It's a typical Sunday night in late January, in a little suburban pocket on the edge of Denver. My kids, ages 10 and 7, are parked in front of America's Funniest Home Videos; my husband is folding the laundry, listening to a football game; and I'm whining over the phone to my coach, Briana Boehmer. I have a fracture in my foot and a sore shoulder, and I'm worried I won't make it to the starting line of the Ironman triathlon I'm supposed to be training for.
"I can't run. I can't swim. I'm tired. I'm angry. I'm hungry all the time, but nothing sounds good. And I have no patience for anything or anybody, especially my kids." Tears roll down my cheeks.
"This is so normal, how you feel is totally normal," Bri reassures me. "The Ironman grumpies are so prevalent–I have some athletes whose spouses only allow them to train for Ironman every third year."
Normal? Seriously? I am a working, married mother who habitually volunteers too much and has already ponied up the equivalent of a mortgage payment for the privilege of putting in crazy miles in the pool, on the bike, and on the run so I'll be able to swim 2.4 miles, cycle 112, and then run 26.2 on race day in June. I'm only three months into eight months of training; I've got a few more "mortgage" payments and plenty more miles to go. If Ironman pursuits were normal for people like me, grocery stores across the country would be populated by women wearing pitted-out Lycra, walking like zombies, worrying about whether or not their credit card would be rejected at checkout.
But looking at it through my personal lens, the one that has had Ironman in its focus for decades, it seems more normal. In 1982, I watched, on a black-and-white rabbit-eared television, the fifth Ironman in Kona, Hawaii. Yards away from the finish line, female race leader Julie Moss stumbled, fell, stumbled, fell, was passed by the soon-to-be winner, and finally crawled across the finish line in second place. Who does that? I thought, Who pushes herself so hard she can't even stand up? A seed of intrigue about the human body and spirit–and what it's capable of–crept into my 10-year-old brain and has since colored all my athletic pursuits, from training with the U.S. National Rowing team as an Olympic hopeful to lapping New York's Central Park in my late 20s. Could I do that? Could I stop settling for mostly comfortable and truly push myself?
Through this perspective, "normal" is seeing if I can actually do that, and spending Sunday night in a heap of injuries and self-doubt. Despite feeling like I am totally breaking down, normal is also knowing I am going to hang up with Bri, recheck the details of my 100-minute bike ride tomorrow, lay out my water bottles, banana, and GU, kiss my family good night, get in bed, and wake up when my alarm hits 5 a.m. to pedal.
No, training for Ironman isn't normal to most people. But maybe normal is like beauty: It's in the eye of the beholder. Or maybe, in my case, it's in the eye of the injured, overly emotional triathlete who is so exhausted she's not even sure what normal is anymore.
We all go long (sometimes)
Seven years ago, when I was in the throes of diapers and pacifiers, I would've laughed–or more likely, started crying–if I thought about actually committing to 140.6 miles. A run without any walk breaks felt huge then. Seven years from now, my less-than-springy joints may define going big as a 10-K trail race. Going big isn't really about the distance: It's about taking on something that isn't necessarily a gimme. "Our culture tends to focus on instant gratification," says Carrie Cheadle, M.A., a mental-skills coach in Petaluma, California, who regularly works with endurance athletes. "You really have to focus on and work for an epic race. It takes everything in you to accomplish a tough goal, and when you do that, it feels incredible."
Ironman was part longtime dream, part athletic redemption (I quit the rowing team), and part midlife crisis. When I pushed "submit" on active.com to pay a whopping $650 race fee, I had just rounded 40, and divorces, boob jobs, and convertibles started popping up among my friends. I didn't want those, but I wanted to break out of the five-miles-is-fine mentality–and plenty of other mediocre ruts–that I'd settled into during my kids' early years. I wanted a purpose and a push. I wanted to feel the crazy-wow highs (and survive the despondent lows) that come with going way outside of my comfort zone–and the exponentially amplified confidence and satisfaction that grow from hanging out there.
"Doing an epic endurance race defines who you are at that time in your life," says Nicole DeBoom, a professional triathlete for six years and 2004 Ironman Wisconsin winner. "It's not something you just decide to do and then train for a few weeks and hit the starting line. You have to shift your entire life around to prepare; the bigger the race, the more meaningful it is."
Whether that means a Tough Mudder or a few marathons in a row, I'm not the only one who wants to race out of her comfort zone these days. In 2002, approximately 14,000 athletes registered for an Ironman, and in 2012, that number neared 76,000; that's a 542 percent increase over a decade. Straight-up running events have a similar trajectory: In just over three decades, marathon finishers have grown from 143,000 to 518,000. Multiday races are also trending. At Disney World, the 2014 Goofy Challenge (half-marathon and full marathon over two days) and inaugural Dopey Challenge (5-K, 10-K, half-marathon, and full marathon over four days) both sold out in about three days, and some of the registrants had never before even completed one marathon.
