music and celebrations in the distance. Then up ahead I see a couple of trucks turn onto my street and the headlights blinded me. Just in case they couldn't see me I moved over to the right side of the street. That's when my next problem happened. I felt my right foot cave to the outside as I had just stepped on the edge of the asphalt where the road meets the gutter. I swear I heard my ankle make a cracking sound and I was on the ground in the same instant. I hit the ground hard! I immediately prayed out loud "God, PLEASE don't let this be as bad as I think it is! God just get me up!"
I slowly got up as the trucks stopped beside me. Both were with Ironman staff. As I am testing my ankle to see if it will hold my weight, the lady says "Are you OK?" I said, "I think so." She says, "I can call somebody to come get you." She saw me fall and it must have looked bad from the concern in her voice. All I said was "No. You're not calling anybody." and I just started running. I had no pain at all. Holy cow! I thought I had broken that ankle!
I'm now searching for Thomas Drive. I can hear the announcer at the finish, "Seven minutes!" I get to a point where I could go straight or turn right. Couldn't tell where I was supposed to go. There are more lights now that I am out of that neighborhood but nobody to follow still either. Too much glare. Mostly pylons mark the route and I am still blind. I run in circles and then finally choose to stay straight. Announcer keeps counting down the minutes. The finish seems so far away. I am finally back on Thomas Drive and can't afford to have to hunt for the entrance to the finish shoot.
People along the road are telling me, "You got this man. Just keep it up!" I call out to some folks I presumed were volunteers to point me to the entrance of the chute. "I can't see. I'm almost blind. Something is wrong with my eyes. Where is the entrance to the chute?!" Finally one of them starts jogging with me. He says, "Want some company?" I said, "Sure". He told me he would stay with me and guide me into the chute.
I'm in the chute. I hear "3 minutes!" The crowd sees me and gets louder. Then here comes JD yelling in my ear, and there's Race Director Ben Rausa on my other side yelling in my other ear. Both are telling me I've got to go faster. One of them says if I don't I won't make it. "2 minutes!" Crowd roars. They are banging on the bleachers and the barricades to the music of the Black-Eyed Peas. JD asks me if my family is here watching, keeps telling me faster, c'mon faster! Reach, reach deep inside and think of them. I see an archway up ahead. "Is that the finish?! I can't see at all" "No! That's not the one. See the one beyond that that's glowing blue? That's the one." I am running with all I have. The crowd is really into it. They cheer louder as the announcer says "1 minute!" All I can do is run as hard as I can and just let them stop me when I cross because I can't worry now where the line is. Then I hear the announcer say "Thomas Morrison from Ashville, Alabama, you are an IRONMAN!”
I am stopped and as I stoop over to grab my knees I feel someone hang a medal around my neck. My wife and son are there and she gives me a kiss and a hug. She's holding a jam box with my favorite Van Halen song ‘Standing On Top Of The World’ blaring on it. I got a laugh out of that. In training I told her I hoped that song is playing as I near the finish of my race because I always get an adrenaline rush when I hear it on my iPod. Someone tells me, "You're the last one! Only 34 seconds to spare." My time was 16:59:26! My wife told me that Gregg had finished only about a half hour before me but could not wait for me. He had to go straight back to the condo because he was shivering from hypothermia. I'm really sorry he couldn't be there to see me at the finish. He was the one who inspired me to do this.
The volunteers asked me if I needed any medical attention. I told them I just needed to see someone about my eyesight. The doctor told me it was just a case of severe dry eye and should be fine by morning. They asked me about my knee. My knee? I didn't know it but it was pretty bloody from the fall. Still, I never mentioned my ankle to them. The next morning that ankle was swollen the size of an orange! Unbelievable! And it got worse over the next couple of days. I guess it must have been adrenaline. Still amazed I ran on that ankle. After 2 weeks of pain in my wrist that wouldn't go away I discovered it was broken and have a torn ligament as well. It is now mid-March as I write this. The ankle is about 85%, but the wrist is only about 65%, and might need surgery to repair the ligament. I was told to give it until April.