Fitness

Sure, the water off the coast of the Big Island looks lovely, but I'm probably better off spending my time in a boat.

As a kid, I loved Wide World of Sports. This was before ESPN2 showed every obscure sport or pseudo-sport known to mankind. I knew more about diving, ski jumping and boxing than any 7-year-old had any business knowing, but my favorite sport of all was the Ironman.

I loved these people. I was just a kid, but I’d seen enough to know that a bad transition could break a champion. I’d cheer on the nutty people who were still running in the night on a Hawaiian highway as dark as the lava fields on either side.

I wanted to be one of them.

Never mind the pain on their faces. Never mind the bodies that crumpled like rag dolls from exhaustion and dehydration. These people had done the impossible. I was scrawny and uncoordinated, unable to run down the block. Oh, how I envied their strength!

Thirty years later, I’m training for a half marathon. “It’s just a half,” I say, apologizing less to others than to my 7-year-old me. Other people look at 13.1 and see the impossible. I see the 120+ triathlon miles that I’m not doing.

No, this doesn’t mean that I’m going to attempt an Ironman, or even a sprint triathlon. I suspect that I’m well past the age where I can go zero-to-tri without actually damaging my body. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t feel a little bit wistful when we visit the Big Island and I think about all of the times I imagined myself there, struggling towards the finish line in the dark.

Tags: athlete, endurance, half marathon, ironman, triathlon, wide world of sports

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