A Swiss (not to) Miss!

   Natascha Badmann is my hero.  Not because she has won six Hawaii Ironman titles.  Others have done that. 
   Not because she didn't even start winning the race until she was nearly 30.  Plenty of folks get into racing later in life and a few of them, Natashcha among them, have done quite well.
   Not because she had a tough adolescence, complete with motherhood while still a teenager herself, yet overcame these early long odds to find herself in sport.  Though not many, others have done that too. 
   Not because she has come back from terrible accidents to win again.  Even that has been done.
   No, what makes Natascha Badmann especially amazing, perhaps even singularly so, is that she's had the equivalent of two or three full lives and she's still having fun and racing incredibly fast - plus she smiles and says "hi" to her fans in the thick of competition! 
   Almost 46 years old, she still was within 10 minutes and change of the overall women's lead at Kona last month.  That's about one quarter of one percent off the lead pace.  Or a bit more than a mere mile behind the leader at the finish.  A mile and change after a full day and 140.6 miles of racing against the best in the world, some of whom could have been her daughters!  Even at nearly 46 years old (she turns 46 in two weeks), she still performed her usual magic on the bike, which is to say she pretty much toasted the field, again, on a very tough day for Kona cycling.
   Folks in their 40s have done well at Kona, even folks who had previously done very well at Kona.  Dave Scott comes to mind.  But no one has been in the latter half of the fifth decade of life and done nearly as well.  And no one has done it with her unique biography and vitality.
   Natascha Badmann is special for another, more personal, reason.  In July of 2010, before I even knew that I had another Ironman or two in me, we four Evanses made our annual exit from the heat of Saudi Arabia and vacationed in Switzerland.  At the doorstep of the Alps, we made the town of Meiringen our home.  Of course, not wanting to miss out on an excellent opportunity for photo-op alpine rides, I took my trusty 1986 Nobilette road bike along and regularly rode in the heaven that is this part of Europe.  We stayed nearly three weeks in Meiringen, and on one of the last days there, a weekend day, I rose early to tackle an epic 180 km counter-clockwise ride which would take me up and over three of the higher alpine passes in the entire region.  I'd done the ride once before nearly a decade earlier on a previous vacation in Switzerland, and not wanting to give an inch to my then impending 50s decided that having another go at this Mother of all Rides would be a fitting way to end our time there - and reestablish the M(F)ountain of Youth.
   The ride started well, and within a few hours I was up and over the first two passes.  Then, approaching the town of Andermatt, I had a flat and immediately used the only extra tube I'd brought along.  Unfortunately, another flat soon followed and now, about 100 km from home and with another huge pass still to go up and over, I began looking, then praying, for an open bike shop.  Except it was a Sunday.  A family gave me a ride into the nearest town, but still no bike shop, or at least not one open.
   Then suddenly, as if the waters had parted, into the parking lot next to me pulled a VW van, the outside of which advertised triathlon coaching.  Trying to act subdued, I nonchalantly approached the driver, learned that he had some extra bike stuff in the back, told him of my troubles that day, and asked if he could fix me up with a tube or two.  He looked over my by now pathetic repair kit and, while fixing me up with a new and much improved version, asked me if I knew Natascha Badmann.  Well, folks, not only had I not been involved with the Ironman since '87, I hadn't really stayed abreast of what was happening in triathlon in the more than two intervening decades.  Truthfully, I didn't know who she was, but I did let him know that I'd remembered seeing a gal and guy riding toward me uphill about two hours previously, and when I described them he let me know, "well, the woman is Natascha, and now you can say that you've seen a six-time Ironman champion on your ride.  And I'm her husband and coach, Toni Hasler.  Happy to meet you."
  By now realizing how late I was going to be, and not with a phone to call ahead to family and let them know, I just shook his hand, said I was honored and appreciative, and biked off as quickly as my now-rested body could.  I didn't get another flat that day, but I did do some thinking then and later about the wonderfulness of Natascha and Toni.
  Fast forward four months, I get the Ironman bug all over again after my friend Scott Tucker completes Kona 2010 and throws out the idea of my getting back in Kona Shape, and suddenly I'm scrambling to find a qualifier to do in hopes of meeting him in Kona in October 2011.  Fast forward another five months, now April 10, 2011 to be exact, my 50th birthday, and I'm getting off the bike and beginning the run at Ironman South Africa in Port Elizabeth and who comes into transition just as I'm leaving but none other than Natashcha Badmann.  And there to her right, yelling her encouragement, is my Swiss Savior Toni, her coach/husband.  Natascha was still recovering from injuries, had not yet found her form and would later drop out 6 km into the run.  If you had asked me then if the 44 year-old woman I saw at T2 could ever again hope to compete with the likes of the top women (like Crissy Wellington, who was just then blitzing the course and establishing yet another world record for the Ironman distance) I would have thought you perhaps more than wishful.
   And then I happened to peek at the results of Ironman South Africa 2012 this April and, apart from noticing the slower times in general and reading of the tough, blustery conditions that were their cause, I was more than a little surprised and impressed by noticing that Natascha Badmann had trounced the women's field, and with a very respectable time.
   We all know that qualifiers are one thing, Kona quite another.  Yet a part of me thought, hmm, if tough conditions bring out the best in certain folks, then with all of her Kona experience and love for tough conditions, if Kona has a tougher than normal year, Natascha could be in the running.
   Which is exactly what she was, and with a terrifyingly fast Kona time of 9:26.  Heck, even Miranda was in the 9:20s.  Only Miranda is many, many birthdays from being 46.
   I know that Natascha has had very many races, and that she has won a good portion of them.  But it would be difficult to rank any of her victories above her recent 6th place at Kona.  The phrase used to be "40 is the new 30."  For those of us already in our 50s, in a few more years Natascha could well prove that "50 is the new 30."  Here's to the Swiss Miss!                    

