C.: d.c. still isn’t here, but he sent me an email with an attachment to read, so he must be online again. I wonder what this says?
CHAPTER 21: THIRTEEN DAYS (LIVING LIFE IN FAST FORWARD)
2105 hours; Run course; mile 20:
I’m really tired. This course is pushing me to my absolute limit, both mentally and physically. I thought training for this race was brutal. I guess sometimes you must live your life in fast forward to be ready for something this challenging, just as in real life when the “rubber meets the road,” so to speak.
I won't think about that film clip of Julie Moss on ABC’s Wide World of Sports, or the story of how Chris Legh cratered less than one hundred yards from the finish line in Hawaii back in 1997. I hope, though, that I don’t have to pull a “Bill Bell'' and dive for the finish line to cross it before the time limit expires…
***
Everyone who has ever seen more than one episode of ABC's Wide World of Sports is familiar with the film clips of Julie Moss, leading the February 1982 Hawaiian Ironman distance triathlon, collapsing within sight of the finish line. After several failed attempts to get back on her feet and start running again, Moss swallowed her pride and crawled across the finish line on her hands and knees. She was passed two steps from breaking the tape. This happens just as Jim McKay’s voice declares, "And the agony of defeat." Her dramatic crawl to the finish line happened after she led the women’s division of the race until she “bonked,” totally exhausted, a few hundred yards from finishing the race in first place. That allowed Elizabeth Pitts to pass her and win the women’s division of the race that year. Most of us have seen this particular film clip and can relate to it on some level.(1) (The then 18-year-old Moss, though, remains a legend to age groupers who badly want to finish the grueling race within the time limit.)
Fewer of us, however, are familiar with the film clips of Chris Legh. After leading for the whole Hawaiian Ironman, Legh collapsed 100 yards from the finish line, totally exhausted. He never even finished the race, thus destroying his hopes of winning it.(1)
Another obscure film clip shows Bill Bell competing in the 2001 Hawaiian Ironman, diving for the finish line and touching it with one finger. Bell did this less than two minutes after the 17-hour time limit expired. His gallant effort went for naught, though. An official ruling that year not to allow his dramatic finish to count in the record books kept Bell from bettering by one year his own personal record of being the oldest person to have ever crossed the finish line in Kona, and have it count in the record book. After officials conferred, they decided that Bell’s reward was to have a DNF placed beside his name, indicating that he didn’t finish the course in the allowed amount of time.(1) This must have been painful for the five-time winner of his age group in Hawaii. However, Bell would go on to finish the California Ironman distance triathlon the next year, securing him a place in the record books as the oldest person to finish an Ironman distance triathlon.
Bell’s record stood until 2016, when Hiromu Inada crossed the finish line in Kona almost seven minutes ahead of the time limit as an 82-year-old. Two years later, Hiromu Inada crossed the finish line in Kona as an 85-year-old with more than five minutes to spare. This feat is amazing, because the Japanese wonder didn’t start his training for triathlons until one year after his wife died when he was 69. Hiromu Inada is a determined soul, because he missed finishing the World Championship Ironman Distance Triathlon cutoff times the two years before he set his record of being the oldest person ever to cross the finish line in Kona and have it count in the record books, but he didn’t let that deter him from accomplishing his goal.(13)
The images of Moss’s and Bell’s spectacular failures haunt a tired triathlete's sleeping and resting periods. My hat is off to Bell, however. He remained an active cyclist until the age of 92. Although he passed away in 2020 at the age of 97, he is an ideal role model for those of us who are trying to maintain an active lifestyle at an advanced age. This is mainly because Bell completed over 300 triathlons, including 32 Ironman distance triathlons after starting his training at the age of 50! Bell (or, now, his memory) will forever have my and almost all other triathletes’ undying respect.
For his part, Inada is a living inspiration, because he will attempt to become the first 90-year-old to complete the Hawaiian Ironman distance triathlon in 2022)(7) (13). However, in the back of a competitor's mind, when faced with such brutal dashes of realism as Bell, Moss, and Legh faced, we think, Those people just didn't train quite hard enough. If I just try a little bit harder, or train a little longer, or race smarter (more efficiently), none of those things will happen to me. The reality is that we’re all vulnerable to failure.*
*scot, d.c. Thirteen Days (living LIfe in Fast Forward); Beyond the Thirttenth Mile: The Iron Man Chronicles pp 97-99 (comoing soon!)
Comments