THE IRONMAN TRIATHLON

Day 163 of the Lower Puna Eruption, and, still, no official announcement on an end.

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Five years ago I had lunch at Michels with Judy and John Collins.  Who are they?  The official Ironman page says:

For over three decades the IRONMAN World Championship has brought the world's best athletes together in competition.

The inaugural KONA™ race was held in 1978 as a way to challenge athletes who had seen success at endurance swimming and running events. Honolulu-based Navy couple Judy and John Collins proposed combining the three toughest endurance races in Hawai’i—the 2.4-mile Waikiki Roughwater Swim, 112 miles of the Around-O’ahu Bike Race and the 26.2-mile Honolulu Marathon—into one event.

John calculated that by shaving 3 miles (4.8 km) off the course and riding counter-clockwise around the island, the bike leg could start at the finish of the Waikiki Rough Water and end at the Aloha Tower, the traditional start of the Honolulu Marathon. Prior to racing, each athlete received three sheets of paper listing a few rules and a course description. Handwritten on the last page was this exhortation: "Swim 2.4 miles! Bike 112 miles! Run 26.2 miles! Brag for the rest of your life", now a registered trademark.

In 1977 I was running a National Science Foundation program on energy and the environment at the University of Hawaii when the chief coordinator of this effort, Judy Collins, mentioned that with her husband and Navy friends, they were planning the race mentioned above:

... I expressed wonderment and mumbled something like competitors will die.  Actually, I was right, as there were 43 fatalities just from 2003 to 2011, 30 during the swim portion. 

And here is a more recent 2017 study:

Researchers examined data on triathlon participants from 1985 to 2016.  During the study period, 135 people died suddenly or had a cardiac arrest. This included 107 sudden deaths as well as 13 race-related cardiac arrests that people survived because of prompt emergency medical attention.  The victims were 47 years old on average, and 85 percent were male.

But hey, let's look at the positive side of the triathlon.  For one, Judy and I assisted a class at the University of Hawaii publish a book, shown to the right.  Also, the triathlon was responsible for an Okinawan island becoming the solar island for Japan:

This second story has to do with my first trip to Miyakojima.  This was more than two decades ago, and I was one of the leaders of an international effort entitled Green Enertopia to select an island for each country to serve as the symbol of energy self-sufficiency.  Miyakojima seemed to be the ideal site for Japan, so I flew there and met with the Mayor over dinner.  He seemed disinterested in what I was saying until I noted that the island had something called Strongman, the triathlon of Japan.  While it ends with a marathon, the other two segments are shorter than the Iron Man.  Anyway, it turns out that, like Kailua-Kona, this is their biggest event of the year.  While the Mayor's face lit up when I mentioned Strongman, he then practically gave me the key to the city when I mentioned that, by the way, Judy and John Collins, the inventors of the concept, were good friends of mine.  This interaction went a long way into making Miyakojima, now, the solar island of Japan. 

Anyway, the race was moved to Kona in 1981.  The 40th edition of the Ironman is currently being held there.  I was watching MSNBC, and was impressed with the effort and planning necessary to carry out this competition.  Then at 8AM they announced viewers would need to go to:

https://www.facebook.com/IRONMANnow/videos/341249043116617/

This event is being covered live, and the finish line will be reached at around 3PM Hawaii time today.  While the world record for this race is 7 hours and 46 minutes, no one has made it under 8 hours in Kona.  Last year Patrick Lange (right) of Germany almost did, in 8 hr 1 min 40 sec.

Oh, I should report that Patrick Lange finished the 2018 Ironman in 7 hr 52 min 39 sec:

At the finish line he also proposed to his girlfriend, Julia Hofmann, who said yes.

Tomorrow, a Blue Revolution lunch and dual tailgates.  Here are some of the ingredients for the latter:

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