Ten o’clock now, and a waxing gibbous moon faintly illuminates the Queen Ka’ahumanu highway 6 miles from the pier in downtown Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. I left the relative bustle of the Energy Lab flats behind a hour ago, and the yellow sodium vapor lamps at the Hina Lani intersection are still a mile ahead. A faint breeze wisps up from the lava-laced shore, crashing waves barely audible across the rocks and bunch grass. Several women hurry past in the darkness, hoping to beat their midnight cut-off to finish the Ironman within 17 hours. I’m confident I’ll finish by 12:15, ten minutes before my own time limit. My mind is free to wander as my feet plod on, carrying me towards the honky-tonk along Ali’i Drive, where the crowds and finish arch await.
A kaleidoscope of brief vignettes scatters behind my eyes, a whirling set of images which define my path to this point 73 and a half years into my life.
• I’m four years old, careening downhill towards Tommy Bingham’s house, my father running along behind, holding a rope tied to the seat post of my bike. He’s removed the training wheels, and doesn’t want me to fall. I pass the house next door, and he lets go. I pedal madly, screaming by Tommy, “I’m riding my bike ALL BY MYSELF!”
• In fifth grade, I save my allowance for months, and buy a Raleigh three-speed “English” bike for $50, riding a mile each way to and from school the next two years.
• It’s 1960. I play baseball in the summer, follow the Cincinnati Reds, and wonder at my sister’s bedside radio, where she can hear the latest Bobby Vinton songs. My father says, “If you join the swimming team, I’ll give you a transistor radio.” Eager to hear the weekly Top Ten countdown and listen to the Reds’ games at night before I sleep, I start swimming at our local summer pool under Yoshi Oyakawa, a former Japanese Olympian in the breast stroke. I never play Knothole ball again.
• Under Yoshi’s tutelage, I join my high school team in the winters, swim for an AAU age group team in summer, and later make the college squad. I’m always the worst swimmer on the team, but earn my letters. Despite our Division III status, I swim with two NCAA Division champions there. Unbeknownst to me, two future Boston Marathon winners grind away on the college track all year at the same time.
• Summers in college, I lifeguard at Montgomery Swim Club, and coach the eight-and-unders on the swim team there. We win the league championship every year, and I become friends with future Olympic Gold medal winners.
• After a series of police auction cruiser bikes to navigate college and medical school campuses, I buy another Raleigh, a “ten-speed” racing model, and explore Los Angeles by bike, down the concrete LA river to San Pedro, along the beach-side bike path, and through the Wilshire district’s shaded back streets. In the summers, I tour the western US, riding in the mountains.
• A good friend in med school runs every day. Seeing him sweating, breathing heavily, complaining of back aches and suffering through a knee surgery, I am convinced running is for asthenic fanatics, and vow never to become one. I’d rather lift weights.
• 1975: I meet my wife. We begin to enjoy life together, including frequent evening swims at the Venice High School Pool.
• 1979: I read Kenny Moore’s article in Sports Illustrated on the second running of the Ironman on Oahu. His portrait of the endurance junkies who show up commands respect, and also fear. I’m fascinated, but while swimming and cycling lead off the madness, ending with a run leaves me wanting to be a spectator, not a participant. I become a skier instead.
• 1981, my son is born. After putting him on skis at 11 months, I bolt a child carrier to the back of my Raleigh. He laughs and screams as we explore the side roads all over town.
• 1984. My daughter does not like riding in the same little seat. Her constant crying leads me to abandon cycling for a decade. I still swim several times a week on the way to work.
• 1993. My son buys a mountain bike, and convinces us to ride with him in the Courage Classic, a three-day tour over the mountain passes of Washington’s Cascades. We enjoy it so much, in ‘94 we embark on a multi-day bike tour along the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Which leads to more tours, through Utah’s Canyonlands and red rock country.
• 1996. We buy a tandem bike, which does not lead to divorce. I ride weekly in the Cascades on my new carbon fiber mountain bike.
• 1997. I retire for the first time, and take the family on a cross-country bike trip from Plymouth, Mass to the Puget Sound. My body is forever changed. I start biking to work.
• 1998. While browsing in a bike shop, I see a flyer for a triathlon: half mile swim, 15 mile bike, and 3 mile run. “Three miles?” I think, maybe I can do that. I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of Triathlon, just afraid of running.
• January 1, 1999. I drive to the middle school track ¾ of a mile up the hill, and run three times around. Slowly.
My reverie is interrupted as a “younger” man (early ‘50s) runs up beside me. “I saw you back there in the Energy Lab. I think we swam together.”
“What were you wearing?”
“Same thing,” he responds, pointing to his red-and-white one piece tri suit.
“Oh yeah. I never could shake you,” I chuckle. “Remember the swim?”
“Yeah, the current, the swell,” he replies.
“And those 50 year olds guys running over us on the way back!” I counter.
“Yeah, what’s up with that? Why did they put the younger one behind us old guys?”
I shake my head.
“Are you doing all right. Think you’ll make it in time?” he asks.
“I’ve been walking and running – it’s how I trained. I’ve got it dialed in to finish with ten minutes to go – 12:15.”
He points down at the straps around my upper calves. “Bad knees?”
“Uh huh…if I run too far or too fast now, they start to swell up. After about three hours, unless I walk more and more to keep the fluid down, they just lock up. Can’t bend ‘em.”