Cheating and Sport - some thoughts

Why do folks want to succeed so badly in sport that they cheat in order to achieve success?  Cursed with the probable, is it that many would rather tempt the improbable?  Is it that money has so corrupted sport that real sport no longer exists?  Or is it that a certain narcissism brought on by technology has deluded some?  If we're instantly being served up access to this or information about that 24/7, is it somehow making us impatient/uncomfortable with ourselves?  Given that so many love sport, indeed live by sport, has our infatuation necessarily distorted its meaning and falsely inflated its importance, making us all at least partially culpable for its current troubles? There are legions of examples of folks who have betrayed out trust.  Worse, they've depreciated sport, and I take that very personally.

• Paul Ryan may be a gifted orator with some reasonable ideas for America's future.  There's even a chance he could be a future president.  So why say you've run a sub-3 hour marathon in a race when you've not ever broken 4?  To a runner, the time difference is at once mind-boggling and ridiculous.  Think Rosie Ruiz. Those who run 2 hours and change are in different running worlds than those who don't break 4.  Ask any runner.  Yet, unprovoked, Mr. Ryan felt the need to grossly deflate his achieved time and thereby incredibly inflate his best actual performance. For a man who apparently would have us believe that hard work and determination can get a person anywhere, this would be laughable if it weren't so pathetic and ironic.  My advice to any voter: If you want to know whether to vote for a person, see what the fact- checkers say about the candidate's PBs, in any sport.  Full stop.
• Then there is the case of Kip Litton.  The man is my age, apparently came to running in mid-life and, for a while at least, seemed to have made marathon racing his mainstay.  Not satisfied with being merely a prolific marathoner, Kip decided to embellish his record by starting and finishing races in different outfits and inadvertently perhaps, with negative splits on occasion.  Hmm...  As if that weren't suspicious enough, Kip also resorted to wholly making up races he'd "competed" in so as to pad his running CV.  As if it's not bad enough to cheat your way to a fast marathon time, it takes a lot of imagination (and time) to conjure a marathon and design its website, complete with fictitious roster of runners, in order to "win" the thing outright.  How does anyone even think of that?!
• Perhaps most infamously, there is Lance Armstrong, a person who probably had less reason to cheat than most anyone on account of his obvious natural athletic gifts.  I suspect there would be full agreement that Lance was precocious and prolific as a young athlete and that, if you saw him race as a teenager you'd have felt he was already in a league of his own - no reason to dope.  What is less clear is why he eventually felt the need to cheat personally, essentially coerce teammates to cheat as well, and then lie about it compulsively for years and years, and still.  Lance has cheapened already damaged cycling (a sport I love), has harmed, possibly irreparably, a foundation that gave real hope and money to our ongoing fight against cancer (a disease I now take very personally), and perhaps worst, he continues to deny his failings, with ongoing repercussions for many, not least Lance.  Were Shakespeare alive today, I'm sure he'd find a great play in all this.   

 Myriad other examples remain, with more sadly adding to this total daily.  Yet I remain hopeful that these headline grabbers won't define sport for the rest of us, least of all not our children.  When I think of what sport has done to help inspire and define me, I can only hope that sane minds (combined with clean blood) will prevail and that true sport will eventually undergo a bit of a renaissance so that my students and two sons can enter a world that more consistently rewards that endlessly fascinating intersection of raw athletic talent and supreme discipline.           

