Ending up in the ER, let alone having a near death experience, wasn’t AP Literature and Ethnic Studies teacher Kitaro Takesue’s ideal ending to completing a triathlon. After racing the 140.6 mile Sacramento Ironman Triathlon, as a result of exercising for 11 hours and 25 minutes straight, Takesue developed a minor case of rhabdomyolysis: a condition where muscle tissue breaks down and enters the bloodstream, resulting in blood entering the kidneys and, in some cases, causing fatal damage, according to Cleveland Clinic.
“If there’s too much [blood] there’s a possibility of kidney failure. My CK [creatine kinase, an enzyme released in the blood in response to muscle damage] level wasn’t horrible. But it was on the lower end, at 5,000. It was still bad, and the ER doctor [told me] ‘that’s not good.’ To hear that from a doctor is concerning,” Takesue said. “Going to the ER definitely took away from my satisfaction of running this. I still have to go to a cardiologist to double check that everything is okay.”
As an athlete, especially after facing this condition, Takesue strives to be open about all the dark sides to racing—not just the picture-perfect ones.
“That’s what I told everybody, because I didn’t want to be like the social media highlights: ‘Here are all these great things. I earned a medal and got to be on TV.’ I was like, ‘No, actually, I had to go to the ER and we were all very worried, and I thought, am I gonna die like this?’” Takesue said.
Growing up, Takesue never felt that he had the physique to be an athlete. When he discovered endurance sports during college, he realized he was just as athletically gifted as the basketball and football jocks that had always inspired him. For Takesue, racing in the Ironman Triathlon was less about the distance itself, and more about proving to himself that he could do it. Preparing for the triathlon ultimately required a lot of intensive training in the months prior, as well as resting the week of the race, so as to not overexert his muscles.
“I’ve been wanting to do this for 20 years,” Takesue said. “I started dedicating myself to it pretty seriously a couple years ago. So I started off with distance racing, just to see what it was like. One thing led to another, and five or six races later, here I am.”
Recently turning 40 years old, training for months for the Ironman and racing puts strain on Takesue’s physical health. Despite this, Takesue plans to enter many more races in the future.
“Leading up to this, I think my biggest training sessions were in the summertime,” Takesue said. “On weekends, I would do a six hour bike ride and then run an hour, or swim for an hour and a half in the morning and then run in the afternoon. So it’s weeks and weeks of that.”
Takesue’s biggest concern on race day was getting enough nutrients in with his meal plan, and more importantly, using the bathroom that morning– a common struggle amongst runners. Although he started the triathlon around 6:40 a.m., he was up far earlier than that getting in the food and energy his body needed, which is the “fourth discipline in triathlon.”
“You wake up super early and start consuming caffeine and things like that to get the body working on your support system. [Each portion of the triathlon] has got a lot of gear and you’ve got to set up all the bags and things for meals. You have to figure out what your plan is in advance which can be stressful,” Takesue said.
Upon beginning the race, Takesue enjoyed the swimming portion the most since he is most confident in his swimming skills, finishing the 2.4 mile course in a little over 50 minutes.
“The water was really clear,” Takesue said. “I loved it, it was very beautiful. I was just enjoying being in the river, swimming under bridges and watching the sunrise. It was a lot of fun. I’ve been working on my stroke too, so I got to show that off.”
In contrast, Takesue had the most trouble during the biking portion as a result of intense headwinds. He completed the 112 mile bike ride in the early afternoon in six hours and 19 minutes.
“I’m a pretty talented swimmer, but I’m unfortunately a below average biker. So, I just spent six hours with old ladies passing me, which was a little sad but also funny,” Takesue said.
While he normally obsesses over his times, Takesue chose to keep his watch off until he started running and, instead, decided to “go off pure vibes.” During challenging moments, this pushed him to continue moving forward, along with thoughts of all the work he had put in to come this far in his athletic career.
“I [was] kind of struggling the whole time. I thought about how much I put into getting there, whether that was breaking my collarbone in a race last year, or how my whole family was there waiting for me. I knew that I could do it for myself,” Takesue said.
Takesue went on to complete the 26.2 mile marathon in four hours, beating his goal of finishing in 12 hours. Having completed this milestone, in spite of facing a life-threatening injury, Takesue continues to view racing as a great opportunity to bring people from different places, cultures, and backgrounds together.
“There’s people who are on the bus to talk to on the way, even freshmen in college. I had a great conversation with this college student on the way there. It’s really cool that people from all sorts of countries and backgrounds come to these events,” Takesue said. “There’s a lot of people who said that was their first race and I thought, ‘You’re crazy for that.’”
As Takesue’s athletic career continues to broaden, he feels that there’s no time but the present to keep training and trying to improve, as well as meet new people and learn from their unique athletic experiences.
“Now there’s just this kind of compulsion to keep going,” Takesue said. “I think racing is very exhilarating. I could do it all day long, every day, 12 hours a day.”