For my epic Ironmother, I wanted to control as many variables as possible. I debated the pros and cons of various Ironman locations. Florida: flat but boring; Lake Placid: pretty but too far away; Texas: way too hot. Coeur d'Alene, a small town in northern Idaho, seemed like the best choice. The race is at the end of June, which meant I'd be able to do most of my training while the kids were in school, and then have the postrace summer for 45-minute runs and nonstop games of Monopoly. Plus, cool air and mountainous terrain are my idea of racing nirvana.
Next up: a coach. I am generally an independent, self-motivated person, but I wasn't going to go this alone. "Signing up for big races is often made in a burst of enthusiasm and excitement, but the training isn't always going to be fun," says Carl Leivers, a running coach in Atlanta. "It's easy to overestimate what you're going to be capable of doing physically and schedule-wise. A coach keeps you on track." I wanted an expert ally, a sympathetic ear, and a body to whom I had to be accountable when I wanted to be anywhere but in chlorinated, cold water at 5:30 on a Thursday morning. I also knew I needed somebody who could manage my working-mom schedule and injury-prone, 6'4'' body; although I admired Julie Moss, I didn't want to crawl across the finish line. Briana Boehmer, a former Division I runner and accomplished triathlete, met all those requirements–and her calm, convincing demeanor would coax me down from any ledge or talk me up for any workout.
And my goal? "I want to get through training and across the finish line feeling happy and strong," I told Bri during our orientation talk in late October. "That's pretty much my only goal." She agreed that this was a perfect Ironman novice goal, so we limited talks of times or paces or anything related to numbers. "Real" training started two days later; my first Ironman workout was an uneventful five-mile run followed by 20 minutes of strength training.And my goal? "I want to get through training and across the finish line feeling happy and strong," I told Bri during our orientation talk in late October. "That's pretty much my only goal." She agreed that this was a perfect Ironman novice goal, so we limited talks of times or paces or anything related to numbers. "Real" training started two days later; my first Ironman workout was an uneventful five-mile run followed by 20 minutes of strength training.
Easy enough, right?
If training doesn't kill you...
There's not a lot of mystery when it comes to training for an epic race. (And let's just get this out there: The training cycle is not particularly interesting to anybody but the athlete, who spends so much time inside her head that the workouts and race naturally take on an elevated sense of importance and glory.) I swam, biked, and ran for increasingly longer periods of time, scaled back on workouts for a week or so to "recover," then went out to swim, bike, and run even longer. My first week of training took eight hours; my longest weeks neared 20. I'd end up devoting around 320 hours total to training for Ironman, which is almost two full weeks–more vacation time in a year than I've had since my kids were born. I tried not to look ahead at my workouts because, cumulatively, they made me nauseous. I could handle glancing at them only one day at a time–and even then, the long ones made me feel a little barfy. "The best way to handle a long training day is to break it down into manageable chunks: 20 miles on the bike, say, or 10-K running segments," says Timothy O'Donnell, who finished fifth at the 2013 Ironman World Championships. "And then just mentally stay in that segment." Over the many months, my mind could chomp bigger chunks. It was like shopping at Costco; I eventually acclimated to inflated distances and prices that used to send me into a tailspin. Ride for five hours and then run for one? Why not? $17 for three pounds of mangoes? No problem.
To maximize efficiency, my training venues were no more than two minutes away from my house. I mostly ran from home, and for almost six months, I rode my bike on the trainer in our basement. Because Bri broke the three-plus-hour-long rides into segments (a set of "hills" to climb, pedaling drills, tempo pieces), they weren't as boring as they sound. Plus, I found plenty of distraction on Netflix–I think my record was seven consecutive episodes of Parks and Rec–and my kids would often interrupt me with requests for glasses of chocolate milk and other urgent matters.
The bike, however, was glorious when compared with my local gym's pool, which I came to call the cesspool. The lanes felt as narrow as a pencil, especially when I had to share them with a breaststroker. The water was disgustingly warm, and more often than not, I discovered somebody else's hair plastered to my skin in the postswim shower. Once I built up my swimming mileage, I'd commute 10 minutes to luxuriate in the grand 50-meter pool at the local university, where I often had a lane to myself. "There are no walls in Ironman," I'd tell myself when my arms ached.
