C.: Well, it’s Sunday. I’m off work from The Kennel today, but I’, scheduled to work tonight. However, d.c. is at work and won’t get of untila after I get there, so he left me some material for this blog. He said that, since it got such a good reaction when he ran excerpts for BEYOND THE THIRTEENTH MILE: THE IRON MAN CHRONICLES, we should run experts from it every Sunday. So, here’s the Preamble and first chapter. Enjoy.
PREAMBLE
When competitors undertake running a marathon, every step they take beyond the thirteenth mile burns body fat and muscle tissue. Somewhere between the 20th and 23rd mile of the 26.2-mile run, the competitors’ physical reserves are exhausted, no matter how hard they train for this grueling physical test of endurance. All they are left with are their mental capabilities and their determination for the last, exhausting three to six miles of the run.
When competitors compete in an Ironman distance triathlon, the marathon is the last thing they do after swimming 2.4 miles in the open water, then cycling 112 miles over hot, hilly terrain. The challenge is to finish the whole event in less than 17 hours.
My goal, after starting my training at the age of 35, is to go that distance.
My name is Jedidiah Harper, and what follows is my chronicle of events leading up to my attempt to finish my first full Ironman distance triathlon. This account is loosely based on a journal I kept that chronicled my training in hopes of completing this grueling event; the ultimate one day test of physical fitness, endurance, mental toughness, and strategizing. The chronicle of events is true; only the names have been changed.
CHAPTER ONE: THE FIRST TRIATHLON
October 20, 2001; Kissimmee, Florida. Great Floridian Ironman Distance Triathlon; first transition area; 0755:
I had a good swim this time. Not even one person kicked me in the head. It was helpful to talk to that veteran Iron Man before the race. He told me to stay way outside the pylons. I probably swam 2-1/2 miles instead of the 2.4 that the course is supposed to be by doing that. I still beat my goal for the swim by five minutes, even though I only used my legs to walk out of the water. That should be helpful in the bike leg and the run course. I conserved some energy too.
This swim was better than most of my swims before I joined that masters’ swim group. I’m a good swimmer, but a wave swim is a different situation from most swims. All of us back-of-the-packers wasted too much time at the beginning of the swim doing our Heckle-and-Jeckle imitations. We were all trying to avoid the crowd, inviting each other to go first. I finally just dove in. It’s a long race, though. Maybe I should catch my breath before I get on my bike.
I’m glad I took my daily inhaler before the swim. That was helpful. Is that volunteer bringing me my bike? (Out loud: “Is that legal?”). He said just don’t tell anyone by pressing his forefinger to his lips. I won't.
0800:
I’m afraid I would drop and break my phone if I used it to talk into it while competing. I must enter my thoughts in my journal as soon as I get back to my hotel room to remember this day, since it would be impossible to write anything down during this race. Who am I kidding? If I finish this race, I’ll remember every detail of it for the next twenty years!
0815:
I suppose the people who started this tradition of torturing themselves to their physical limitations (or beyond) might have felt the same way I did the day I started training for this race after attempting to finish my first triathlon. I still like that course the best of any I’ve 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…
***
I firmly believe that, every now and then, you must step outside your normal parameters and try to accomplish something extremely unusual. In short, at least once in your life, you must attempt to accomplish the impossible. That, to my understanding, is how the first Hawaiian Ironman distance triathlon 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 US Navy officer based in Hawaii and the runner in the group, presented the idea for the distances of the race. For this reason, Collins is often referred to as “the father of the Ironman distance triathlon,” because he presented the idea for the distances of each leg of the event. Collins had also participated in the first triathlon that was staged in San Diego about five years before this discussion took place. His wife, Judy, became infatuated with the sport after that. She probably deserves as much credit as her husband (possibly more) for the idea of the specifications for the ultimate test of endurance that John later presented. (Plant, Mike, Who’s the Fittest One of All? IRON WILL: The Triathlete’s Ultimate Challenge. Edited by Lori Hobkirk. Boulder Colorado. Velopress, 2nd edition, published 1999. pp 58-93)
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. (Plant, Mike, Who’s the Fittest One of All? IRON WILL: The Triathlete’s Ultimate Challenge. Edited by Lori Hobkirk. Boulder Colorado. Velopress, 2nd edition, published 1999. pp 58-93)
Collins's idea was to combine the three sports, with each portion being the ultimate test of endurance in each sport on the Hawaiian Islands at that time. The swim leg of the event was to be a 2.4-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. (Plant, Mike, Who’s the Fittest One of All? IRON WILL: The Triathlete’s Ultimate Challenge. Edited by Lori Hobkirk. Boulder Colorado. Velopress, 2nd edition, published 1999. pp 58-93)
“Whoever can do this is the world’s greatest endurance athlete,” Collins said. “Whoever can do this, is the Iron Man.” (Plant, Mike, Who’s the Fittest One of All? IRON WILL: The Triathlete’s Ultimate Challenge. Edited by Lori Hobkirk. Boulder Colorado. Velopress, 2nd edition, published 1999. pp 58-93)
All of 18 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. Only 20% of the slots, though, are claimed by women. This would indicate that there is still a large disparity in the “battle of the sexes” when endurance sports are involved. Of the 18 who signed up for the event, only 15 participated. However, only 12 finished, including Collins. This was no small feat, since Collins had never run over three miles at any one time.
