In the end, it comes down to 140.6 miles, up to 17 hours, and the courage to tri
by NANCY RASKAUSKAS
photos by JOHN GIVOT
Iarrived at the finish line bruised, scratched, and chafed. I was punched in the face during the melee of the swim, sunburned from the long windy bike ride, and violently ill during the run. When I set out a year before to train for Ironman Arizona, a triathlon in Tempe, I had no idea what I was getting myself into — but crossing the line after a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride, and 26.2-mile run, I finally understood what it was all about.
Punishing my body in this way was an idea that had grown on me over a number of years. I’d kicked it around since seeing a race on television in grade school. I wrote it on those goal sheets that school counselors like to hand out. “When I grow up I want to be ... an Ironman.”
A year ago, on a whim, I withdrew the last of my inheritance from my favorite grandfather and sent it in for the $475 race fee. He would have shuddered at the thought of me doing such a race. I could almost hear him saying with his concerned Boston accent, “The i-dear is, it’s just too dangerous honey.” But I knew that with his money invested I would hold myself accountable to my training, and I started doing longer and longer races.
"I don't think anyone outside the sport really understands
the constraints of training."
In the meantime, I started graduate school and centered my studies on the culture of endurance fanatics. I interviewed racers, volunteers, spectators, and medical staff. I drove to British Columbia and slept in my car to see the Ironman Canada race firsthand. I volunteered at the finish line and escorted delirious racers filled with the ecstasy of finishing and the agony of injuries to the medical tent. A long line of ambulances waited to take injured racers to the emergency room that night.
Above: Raskauskas warms up one week before Ironman Arizona by competing in the Beaver Freezer, a sprint triathalon in Corvallis, Oregon. Below: The mass swim start of the Ironman Canada race August 2006. (Photo courtesy of Nancy Raskauskas).
Even after that spectacle, I decided to go through with my plan. After all, I had some practical experience with difficult times. As a junior in high school I was rushed into an emergency surgery that left me with a six-inch scar running down my abdomen and an unexpected diagnosis: Crohn’s disease, an auto-immune disorder that attacks the digestive tract. Those days are still a blur of searing pain and morphine dreams. The experience changed my life, not just because I would have to take up to twenty pills a day to stave off new attacks. More importantly, I learned that pain is temporary and recovery is possible.
In the world of Ironman, this type of mental toughness is commonplace. During interviews I heard many amazing tales of resilience in the face of severe injury and illness. Thirty-nine-year-old Ted Raszka, who works in pharmaceutical sales in Salem, Oregon, is a three-time finisher of Ironman races. He was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease at the age of thirty-one. It took him almost two years to get up the strength to start exercising again. When he did, he found the new rhythm of triathlon training helped him feel in control of his life again. “Like a lot of cancer survivors, I turned to endurance sports,” he says.
I could identify with that need for control over a body that had betrayed the mind.
