In the late 1970s, on the neighboring island of Oahu, some road runners and swimmers were having a heated debate over which group was the fitter. A navy commander, one John Collins, suggested that a renowned cyclist had been found to have the highest level of oxygen uptake of any elite endurance athlete. From there, the conversation advanced, perhaps fueled by a mix of bravado and pride, to the idea of staging a contest that combined Hawaii’s three long-distance competitions: the Waikiki Roughwater Swim, the Around-Oahu Bike Race, and the Honolulu Marathon.
On a pad of paper, Collins drew a rough map of Oahu. He scribbled, “Swim 2.4 miles! Bike 112 miles! Run 26.2 miles! Brag for the rest of your life!” The name of the race came from a local marathoner who was known for his punishing training regime. “Whoever finishes first,” Collins said, “we’ll call him the Iron Man.”
Fifteen people showed up for the inaugural race in 1978. Celebrated Sports Illustrated writer Barry McDermott later chronicled the outcome of that first race:
Twelve people finished. . . . Three did not. One fellow turned delirious and quit. Another inexplicably said that he would run only 14 miles in the marathon. And the third wrecked his bike. He was unhurt, naturally, being an Iron Man, but his fretful father persuaded him to retire. All finishers received five-inch-high trophies made of nuts and bolts, each with a hole in the top, for, you might say, the head.
It would seem not much of an award for so great an effort, but the significance of the event is that there is no apparent significance. No prize money is involved, and little fame.
In 1981, when the race moved to the Big Island, news of the Ironman and of the demands it put on its competitors was spreading throughout the world. The following year, the leading athlete for the women’s title crumbled from fatigue several yards from the line, then crawled on her hands and knees just to finish the race. The legend of this greatest of triathlons was firmly set in place.
Now the Big Island was the setting for the Ironman World Championship, and an entrance spot was a coveted prize among triathletes. Of the 1,800-plus competitors in 2011, most got there by qualifying in the top percentile of their age and gender brackets in other races. There were also several spots reserved for Kona Inspired Athletes, and it was one of these that I hoped to claim. As Welchy told me, there were no guarantees, and I would have to prove in advance that I was capable of the effort.
A shirtless Welchy met us at the Oakley house, a multimillion-dollar spread on the beach that the company had rented for the competition. Sitting at a table on the veranda, he detailed a daily schedule of workouts for me—in the ocean as well as on the bike and the run course.
“Are you going to be doing any of the training with Bonner?” Welchy asked Mike.
“Some,” he answered.
“Once you feel the heat and humidity, you might want to stay in the car with the AC on,” Welchy said, then laughed.
Two hours later, Welchy finished his methodical breakdown of preparations. He even advised Mike on where to park, so he could catch a beautiful view while waiting to hand me fresh water and food.
“That’s for you,” he said, “because Bonner will be pedaling his ass off.”
Straight after lunch, the sun high in the sky, Mike dropped me off at the side of Queen Ka’ahumanu Highway for my first training run. As kids, we had visited the Big Island, and I remembered the sulfurous smell from the lava fields and how I’d poured black sand into a plastic bag to bring home with me. The hot sand had melted through the plastic and seeped away. Both memories were linked to how hot it was there; however, as I started off down the road, I realized that my recollection didn’t do the heat justice.
Ten minutes into my jog, sweat burst through my skin, drenching my shirt and shorts and coursing down my legs. The midday sun hit my neck like a blowtorch, and the surface I was running on felt like hot coals. All in all, it was miserable, and the hour’s jog felt like a marathon.
From there, we drove into Kona, to the pier by the King Kamehameha Hotel, where the Ironman race started. The narrow inlet was packed with swimmers heading in or out from the 2.4-mile course, which was marked by red buoys. We waded into the water, and Mike said he would lead until the first buoy, so as to shelter me from any collisions. For the first stretch, the ocean was a cool balm from the heat of the day, and with the crystal-clear water, it was like swimming in an aquarium of beautiful fish. At the first buoy, when I took the lead, however, I found that I had very little left in me after the run. Mike kept tapping me on my legs, encouraging me to bring them up and to stop using them as a rudder.
