The first time I competed in the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon World Championships, back in October of 1984, I had a broken leg. Not completely broken like a compound fracture, but broken enough to be a sizable stress fracture and therefore easily noticed by a radiologist five months later, after a reckless driver doing 50 mph hit me from behind, sending my rear derailleur machete-like through my lower leg and breaking the leg once again, thereby necessitating an x-ray or two.
I can still remember the radiologist's incredulous expression when I told him I'd just finished 7th in the world in the Hawaii Ironman, explaining, delicately and even a bit sheepishly, that an Ironman triathlon consisted of 2.4 miles of swimming, 112 miles of cycling, and 26.2 miles of running. In the weeks leading up to Kona I'd noticed increasing tightness and uncomfortableness just below the patella. Twenty-three years old and naive, I took this inconvenience merely as a sign to start tapering, which I did. When the radiologist added, "You know, from the looks of this x-ray you're damn lucky your leg didn't just snap out there during the marathon," I realized that attempting two Ironman distance races in the space of three months, which I did between July and October of 1984, was both brash and foolish for my then young, low-mileage body.
In 1983 the folks in Hawaii had rejected my application to compete, even though I'd gone undefeated in a series of triathlons that year and had also won the Michigan State road race for cycling and competed in the USCF Road Race Nationals in San Diego. So by the fall of '84 I was rearing to go and compete in a race about which I'd heard so much, a one-day event that was then, and now, the Mother Of All Triathlons. I felt I had the mettle to compete at the highest level in the sport; perhaps more significantly, I was still licking the wounds of rejection from '83 and wanted nothing more than to show the Hawaii Ironman folks that they'd made a mistake the year before by not allowing me to come to Kona and compete. In retrospect, I'm fortunate not to have been carted off in an ambulance with a compound fracture of my right tibia. The leg more than held up - moving me from 13th off the bike to 7th by the end of the marathon, and even gaining on Mark Allen (in 5th) and Jon Howard (in 6th) in those delirious final miles - but I was extremely lucky. And I didn't even know it.
Fast forward 28 years to this past October 2011, when I found myself again on the podium at Kona, this time with the 50-54 age group leaders. Six months later, which is to say quite recently, I'm told that I have thyroid cancer after a mysterious bulge starts appearing in my neck, is noticed by my vastly more intelligent and perceptive wife, and I dutifully get it checked out. When I ask a number of the attending doctors how long they think I've had the tumor, based on the size and details of the cyst, 2 - 3 years is their best estimate. Just two years ago places the problem before I even began dreaming of a triathlon renaissance, of getting back into "Kona Condition" and tossing the notion of middle age temporarily out the window. I had cancer and didn't even know it. I had a thyroid that wasn't working at all well - better than now, but certainly not as well as it's supposed to - and I just soldiered on, oblivious to the messages it was sending me, determined once and for all to show that '84 had not been a fluke.
As if getting to mount the podium at Kona isn't difficult enough, doing it twice, and despite the added hurdles of a broken leg and cancer, points to the immense power and pluck of the human condition while underscoring its considerable vulnerabilities and frailties. Or is it that a body subconsciously knowing itself to be on thin ice somehow wills itself to go to extremes to affirm its vitality? If Kona's legendary race can be likened to an orchestral piece one might call "Variations on Accelerated Darwinism in Three Movements," then lurking subtexts like a broken bone or a cancer can only add to the overall human drama of the moment. Events like Kona may also underscore our bodies' enduring resilience in the face of significant obstacles, and it may be the at-the-time unknown obstacles that are the most significant. Give an athlete a competition and he/she will race. Quietly tell his body that it's in TROUBLE and it may allow itself to go to unusual ends to maintain the game face on game day
Hardwired to survive at all costs, some of our ancestors' descendents, including this author, even take comfort and derive confidence from the sort of pursuits that would simulate physical deprivations and challenges not unknown to our long-ago forebears. While our prehistoric predecessors may not have been triathletes, their ability to overcome incredible adversity in their grueling, often ceaseless, quest for safe habitat and adequate food conjures images not dissimilar to those coursing through the psyches of the legions of runners making the turnaround at the Energy Labs. And perhaps for some subset of those competing at each Hawaii Ironman, it may be when the chips are really down that the racer achieves her/his greatest destiny.
