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Thomas Krauss – Lottery Athlete #950 - October 13, 2007

April 15th was a big day. . . and not because I was getting a tax refund. I knew that the winners of the Ironman lottery would be posted that day. Much like you when you check the NY Lottery website after you buy a Mega Millions® ticket just for yucks, I checked the Ironman website that afternoon . . . and holy $#!*, there it was…my name on THE LIST!

April

So the good news is I WON A SLOT!!! I called one of my triathlon team buddies and we both couldn't believe it. Pure shock is the only way to describe it. Then the reality sets in. . . "oh my God. I'm doing the Ironman! It's double of anything I've ever done. And I have a demanding job. And I have four kids I'm in charge of every weekend. And. And. And. . .

May

So then I got down to business. . . and had to figure out how I was going to map out a plan to get me to both the starting line and the finish line in Kona on October 13th. There's been a common theme over the last few months. . . I truly believe that someone is looking out for me because a lot of people have just been dropped into my world out of thin air. I now know the meaning of serendipity. The first of these people is my coach Don Fink.

I was in my local bike shop one Saturday in May with my kids, and I happened to mention that I got a slot into Kona. You could have heard a pin drop in the place and I slowly realized all the "bike shop dudes" seemed to be gathering around me like the Messiah wanting to meet the "guy who's doing Kona." I ask the owner of the bike shop if he knew of a good local coach who could help a triathlon hack cross the finish line. Without hesitation he said, "Don Fink is your guy."

I'd never heard of Don Fink, but come to find out he's the real deal. When I reached out to him I had no idea that he was not only an accomplished athlete with more than 30 Ironman races under his belt, but had coached professional triathletes like Spencer Smith AND authored the popular training book "Be IronFit: Time Efficient Training Secrets for Ultimate Fitness." My kinda guy. . . he's the MAN yet get's the fact that I'm mortal and I don't do triathlon for a living. . . I actually have a life to live while I try to get myself to the starting line in Kona!

June

So I formally started my training schedule with Don in June. It's pretty simple: he tells when and what I need to do and I do it. We figured out that the only way to make sure I got my workouts in would be to do them before work in the morning. So 4:30 am it is. Every morning. I gotta say the first 20 minutes are a painful fight to not crawl back in the sack but I really have gotten used to it.

July

One of the things you have to do as a lottery winner is complete at least a ½ Ironman by the end of August to validate your lottery-slot entry. I guess they do that so that hacks like me don't drown or drop dead at the real deal. I completed the Vineman ½ Ironman in Sonoma Valley, California. I finished and actually felt ok. . . and Don was pleasantly surprised by the time I posted. So things were going pretty well. . .

. . . until I was down in Texas dropping my girls off at summer camp and doing a Saturday ride -- and just ate it. I was zipping down a hill at about 30 MPH when my back wheel came out. When I finally stopped skipping down the road, I realized that the good news was that my bike was OK. . . but the bad news was that I was now covered in road rash and had smashed my hand. I finished my four hour ride but I just couldn't bring myself to go to the ER to have my hand checked out in Texas. Low and behold, whoever's looking out for me dropped the next person in my life on the way back to NY -- in the form of Dr. Susi Vasallo, sitting next to me in seat 7E. Dr. Vasallo is a professor of Emergency Medicine at NYU Medical School, so the ER ended up coming to me on the plane.

August

So after weighing my options, I kicked off August with surgery to pin the bones in my hand together. The punchline is that Dr. Vasallo had hooked me up with a great hand surgeon, Dr. Sheel Sharma. Dr. Sharma is also a professor at NYU medical school. Surgery on the Wednesday after my crash and I was running again by Friday. I was still able to get my runs in and ride with my bike in a stationary trainer. Although a 5-hour bike ride in the trainer is mindnumbing, it felt good to know that, other than swimming, I was keeping pace with where I needed to be. . . until running with the cast on my arm messed up a nerve and muscle in my leg and I ended up in a leg cast for a week and a half!

September

So now it's crunch time. The race is literally less than a month away. The good news is my casts are off so I can swim, bike on the road and now run again. I was able to run at the local track for the first time on September 9th. I know that there is no danger of me breaking the tape at the finish line, but despite August's training being a complete wash, there is no doubt in my mind that I will finish. Somehow I've managed to pull an extra 10-20 hours a week out of thin air, but I look back at the opportunity that I was given back in April and wouldn't change a thing. I won't lie. . . it has NOT been a cake walk by any stretch! It's been a challenge -- but nothing compared to what the children I met in southern Africa have to face every day.