Ironman World Championships Recap: Worth the Wait

A smile is worth 1,000 words, or in this case…1,200?

Nearly one month after the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii, I still didn’t want to complete my race recap.

As I type the last word and close this Macbook, I know my journey as a 140.6-mile distance Ironman will close too.

And yet it’s time. For so many reasons.

I gave myself every excuse I could to postpone writing about my Kona experience. The race photos and videos expressed more than I could capture. I’ve had people tell me they’ve never seen me smile like I did in the finisher’s chute photos.

So which is more vivid, knowing that it’s true, or weaving words like relief, euphoria, and rapture together to describe an elusive sensation?

I probably wouldn’t type another word about Kona If I didn’t have two young children who might one day benefit from the lessons I’ve learned finishing what I started in 2010.

It could be as simple as, “Race day (and night) was everything I hoped it would be. The end.”

 Except that it’s not that simple. It never is.

 Besides, I have a secret.

 The race itself didn’t even produce my favorite moment from the overall experience.

No, that happened three days before the chest-shaking beat of the Hawaiian drums and the billowing smoke cannon that signaled the race start.

 And it happened at packet pickup of all places.

Retrieving your race packet typically is a mundane but necessary pre-race ritual that can occasionally lead to heightened nerves. It’s often the first opportunity to see other competitors en masse. And you can’t help but notice their tricked-out bikes, along with an astonishing array of Michaelangelo-carved physiques.

At Kona, it’s different. Not just the bodies and bikes … that’s an under-statement. These are the fastest distance triathletes in the world we’re talking about!

But in that space, packet pickup almost felt like an intimate, revered moment. An initiation, perhaps? It rose to the occasion, and I wasn’t expecting that.

I walked into the official race hotel lobby, where a sign indicated an athletes-only path to packet pickup. To get there, you walk 100 steps or so underneath a canopy of banners 20-feet high featuring past Ironman World Championship winners. All the winners are captured in black and white photos. Allen. Scott. Welch. Macca. Crowie. Chrissie. Rinny. Ryf. The list goes on, and my jaw must’ve dropped a little.

Getting off the airplane and feeling the heat and humidity hit me for the first time, that was the first taste of being on the Big Island.

But walking beneath Ironman legends, that was the first taste of being at the Big Dance.

Once I got to the red-velvet rope-lined packet pickup entrance, someone asked for my ID and upon presenting it, gave me an Ironman challenge coin. Cool! Nice touch.

Then, they really got me good with the finale.

In what felt like a steady procession of 1:1 volunteer to athlete handoffs, a volunteer told me to visit someone else who had something special for me, my race backpack. At this point, I had a silly smile on my face because the whole thing  -- all 12 years of it – was coming into focus. I was here, and this was real. I’m dreaming, and I’m wide awake.

I walked towards a Black woman wearing her yellow Ironman volunteer T-shirt. She smiled at me with her eyes, beautiful and craggly crow’s feet lining up like cheering spectators on each side of her face. Her lips were pursed at first, hiding a smile. The woman then cocked her head and with a coy grin said, “I’ve been waiting for you.” She produced my Ironman World Championship backpack, complete with a customized name tag and bib number, and offered it with two outstretched hands. It was a priceless gift, and this lady knew it. She presented it as such.

I welled up with tears in my eyes. It was the perfect thing for her to say, and there was only one reasonable response to offer.

“Not as long as I’ve been waiting for you.”

I wiped my eyes, and I accepted the most hard-earned backpack of my life with pride and humility.

It was the only time I really cried the entire week.

And then, like any good theme park layout…I exited into the merchandise tent and gave my credit card a good workout.

The rest of my week and the race itself were dessert to that main-course memory. I savored it all, every detail, down to the iconic, green-hosed showers exiting the swim in T1. I will always remember how refreshing that cool water felt on my skin while practically shouting In my head, “These are the actual hoses! From the race and on TV! I’m here! This is awesome!”

Some of the visuals and sounds from race day. On one hand I wish I had gone faster, I know I left time on the course. On the other hand, mentally and emotionally I was never in a hurry to bring the dream to a close.

The only real challenge – beyond my diminished run endurance – also surfaced unexpectedly in the days leading to the race.

I quickly learned that an athlete’s favorite question to ask another athlete at the World Championships is, “Where did you qualify?”

At first, I was embarrassed to answer that I instead took the long route by way of the Legacy program – 12 consecutive Ironman finishes within 12 years, plus a 13th “validating race.” It didn’t help when an athlete’s typical response would be to pause and look at me differently, like suddenly I was a special charity case to be comforted rather than congratulated. That took the form of, “Oh…cool! Well, congrats!”

This question is a fair and natural one. The most common route to Kona is paved by athletes finishing within the top 1-5 places in their age group -- typically anywhere from 100-350-plus competitors. Kona is truly rare air -- an accomplishment fit for the top 1-2% of our sport.

At my Ironman best, I cracked the top 6% in my age group. Solid, but not quite enough to punch that Kona ticket myself.

I grappled with my feelings about this for a couple days. Did I really belong here? Should the Ironman World Championships be reserved only for the best of the best? That got me thinking about my Spotify training playlist – all 300 songs of it -- and two of my favorite tracks, “Last Breath” from the Creed soundtrack and Jakob Dylan’s version of “We Can Be Heroes.”

 “I just wanna be a champ for the misfits and the ones that would say I couldn’t do it.”

 “We can be heroes…just for one day.”

What a reset.

I wasn’t here to prove that I qualified. To me, or to anyone else.

Honestly, it was an honor that someone assumed enough to ask where I qualified rather than whether I had qualified!

That was enough for me.

And so it is with this journey.

I came to Kona to come full circle. I started my quest trying to prove that I could commit to something that felt impossible. My track record to that point in life was hit-or-miss and it didn’t sit right with me. And now, this journey has concluded, exceeding every expectation along the way.

That smile in the finisher’s chute?

I still can’t pinpoint exactly what I was feeling. But I do know that smile is the result of a lifetime of negative motivation leaving my body and soul all at once.

Athlete imposter syndrome? Gone. The kid who got bullied? That anger got flushed. The scrawny teen who went unnoticed by the girls? Nah, we good.

That’s already more than enough.

In fact, it’s everything.

Macbook…closed.

The next morning, I walked up Palani Road to get coffee as I listened to “You’re Where You Belong” from the Top Gun: Maverick soundtrack. I almost teared up, either because of how sore I was, or because I was so relieved that the journey was over. I didn’t grab a selfie there, but I took this one at my favorite meal spot right on the water just after that lovely latte. Tired, relieved, content.