A bit about my Ironman Triathlon Experience

I remember with profound clarity the day my Ironman experience began. The day I was "Ironstruck." I was watching my favorite t.v. show---Wide World of Sports. It was Fall, 1982. It was then I had my first glimpse, my first experience, with the Ironman Triathlon. Like many of you might be, I was a runner. Triathlon was a foreign word to me.

There was the remarkable swim start. I had never seen anything like it. In my wildest dreams I couldn't imagine a 2.4 mile swim.Then swimmer after swimmer coming out of the water. They disappear into big tents and change and a steady procession of bikes head out of Kona and onto the highway. I remember the announcer saying, "and now they have 112 miles to bike". "Amazing", I thought. Then another change and back on the road to run a full marathon. It was about here that I thought these people were truly nuts. Just the same, I was in awe and couldn't believe what I was seeing. I couldn't begin to imagine what they were experiencing.

Now the cameras pan back into Kona as the first runners arrive. Until finally its the first woman. It's Julie Moss and she is obviously in big trouble. Just feet from the finish line she collapses over and over. She is even passed by another woman as she lay there. I can remember willing her to get up. To get across that line. And she does.

From that moment, my life changed forever. I was "Ironstruck." I just knew that one day I had to cross that finish line. It hit me then that there were a few minor obstacles. First I had a deep rooted fear of the water and couldn't swim a stroke. Secondly, I had never been on any sort of "road bike." Actually, I hadn't been on any sort of bike since I was twelve years old.

So there I was in my thirties taking swimming lessons devised for beginner kids. Just letting go of the side of the pool was a terrifying experience. Slowly as the weeks flew by, my confidence grew and I swam my first length. Well, it was a width. A week later it was a length. Thats how I spent the better part of 1983 until in early 1984 my first length was now 2 miles in the pool. My entry for the 1984 Hawaii Ironman Triathlon was in the mail. As a Canadian, I could enter as a foreign contestant in those early days. In two weeks, it was official---I was in.

I bought myself a new $300 road bike that some company had slapped a triathlon decal on. It was a hunk of steel that weighed just less then a compact car. I was all set. Look out Hawaii, here I come. However, the closer the big day came, the more I doubted my own sanity, but I just tried to push my fears to the back of my mind. Then one day,I was there. Knee deep in the warm Kona waters. It was eerily silent as a priest blessed the event. Somehow, that seemed so appropriate. Twelve hundred athletes and all you could hear were the five media helicopters hovering in the distance. Then the anthem...and the cannon. And so it began, my very first Ironman Triathlon.

Experience........the best teacher