TRIPOLAR: The Story of a Bipolar Triathlete

By Tim Davis

"TRIPOLAR" is an inspiring journey about a boy who suffers great trauma and severe verbal and physical abuse in his youth.  At age 13, he is blamed for causing his father's death, and his life begins on a downward spiral of self de

• Language: English
• Publisher: Timothy J. Davis
• Release date: Jul 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781087894669

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Tick tock, tick tock, goes the clock. I was looking at my watch almost constantly during the run portion of this race. The race director, Steve Kirby, made fun of me for it during and afterwards. Throughout the race, he hollered at me several times, Quit looking at your watch and just keep moving! I couldn’t help myself; I was stressing out. I had trained hard for a whole year leading up to this event. All I wanted was to finish it successfully. What was I doing? I was competing in my first double iron-distance triathlon at the Oregon Double Anvil Triathlon. It was July 2015. The event consisted of a 4.8-mile swim, a 224-mile bike ride, and a 52.4-mile run. There were only 16 people daring, crazy, and / or stupid enough to sign up for this madness, or—as I saw it—a big fun challenge. Of those 16 folks, only half finished. I had been having the worst pre-race jitters, which I always get before a big race, and especially before a new race for me at a longer distance than any previous one I have completed. I often have Murphy’s Law nightmares the entire week before a big race starts.

All things considered; I had been having a decent race. I had a solid swim, for my swimming abilities. The swim course consisted of eight loops in the lake. I planned on getting a couple of gels from my crew after laps three and six. After I finished the first three, I pulled in close to the shore where I could stand up, went to get the gels from my wife, and she just threw them at me. I wasn’t ready to play catch; they both sank to the bottom of the lake. Note to others: gel and GU packets do not float! I did end up getting some nutrition to refuel on, then kept stroking away at the long swim. I predicted that it would take me somewhere between 2.5-3 hours, and I came out of the water at exactly two hours and 45 minutes, right in the middle of my projected time range. I felt good about my swim performance overall.

Next, I was onto the bike portion of the race. Biking is my Achilles’ heel. I love swimming and running, but I often refer to biking as, just something I have to do in order to transition from swimming to running in triathlons. I had completed my first double century ride (200 miles) in my training about a month before this race. It had some elevation gain, so it took me about 14 hours. Doing that was not as difficult as I thought it would be, as I had feared how bad the saddle soreness might get. Based on my double century ride performance, I estimated that this 224-mile bike would take me 1516 hours. I felt like that was a reasonable expectation. Unfortunately, I was four hours off my estimation. The bike course was a loop around beautiful Lake Hagg, but it was almost all rolling hills. So, we had to do 21 laps on the bike course before we got to the final run portion of the triathlon. After a handful of laps, it started to feel like we were only going uphill. The fastest cyclist finished in 16 hours! I was the slowest, and the last one off the bike after almost 20 hours.

Now I could finally get to my favorite sport—running. However, after the longest bike ride of my life, my legs were shot. It was 6am by the time I got onto the run course. Biking all day and night had taken its toll on me, and my pace was painfully slow. I got into a rhythm and started constantly checking my Garmin training watch. I was monitoring my time and pace, and doing mental math to try and estimate my finish time, and—most importantly—I was trying to see whether I was going to finish under the 39-hour time limit we were given to complete this entire race. The run portion consisted of a 1.3-mile loop that we had to do 40 times. Talk about a mental mindfuck! Oh well, when else was I going to be able to create the race conditions necessary to complete a triathlon of this distance? I didn’t have the drive and determination to simulate something like this on my own for fun.

