Go Hard or Go Home
So it begins
Late last summer, I decided to register for the next iteration of Ironman
Wisconsin which will take place in Madison on September 10, 2017. You don’t need to be a triathlete to know that Ironman is a serious endeavor. I recall having first heard of it in high school from my basketball coach, who was also a triathlete at the time. As a teenager I watched the network broadcasts of the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii in awe and disbelief. There’s no way I’d do something like that.
Yet, now in my late thirties, I have done exactly that. Back in 2013, with the support of my wife, I decided to tackle my first Ironman (a lot changed since high school). I registered for the 2014 Ironman in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho and signed on with a triathlon team to begin training nine months out from the event.
Probably hundreds of thousands of people have completed an Ironman since the sport came into existence in the late 70s, so, oddly, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal in the grand scheme. Friends will ask: “Just how far is an Ironman then?” I still get a kick out of filling in the details:
Most full distance Ironman events are a total of 140.6 miles from start to
finish. The breakdown by sport: swim for 2.4 miles, bike for 112 miles, then run a marathon (26.2 miles). The best triathletes in the world complete the race in about 8 to 9 hours. A mere mortal must finish by midnight following the typical 7am start time; 17 hours to become an “Ironman”.
Much of that time includes as much up to 6, 7, or 8 hours on a bicycle seat.
Can you imagine?
Now imagine how much time you’d need to spend on that bicycle seat in the
months leading up to those 6, 7, 8 hours so that you’d still be able to run a
marathon afterwards.
Yeah.
I crossed the finish line at my first Ironman event in 11 hours and 29 minutes, just under half a day, good enough for 283rd overall out of several thousand.
Having accumulated countless hours and miles of training in the months leading up the event, adding stress to my marriage and work life, I didn’t think I’d be training for another Ironman anytime soon.
While there are a handful of folks, not just professionals, that subject themselves on a yearly basis, that’s just not me. So I thought.
Now here I am, less than three years later, registered for another Ironman.
As part of my current training regimen, I run in a half-marathon today. The event, being held in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, is entitled “Go Hard or Go Home” which, I imagine, is meant to strike fear into the hearts of competitors.
Anyone who has run or biked loops around Prospect Park may agree the terrain can be best described as a “big ass hill”. I’ll have to run and down this hill four times. Still, I’m undeterred. Prospect hill or not, this is just one step in my journey.
Stay tuned.
