Cal.E. is still in rehab. She has lost her phone privileges for a little while. She had, apparently, snuck in a little catnip. The kennel workers caught her eating it and put her in Ad Seg. (solitary confinement) for her own good. She will be back with us when she gets out of rehab. In the meantime, please enjoy excerpts from d.c. scot's biography, Beyond the Thirteenth Mile; The Iron Man Chronicles.
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CHAPTER 2:
THE FIRST TRIATHLON
Bike Leg, mile five: Well, THAT was unexpected. No one warned me about that hill, just “Sugar Mountain.” I must navigate each hill six times in this race.
I thought that Central Florida would have the same terrain as Northern Florida, where I did that one-half IronMan Triathlon in May. It did not have ANY hills in the bike or run course, unlike this course. That is probably why I P.R.’d.
The other two one-half Iron Man courses that I attempted were harder courses to navigate, too. That course was a lot like Greater Houston, where I train. Flat and fast.
I enjoyed that race almost as much as the first triathlon that I ever attempted. I was not sure, at the time, that I could even finish a sprint distance triathlon, much less one of the longer races. I guess the people who started this tradition of torturing themselves to his or her physical limitations (or beyond) might have felt the same way that I did that day. I still like that course the best of any that I have ever done, even though I would have considered doing even a race of that distance to be impossible five years ago. I really DID consider this race to be outside of my normal parameters…
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Every now and then, one must step outside of his or her normal parameters and try something extremely unusual. In short, at least once in one’s life, one must try the impossible. That, to my understanding, is how the first Hawaiian Ironman came to be.
Three men, each an endurance athlete in his own sport, were arguing in a bar about which was the best-trained athlete in the world- a swimmer, a runner, or a cyclist. John Collins, who was a Navy officer based in Hawaii, and is often referred to as “the father of the Ironman, because he is the person who presented the idea for the distances of the race.” He was also the runner in the group. However, he had also participated in the first triathlon that was staged in San Diego some five years before. It included a series of short runs, swims, and bike legs, each of differing distances. So popular was the race at the time that it was held under the lights of the participants’ vehicles, since it was held after five p.m. on a weekday, so as not to interfere with anyone’s normal routine.
Collins' idea was to combine the three sports, with each portion being the ultimate endurance distance in each sport on the Hawaiian Islands at that time. The swim leg of the event was to be a two-point four-mile swim in the ocean, the Waikiki rough water swim, which is an annual event still done today by avid endurance swimmers. The bike leg was, at the time, a two-day, 115-mile ride around the island of Oahu (known as the around-Oahu ride race). The ride was shortened by three miles so that its ending would coincide with the starting line of the Honolulu marathon. This course was to serve as the run portion of the event.(1)
"Whoever can do this, is the world's greatest endurance athlete,” Collins said. “Whoever can do this, is the Iron man.”
All of eighteen people signed up for the first Hawaiian Ironman, all men. (This is quite a difference from today when 1800 slots are claimed in short order.) Of that number, 15 showed up, but only 12 finished, including Collins. No small feat, since Collins had never run over three miles at any one time.
Gordon Haller, a former Navy pentathlete, won the first Ironman, turning the combined distances in a little under twelve hours, a respectable time. However, this is light-years slower than the times that Dave Scott, Marc Allen, and Jurgen Zack would later achieve, some as much as four hours (or more) faster than Haller's time.
(Aside: Zack, my favorite triathlete at the time, earned both my and many other age groupers’ respect after being told at the 2003 Hawaiian Iron Man to walk the run course due to dehydration, fatigue, and physical exhaustion. Zack refused to pull out of the race. He conferred with the medical professionals at the race after developing cramps in his stomach and his legs during the cycling portion of the race. He was told only to walk the rest of the race, or risk suffering severe physical consequences. He later was advised to stop even walking the run course, causing him to have a DNF placed beside his name. This designation indicates that the triathlete did not finish the course in the allotted amount of time. It must have been a painful designation for the swift German because he was leading the race after both the bike and swim legs of it. Most professionals would have pulled out of the race when told not to try to compete for the win. The reason is that they have other races in which to participate. Using up energy just to finish a race would be a waste of time and energy. Zack did not pull out of the race. However, he was later told by the medical professionals at the race that he needed to give up his quest for respect. He did so reluctantly, earning a DNF. Under ideal circumstances, Zack is one of an elite and very small crowd of triathletes who have finished an Ironman distance Triathlon in less than eight hours.)