I've had the honor of competing four times at Kona. Besides the two races mentioned above, I also raced in '86 and '87. While neither of those races was accompanied by any mysterious plot akin to a fracture or cancer, it's also interesting to note that neither race produced a podium performance. Of her sickly, accident-prone brother, my sister once said I'm a glutton for punishment. Turns out, she (and we) didn't know half the story!
I can still remember the radiologist's incredulous expression when I told him I'd just finished 7th in the world in the Hawaii Ironman, explaining, delicately and even a bit sheepishly, that an Ironman triathlon consisted of 2.4 miles of swimming, 112 miles of cycling, and 26.2 miles of running. In the weeks leading up to Kona I'd noticed increasing tightness and uncomfortableness just below the patella. Twenty-three years old and naive, I took this inconvenience merely as a sign to start tapering, which I did. When the radiologist added, "You know, from the looks of this x-ray you're damn lucky your leg didn't just snap out there during the marathon," I realized that attempting two Ironman distance races in the space of three months, which I did between July and October of 1984, was both brash and foolish for my then young, low-mileage body.
In 1983 the folks in Hawaii had rejected my application to compete, even though I'd gone undefeated in a series of triathlons that year and had also won the Michigan State road race for cycling and competed in the USCF Road Race Nationals in San Diego. So by the fall of '84 I was rearing to go and compete in a race about which I'd heard so much, a one-day event that was then, and now, the Mother Of All Triathlons. I felt I had the mettle to compete at the highest level in the sport; perhaps more significantly, I was still licking the wounds of rejection from '83 and wanted nothing more than to show the Hawaii Ironman folks that they'd made a mistake the year before by not allowing me to come to Kona and compete. In retrospect, I'm fortunate not to have been carted off in an ambulance with a compound fracture of my right tibia. The leg more than held up - moving me from 13th off the bike to 7th by the end of the marathon, and even gaining on Mark Allen (in 5th) and Jon Howard (in 6th) in those delirious final miles - but I was extremely lucky. And I didn't even know it.
Fast forward 28 years to this past October 2011, when I found myself again on the podium at Kona, this time with the 50-54 age group leaders. Six months later, which is to say quite recently, I'm told that I have thyroid cancer after a mysterious bulge starts appearing in my neck, is noticed by my vastly more intelligent and perceptive wife, and I dutifully get it checked out. When I ask a number of the attending doctors how long they think I've had the tumor, based on the size and details of the cyst, 2 - 3 years is their best estimate. Just two years ago places the problem before I even began dreaming of a triathlon renaissance, of getting back into "Kona Condition" and tossing the notion of middle age temporarily out the window. I had cancer and didn't even know it. I had a thyroid that wasn't working at all well - better than now, but certainly not as well as it's supposed to - and I just soldiered on, oblivious to the messages it was sending me, determined once and for all to show that '84 had not been a fluke.
As if getting to mount the podium at Kona isn't difficult enough, doing it twice, and despite the added hurdles of a broken leg and cancer, points to the immense power and pluck of the human condition while underscoring its considerable vulnerabilities and frailties. Or is it that a body subconsciously knowing itself to be on thin ice somehow wills itself to go to extremes to affirm its vitality? If Kona's legendary race can be likened to an orchestral piece one might call "Variations on Accelerated Darwinism in Three Movements," then lurking subtexts like a broken bone or a cancer can only add to the overall human drama of the moment. Events like Kona may also underscore our bodies' enduring resilience in the face of significant obstacles, and it may be the at-the-time unknown obstacles that are the most significant. Give an athlete a competition and he/she will race. Quietly tell his body that it's in TROUBLE and it may allow itself to go to unusual ends to maintain the game face on game day
Hardwired to survive at all costs, some of our ancestors' descendents, including this author, even take comfort and derive confidence from the sort of pursuits that would simulate physical deprivations and challenges not unknown to our long-ago forebears. While our prehistoric predecessors may not have been triathletes, their ability to overcome incredible adversity in their grueling, often ceaseless, quest for safe habitat and adequate food conjures images not dissimilar to those coursing through the psyches of the legions of runners making the turnaround at the Energy Labs. And perhaps for some subset of those competing at each Hawaii Ironman, it may be when the chips are really down that the racer achieves her/his greatest destiny.
I've had the honor of competing four times at Kona. Besides the two races mentioned above, I also raced in '86 and '87. While neither of those races was accompanied by any mysterious plot akin to a fracture or cancer, it's also interesting to note that neither race produced a podium performance. Of her sickly, accident-prone brother, my sister once said I'm a glutton for punishment. Turns out, she (and we) didn't know half the story!
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