Today my Ice Mile story made the front page of the Standard Examiner. I'm truly humbled by this. The story was well written and contained some information I really wanted printed.
OGDEN — On Thursday, Dec. 13, Goody Tyler IV stood at water’s
edge of the Salt Lake Marina, stripped down to a Speedo, cap and
goggles, waded into the 41-degree water and started swimming.
After
two quarter-mile laps to the mouth of the marina and back, his body
started shifting to survival mode, pulling blood from the limbs to keep
his core warm. After the third lap, the searing pain and growing
inability to convince his body to keep going were almost too much to
bear.
As Tyler started the fourth lap, his body started shutting
down and willpower was the only thing lifting his arms and kicking his
legs. Tyler’s swimming buddies, Gordon Gridley and Josh Green, started
their car to warm it up as he approached the shore 40 minutes after
getting in the water. They immediately covered him, and because his legs
wouldn’t support his standing weight, carried him to the car.
It
took another hour to get his body temperature out of the danger zone,
and for Tyler to comprehend that he was only the sixth American to
complete the Ice Mile.
Four days later, Tyler started his first round of chemotherapy.
“We
had no idea he was going to try the Ice Mile,” Gridley said, explaining
that he and Green thought it would just be the typical 400-yard swim
the group did on a regular basis. “But we knew he was going in for
chemo, and he wanted this to be a memorable swim.”
Gridley got out
after one lap and Tyler told him he was going to try for two more.
Gridley followed along the marina wall, snapping pictures with his phone
while keeping an eye on his friend in the water.
“Once I was
diagnosed in November, I knew that day was my last chance to do it this
season,” Tyler said. “When I finish with therapy the water will be well
into the 40s and 50s, and I’d have to wait until next December for
another chance. I was thinking, ‘If I can just do a half-mile today I’ll
be good, but something inside of me just snapped and I went for it.”
Founded
in 2009 by Ram Barkai, the International Ice Swimming Association is an
organization that officiates Ice Swims around the world and aims to
establish Ice Swimming as a recognized sport. An Ice Swim (or Ice Mile)
is a one-mile swim in water temperature 41 degrees or below following
the English Channel swim rules. Pending the processing of his paperwork,
Tyler will be the 41st person in the world to have accomplished the
feat, the sixth from the U.S.
“I got into cold-water swimming
about two years ago,” Tyler said. “We started swimming in the Great Salt
Lake at least once a week, and that’s when we found out about the
International Ice Swimming Association.
“The Ice Mile was always
in the back of my mind. Could I ever do something that intense? It’s
just something so rigorous and so difficult to achieve.”
What most people don’t understand, Gridley explained, isn’t how difficult the swim itself is, but what happens after.
“The
most dangerous part is when you get out of the water,” Gridley said.
“If all that cold blood in your feet and hands goes to your heart too
fast, you’ll have a heart attack.”
After a few minutes in the car,
Gridley and Green carried Tyler to the marina shower and started at a
luke-warm temperature. Little by little they increased the heat. As his
shivering slowed and body temperature rose, Tyler’s accomplishment sank
in, along with his imminent treatment for testicular cancer.
Overcome, Tyler broke down in front of his friends and released all his joy and frustration.
“It
was quite an emotional time in that shower,” Gridley said. “He told us
what he had been going through for the past months and just knowing what
he’d be going through … it was very emotional for all of us.”
An
avid marathon swimmer since his time in the Army more than a decade ago,
Tyler discovered cold-water swimming in 2012. But the 36-year-old
Virginia native, husband, father of two girls and Army veteran said it
has been difficult balancing his treatment along with his job teaching
physical education and sixth-grade world history at Navigator Pointe
Academy in West Jordan.
He said swimming has helped put cancer
into perspective, and completing the Ice Mile is something he draws on
when the chemo leaves him physically and mentally exhausted.
“One
of the best ways to describe when you’re swimming is your brain and your
body go into all-out war against each other and against you,” he said.
“You’re constantly fighting against your body to keep moving because it
wants to stop, and your brain wants you to stop, too, and it eventually
starts pulling blood from your arms and legs trying to make you stop.”
Tyler
said some of his “warm-water” (50-60 degree) marathon swims can last
six to seven hours and, just like the Ice Mile, draw undeniable
parallels with cancer treatment where his infusions span five straight
days and last six hours each day.
“I’m used to being
uncomfortable for long periods of time doing these swims,” he said.
“That’s a big benefit when you go in for chemotherapy. It’s an advantage
I have, because you are going to be uncomfortable for long periods. You
are going to be sick, and tired, and agitated, and p----- off and
hungry all at the same time, and yet you have to keep going forward.”
Tyler
pulls from his experiences in the water on days when the effects of
chemo make getting out of bed impossible or summoning the energy to put
on a pair of pants seems like a monumental task.
Aside from the
tremendous support of his family and friends, Tyler is quick to point
out how “unbelievably amazing” Principal Judy Farris at Navigator Pointe
Academy has been in accommodating his treatment.
Farris said it’s the least they can do for one of their most beloved staff members.
“The
kids think he’s absolutely the coolest,” Farris said. “He is a really
great role model for these kids to look up to, and he’s also great with
the staff. He’s a team player and ready to help anytime anyone needs it.
We really love him.”
Tyler’s latest round of chemo took place
earlier this week, but that’s not about to slow him down. Listed on his
swim blog are three goals for 2013:
1. Beat cancer!
2. Complete another Utah Triple Crown.
3. At least one 20-mile swim. Most likely Bear Lake or Lake Tahoe crossing.
For
most people that list would seem impossible at best. For those who know
Goody Tyler, they have no doubt he’ll accomplish those goals and plenty
more.
