"...as dusk approached, I started wheezing out that lick ‘I am Ironman,’ imagining what it would feel like to cross the finish line. I tried to get the syllables in sync with each painful step, but my parched lips stuck together, and it came out sounding more like ‘I am Moronman!’ Perhaps that was more fitting after all..."

(click to enlarge)

Want some background music?
Ironman midi

For more links and official websites, click here.

Julie Moss, the "agony of defeat" icon, got passed at the last minute while literally crawling to the finish line of the '82 Ironman in Hawaii. Fifteen years later she returned to Kona in her forties to give it another shot. What drove her to seek out more punishment? She told a reporter, "there's something so noble, so dignified about the Ironman competitor who carries on in the dark—I want an experience like that, too."  Frankly, she's nuts. I’ve been there now (both nuts and in the dark), and my account doesn't include any form of the word dignity. Here's how it went:

Back in the days when break-dancers in parachute pants roamed junior high hallways, a scrawny kid with a Midwest mullet sat at home flipping channels between Saturday morning cartoons and American Bandstand. He happened to be the only kid in his school deprived of cable, so he had just four channels to choose from. Since the brand new phenomenon called MTV wasn’t among them, on most Saturdays the inevitable afternoon lineup of golf, bowling, and PBS telethons would finally convince him to shut off the TV and head outside. But this day would be different. The familiar bars of ABC’s Wide World of Sports intervened, and the TV kept right on flickering. The Ironman was on the agenda, and the broadcast came complete with gratuitous replays of Ms. Moss’ finish. They say that particular footage can be used to divide mankind into two groups: Group 1 will see it as the ultimate test of endurance and be convinced to try it themselves. They’ll use the footage as their motivation. Group 2 will be convinced that Group 1 is somewhere between masochistic and suicidal on the crazy scale. They’ll use the footage as their justification.

Well apparently I spent some cocky teenage years as a member of Group 1, because on the next commercial break, I got out a piece of paper and started a list of things to do before I die: #1. Finish an Ironman. I was obsessed with the list over the next couple of weeks and I jotted down one tremendously optimistic goal after another. When the list looked complete, I added a nuclear clause and taped it up on my wall. The nuclear clause, of course, exempted me from completing the list if Reagan and Gorbachev couldn’t work out their differences and I ended up with radiation poisoning. Barring that, however, I fully intended to spend the rest of my life in pursuit of my new goals.

Well “The Day After” never came...   [click below to continue]