Past the second buoy, my whole body began to cramp up, and I was weaving back and forth. Mike stopped me and asked if I was okay.
“I’m tired,” I said.
“Do you want me to lead?”
I shook my head. We had barely swum half a mile. I needed to keep going. After a few more minutes, with the saltwater drying out my mouth and my stroke unsettled by the 8-foot swells, I started to have real trouble. The cramping worsened in my legs, and I couldn’t go on. Bobbing in the ocean, which was too deep to see the bottom, I was in trouble. We were at least a twenty-minute swim to the closest point on shore, but that meant nothing, since most of the coastline was razor-sharp lava rock. Any approach would see me caught in the surf and thrashed against the rocks, my skin cut to ribbons.
“What’s going on?” Mike asked.
“My legs are cramping,” I said.
Mike kept a safe distance. He knew enough from his life-guarding days that if I panicked I might draw him down with me.
“Do you want me to tow you in?” he asked.
The closest beach was at least thirty minutes away. As good a swimmer as he was, it would have been tough to haul me that far. I shook my head.
“You can float if you need to,” Mike said in a deliberately steady voice. “Relax, stretch out, and massage your legs.”
The tightness in my legs wouldn’t release, and I quickly became more worried. Mike kept telling me to take it easy, to give it time. For fifteen minutes I floated on my back in the water, rubbing my legs with my hands; finally my muscles released. We turned back to the pier and slowly, the current with us, made it back to where we started.
“That was gnarly,” Mike said, emerging from the water.
“Hope that doesn’t happen again,” I said.
I had only covered half the course at best, and I had barely made even that. From the look on Mike’s face, he felt the same.
Late the next morning, after peeling ourselves out of bed, we made our way up the Queen K Highway, my bike in the back of the Jeep. The trade winds coming off the coast were shoving our Jeep all over the place, and I wondered what they would do to me. Welchy wanted me to hit a quarter of the bike course, roughly 28 miles, on my second full day.
“Good luck,” Mike offered, as I rode away, still fiddling with the new bike computer on my handlebars that logged my speed and distance. Soon Mike passed me in the Jeep. He would stop 1 mile ahead on the uphills and 2 miles ahead on the downhills to give me water if needed and to make sure I was doing okay.
Almost instantly, I was not doing okay. Sweat and sunscreen burned my eyes, and as soon as I cleared the protection of a cutout made by the highway into the lava hills, the winds almost threw me off my bike. The RevMaster in my garage was looking pretty good that first stretch. After a few hills, I settled down, making sure I braced for the winds when I came out into the open. Everyone else out for training rides roared past me, but I didn’t care. Well, I might have cared a little bit, but there was nothing to be done about it.
The first few times I came across Mike I gave him the thumbs-up, but an hour into the three-hour ride I was toast—almost literally. The sun was relentless, and the heat radiating off the black lava fields was intense. I left a trail of sweat on the road behind me that I could have sworn sizzled when it hit the pavement. My palms were so slick I had trouble holding onto my handlebars.
“Good job, bro,” Mik
e said at the rest stops as he gave me fresh water bottles.
“I’m not comfortable,” was my constant response. My stomach hurt, my back hurt, my legs hurt, and I’d give snails a bad rap to say I was going as fast as they did. I barely finished. Afterward, sitting in the Jeep, I knew beyond doubt that the bike course would make or break me. Somehow I had to ride all those miles and still have enough for the marathon.
At that moment, it seemed impossible, particularly because of the intense heat. It was like riding through a kiln. The sun and dense humidity sapped the strength from my muscles, and no matter how much water I drank, my body didn’t seem to be getting enough. The spasticity of my muscles made it very hard to absorb the fluids I needed. I didn’t just risk cramping and overheating; I risked spontaneously combusting.
