An Ironman's Manifesto

I was reading last month's issue of Inside Triathlon Magazine, The Ironman Issue. The Manifesto by TJ Murphy epitomizes what I've been unable (maybe unwilling?) to express to those who have been questioning my sanity since I started Ironman racing 7 years ago. Perhaps it's a "pearls before swine" thing which has prevented me from being able to adequately express to those who ask between gulps of 32 oz sodas and reruns of "The Bachelor" why I do it.


"One steaming summer day in Iowa a long time ago-I had just finished high school-I was running a six miler at a pretty good clip. The sun was burning me up, but as midwestern athletes can tell you, if you've adapted to hot, sticky weather, running in it is a tremendous feeling. If you haven't adapted, you suffer like a dog, but at the time I was over the hump of acclimating and loving every step.

I recall the run because while I was ascending a short hill, two friends of mine, neither one of them athletes, passed by in a car and screamed hellos. I waved back and continued on. Later they expressed their astonishment at my smiling while I must have been in pain. They lived with the assumption that exercise was agony. That someone could run, bike or swim for long periods of time and enjoy it was, to them, an unfathomable mystery.

Such assumptions are common from those outside the world of endurance athletics. Often I've listened to people as young as 20 or 30 explain how they could never complete a triathlon, a long bike ride or even the shortest of running races. With a mindset like this screwed into place, it can be a waste of time to tell stories about 70-something triathletes finishing Ironmans in less than 13 hours, or 60 year old triathletes recording Ironman times less than 10 hours, or all the other myth-busting triumphs over the myriad boundaries long assumed to be grim realities of aging and life.

Triathlon has become a place to escape the trap set by society that largely counts on turning people into television addicts and super consumers. Even in the TV broadcast of the Olympics, you sense the message directed at the citizenry, that being an athlete is off limits; you might as well give up and lose yourself in a Quarter Pounder. Let the Olympians fly in the rarified air; commoners should stick to pushing limits on credit cards and waistlines. For those of us clinging to it, triathlon is more than a sport. It's a refuge where we can cast aside labels and breathe in the fitness lifestyle. It's our sacred underground where everyone is welcome regardless of age, talent or background."

Amen TJ Murphy!