“No one was seriously injured, nobody died, and the residents of Honolulu weren't too upset," Collins later declared, "That, in itself, makes the event a success." 2
Collins finished the course in just under 17 hours, (the present-day cut-off time for the Ironman races) stopping off for soup and a beer at different points on the run course. Like 10 of the other participants, Collins had no idea of racing, only of finishing the course. Haller and John Dunbar, a former Navy seal and an experienced distance runner, began racing on the marathon course, leaving Collins and his nine peers far behind. John Dunbar finished 35 minutes behind Gordon Haller in the end. The last finisher "passed under the wire" in 22 hours.
Since it is extremely difficult to earn a slot in the Hawaiian Ironman in this era, thirty-nine other Ironman distance triathlons have cropped up around the world. There are also many one-half Ironman distance triathlons (four of which act as “qualifiers,” for the Hawaiian event, the world championship Iron Man distance triathlon, just as a majority of the IronMan distance triathlons are.)
The world championship Iron-Man distance Hawaiian Triathlon was later moved to the big island of Hawaii, which is less populated than the island of Oahu. The course is still just as challenging, if not more so. In fact, my personal belief is that this is the limit to which a sane, normal person would push him or herself to accomplish. Others may believe that the Tour De France or the Badwater 135-mile run through Death Valley is the ultimate test of endurance. The Iron Man distance triathlons, though, are more challenging, in my opinion, because one must be able to perform three different disciplines, all in one seventeen-hour day. This requires using one’s brain as much as his or her well-trained muscles.
There are other races that give competitors the chance to participate in the sport without committing all of his or her free time to train. A one-half-Ironman consists of a 1.2 mile, open-water wave swim, (a wave swim consists of a swim in which all of the participants in one age group start at the same time, with each wave being staged three to five minutes apart) along with a 56-mile bike ride and a 13.1-mile run. An Olympic distance triathlon consists of a 1500-meter open water wave swim, a 40-kilometer bike ride, and a 10-kilometer run. Sprint triathlons vary in distance, but the swim is usually one mile or less, along with a bike ride of under 25 miles, and a run of between three and ten miles. A fairly new triathlon is the X-terra, with a 1500-meter open water wave swim, a 30-kilometer mountain bike ride, and an 11-kilometer trail run. There are also one-half X-terra distance triathlons.
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For me, my first triathlon wasn't anything nearly as dramatic as what John Collins had in mind. It was a sprint, a 300- meter, seeded swim in a swimming pool, a 13-mile bike ride on flat terrain, and a three-mile run in a shaded park. As one of the participants put it, it was just a dip in the pool, a ride around the block, and a stroll in the park.
I beat my modest goal of 90 minutes that day, having a full three minutes to spare. I was satisfied with that time, considering that I was riding a bike that was too small, and this was the first triathlon in which I participated. This course remains my favorite to this day.
My physical reward for finishing this event was a tee shirt and a pair of plastic sunglasses. The real reward, however, was the exuberant feeling that I acquired from the satisfaction of having done something I never would have considered even trying two years before.
My original plan was only to prove (mainly to myself), that someone with a chronic back problem and a surgically rebuilt knee could succeed at this rather difficult sport. From the time I crossed that first finish line, though, I was hooked on the sport and hooked on the feeling of having exceeded my goal. I knew I couldn't stop until I had accomplished what John Collins had envisioned some 20 years before. I set my sights on accomplishing the impossible; the ultimate test of physical fitness, endurance, mental toughness, and strategizing: An IronMan Distance triathlon.
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