2012 NYC Marathon - Thoughts of a Veteran

   I can't believe they've cancelled the NYC Marathon!  By waiting so long to cancel, the many people who had already traveled such long distances in order to compete in one of the world's great endurance events have now arrived to ...?  Personally, I think going ahead with the race would have been a great way to signal to the world that NYC was recovering yet still able to showcase a world-class event. 
   NYC Road Runners could have done a better job of getting thousands of caring and concerned athletes in volunteer positions during the week, providing work many athletes I'm sure would have been willing and able to do.  Instead, my sense is that there was a growing groundswell of opinion that the marathon was an elite event out of touch with the concerns and real needs of at least some of the rest of the city.  But I think this misses the point - and the opportunities. 
   If I may be so bold, Kona's Ironman is an elite event that is increasingly out of touch with its locale, and if a similar event were to befall the Kohala Coast and Ironman officials had to consider cancelling the Ironman, through chats and conversations I recently had with a number of disgruntled Kona residents, I could see how many of the locals would be just as happy to see Ironman go away for a year, if not forever.  Kona is an elite event that gives every indication of becoming only more elite and exclusive in the years ahead (more on this topic soon).  Ironically, the very very argument Ironman folks made in 1982 justifying their move from Oahu for the then more expansive and inviting venue offered by the Big Island could be used by Kona locals today.  Based on the name, maybe they should consider moving the event to the town of Ford? 
  The NYC Marathon is vastly different.  Rather than 2,000 triathletes, it welcomes nearly 50,000 runners, many of them decidedly fair to middling as athletes, nearly half of them from the burroughs of self-same NYC.  While Kona disallows local viewers from all but a but a small portion of the race, NYC's marathon is watched live, race-side, by millions of supportive and wildly cheering folks, and generates incalculable good will and memories.   It isn't necessarily an event you want to cancel - unless the event gets politicized and its relevance distorted which, unfortunately, would appear to be the case today.  And while Kona continues to separate world-class from world-class by allowing the professionals to start earlier than - which is to say apart from - the many very fast and able age-groupers present, NYC allows a common bloke like me to line up directly behind the Kenyans and Ethiopians, crossing the start line only moments after they do and experiencing the race as they do (albeit at a slower pace!).
   Granted, Mayor Bloomberg had to make a very tough decision, and I know he must be aware of various details he can't, or won't, make public, but the more I find out about today's decision the more it seems to smack of posturing and smell of preening.  With millions of folks watching live and tens of thousands more volunteering (or, let's not forget, getting excellent overtime pay as police, etc.), I think a marathon tomorrow could have been a great signal to the world that NYC can take a hit and get right back up.  In truth, some of the challenges that a distinct minority of east coasters have felt this past week are the daily realities for tens/hundreds of millions of folks, more than a number of whom live in countries that host world-class events on at least a sometimes basis - like India did with its recent hosting of the Commonwealth Games. 
   At least with an event like the marathon, Regular Joes and Janes of the sports world get to toe the line with the immortals running the sub-2:10 marathons.  With professional sports, on the other hand, cities increasingly have to pay ridiculous money to build and maintain venues in which the (increasingly only wealthy) citizens only get to watch athletes entertain/compete.  The Knicks played last night at Madison Square Garden and the Nets play tonight in their new home in Brooklyn.  To my knowledge, no one was/is asking them to cancel their events.  I'd be interested to know how many other professional sporting events got canceled in the NYC region through this weekend.  Each requires a fair amount of emergency/traffic personnel, and, as more than one economist has noted, the economies of elite professional sports don't have nearly the broad brush trickle-down effect a 50,000 strong marathon has. 
   I'm bummed (in case you couldn't tell!), especially for the athletes who just traveled a very long distance to fulfill a dream, only to find their hopes dashed.  I was one of those athletes traveling a very long distance just last year, and not once but twice, to Port Elizabeth and then Kona, both times from Saudi Arabia, and I can tell you I'd have been particularly upset had either race been cancelled for the reasons I've at least been able to read about related to NYC Marathon's demise this year.
   No one wants to promote suffering and loss of life, but the truth is most of the folks who ended up losing their lives during Sandy failed to take the precautionary steps advised repeatedly by local officials.  In addition, many of the homes destroyed were built on low-lying, fragile, coastal regions; statistically, these venues have a much greater chance of experiencing the kind of devastating damage they did, and with global warming/climate change it was mathematically only a matter of time before they did.
  Concern was voiced about possibly having to force flood victims out of temporary hotel rooms so that 20,000 or so out of town athletes would have places to stay - before any mention was made about how social media could possibly easily have solved the housing problem through quick apartment shares/extra room donations and such.  I'm willing to bet the NYC Road Runners Club, et al., could have solved the housing problem quickly with its members' Twitter and Facebook accounts.  As for the lack of electricity and gas to many NYC residents, I'm not sure how a Sunday morning marathon is especially relevant.  Most emergency crews are already on location, hard at work; many problems have been solved, or will have been by Sunday.  Hardly anyone is reporting to work on a Sunday morning.  Unlike Ironman, roads are truly shut down for just a few hours, and even at Kona with its one major north/south road, emergency vehicles can get up and down the coast if need be during the race.
   We used to be a scrappy and plucky nation.  Now we seem scared of our shadows, too worried about our images, excessively concerned about what others might think.  As if the nauseatingly too long and expensive national election weren't enough, now we have to throw in a perfectly good and decent marathon to the political mix just to placate a few potential voters.  Opportunity lost.  As a former NYC resident and NYC Marathon runner, my heartfelt apologies to all those who were inconvenienced by this very late and unfortunate decision.  I must disagree with the mayor (and especially his handlers) on this one.

David Evans
2:29 Marathon P.R.
1989 NYC Marathon
Top Manhattan finisher
12th American