Teachers don't have it easy. Crowded classrooms and unruly students may challenge some, but if you're a teacher, like millions are, and a triathlete, like thousands of us are, with aspirations of making it to Kona for October's big event, like hundreds have, then you face an uphill battle that makes getting up to Havi a walk in the park.
For starters, of all the possible months in which to hold the Ironman World Championships, from a teacher's perspective, October has to be the worst.
June - August typically contain some variation on summer break, September has Labor Day and its extended weekend, November has Thanksgiving, December/January have Winter Break, February often has Mid-Winter Break or Washington's Birthday, March/April have Spring Break, and May has Memorial Weekend. What does October have? Halloween, a workday filled with unusual fashion choices and amped up sugar intakes, but no time off.
Of all the possible months, that fateful decision in 1982, when the Hawaii triathlon powers that once were moved the race from February to October, arguably impacted teachers the most. Unlike folks in other fields of work and psuedo work, a teacher's "time off" is programmed. Even in the southern hemisphere, my South African teaching colleagues attest that October is a busy month, as students are ramping up for exams and summer break.
So what is a teacher with dreams of making it to Kona to do? Well, when I qualified this past year, I had to negotiate time off and begin planning for subs for classes well in advance. I sat down with my school's principal and superintendent early, months before the qualifier in Port Elizabeth, and talked through the whole plan: going to Abu Dhabi in March to shake off the cobwebs of a 24-year retirement from serious triathlon, then trying to earn the single 50-54 age-group Kona-qualifying spot in April at Ironman South Africa, then, if fate would have me, going to Hawaii in October for the world championships. I'm fairly sure that they felt they were risking mainly having me gone a day for Abu Dhabi and a few days for IMSA, which conveniently backed up to our Spring Break and therefore meant I didn't have to miss very many days with my students. Let's face it, as any who have recently tried to compete at Kona well know, the odds of my making it were not good.
However, when IMSA went well and I'd qualified in my first attempt for Hawaii, the first time since 1987, I scheduled a follow-up conversation to remind them of the original plan, however hypothetical it may have seemed at the time. I waited one week, then two, for their response and final okay, and meanwhile I'd recovered and begun tentatively training for Kona, still not knowing if all the hard work and planning would actually lead to the road back to Kona. Finally, after what seemed like forever but which was actually less than three weeks, I received word that I could indeed go.
There was just one hitch, of course. However frugally, I'd had to update my vintage 1980s triathlon equipment in order to even have hopes of competing on the more crowded and talented 2011 triathlon playing field, and I'd been a teacher my entire professional life (and was therefore, unlike a number of my fellow competitors at Kona, was not independently wealthy). So, just like each of the preceding five days off I'd recently taken, the ten days I'd need to travel the 13 time zones to and fro where I currently live and work and compete at Hawaii's Ironman apparently would be unpaid.
A number of folks on campus tried, ultimately unsuccessfully, to get me some level of sponsorship from the folks at the top here. I tried to lobby upper administration and make the experience part of our students' learning, potentially connecting learning to a teacher's somewhat unusual and arguably interesting non-academic life, but this too proved to be a non-starter. Then, with only weeks to go before having to leave for Kona, a vocal group of supporters on campus tried to pitch my quest one last time to the upper campus administration. For a time it seemed like the impasse would be overcome, but then, only days before boarding the plane, I again found that financial help would not be in the cards, that no one wanted to take on the hot potato of sponsoring an employee while having to answer to potential auditors later on, or at least that was the whispered claim.
If you include the past year's three race fees, the travel, the accommodations, the food, the essential equipment, and the lost salary, competing in Kona in 2011 cost more than all the more than three dozen triathlons I did from 1984 - 1987, and that includes three trips to Kona in '84, '86, and'87! To be frank, some of those '80s races had at least some expenses covered by sponsors. But most of my expenses back then were covered by me, and to keep expenses down while in grad school at Michigan, most of the races I did were local, or at least regional, which meant I didn't usually have to fly to races.
Still, the widening gap between the sport's financial demands and what increasing numbers of folks modestly possess as discretionary income is balkanizing a sport already regarded as elitist, seemingly inaccessible.
So there I was at the awards ceremony in Kona, my last night in Hawaii, and just by chance I had sat down at a table that included two other teachers. Excitedly, we compared notes and talked about the amazing week we'd just had. One guy, currently teaching in Dubai at an international school, had rallied the school community behind his quest and was getting full pay while being gone. Meanwhile, farther down the table I later met a woman, teaching in Europe, who not only was getting paid but had attracted sponsors, one of whom had paid her air-fare and another of whom had helped her with what all of us know are considerable bike expenses.
And there I sat, disconsolate, shaken, a bit upset even - until the awards were announced - when I realized that no amount of money can compare to being able to mount the podium at a world championship one more time, especially more than half a lifetime after the first and only other time I'd been on the podium, in '84. Knowing that I'd financially done it all on my own, this time against tremendous odds, gave pause for special thanks to family, friends, and teachers and coaches, some long-ago, who'd first inspired and tirelessly supported. And I reminded myself that as a teacher and coach, part of my compact with my student/athletes includes planting that seed of possibility by nurturing potential. My only hope is that if I ever have students able and willing enough to fully embrace this amazing sport of triathlon, that finances won't prove to be the one finish line too far for them to reach.