Here I was, cruising through the run slowly, but surely. The loop also had two short hills, which seemed to steadily get longer and steeper with every lap. When I started the run, I saw that I had 16 hours left to finish it. The weather reports I checked earlier in the week had predicted highs in the mid-80s. Somehow the meteorologists got that wrong, and the area was having record temperatures in the 100s that day. By 11am, all eight of us left on the run course were reduced to slow walking in the brutal heat. Everyone was covering themselves in ice, which I had never needed to do in any of my previous races. My wife had borrowed some things from other athletes and their crews, and was able to set me up with an ice pack and a hat to hold it on my head, as well as an ice burrito to throw around my neck and hang down over my chest. The ice burrito was a pair of pantyhose filled with ice in each leg and then tied off. Luckily, there were other veteran ultra-triathletes competing there, and they were happy to share their experience, strength, and hope with this rookie who was new to beyond iron-distance triathlons. At this point in the race, we all looked pretty ridiculous. This was no fashion show, and none of us were there trying to look pretty while we persevered and suffered through this endurance fest. All that mattered was crossing the finish line and enjoying the sweet satisfaction of personal victory. By the time I reached the halfway point, I looked at my watch and saw that just over eight hours had passed while I was doing the first of my two marathons for the day. So, as I pulled into my pit stop area where my family and crew were, I sat in a chair and said, That’s it, I’m done! My wife and several others started giving me a pep talk, and they promised me that I still had lots of time and that I could make it if I just kept moving. I argued that it had taken me eight hours to do the first marathon, I now had fewer than eight hours left to do the second one, and mathematically, at my pace, there was no way that was going to happen. Somehow, they convinced me to just keep going and moving, even if I walked the rest of the way. They assured me I would be able to pick up the pace as the sun started to tuck behind the mountains and the temperatures cooled. Fortunately, they were right about that.

After the halfway mark, the race director allowed me to have a pacer to run with me. My friend Sam started running the second marathon alongside me and, as we were running together, I started to cry like a little baby. I was crying to him that I wasted everyone’s time and all of our money coming up here just for me to DNF (Did Not Finish.) He may have felt some empathy, but then he just started laughing. He said to me, What the heck are you doing crying in the middle of a race? You need to MAN UP! Just like you always tell me I need to do. You’ve got a lot of time left, and if you just keep moving forward, you can make it. It was right there and then that I decided I could at least keep walking for another eight hours. I had already been moving almost constantly for 31 hours, what was eight more? At least then I would be able to say I didn’t quit! As the miles went by, I decided that I was going to keep going even if they shut down the finish line. I was going to get my full double-iron distance triathlon in, even if I went over the time limit. As it started to cool a bit, I was coming through the start / finish area where the computer equipment kept track of what lap you were on. One of my crew asked me what I needed, and I realized then that I was famished. I had been eating mostly fluids, some Clif bars, and fruit, and I needed a solid meal to make up for the caloric deficit I was in. So I said I really wanted a cheeseburger. They told me to just keep moving and that they would have one there by the next time I came around. Sure enough, I did another lap, and they had a cheeseburger waiting for me. That was definitely the best cheeseburger I have ever eaten. I had to keep moving, but it was too difficult to run and eat at the same time, so I allowed myself to take a walking break while I devoured the burger. I felt much better as it digested, the sun was almost down, and I got a huge second wind. I was able to pick up the pace and maintain a steady jog for almost the rest of the way through. Various crew members and other folks who were helping manage the race began using jumbo chalk to write words of encouragement on the asphalt approaching and leaving the start / finish area to let us know how many laps there were left to go. Different people took turns pacing with me, mostly Sam, Jean Ho, and two other guys named Jeff and Eric. I was coming around on my second-to-last lap and was really picking up the pace as it was coming down to the wire. My pacer Sam, my two sons, and Jeff joined me on the last lap and were cheering for me. I told them (as I am a big LA Lakers fan), This is going to be a Kobe Bryant Black Mamba buzzer beater, as we approached the final 100 yards. At this point, the race organizers hand you a flag representing your home country and you carry it with you and wave it as you cross the finish line. I grabbed that flag and sprinted through. Afterwards, I got to strike the anvil with the hammer twice, once for each iron-distance triathlon completed. The race is called a double anvil after all, and that is a tradition for finishers. Then, the RD asked me how I felt, and I said that I never thought I would feel so good about a DFL (Dead Fricking Last) place, but that was one of the happiest moments of my amateur racing career.

BEFORE AFTER

Hard to believe I was filling out the Bus’s Double XXL Jersey and weighed even more than he did at the start of 2009.

CHAPTER 1: FALLING

Right after I turned 13, I was blamed for my dad’s death. I didn’t know it then, but how I dealt with that would eventually lead to my own life-or-death battle. Losing my father at a time when I needed him the most was extremely difficult. Being blamed for causing his death deeply scarred me emotionally and developmentally. My whole family was affected by his loss, but I was the only one who got blamed for causing the accident. My mother was left a widow and the sole caretaker of seven young children aged between two and 18 years. We went from being your average middle-class family to near poverty overnight. Our lives were divided into two different eras: before my dad’s death and after my dad’s death.

