Friday Field Trip: Iron Man Arizona

What I'm reading: Fatal Judgment, by Irene Hannon.

First, a reminder that I'm giving away downloads of FINDING SARAH to anyone who asks for one. Email me at bookstore (at) terryodell (dot) com with Thanksgiving in the subject line. I'll give you either a Kindle gift or a Smashwords coupon. Be sure to tell me which you want. Expires Monday, so don't wait.

I know a lot of you read my post about my daughter's first Iron Man Triathlon, and know that we drove down to Arizona to watch her amazing effort. Here are some pictures of the event. For anyone who doesn't know what an Iron Man is, it's a 2.4 mile swim followed by a 112 mile bike ride, finished up with a 26.2 mile run. Nicole spent the year training and it paid off. She finished strong, with a smile on her face, and was very close to her projected time. You can read her race reports to see what it was like from her side at her blog, Banana Death.

These athletes are either nuts or way too dedicated--or both. We saw athletes who were running with prosthetic legs--one man even carried a spare. And a tandem bike, which was used by a blind competitor.

The first event was the swim, which began right around sunrise. Imagine over 2500 people in the water waiting for the start.

This was the leg of the race where it was virtually impossible to pick out individual competitors.

We found a spot near the point where the swimmers exited the water. Nicole had predicted about 1.5 hours for her to complete the swim, which is her weakest event. She was very close to that time.

And if you want to know what it's like to watch the swim portion of an Iron Man, I tried a short video with my cell phone.

Next came the bike ride.

Today's the Day!

Iron Man Arizona starts at 7 AM this morning (in Arizona). Her sister hopes the sign will help keep Nicole motivated. Or maybe we should have made one that says, "Will swim, bike & run for cake." But that would need to be much bigger. Hope you will be keeping her in your thoughts today.

It's a Marathon, not a Sprint

Tomorrow, daughter #1, Hubster and I are heading out for Tempe, Arizona, where daughter #2 (by 3 minutes) will be competing in her first official Iron Man triathlon.

She's been training for triathlons for a couple of years now. She started by joining Team in Training to help raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. She thought she'd give it that year, but went on for another year, this time as a coach. That grew into her setting up her own business, NEO Endurance Sports as a coach for endurance athletes. (And yes, there's a writing tie-in, so please keep reading)

During that time, she ran her first full marathon. That's over 26 miles, for those who might not be familiar with the distance. And, the first marathon runner died at the end. Not something a mom likes hearing when her child says she's going to run that distance.

Nicole finished the race, and said she'd probably never do it again—she just wanted to prove she could. You can imagine my surprise last year when she said she'd signed up for the Arizona Iron Man. She's going to run a full marathon AFTER she swims over 2 miles and bikes 112 miles.

How did she prepare for this? Slowly. Gradually increasing distances, doing more workouts (even if it means getting up 2 hours early—she has a full time job and husband as well), and totally changing her eating habits. This was the child who existed on bread and potatoes, with the occasional ear of corn. Her idea of a green vegetable was canned green beans. Now she's making and eating things like kale, and adding veggies to every meal. According to her records, since January 1st, she's spent 200 hours on her bike logging 3115 miles, 108 hours have been spent running 568 miles, and 293,451 yards were swum over 125 hours.

As writers, especially those of us stepping into the world of indie publishing, it behooves us to remember that we're entering a marathon. We see authors like J.A. Konrath, Bob Mayer, or Barry Eisler who are bringing in huge sums of money. But these authors started in traditional publishing and came in with their established brands and followings.