Gordon Haller, a former navy pentathlete, won the first Hawaiian Ironman distance triathlon, turning the combined distances in a little under 12 hours, a respectable time. However, this time would seem to be light-years slower than the times that Dave Scott, Mark Allen, and Jürgen Zäck would later achieve, some as much as four hours (or more) faster than Haller's time.
Zäck, my favorite triathlete at the time, earned both my and many other “age groupers’” respect after being told at the 2002 Hawaiian Ironman distance triathlon to walk the run course due to dehydration, fatigue, and physical exhaustion. Zäck refused to pull out of the race. He conferred with the medical professionals there after developing cramps in his stomach and 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, indicating that he didn’t finish the course in the allotted amount of time. This 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, because they have other races in which to participate. Using up energy just to finish a race would be a waste of time and energy, most other professional triathletes would reason.
Zäck didn’t 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. 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. (PLUS: TRIATHLON; DeBoom Defends His Ironman Title, Newyork times .com recalled 12/20/22. https://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/20/sports/plus-triathlon-deboom-defends-his-ironman-title.html)
“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.”(4) Collins finished the course in just under 17 hours, (the present-day cut-off time for the Ironman distance triathlon races), stopping off for soup and a beer at different points on the run course. The seemingly slow time may have been because, like ten 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. (Plant, Mike, Who’s the FIttest One of All? IRON WILL: The Triathlete’s Ultimate Challenge. Edited by Lori Hobkirk. Boulder Colorado. Velopress, 2nd edition, published 1999. pp 58-93)
Since it’s extremely difficult to earn a slot in the Hawaiian Ironman distance triathlon in this era, 39 other races of the same description 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 Ironman distance triathlon, just as a majority of the Ironman distance triathlons are.
The world championship Ironman 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 Ironman distance triathlons, though, are just as challenging, in my opinion, because the participants must be able to perform three different disciplines, all in one 17-hour (or less) day. This requires using your brain as much as your well-trained muscles. And most of the participants are amateurs, unlike cyclists in the Tour de France.
There are other races that give competitors the chance to participate in the sport without committing all their free time to training. A one-half Ironman consists of a 1.2-mile, open-water wave swim, (a wave swim consists of a swim in which all 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 XTerra, 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 XTerra distance triathlons that are ideal for those who are reluctant to invest time and money for equipment in a sport with which they are not familiar. These shorter races let athletes determine if they are willing and able to commit resources to this time-consuming (and sometimes expensive) sport.
***
For me, my first triathlon wasn't anything nearly as daunting 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 3-mile run in a shaded park. Or, 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.
After I perused the qualifications for the race, I decided to enter it in the “Clydesdale” classification. I reasoned that most of the real competitors wouldn’t weigh over 200 pounds. It was to my great surprise that I was eight pounds below that qualification on the day of the race. I reasoned, though, that drinking one gallon of water before the race to be able to meet that qualification wouldn’t be harmful. It isn’t possible to replace all the fluids you lose in the course of a race, even a short one. However, I was wrong about the “real competitors.” Many in the Clydesdale class were in phenomenal shape. They only topped two hundred pounds because of their height, in most instances, so I didn’t do well in the standings. The same was true when I decided to try to participate in the “Pony” category for one race, (men who weigh between 180 and 199 pounds) since that is what I consider to be my natural weight. The women’s division also has an Athena classification for women who weigh over 145 pounds.
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 had participated. This course remains my favorite to this day because of the pleasant atmosphere of the race.
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 of satisfaction that came from having accomplished 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, asthma, 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 accomplished what John Collins had envisioned some 20 years before. I set my sights on accomplishing the impossible; the ultimate one day test of physical fitness; the grueling test endurance, mental toughness, and strategizing: completing an Ironman distance triathlon.
0817:
As I’m trying to distract myself from thinking about the challenging distances of this racecourse, the question that keeps running through my mind is, “How and why did I become interested in multi-sport events?” Just as my computer is rebooting right now, I’ll think back to the beginning, when I rebooted my athletic career …
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