Before my dad died, my family seemed like your average middle-class American family. We took a vacation almost every summer. We usually drove down to Florida to see all our grandparents for one or two weeks. We did this almost every year until my dad died.

My dad made decent money. As a non-profit attorney, he didn’t make the big bucks like corporate lawyers and other attorneys do, but he made enough to provide us with a nice home. As a big family man, he was very devoted and loyal to his wife and children. He loved my mom so much that he converted his faith from the Baptist he was raised to become Catholic so my maternal grandfather would give his blessing for him to marry my mom. He did everything he could to provide for all of us. My mom insisted we visit all the grandparents every year, and he made sure we did. When my mom maintains that we needed a pool, he worked tons of extra hours to make that happen. He gave everything he had to provide for all of us and make us feel loved. I learned much of how I know about what it means to be a good man and the importance of family from the example my father set. He had a great sense of humor, and often was the life of the party with his peers and children alike.

He was a heavy drinker, but made sure to take care of business first. He went to work every day, paid all his bills on time, and loved his family. He also frequented local bars or liquor stores after work, and usually had more than just one or two drinks after he got home. On the weekends, he drank more. I often watched him put down upwards of a 12-pack of beer on a Saturday and then again on Sunday. He was a hard worker, which is something that most of us Davises pride ourselves on.

Then in August 1987, an event happened that would change my family forever. It was a typical Saturday evening in mid-August in Morgantown, WV. My dad had been home with us all day doing work around the house and he had started drinking beers around lunch time and continued through to the evening. I didn’t know it then, but as a budding alcoholic myself, I always watched and counted how much my dad and everyone else around me drank. I was probably either calculating how much would be left over for me to steal later or observing how much they could consume before they reached the point of oblivion. I was 13 years old and getting ready to start eighth grade. My older brother and sister were both at their part-time restaurant jobs earning their own spending money. We had already eaten dinner, and my mom was giving my three youngest brothers their baths. They were only two, three and five at the time. My little sister, who was 11, and I were playing with my dad. It had started with him playing the big giant and calling out, Fee Fi Fo Fum, I smell the blood of an English man. We tried to hide, but he always found us. That evolved into a massive tickle war, just some typical family fun. My dad was quite buzzed already. We had been going back and forth for a while, and he was taking turns chasing us, catching one or both of us, and tickling us a lot.

Sometimes when he was buzzed or drunk to a certain degree, he would tickle too hard and it hurt. This was starting to happen again. He had me on the floor in the master bathroom and was tickling too hard. I vividly remember thinking to myself, When I get free from this, I am going to run as fast as I can and get away from him so he can’t tickle me like that anymore. I finally got free, and ran out of his bedroom. He chased after me again. I ran down the hallway yelling, You can’t catch me! I ran out through the dining room onto our balcony. Our house was two stories with a large balcony on the back side of it. I ran as fast as I could all the way down the balcony, which was about 50-60 feet long, then back inside through the master bedroom. My dad chased after me, and my sister was following along behind him. I had run back inside the house, down the hall, and I was halfway down the stairs, when I heard my sister let out one of the most god-awful, heart-wrenching screams of horror I have ever heard. For a brief moment, I thought, Oh shit, my dad fell over the balcony, so I continued downstairs and ran outside in hopes that I was wrong. But my fear was correct, and there he was, lying on the ground. A large pool of expanding blood spreading out. He lay lifeless. His head cracked open; his neck was swollen like a fat tire.

I stood over him. I felt a sense of panic I had never experienced. Call 911! Call 911! My heart was pounding, and I was shaking, shocked, trying to hold it together.

I had been certified in CPR and first aid with Boy Scouts, but for the life of me I couldn’t seem to remember a damn thing. I tried to pull myself together and assess what to do next. I remembered that you are not supposed to move victims who seem to have suffered severe trauma to the head and neck areas. My next-door neighbor, Roby, heard me and came to help. Honey, call 911 now! Bill fell off his balcony! My little sister and my mom made it outside. I have tried to recall my mother’s reaction — my memory of her and my sister in this moment is blacked out.