He drifts ahead, aiming for the lights at Makala, where “Mark and Dave Hill” – the last obstacle to the finish line – awaits.
I return to reflecting on what brought me here.
• March 12, 2000. Sunday afternoon, I complete a 13 mile run, feeling proud and accomplished. I make the fatal mistake of thinking twice as far might not be so bad. At the computer, I discover Ironman California, at the end of May, is Sold Out. But Florida, in November – still open. I enter, race, and finish in the top 10% of the 50-54 year-old men. I am now hooked.
• 2001. Ironman California, Ironman Canada, Xterra World Championships on Maui, and my first running race, a half marathon.
• 2002. Ironman Lake Placid, Ironman Canada. I’m becoming frustrated at not improving my times. My five year plan to enter Kona is fading.
• 2003. Los Angeles Marathon, where I walk most of the way from Koreatown to the end. Ironman Coeur d’Alene, where I fail to finish in the 100F heat. 3rd Place at Xterra WC keeps me motivated.
• 2004, aging up to 55-59. I surprise myself with a 4th place at both Oceanside Half-Iron and IM CDA. October, I journey to Kona as a Pilgrim to watch the Ironman, convinced I will never qualify on my own. Acclimated to the environment, a week later I finish 2nd at Xterra WC. December in Sacramento, I qualify for the Boston Marathon.
• 2005. Another 4th at IM CDA. This time, I have raced following pacing advice I found online from Rich Strauss. I write “I See How!!” on my bib as I tape it to my door. August, I train for the first time at altitude in Colorado. Sept 11, on a 95F day in Madison WI, I finish 4th again, but snag a rolldown slot to Kona.
• 2006, a fateful year in which I race Boston again, place 1st in my age group at IM CDA, and finish the Hawaiian Ironman for the first time. It has now become impossible to let this madness go…
• 2007, after surgery on my foot, I race IM CDA again.
• 2008. Another IM CDA. And in November, at Ironman Arizona, I pass the athlete in 2nd place with a mile to go, beating him by 8 seconds, setting my IM PR and snagging the final Kona slot on our AG.
• 2009. Two more AG wins, in course record times, at IM CDA and AZ. Thinking I’m hot stuff, I bike too fast and DNF on the grass at the base of Palani, having lost 9 pounds (out of 146) from dehydration.
• 2010. Another CDA win, another CR. With three weeks to go before Kona, I bike chin first into the back of a pick-up, losing 9 teeth and severely damaging my spinal cord, among other injuries. It never occurs to me I should stop trying to get back to Hawaii.
• 2011. I finish CDA, then win once more at AZ. A miracle, I think.
• 2012 IMs at Canada and Hawaii.
A Danish lady in a red tee-shirt pulls up beside me. I urge her on, as there are two miles to go, and she has only 20 minutes to finish. But she slows to a walk as we start the final hill.
“I saw you pass me on the bike,” she says. “You are very steady – I hope to still be riding when I am like you.”
She means old and breaking down, I guess.
“The bike was not as hot or windy this year,” I say.
“Oh, really so? It is only my first. It can be worse?”
I smile and try not to laugh. “You will come back?” I ask.
“Oh, maybe once my son is grown,” she says.
“How old?”
“He is not yet two. I want so much to see him now.”
“Well, three kilometers to go. Get on up there,” I urge, pointing to the flashing red lights at the top of Palani.
“But I will not finish on time!” she says.
“You think he cares?” I point out. “Go on, make him proud.”
And off she trots.
Alone again, slowing up the hill to a 20 minute per mile pace from the 17 minutes or so I’ve been holding the past three hours, I find I do not regret failing to end my ironman career 10 years ago, after that 2012 Hawaii finish. As Bono sang, I still hadn’t found what I was looking for. Arizona four more times (twice more a winner), Hawaii another four, Coeur d’Alene twice (another win), Canada, Lake Tahoe, Lake Placid, Maryland, Boulder (another KQ), plus three ITU world championship races (2nd place in 2019), all while my right leg slowly fell apart. First high hamstring tendonitis, then a broken great toe, and finally intractable osteoarthritis in my right knee, which has reduced me to this final walk towards Ali’i drive and a 16:50 finish.
Along the way, I found my tribe, cyclists and runners and swimmers. I invited many to train with me in Colorado, went on cycling trips to the Blue Ridge, Mallorca, and Cuba, biked the Cascade range with my Mountain Goat Friends. I shared my experience, and learned from everyone I encountered. My life become richer, more fulfilling these last ten years. I no longer need the deep training and intense racing required by Ironman to know who I am.
At the finish, Mike Reilly, retiring himself at the end of this year, called out my name as he has thirty times before. “73 years young, and still going strong,” he shouted. I looked him in the eye as I crossed the line, reaching up to shake his hand. I drew my index finger across my throat, mouthing “This is the last one.”
“He says he’s retiring too!” Mike bellowed.
Two days later, I followed a dozen Kona racers on my tracker, hugging, slapping and hollering as they biked around the Hot Corner, ran up the Royal Kona Hill, and entered the cheering throngs a quarter mile from the flood-lit finish by the crashing waves at the end of Ali’i Drive. I called them Beautiful, My Hero, and full of grit. 20 years earlier, I knew no one as I cheered at the same spots, watching my first Hawaiian Ironman. Now, I cried as I thought of the family I had found, how I’d helped them on their journeys, and how much they’d given me in return.