Weekdays, I finished workouts by 7 a.m., changed out of my sweaty clothes, made school lunches, got the kids to school, came home and showered, and then started my workday. Weekend workouts could stretch beyond lunchtime. My motivation went missing a few times, but I had 140.6 miles of a dream/redemption/crisis combo breathing down my neck. I loved that every day, minus Sundays (my designated rest day), would reliably start with a huge dose of accomplishment. "Training is really a huge part of the epic race experience," says Cheadle. "Through the months, you make hundreds of decisions to ensure success."
That endorphin-laced pride became especially important when regular life could've easily crowded out my workouts. Like the evening when I had just finished a business dinner and my husband, Grant, who wasn't feeling well, texted me: "Get lice shampoo." Both kids were infested. I gave one child the treatment at 9 p.m., and let the other sleep. That night, Grant hugged the toilet for hours, throwing up from the flu or food poisoning. I slept for maybe three hours. Still, I just missed one workout that nitpicking week.
Plus, the over-the-top training suited my introverted personality. Instead of hemming and hawing for a reason why I was going to leave a party at 9 p.m., I just pulled the Ironman card. I justified getting in bed at 8:15 because I was training. I got to spend hours plugged into a movie while pedaling in my basement: Coeur d'Alene training. It's a little embarrassing to admit I like riding for hours more than I enjoy a cocktail party, but isn't normal in the eye of the beholder?
All About RunDisney 2025?
Lice was one thing; another thing altogether was my angry neck and left shoulder, so angry that every nerve in them lit up when I tried to breathe while swimming freestyle. In month two of the eight-month training cycle, I had to take a 2.5-month hiatus from swimming and endure regular, hurts-so-good chiropractic sessions to get that area to calm down. Worse was the damage I did to myself when I wasn't even training. While I was in Salt Lake City in mid-January, I slipped on ice, fell, and chipped a bit of bone off my left big toe. "This is a very odd and unusual fracture," the podiatrist told me when I visited him two weeks after the crash. "I fell in a very odd and unusual way," I replied defensively, and then cried as soon as I left his office.
Oh, the Ironman tears. When you're going big, dramatic emotions are as inevitable as piles of laundry. O'Donnell admits to welling up with tears while watching an Adam Sandler movie–"a comedy!" he exclaims–after a race. "You're so emotional during your first shot at going big because you truly don't know if you can do it," says DeBoom. I cried when I nailed a solo 90-mile ride; the spring winds were totally draining, and I saw just one other cyclist the entire time. "Way to get it the f–k done, Dimity!" I yelled to myself around mile 88 as my eyes welled with happiness. I cried around mile 13 on a popular century (100-mile) ride because I had no idea how I could get through another 87 miles. (Plus, I forgot chamois cream, so my most delicate parts were being rubbed raw.) I cried when I finished an 18-mile run in crazy humidity, just four days after I went 15. (I had to jam in the running mileage since my fracture required a six-week break.) I cried every time I heard Florence + The Machine sing, "It's always darkest before the dawn," because I felt like Ironman training put me in the dark–and dawn was going to break in Coeur d'Alene. I cried when, during the bike portion of a half-Ironman race I did as training, I saw my aerodynamic shadow on pavement below and thought to myself, I'm doing this. I am really doing this. I cried when I got into two minor fender benders in my minivan. Even when I consciously tried to quiet my brain and just concentrate on a task like driving, it was constantly swirling with workout logistics and general weariness.
I also cried when the whole thing felt simultaneously impossible and stupid to try, which was more often than I'd like to admit. A big workout on a Saturday in April–a two-hour bike in the basement, followed by a 45-minute run, then a 62-mile outdoor ride–ran longer than expected because of getting lost. "You'll be there to see me play goalie, right, Mom?" Ben, my younger kid, asked the night before. "Of course I will," I reassured him. Once I realized I wouldn't, I called Grant from the ride to ask the coach to put Ben in goal for the second half. Wearing bike shorts covered in misfired air snots, I arrived just as the final whistle blew. I was so hungry and guilt-ridden, I couldn't hide my tears behind my sunglasses when I started telling a fellow soccer mom about my morning. "When the challenge feels overwhelming, I like to remind my athletes that the doubt is part of what they signed up for," says Cheadle. "If you wanted a guarantee, you wouldn't have signed up for Ironman."
Fair enough, but by then, I was doubting if I even wanted to do the race anymore.
How to Start Running
On a cloudy morning in June, I befriend two women as we stand on the beach in our pink swim caps watching the fog rise off of Lake Coeur d'Alene. "I'm in denial that I have to run a marathon at the end of this day," I say, and we all laugh. I thought I'd be nervous, but I'm not. I'm excited, calm, and, more than anything, ready to finally get this party started. "At the starting line of an ultra, I always tell myself, 'I get to run all day; how awesome is that?' " says Sean Meissner, a top ultrarunner and coach at iRunFar. "I almost always yell a big whoop at the start !" I don't whoop. Instead, my goggles collect tears as I walk slowly toward the water. "Here goes everything–and nothing," I tell myself as I dolphin dive in and begin swimming.