My neighbors tried to calm us down until the ambulance arrived. Waiting outside, each of us was in shock, my sister crying uncontrollably and my mother stone silent. The whole scene was too surreal. Did this really just happen? I realized my dad was hurt pretty bad, but he was still my superhero and I was quite sure he’d heal up and get better after the doctors helped him at the hospital.

The ambulance finally arrived and the paramedics began preparing to get my dad on a stretcher. My mom looked at me and my sister, and said, I’m going in the ambulance with your father to the hospital. I need you two to get your three little brothers to bed now, and then go to bed yourselves. My sister and I were upset. We didn’t understand why we all couldn’t go together. We’re a family: if they take him away how we will know what happens? I felt an intense need for us to stay together. Wondering about what the doctors would do and if they could fix him tormented me. It had gotten dark outside, and things were feeling really dark inside too. My whole world had suddenly darkened. This just wasn’t fair! Why did this happen? Why would God let this happen to my dad? I felt the walls closing in on me, and the world I knew ending.

When I think back to that night now as an adult, I can see my sister, aged 11, and me, aged 13, so alone. We had no adults to make sense of what had happened, no comfort except in each other. We were left with the responsibility to care for our younger siblings as though nothing bad had happened. I tried to put all my heavy feelings of darkness and despair aside. My poor little brothers were too young to comprehend this tragedy. After we got them to bed, my sister and I cried together for a long time. Close to midnight, we collapsed into sleep in our own rooms.

The seeds to the real trauma had been sown, but the critical event that would shape my life was still to come.

A few hours later, I was very forcefully ripped out of my bed by my older brother. I had been in a dead sleep and was filled with confusion. My brother, in a full-on rage, punched and kicked me repeatedly. He was screaming and yelling on repeat, It’s all your fault! Dad is going to die now because of you! He blamed me for causing the accident. How could you be so fucking stupid? You killed dad! What the fuck is wrong with you! Dad and me were just starting to get along! You’ve ruined everything now! I wanted to get away from him somehow, but he had me cornered in my room.

There was no escape.

I cried and pleaded, I didn’t mean for this to happen, we were just playing. It didn’t matter because he was not listening to me.

He choked me and slammed me into each of the four walls of my room. He repeatedly punched and kicked my arms, legs, and torso. He pulled my hair hard enough for it to come out.

I curled into the fetal position, my feeble attempt to protect myself. I believed he was going to kill me.

Internally, I was pleading with God to save me, to make this torture stop. I wished I were dead, anything to make this agony end. My brother eventually tired himself out and left the room abruptly.

I cried for a long time after that. I put my pillow over my head and pressed down firmly. I wanted to die. Why should I live, if I’m the reason my father may die? I wished that I didn’t exist, that I had never existed. That faint first attempt at suicide failed. Why can life be so cruel sometimes? I couldn’t make sense of anything. As a 13-year-old kid, I was haunted by the thought that my dad’s accident was all my fault for many years, hearing my brother’s voice saying, It’s all your fault, you killed dad!

Before dad died, I used drugs and alcohol for fun. It was all about experimentation and toying around with the different creative ways we could smoke weed with homegrown devices. We drank Milwaukee’s Best beer and laughed over nudie mags. After my dad died, I was in so much pain. I didn’t know how to deal—when I got high, when I got drunk, I stopped hearing the voices, seeing the images, believing I was the cause of the greatest trauma in my family. I smoked to oblivion; I sought escape in what drugs and alcohol could give me. This emotional replacement became my crutch for the next 20 years.

The next day, my mom and sister came home from the hospital and told us what the doctors had said. Dad’s in a coma, he’s broken the first four cervical vertebrae in his neck, which is almost all of them. They told us it was unlikely he would come out of the coma, and, if he did, he would have to stay on the full life support machines, most likely brain-dead.

I was young and naïve, my only knowledge of what a coma was came from watching soap operas with my older sister—where comatose characters woke up. I thought for sure dad was going to wake up too.

That didn’t happen.

He stayed in a coma for almost nine months until he died on April 9th, 1988. I lost all faith. How could there be a God who would let something like this happen to us?

During eighth grade, I was a whirlwind of emotions. We went to the hospital all the time to visit my father, while he stayed in the intensive care unit. My mom would