Spurred by my commitment to Welchy and the support of my brother as my training partner, I pushed through—and kept pushing. Over the next six days, I lived and breathed Ironman. Every morning and afternoon, except on the day of the actual race, I trained on the course, getting to know every inch of it. One day, I finished the whole 2.4-mile swim course. Another, I rode up to Hawi, the turnaround point on the bike course. On another, I ran the desolate Energy Lab stretch of the marathon course.
We joined Welchy a couple of times for dinner, and Mike and I found ourselves sitting with World Champion triathletes, among them Chrissie Wellington, the thirty-four-year-old Brit who had conquered Kona three times already. Two weeks before the race, she had taken a nasty spill on her bike and was in real peril of backing out. Everybody was superfriendly, but I couldn’t help but think were they asking, “Who is this guy?” I didn’t exactly look or walk like these paragons of fitness and athleticism.
Most nights, though, Mike and I ate alone and hung out back at our house, dissecting what had happened during training. There was a lot of joking, like “Wow, that was an easy ride,” and so on, but I was daunted by how tough the course was and by how much work I would need to get in shape for it.
“Oh, I’ve got a year more of training. . . . It’ll come together,” I kept saying, but I wasn’t sure that any amount of time would do it.
The only thing I did know for sure was that there was no way I could have done that trip without Mike, and although we didn’t talk about it, the big divide between us was beginning to heal. For the first time in a long time, we both had someone we could rely on. In my case, he had seen me growing up at my worst, my most awkward. He’d seen me struggle my whole life, and whether it was in the water, on the bike, or on my feet, this shared history allowed me to be honest with him in a way that I couldn’t be with others. With Mike, I didn’t hold back. I didn’t always have to be upbeat and positive, didn’t have to pretend that the struggle to train my body was anything other than what it was: the hardest thing I’d ever had to do.
Race day came. In my lifetime, I have been fortunate to attend many major sporting competitions: the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, and the Stanley Cup Championship as well big-time golf, tennis, and race-car events. Nothing compared to the Ironman World Championship. Participants came from all over the world, men and women of every size, age, and ability. Their families, friends, complete strangers, and everyone in between lined the course. Everybody cheered for everybody. Sure, some fans hooted and hollered a little louder for their particular elite athlete to win, but for 99 percent of the competitors this race was, at most, about realizing a personal best time. And for many, many competitors, it was simply about finishing.
That fact hit home near the seventeen-hour cutoff, which struck at midnight. The last several hundred yards of the run course was packed ten deep with spectators, all of them shouting at the top of their lungs for the racers to finish in time. They cheered more loudly for the slowest of the bunch than for the elite athletes who had crossed the line at blistering speeds many hours before (including Chrissie Wellington, who, despite her injuries, conquered Kona a fourth time that year). What other sporting event, I thought, reveled in the value of competing over winning. People hugged, cried, and screamed as racers pushed themselves to finish before midnight. It was complete, utter pandemonium, all in celebration of the triumph of the human spirit.
But it was not all triumph. A minute before the cutoff, a woman in her fifties stumbled and staggered down the chute. She was doing “the lean,” as that half-sideways, half-forward move was called. She was only 10 feet from the finish line when the clock struck midnight, and her hopes of being an “Ironman” were crushed. There was a collective groan throughout the crowd, followed by applause for her attempt. At that moment, I could think only of the groan, realizing that this might well be me next year.
I texted Welchy from the airport before we left, thanking him for the amazing trip and telling him I was ready to do whatever it took to get myself ready for the Kona Ironman 2012.
“It’ll be the craziest year of your life,” he wrote back. “Get ready, mate.”
From my window seat, I watched the Big Island diminish in size as my plane rose into the sky. I’ll see you again soon.
11
I Told You This Wasn’t Going to Be Easy
A Saturday in December 2011. A Saturday in January 2012. A Saturday in February 2012. The week, the month, it didn’t make a difference. The alarm rang at 5:30 A.M. I turned over in bed to hit the snooze button, and I already felt spent, done, exhausted. Because it was the weekend, I slept an hour later than during the week. I hoped the extra seven minutes each time I hit snooze would buy me a bit more energy, but it never worked. Come on now, Bonner. Got to get moving.