For starters, of all the possible months in which to hold the Ironman World Championships, from a teacher's perspective, October has to be the worst.
June - August typically contain some variation on summer break, September has Labor Day and its extended weekend, November has Thanksgiving, December/January have Winter Break, February often has Mid-Winter Break or Washington's Birthday, March/April have Spring Break, and May has Memorial Weekend. What does October have? Halloween, a workday filled with unusual fashion choices and amped up sugar intakes, but no time off.
Of all the possible months, that fateful decision in 1982, when the Hawaii triathlon powers that once were moved the race from February to October, arguably impacted teachers the most. Unlike folks in other fields of work and psuedo work, a teacher's "time off" is programmed. Even in the southern hemisphere, my South African teaching colleagues attest that October is a busy month, as students are ramping up for exams and summer break.
So what is a teacher with dreams of making it to Kona to do? Well, when I qualified this past year, I had to negotiate time off and begin planning for subs for classes well in advance. I sat down with my school's principal and superintendent early, months before the qualifier in Port Elizabeth, and talked through the whole plan: going to Abu Dhabi in March to shake off the cobwebs of a 24-year retirement from serious triathlon, then trying to earn the single 50-54 age-group Kona-qualifying spot in April at Ironman South Africa, then, if fate would have me, going to Hawaii in October for the world championships. I'm fairly sure that they felt they were risking mainly having me gone a day for Abu Dhabi and a few days for IMSA, which conveniently backed up to our Spring Break and therefore meant I didn't have to miss very many days with my students. Let's face it, as any who have recently tried to compete at Kona well know, the odds of my making it were not good.
However, when IMSA went well and I'd qualified in my first attempt for Hawaii, the first time since 1987, I scheduled a follow-up conversation to remind them of the original plan, however hypothetical it may have seemed at the time. I waited one week, then two, for their response and final okay, and meanwhile I'd recovered and begun tentatively training for Kona, still not knowing if all the hard work and planning would actually lead to the road back to Kona. Finally, after what seemed like forever but which was actually less than three weeks, I received word that I could indeed go.
There was just one hitch, of course. However frugally, I'd had to update my vintage 1980s triathlon equipment in order to even have hopes of competing on the more crowded and talented 2011 triathlon playing field, and I'd been a teacher my entire professional life (and was therefore, unlike a number of my fellow competitors at Kona, was not independently wealthy). So, just like each of the preceding five days off I'd recently taken, the ten days I'd need to travel the 13 time zones to and fro where I currently live and work and compete at Hawaii's Ironman apparently would be unpaid.
A number of folks on campus tried, ultimately unsuccessfully, to get me some level of sponsorship from the folks at the top here. I tried to lobby upper administration and make the experience part of our students' learning, potentially connecting learning to a teacher's somewhat unusual and arguably interesting non-academic life, but this too proved to be a non-starter. Then, with only weeks to go before having to leave for Kona, a vocal group of supporters on campus tried to pitch my quest one last time to the upper campus administration. For a time it seemed like the impasse would be overcome, but then, only days before boarding the plane, I again found that financial help would not be in the cards, that no one wanted to take on the hot potato of sponsoring an employee while having to answer to potential auditors later on, or at least that was the whispered claim.
If you include the past year's three race fees, the travel, the accommodations, the food, the essential equipment, and the lost salary, competing in Kona in 2011 cost more than all the more than three dozen triathlons I did from 1984 - 1987, and that includes three trips to Kona in '84, '86, and'87! To be frank, some of those '80s races had at least some expenses covered by sponsors. But most of my expenses back then were covered by me, and to keep expenses down while in grad school at Michigan, most of the races I did were local, or at least regional, which meant I didn't usually have to fly to races.
Still, the widening gap between the sport's financial demands and what increasing numbers of folks modestly possess as discretionary income is balkanizing a sport already regarded as elitist, seemingly inaccessible.
So there I was at the awards ceremony in Kona, my last night in Hawaii, and just by chance I had sat down at a table that included two other teachers. Excitedly, we compared notes and talked about the amazing week we'd just had. One guy, currently teaching in Dubai at an international school, had rallied the school community behind his quest and was getting full pay while being gone. Meanwhile, farther down the table I later met a woman, teaching in Europe, who not only was getting paid but had attracted sponsors, one of whom had paid her air-fare and another of whom had helped her with what all of us know are considerable bike expenses.
And there I sat, disconsolate, shaken, a bit upset even - until the awards were announced - when I realized that no amount of money can compare to being able to mount the podium at a world championship one more time, especially more than half a lifetime after the first and only other time I'd been on the podium, in '84. Knowing that I'd financially done it all on my own, this time against tremendous odds, gave pause for special thanks to family, friends, and teachers and coaches, some long-ago, who'd first inspired and tirelessly supported. And I reminded myself that as a teacher and coach, part of my compact with my student/athletes includes planting that seed of possibility by nurturing potential. My only hope is that if I ever have students able and willing enough to fully embrace this amazing sport of triathlon, that finances won't prove to be the one finish line too far for them to reach.
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