IRONMAN PART 1

On the flight home from Daytona, my mind started fast-forwarding to this
year’s Hawaii Ironman Triathlon. What does the Daytona Supercross have
in common with the Hawaii Ironman, you ask? They’re both true tests of
endurance. This years Daytona track was so rough that everyone was in
survival mode with five laps to go. It’s good to see the physical side
of racing, and on the way home I was motivated.
It’s March, the time of year when I need to begin training for the
Ironman held in October on the big island of Hawaii. Every week, people
would ask me if I was going to do it again and what it’s like. I’ll tell
you what it’s like: it’s like swimming the length of 45 football fields
with 1500 people bumping into you, then riding a bike from downtown San
Diego to Los Angeles in a 45mph headwind most of the way, and finishing
it off with a marathon in heat and humidity that would make Houston in
July feel kinda nice. Actually those are the easy parts - training for
it is harder. So what motivates people to put themselves through it? Who
knows? It’s different for everyone. It might have been to lose weight,
or to stop smoking, or just to live a healthier life, and it just
escalated from there.
For me it goes all the way back to 1984. I was watching TV with Johnny
O’Mara and there it was. We were really into training back then, and
when we saw this Ironman thing on TV we were glued to it. It was so cool
to watch the human drama unfold during the marathon between an
ex-lifeguard named Mark Allen and a masters swim coach named Dave Scott,
who had won the race three times. Mark had never won it and was leading
after the bike by twelve minutes, but the competitive spirit of Dave
Scott was raging. Dave was so determined, he came flying out of the
changing tent from the bike-to-run transition plowing through a
volunteer with his shirt on backwards screaming "Which way?" Midway
through the marathon Mark Allen hit the wall and had to start walking.
Scott reeled him in and won his fourth Ironman in record heat and record
time. I was hooked.
In 1986 my wife and I were honeymooning in Kona, and saw the race live.
We were tired and sunburned just from spectating! I was so pumped that I
told myself I would do that race when I retired from motocross, but a
few months later an unplanned retirement ruined that idea, or so I
thought.
Seven years later Jeff "Iron" Montgomery, a training partner of O’mara
and me, introduced me to Todd Jacobs at the San Diego SX. Todd was
intrigued with supercross, and we got to know each other better in the
months that followed. He was a professional triathlete with with two 8th
place finishes in Hawaii and a win at Ironman Japan. Everyday I would
pick his brain about Ironman and stories of his training rides with
Scott Tinley and Mark Allen, until one day he said, "Why don’t you just
do a small triathlon?" I was like, "You mean go out there and swim in
the ocean, with sharks?" Since I needed to be carried in and out of the
water, he offered to carry me and swim with me, so I couldn’t back out!
It was only a half-mile swim, a 15-mile bike, where I would use a three
wheeled handcycle that I pedal with my arms, and a 5K run where I push a
three wheeled racing chair. Still, I was as nervous as I had ever been
for a motocross race, maybe more. The race turned out to be total
comedy, and as soon as I crossed the finish line I started thinking
about Hawaii again.
I thought the training Johnny O’ and I used to do was pretty hardcore,
but this was insane. The bike I had wasn’t the greatest, but it was good
enough to start logging longer miles. I was doing 100-mile weeks while
still pushing my racechair 60 miles a week. Swimming wasn’t coming
naturally. I looked like an argument going across the pool, but at least
there were no sharks.
With all this training, I started feeling so much better physically that
I craved more. So Todd and I mapped out the training program along with
more races for experience, and in 1997 we flew to Hawaii to watch the
Ironman with a whole new perspective.
I paid attention to everything in an effort to eliminate any confusion
or surprises when I came back the following year. I still had one big
fear - the swim. Todd sensed it and told me we should swim the course so
I could see how easy it was. So the day before the race we headed out to
sea. I was fine until we were about a mile out and I swam through
something in the water and freaked. I looked for Todd but he was about
30 yards ahead of me, and I suddenly realized I was a half hour from
shore in 90 feet of water! Todd swam back to me and we talked it over
until I calmed down.
Finally we reached the last buoy and headed back. I reached the shore a
changed man. From the beach I couldn’t even see the last buoy, but I did
it. That year a guy named John McLean from Australia became the first
wheelchair athlete to officially finish under the cut off time. I new I
could do it too.
When I got home I ordered a new bike and started training for the
qualifier held every June in Lubbock, Texas. Todd decided to make the
trip with me, which was epic. As we were pulling out of his driveway he
reached for the air conditioner when I said, "No, let’s get used to the
heat." So we drove all the way across the desert to Lubbock with zero
air conditioning in a heat wave!
There were 11 guys in my division, but only three would qualify. I had a
great swim but took to long in the transition area and dropped to second
behind Scott McNiece, who had finished second in Hawaii to McLean. I
figured I would just keep pace with him through the 56-mile bike
segment, then put the hammer down in the 13-mile run - my specialty. At
the halfway point of the bike it was 114 degrees and there were four of
us dicing for only three Ironman slots. I took the lead at the top of
the biggest climb and fought off a challenge from an ex navy seal named
Carlos Moleda during the run to win it.
Feeling pretty good about my win (and new course record!), we drove all
the way back to San Diego with no air conditioning. I only had three
months to get ready for the Ironman, a race in the lava fields twice as
long as what I had just done.
Next was my first 100-mile bike ride. At the halfway point I was feeling
good, but an hour later I started to "bonk." I was about 30 miles from
home when I started seeing Elvis and needed food, so I rode my bike to
the drive-thru window at McDonalds and ordered an apple pie, some french
fries and a large Coke. I pulled into a handicapped spot and was about
to eat when a gust of wind blew the bag out of my lap and the french
fries and Coke spilled all over the ground. "Bonking," in case you have
never heard the term, is a total blood sugar crash that hits you like a
brick. I had it so bad that I ate the soggy fries off the ground, and
then realized people were watching me out the window!
By mid-September I was in the best shape of my life. I was putting in
225-mile weeks on the bike, 60 miles in the chair and 10,000 yards in
the pool while still traveling to the motocross races for ESPN. I was
ready. Or at least I thought I was… To be continued.