With every week, the training schedule increased in length and intensity. It was like climbing a mountain without end, with a muddy slope that I kept slipping backward on. There was no way to see if I was making any progress, because I was always exhausted beyond measure. It was not as if I finished a comparatively short workout and was then bounding with extra energy. Plus, I never managed to complete every part of Welchy’s schedule, so I continually felt like a failure. Maybe Dr. Aminian was right from the start: my CP presented too big an obstacle to my Ironman ambitions. Don’t think of that now. Get out of bed.
I thought of Jake. I thought of the kids I knew who didn’t have the option of rising from bed on their own power. I thought of all the people who had already donated to my Ironman campaign, all the people who expected me to compete. I thought of how disappointed I would be in myself if I didn’t finish the race. I thought of all the kids the OM Foundation was helping in Orange County at the Life Without Limits Therapy Center and in Tanzania, where we had donated tens of thousands for a center. I couldn’t lie here just because I was tired. Get out of bed, you lazy ass.
Sitting up, I drew my legs toward me and unfastened the Velcro straps on the special boots that Afshin had prescribed for me in November, when I had shredded my feet by training in a new pair of running shoes. The boots were essentially glorified splints that kept my feet in the right position while I slept. Diagnosed with severe plantar fasciitis (inflammation of the feet, a common injury of mine), I hadn’t been able to walk without pain, let alone jog or ride a bike, for almost two months. For a stretch, I had worried whether my Ironman hopes were crushed, but Welchy told me to rest, to wait, and to let the body do what the body will do. As usual, mine did everything slowly, and it took forever for my feet to heal. Although the boots tore up my sheets, I still wore them to prevent any reinjury.
Finally, I swung my legs out of bed and took my first step. I made myself a bowl of oatmeal and prepared my gear. By 6:30 A.M., the sky was beginning to lighten as I drove south from Newport Coast to just north of Camp Pendleton. The Marine Corps base had a bike trail that ran down the Pacific coast for over dozens of miles. I rode for hour after hour. I enjoyed the beautiful scenery for about all of ten minutes, then I focused only on pumping my legs at eighty to ninety rotations of the pedal crank per minute, the rate that Welchy wanted.
Every so often, I stopped on the side of the trail to stretch my
body and to keep the terrible cramps away from my back and legs. Most triathletes, Welchy told me, were able to drive their pedals with almost twice the amount of energy I was able to create. Not only did they push on the pedals in the downward rotation like every amateur cyclist (using the quads), but with their feet clipped into the pedals, they were able to pull up on them in the upward rotation (using the hamstrings and glutes).
With my chicken legs, Welchy only wanted me to push (partly so that I had strength left for the run, partly because my CP left my glutes and hamstrings the weakest). Given the lack of power I was delivering, he calculated that it would take me almost eight hours on the bike to finish the 112-mile Ironman course. That meant I had to train at long lengths to acclimatize my body to that duration of time, and it was a slog that took everything out of me.
After I returned home, I made myself a protein shake and brought it into the shower, where I let the hot water pour over me until my skin turned bright red. Later, I spread out on the sofa and fell asleep. That was it for my Saturday.
Day after day: train, train, train.
Here was a typical mid-February week, 2012:
Monday: 90-minute master’s swim; 75-minute brisk walk; 60 minutes with LeFever
Tuesday: 180-minute bike ride on hills; 45 minutes with LeFever
Wednesday: 90-minute master’s swim; 90-minute brisk walk
Thursday: 180-minute bike ride on the coast; 30-minute brisk walk
Friday: 90-minute master’s swim; 60-minute medium-paced walk
Saturday: 300-minute bike ride (5 hours, ouch!)
Sunday: 90-minute hike or slow walk
One More Step: My Story of Living with Cerebral Palsy, Climbing Kilimanjaro, and Surviving the Hardest Race on Earth Page 17