Even though I haven't spent much time in open water, I find my groove easily, my long limbs power me through the water, and the 2.4-mile swim mostly whizzes by. The sun peeks out from behind the clouds as I'm on my final stretch back to the beach. Finally: The dawn that Florence and her Machine sang about arrived. I speed through the swim-to-bike transition so quickly, Grant and Bri, who have come to watch, miss me.
The hilly bike course goes through the town four times, which breaks up the 112 miles into manageable mental chunks. My left shoulder isn't superhappy, so I can't look over it to pass people, and my back is whining, too, but mostly I pedal along and smile. I am ridiculously happy for being in the middle of a ridiculously hard race. I sense that I'm racing strong, and I'd later learn that I finished fifth in my age group for the swim, and fourth for the ride, which exceeded even my most pie-in-the-sky expectations.
But my swim-and-bike speediness also means that when I get off the bike, I am surrounded by the kind of athletes who can easily go under four hours in an Ironman marathon; I've never gone sub-four in a regular marathon. Wearing brightly logo'ed triathlon suits that suggest they're all sponsored athletes, they flit by me like I am standing still. My Ironman balloon pops. My legs can't handle 10-minute miles–my optimistic pace–and I swear the spectators stop cheering when they see me tromping like an elephant through the herd of gazelles. "I call those dark spots of racing 'pockets of pain,'" says O'Donnell. I keep my gaze between the brim of my baseball hat and the pavement. I am miserable. My lower back is knotted up, and every step ricochets through my whole body. "You get used to waiting out the tough patches; you just accept the pain and carry on," says Mirinda Carfrae, the 2013 Ironman World Champion. "It's all those little battles with yourself that are the most satisfying to win."
As I stop to stretch and wipe my tears, two men pass me. "You okay, young lady?" one asks. I laugh at the young lady comment–he's probably in his 50s–and answer yes. He tells me, "It's going to turn around for you. It really will." I do my best to believe him. I'm not exactly accepting the pain, but I am carrying on. If I run a few minutes every mile and otherwise walk briskly, my splits are in the 11-minute range, which feels plenty fine. Although I'm far from crawling, I remember that my original goal was to finish strong, not redline it. Plus, most of the speedsters are long gone; more and more people around me are walking.
Despite wearing a Garmin all day, I have no idea what my marathon time might be. I'm living mile-to-mile, with sips of mango-orange sports drink to break it up. Eventually, I hit mile 23, and realize I basically have one 5-K left. The seed that was planted on a random Saturday in my childhood is about to sprout. I've never felt so alive. "I'm heading home," I say to aid station volunteers as I run past. As the finish line comes into view, I don't cry. Instead, I high-five anybody I can and pump my fists and float across it.
"The urge to accomplish the unreasonable, the unimaginable, is like the candy behind the candy shop counter: the most desired and hardest to get," says Anita Ortiz, a top ultrarunner who won the 2009 Western States 100. "The feelings of the race–the lows you battle through, the highs you cruise through, the physical and mental limits you test–make that candy even sweeter." My big day lasted 12 hours, 16 minutes, and 16 seconds. Back at the hotel, I celebrate by snuggling with Grant in between sips of a chocolate milkshake.
Now What?
Although the training nearly slayed me, my biggest problems with going big came post-Ironman. Despite my ugly cankles that wouldn't deflate for days, my postrace high made me feel invincible. For about two weeks. The inevitable crash was predictably harsh. Even though my body was healed enough to go for short runs or rides, my mind couldn't rally. Even though I had the best intentions, four months after Ironman, I could count on one hand the number of times I'd been in the pool or on my bike.
Part of my inertia was just that. But part of it was another problem I have with going big: Now that I know I can do it, there's always something bigger. Should I go faster in an Ironman? What about the TransRockies? Going big can turn into a chase-your-tail game that threatens to diminish the rewards of committing to and training for an epic–or really, any–race. Even though it wasn't always apparent, a cloud of gratefulness hovered over my Ironman pursuit, and if I became a chronic racer, I worry I'd lose that perspective. Although I always thought of it as once-and-done, I didn't take into account that, along with my aerobic capacity and upper-body strength, my comfort zone expanded through the hard, focused work. These days, the place where I feel strong and capable feels as big as the state of Montana–and it is my new normal. And that, any way you look at it, is a beautiful thing.
